Dead Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 5) Read online

  “You know how I care for you personally,” I tried. “But the chef at Café de Foy you are not.”

  “Café the who?” She leaned on one elbow.

  “It was a great restaurant of nineteenth-century Paris.”

  “Well then how the hell could I have been the chef at it?” She slung herself back up to her quasi-erect posture. “I tell you, Flap sweetie, sometimes you don’t have the sense God gave a horseradish.”

  She went directly to the cassoulet, dished it, shoved it into the window, and dinged the little bell to let Hal know there was a food order up.

  Without a word, he grabbed it and set it down in front of me in a single motion the envy of Astaire.

  “Wine.” My one-syllable grace.

  He obliged. I had a bottle of the Parallèle “45” Côtes du Rhône stashed behind the register — good enough for lunch and certainly capable of saving a bad bean casserole.

  But before Hal could pour a glass, Dally’s voice pierced the mild after-luncheon crowd noise.

  “Christ!”

  Hal moved almost as quickly as I did. Dally never yelled unless something was really up. The last time I could remember a sound like that coming from her office, a rat the size of Richard Nixon had taken control of her desk.

  I made it to the doorway first. She was standing at her desk, staring down — so the rat theory was gaining credence.

  “You okay?” I tried not to startle her.

  Didn’t work. “My God!” She looked up, then sunk her shoulders. “Flap.”

  “What the hell is it?” I asked her, taking a step into the office. “Not another surprise package, is it?”

  Hal was right behind me. “Dally?”

  “Okay. I’m okay, you guys. I …” She trailed off.

  I edged my way to the desk. “What is it?”

  She didn’t want to touch it. I finally saw the envelope on the desk in front of her. No return address, but on the back was a crudely drawn outline of a hand, like the kind of thing a kid might do.

  “Another present from your secret admirer.” I glanced at Hal. “Should I be jealous?”

  “It’s okay, Flap. Really.” Her voice was very quiet.

  I froze. “Again, it’s okay, you’re telling me?”

  “What are you doing here? This time of day?”

  “There are rumors about Marcia’s cassoulet all around Midtown. I didn’t want to come in. I had to.”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine. Just … finish your lunch.” A quick flash of the eyes to Hal. “Please?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Let’s go on back out there, Flap, what do you say?”

  “I say,” I told him as amiably as possible, “that this is unusual weather we’re having.”

  Dally sank back into her chair and looked away.

  I shot a look to Hal, but he just waved his hands at me and headed back to the bar. All I could do was follow.

  I resumed my seat, sipped my Côtes du Rhône, and stuck a fork into the cassoulet.

  “Hal?”

  He didn’t look. “Flap?”

  “She’s been getting these notes and packages for a while now.”

  He hesitated. It’s tough trying to decide, in the middle of the afternoon, whether to lie for your boss or not. Especially if your boss is also your friend.

  But Hal’s the sort of person who fancies he might have a conscience. “Yeah. This is like the fifth thing she’s gotten, I think.”

  “I see.”

  “Thought you’d already know about all that.”

  “You’d think.” I lifted the fork to my face. My nose tried to tell me that the garlic and parsley had been mixed appropriately. I sampled. “Not bad.”

  “The beans?” Hal finally gave me a second look. “Good.”

  “Marcia?” I tried not to yell too loud.

  She appeared once more.

  “My compliments.”

  “Uh-huh.” She leaned forward in the window. “After one bite?”

  “You’ve been watching me?”

  “You’re not so bad to look at.” She exhibited one of her rare, slow smiles. Her whole face changed, and suddenly even the Mona Lisa seemed more ordinary than Marcia’s face.

  “Takes one to know one, sugar.”

  “Don’t flirt with the help, Flap,” Hal underplayed, “we still got to get through the dinner rush, and I don’t want Marcia distracted.”

  “Hu-ah,” Marcia blew out. “Take a whole lot more than a sweet mug and a one-sentence compliment about industrial cuisine to turn this head.” And she disappeared again.

  “I think she’s taken with you,” Hal commented, still deadpan.

  “She’s only trying to make you jealous.”

  He went back to work.

  I kept expecting to see Dally come out of her office and stand in the door looking at me — the way Marcia just had.

  I finished my meal and the second glass of wine. Hal had already added it to the tab. I dropped a ten on the bar. I knew he’d give Marcia half.

  The place was pretty much cleared out. I glanced at my watch. It was three-thirty.

  I started back to the office. Just wanted to say goodbye. But I was stopped in my tracks by a rude voice.

  “Jesus, this sucks.”

  A patron at the bar was taking issue with his meal.

  “Sorry you didn’t like it,” Hal was saying in a very unapologetic tone. “We’re kind of famous for our food around here. This recipe …”

  “… it’s too hot,” the customer-is-always-right guy explained, “it’s got too much garlic, not enough clove, the balance is off. I swear I could make a better cassoulet out of my own pee.”

  He shoved the bowl toward Hal.

  It struck me then that he was the kind of guy who had probably always gotten away with that sort of behavior. He was dark, good-looking, had the kind of cool voice and grand old southern accent that made everything he said sound reasonable and threatening at the same time. People like him, they usually get what they want.

  Hal watched the dish for a second, then looked up at the man. “Do you notice how I’m not the least bit curious,” he said very slowly and softly, “as to how you’d know a thing like that?”

  “I’m not paying for it.” He actually smiled. It made his face even more attractive. I hated that, and I didn’t even understand exactly why — at the time.

  “I understand,” Hal told him, still nice as you please. “How about if I just bring you a check for the water.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I couldn’t help myself. “Nat ‘King’ Cole said it — in a song called ‘Frim Fram Sauce.’ For most of the song he tells the waiter what he doesn’t want; just keeps asking for the sauce. At the end of the record, he says, ‘Now if you don’t have it, just bring me a check for the water.’”

  “Who might you be?” the food critic wanted to know. “The bouncer, or just an extra in this little scene?”

  “Me?” I sat down with one stool in between us. “I’m a regular, set up here to give the joint a little color, mostly. But I also happen to be the cook’s husband, and I know that she worked especially hard on that dish.” I leaned toward him a little. “The ingredient you mentioned is not in her particular culinary vocabulary. Maybe you could exchange recipes and she could make a batch special for you the next time you’re in town.”

  Now, ordinarily I wouldn’t have butted in at all, let alone spoiled for a confrontation. But for some reason, this guy had rubbed me exactly the wrong way. Couldn’t say what it was. Maybe it was that voice, or his tailored blue suit, the wave in his hair. Mostly it was that face, I guess.

  “What makes you think I’m from out of town?” That’s all he said.

  “Most people in this neighborhood aren’t as rude as you seem to be,” I told him. “Thanks for asking.”

  “As it happens” — he started to stand, straightening his coat — “I am from out of town. If I have offended your ‘wife’ in any way, I’m sorry. I’m a
stranger and not familiar with the quaint local customs. Where I live, people don’t have to eat food they don’t care for. And in better establishments, the management generally refuses money in such a case.” He took a step toward me. “On the other hand, the ‘pee’ comment was out of hand, tremendously ungentlemanly, and I am truly sorry I said it. I’m a little high-strung. I sometimes don’t know what I’m going to say next.”

  Then our eyes were locked. Despite the warmth of his accent, his eyes were strangely vacant. I had the sensation of staring into the windows of a house where nobody lived.

  “As opposed to me,” I told him affably. “I always know exactly what I’m going to do. Next.”

  Even Im not certain what I meant by that, but it seemed to satisfy the guy on some incomprehensible level, and he backed off.

  He buttoned his coat, creased his lips upward in a lifeless smile, and sidestepped the stool.

  I turned on mine, and pretended he wasn’t watching me anymore. “Hal? Maybe just one more glass.”

  After I heard his footsteps pass through the door, and I’d taken my first sip, I caught Hal’s attention again.

  “Any idea who’s the charmer?”

  “That guy?” Hal looked toward the door where the guy had disappeared. “None whatsoever, but he’s been coming in just lately. Daytime only. He’s a curious sort.”

  “You mean he’s strange or that he asks a lot of questions?”

  “Both.” Hal folded his arms and leaned forward onto the bar. “Wants to know about business like he’s a tax assessor or some such.”

  “Hm.”

  Hal stood for one second more before pushing off the bar with his hips. “He’s asked about you.”

  “About me?” I watched Hal’s back as he moved toward the cooler for another keg.

  “More than once.”

  “What’s he asked about?”

  “Mostly about you and Dally.” He tried to sound casual. “He knows Marcia’s not your wife. He knows who you are.”

  “Really. What’d you tell him about me — and Dally?”

  That stopped him. He turned. “I told him exactly what you'd tell him about you and Dally,” he said plainly. “To wit: I don’t know.”

  5. The Scream

  I’d already decided I needed to find out exactly what Jersey Jakes was doing for Ms. Oglethorpe. I had reckoned that it wouldn’t be hard at all — Jakes is anything but a tough nut to crack.

  He usually hung out, as the evening pressed toward the next day, at the Clairmont Lounge, a little east of Easy on Ponce. The Clairmont was a surreal blend of fifties strip bar and nineties post-punk clodhopper chic. Some of the dancers had been bumping the grind since Abraham tried to ice Isaac. Some of the kids who played there of a weekend were born when a grade B actor tried to pull off the role of president. Made for a Tom Waits kind of scene.

  I’d spent too much of the afternoon arguing with my so-called friend at Green’s liquor store. He had ordered a case of the Château Puy Blanquet and some more of the ’86 Simard, but it was taking too long to arrive.

  “This is the last time I pay you in advance.” I believe that was the line that annoyed him.

  “Then this is the last time that I order this kind of crap for you from France. Buy American from now on — like everybody else.”

  “Bite me, like everybody else.”

  “Not for one hundred dollars cash would I bite the likes of you.”

  “Really?” I lifted my chin. “That’s not the rumor. Everybody says you’d bite nearly anything for a quarter.”

  “Looky, Tucker,” he started, “I take only so much from you.”

  Green’s is on Ponce right across from Easy. The fact was that he probably took guff from a hundred people a day, and much worse than what I was dishing out. The place was stacked to the ceiling with cases of every imaginable liquor. There was always a policeman or two inside. And only the week before I’d been in the place when a client, drunk and disorderly, had threatened to rip somebody’s liver out if he didn’t get a drink inside of a ten count. Liver being the operative word, given that the poor guy’s own organ was doubtless completely kaput.

  But I digress.

  “You’re right.” I backed off. “I’ll wait.”

  He’d been surprised. I just split, like a sudden flash: like a safety pin in a light socket. Pop and gone somewhere else.

  Then I walked. When all about you makes scant sense, take a hike — that’s one of my mottoes.

  The hike had ended up back at my apartment, where I had taken a nap. Naps are good. Einstein took naps. Cats, I am told, do the same. If it’s good enough for such a broad spectrum of mammalia, it’s good enough for me.

  I only mention it because during the nap I dreamed that Dally and I were arguing, in Green’s, about, of all things, the proper way to shake hands when you’re good friends with somebody and they give you a bottle of wine as a present. I said you should shake firmly, locking eyes with your benefactor. She said you should do it quickly, modestly looking away. I was right, of course.

  But the point was that kindly old Dr. Jung was trying to tell me something in my subconscious. I was just too stupid to get it at the time. I woke up, confused by the image and the argument. The streetlights were bright against a black crepe sky.

  I hustled out the door to the Clairmont.

  *

  In an atmosphere comprised primarily of blinding smoke, the clear-eyed man is king. Alas, no royalty at all that night at the lounge — it was husky with fog. Emerging from and vanishing into same, figures like something from German Expressionism bedeviled my eyes. Churning noise of taped industrial funk, drunken screeching, and forced laughter contributed to the mud in the air.

  I sat at the closest table.

  “Drink?” The woman, sunken-eyed and slack-shouldered, had appeared out of nothing.

  “Screwdriver,” I told her over the noise. “Without the vodka.”

  “Funny. Just the orange juice?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You know …”

  “… you have to charge me for the full drink.” I nodded. “I know. I’ve been through this before.”

  “You’re Flap Tucker.”

  “I am.”

  She looked around. “How about if this one’s on me?”

  “What for?” Beware Munch paintings bearing gifts.

  “Let’s just say you got a rep,” she told me emotionlessly, “and leave it at that.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, “but you’re not going to get all huffy with me if I ask you to taste the drink before I do?”

  “Like in the court of the Borgias,” she deadpanned. “I understand.”

  “That’s good, but maybe you don’t. I’ve been conked out by gift drinks before.”

  “Mm. Your line of work.” She turned and disappeared back into the smoke.

  I had long since ceased to be surprised by the sort of person one could meet at the Clairmont, or the erudition involved. They liked to say that William F. Buckley had come in one night with Annie Sprinkle on his arm. I always doubted that exact pairing had ever paid a visit in the flesh, but it did convey the spirit of the place.

  When the ancient kid brought my beverage, she made a great show, without any facial expression whatsoever, of setting down the tray, waving her hand over the drink once like a magician, showing that there were no wires attached, then lifting the glass to her black lips and sipping, like bizarro communion. Then she set the glass down right at the edge of the table.

  She let a thin trickle of juice drip out of the corner of her mouth, off her chin, onto the floor. Then she touched the opposite corner of her lips with the tip of her tongue, mostly, I thought, so that I could see she had it pierced. Most people who have a pierced tongue, in my experience, actually want people to know about it. That’s part of the fun.

  “I’m still here … you bastards.” Her eyes were almost completely vacant. “So there’s nothing in your drink, okay?”

&n
bsp; “You quoted Papillion.”

  “That’s right.” At last: She offered a smile. And in that smile there was a teenage girl trying to hide behind Satan’s makeup tips and a look-how-tough-I-am attitude.

  “A knowledge of the Italian Renaissance and French penal figures — remind me not to show up against you on trivia challenge night.”

  The smile got bigger, then vanished, as if she suddenly remembered where she was. “Try some lame oldster’s bar, bub. All you get here is bad titties, worse air, and the occasional fine music.”

  “And, if you’re lucky, a free orange juice once in a while.”

  “Yeah.” Ghost of the smile revisited for half a second.

  “You know my name. Have to tell me yours.”

  “Lucrezia.”

  “Very funny.” I sipped my juice. “Why the free beverage, really?”

  “If you’re still here at closing,” she told me in a deep, affected voice, “maybe you can walk me home, and I’ll tell you.”

  “I’m actually here looking for my pal,” I offered as clear resistance. “Maybe you know him. Jersey?”

  “Risky Jakes? Most of the girls know him.” It wasn’t a compliment to the guy.

  “I see. Happen to know if he’s been in here tonight?”

  “Somebody said he was over there,” she told me, “bothering the band — trying to get Hogan to talk to him.”

  “Kelly Hogan? She’s here?”

  “She’s about to go on.”

  “I didn’t even know she was in town.” Hogan had moved to Chicago. She used to sing at Easy, but up north was a bigger avenue, a newer horizon. Still, when the moon was right, she’d sneak back down South — and the air was always a little finer because of it.

  “She’s not just in town,” the little girl said, “she’s plugged in. My offer stands.” And she was gone again.

  I finished the rest of my juice in a couple of healthy gulps and waded through the atmosphere toward the band.

  The singer was nowhere to be seen, but Jakes was sitting the wrong way in a chair, arms over the back, dressed in the same getup as before only with a polyester coat over the loud shirt, pulling on an unfiltered Camel and staring into space.