The Grave Gourmet (20 page)

J
acques met Capucine at the elevator bank on his floor of the Pool in what she assumed was carefully calculated to be his hard-at-work outfit: no jacket, a brilliantly striped Turnbull and Asser shirt that fit his torso so perfectly it could only have been made to measure, gold cuff links in the shape of decorative nautical knots, and a solid navy blue tie of rough silk transfixed by a gold hunting pin. He held an uncapped clunky gold pen as if he had torn himself away from composing a note so confidential it could not be entrusted to a computer.

“Cousin, thanks for seeing me at such short notice,” Capucine said.

“Who can resist the irresistible,” Jacques said, wrapping his free hand around her waist and tickling her rib cage. Capucine giggled and struggled to get away while Jacques pulled her closer. “Jacques, if you get a drop of ink on me I'll never forgive you.”

“Petite cousine, I never would have dreamt you were such a slave to fashion. Why don't you be like me and put material things behind you. You'll see it's the only path to happiness.”

“Jacques, be serious for once. I need your help.”

“If we're going to be serious, we'll have to go into the little cupboard I've been given for an office. We can lock the door,” he said with a leer. “Follow me.”

Jacques' office really was little bigger than a cupboard, barely large enough for the magnificent eighteenth-century mahogany rolltop desk that filled most of the room. Capucine vaguely recalled having seen it in Jacques' family château. The top of the desk was shut tight. Maybe Jacques really had been working on something highly confidential. Jacques installed Capucine in a wooden armchair with delicately curving mahogany armrests and pulled up its twin so close that his knees touched hers.

“Chère cousine, do you really need help, or is this just an excuse to spend the afternoon ensconced in my little lair?” Jacques burlesqued a dirty-old-man's laugh.

“Jacques, just stop it. This is serious. Just as you predicted, we found another cow-dung beetle rooting around in our cow pie.”

“How wonderful. I want to hear all about it.”

“We caught Président Delage's secretary sneaking an envelope out of the building and handing it over to an Asian man, who we lost in the evening prayer in Barbès.”

“Prayer does have a way of putting a damper on things. That's why I avoid it at all costs,” Jacques said. “Your chase sounds as much fun as hare coursing. Tell me everything.”

Capucine gave him a succinct résumé of the incident and the subsequent interview with Clotilde.

“Actually, your little drama does smack a good deal of a foreign espionage agency,” Jacques said, “even though it's a bit amateurish. Sticking envelopes in the towel dispenser in the ladies' room is what they call a ‘dead-letter drop' in trade school. Your secretary doesn't have a clue what lies beyond that dispenser. The sloppy part is that the people on the other hand know who she is because they have to put the flower on her desk. That's very unprofessional. And the Asian contact is even more sloppy. Of course, the only hard link with him is his cell phone, which is easy enough to drop off a bridge into the Seine if the need arises. But still, sleeping with an agent is unforgivable. That sort of stuff went out with Mata Hari.” Jacques made an exaggerated frown of revulsion as if he had poked his head into a restaurant kitchen and discovered a chef committing some major culinary solecism such as opening a package of instant béarnaise.

“So you want us to root around in Renault and figure out who these people are, is that it?”

“That's the last thing I want. I'm not here about the secretary. I've already got her well in my net. It's all the other little dung beetles that might be in there that worry me. I need to know how much other espionage activity is going on. Searching for them is beyond the competence of the Police Judiciaire.”

“That's for sure. Counterespionage is a bit more complicated than rounding up the usual suspects.” Jacques giggled his childish shriek.

“Do you think the DGSE could look into this for us?”

“It all depends on if my masters can be persuaded that your Project Typhon is a national security issue. One never knows what they'll do next. But I'll tell you what. We have an operations committee meeting this afternoon. I'll bring it up and see if it makes the operations executive a little stiff. I'll call you as soon as I know something.”

“Jacques, I can't thank you enough.”

“Well,” Jacques said, standing up and giving her a vaudeville wink. “I'm sure I could think of a way or two.”

As she rode down in the elevator, Capucine had a déjà vu sensation that Jacques had known everything she was going to say before she said it and was far—very far—from telling her all he knew about her case.

“S
weets! Two!” A piercing shout, strident over the din in the kitchen. “Sweets! Two!” Achille shouted back. Sweetbreads, chestnuts, and black truffles. His dish. With his hands he scooped three pale fat white globules out of the turgid brown liquid in a metal bowl, pinched it between his thumb and first two fingers, and began slicing thin slivers. He hunched over the table and squinted in concentration. A bead of sweat fell on the first perfectly formed disk, an eye with a jet black iris of truffle surrounded by a sclera of pale lamb thalamus.
Don't sweat the sweat, that's what makes restaurant food taste so good.
The corners of his lips turned up.
Okay, okay, it's a little more than that. But this dish isn't all that hard to make. Really. Of course, here it's different. Chef gets all this stuff from weird places. Or at least he says he does. These lamb sweetbreads come from lambs bred on a farm he owns somewhere or other. He probably personally sodomizes each one before it comes here, to make sure it's extra tasty.
He carefully placed the second sliver, precisely the same thickness as the first, on the cutting board.
Naturally, we can't use the whole damn sweetbread, only the big fat nut at the end.
Another sliver.
What time do the prep guys start this thing? Eleven?
Another sliver.
Soak for two hours in an ice bath. Change the water and the ice every half hour. Parboil in Chef's secret stock three times with an ice bath between each time.
Another sliver.
De-membrane the fucker. Then simmer an hour in another of Chef's secret stocks. Chef certainly isn't going to let us see what he puts in those stocks.
Another sliver.
Then stick your finger through the thing and shove in the truffle segment.
Another sliver.
And pray the damn thing doesn't break apart like it always did when I used to prep the little fuckers. Hey, the slices are all done. Good.

He pulled a much-dented steel skillet, burnished to pure chrome on the inside and left flame ebonized on the outside, from the hottest part of the
piano
where it had been heating up and dropped in a large nugget of butter. The butter hissed and tore around the skillet as if in agony. With his fingers he placed the medallions in the skillet and shook it back and forth vigorously so they wouldn't stick.
So far so good. It sure is funny how you can tell things are going just by the smell. Done!
He picked each one up between finger and thumb and flipped them over. The last one stuck a little and he swiveled on planted feet to grab a spatula from the counter behind. No spatula. He stepped over to the counter, rooted around, found it.
Way too long. Fuck! If you move your feet at this station you're fucked!
He teased the spatula under the recalcitrant disk and flipped it over.
Uh oh…not a beauty that one. A bit darker than it should be.
It wasn't burned, or even really overcooked. It was just a hair past the precise golden hue required by Chef. He looked around furtively to see if the eagle eye of his
chef de partie
was on him.
That poor fucker is so tense with his lobster aiguillette, I could be reaming a waitress in here and he wouldn't notice. Not that we have waitresses. That'd be the day.
He lined up the last medallion with the others.

No American tourist is going to have a clue. Chef's not going to notice either, the way things are going around here.
He glanced at Labrousse earnestly cooking at a range on the opposite side of the kitchen.
What's that fucker doing? Oh, I know. I've seen that. It's his famous fluffed omelet. He beats the shit out of it with a whisk for twenty minutes and then loads it with powdered sugar and crumbled bits of chocolate. Some fucking tripper must have brought his brats. To a three-star! Instead of throwing the fuckers out, Chef's making kiddie desserts. Man, this place sure is going downhill fast.

He placed the empty skillet back on the hot center of the piano, grabbed a small, squat
clavelin
labeled “
Salins les Bains—Vin Jaune,
” and splashed a liberal quantity of the wine into the smoking hot skillet. It boiled instantly, spitting lustily. In a few seconds the urine-dark yellow of the wine had become clouded with the deposit of the sweetbreads. He scooped in some crème fraîche with the tip of his tongs, a pinch of salt, four twists of pepper, a double pinch of a mix of herbs from a round bowl, a triple pinch of finely chopped truffles from another round bowl, moved the skillet to a less hot part of the stove, and contemplated the bubbling mixture intently, swirling it occasionally. Like a Method actor, he identified so strongly with the sauce it was as if he had oozed into it, becoming a part of it, his consciousness gently swaying as the sauce rocked back and forth in its skillet, as tranquilly satisfying as a dinghy undulating on a mooring.

Funny how the police still can't crack the case. That
flic
who seems to be in charge is a real hottie, though. When she interviewed me I spent the whole time checking out her boobs. She definitely wasn't wearing a bra, that's for sure. I'd really like to get my hands on those. I thought her guy must have been some super-stud cop type with three-day stubble like in the movies. Man, was I floored when it turned out it was that pudgy food critic that's here all the time. That's the thing. You have to be rich or famous, or both, to get the girl. Looks don't count for dick. That's why I'm going to be a celebrity chef. I'm going to get all the girls. And everything else.

When you think about it, the story going around the kitchen that it was Chef who smoked that guy might actually pan out. Chef is one intense fucker. The way they tell it, that automobile big shot snaked Chef's girl away from him way back when, when he was interning at Bocuse's. Couldn't have been all that hard to do. When you work from seven thirty in the morning to midnight you certainly aren't going to get it up for any girl. They say he's had it in for the guy ever since. Wouldn't surprise me. He's one mean fucker when he gets pissed off.

The sauce was reduced by half. He put the sweetbreads back in, let them simmer for a moment, removed the skillet from the fire.
Let's plate these little fuckers.
Without moving his feet this time, he swiveled and pulled two highly polished individual-sized steel-and-brass chafing dishes from a rack behind him, held the sweetbreads down with his spatula, coated the bottom of the chafing dishes with the sauce, and then meticulously placed the medallions on the dish, interspacing them with slices of extra-large chestnuts that had been simmering all afternoon in a truffle stock until they were precisely the same texture as the sweetbreads. He was careful that the offending slice was good-side up in the center of the militarily arrayed alignment. He picked up two small sheaves of julienned Jerusalem artichokes that had been deep fried in walnut oil and tied them into small bundles with strips of dried green onion. He carefully set up the sheaves so they leaned back at fifteen degrees from the vertical.
Gotta have verticality or you're not in a restaurant.
He cleaned up the rim of the dishes with his sweaty side towel and yelled, “Ready! Sweets! Two!”

A kitchen runner rushed up and placed the dishes on the service table next to the door. Labrousse ambled over to the service table apparently without purpose. Almost as an afterthought he picked up the dish with the overdone sweetbread, stared at it for a moment and unerringly turned over the offending medallion with his index finger, revealing the darker side. Without any expression at all he opened his hand and let the dish fall to the floor. It clanged. The contents splattered. “Achille! Replate! I smelled it was burned to a crisp the same moment you saw it was. Where the fuck do you think you are? McDonald's? Get it right this time.”

 

The waiter, followed by two commis bearing silver trays, advanced with almost comic solemnity like acolytes participating in a ritual in a vampire movie. He reverently removed a small metal platter of sweetbreads from the tray and placed it piously before Karine Bergeron. The first commis retreated three steps and was replaced by the second. The waiter turned and repeated the process for Martin Fleuret.
“Ris de veau poêlé et châtaignes médaillonées à l'effilade de truffes noires des coteaux du Saumurois,”
he intoned as if in incantation.

Both Karine and Martin were silent for a moment as the humus aroma of the truffles blended with the tartness of the sweetbreads and nudged the boundary of corruption and decay.

Martin looked deeply into Karine's eyes with the liquid tenderness of a puppy. “We won't be eating like this tomorrow night.” He gave her hand on the table a squeeze.

“I'm nervous about leaving like this,” Karine said. “You're more or less a suspect. I really don't think we can go without the permission of the authorities.”

“That's just why we're going. We've been over it a hundred times. Soon the weather will turn. The sea will start to chill and the trade winds will lose their strength. If we ask permission to go, we'll be stuck here for months. We won't be able to leave until the spring. That's an awful time to go. The sea will be cold and the weather fluky. Even dangerous. We have to go right now.”

“But what about the murder investigation?”

“What about it? They'll find the culprit soon enough. There's nothing we can do to help. It has nothing to do with us.”

“I don't know. Isn't it illegal? You and I were both warned not to leave France.”

“Who's going to know? The boat is provisioned and ready to go. We just hop in the car around two in the morning and we'll be floating out on the tide at dawn. There'll be no one to stop us. Once we're at sea we'll be invisible. When we get to the other side we'll log on to some newspaper's archive and read all about how they caught the killer in some old news story. They'll have forgotten all about us.”

“But if we do something illegal can't they impound your bank accounts or something?”

“Legally they might be able to, but I took the precaution of moving most of my money to offshore accounts. I have enough so we can live abroad on a boat almost forever if we want to.”

“You make it sound so final. As if we won't be able to come back.”

“Dear, you're overreacting. Don't you want to make this trip? Think of us in three weeks in the Caribbean sun, without a care in the world. Just you and me and nothing else.”

“Of course I want to go. It's just that I'm nervous about sneaking out like this. I'm sorry. It's just me. I'm sorry.” She reached out for his hand. “These sweetbreads are astonishing. I never thought anything could taste as wonderful as this.”

 

Rivière examined the little harbor with wide, disarmingly childlike eyes. Capucine looked at her watch and suppressed a yawn. The basin was fully encompassed by a stone wall save for a single thirty-foot break cut into its top. The water level inside was exactly at the level of the bottom of the cut. Beyond the wall the sea was a good twenty feet below the level in the harbor. Inside, boats docked to jutting piers were as static as if on a gaudily colored postcard.

“How does this work? Is it done with pumps?” Rivière asked.

“Jeanloup, you're such a city kid.” Capucine laughed. “The tide here goes up and down over thirty feet every day. Sometimes almost sixty feet in the spring neaps. Most of the harbors around here are dry half the day. The boats are held up by crutches. In Granville they built a retaining wall. At high tide that cut is ten feet below the water level. When the tide goes out the water stays in and the boats in the harbor remain afloat.”

“But then you can't get in or out. I get it. So where are our little chickens?”

“Right there.” Capucine pointed. A stubby, powerful-looking motorboat lettered
POLICE
on the side of its hull became visible through the cut a short distance from the wall, inching from stage left, making a deep sensual throbbing noise, to disappear stage right. After it passed a towline appeared and, attached to the line, eventually a large elegant sloop, its mainsail down and sheathed in a blue cover, the boat's name,
EUNOMIE
, lettered in white. Ten minutes later the procession would return from stage right proceeding to stage left.

Capucine looked at her watch again. “A good four hours before they can get in.”

“Four hours! Great. I know something we could do that would take about four hours if we got going right away. What do you say?”

“Why don't we have lunch instead? That little café over there,” she said, pointing at a tiny
café-tabac
a short way from the docks, “actually has a pretty decent
moules marinières
. The mussels aren't from around here, but don't tell anybody.”

Halfway through the luncheon bottle of ubiquitous Sancerre, Rivière's lascivious banter mellowed and he looked at Capucine with something that came close to sadness and affection. “You probably already know, little sister, that you're losing the best mentor you ever had. You're on your own now. I'm being transferred. I got promoted. I made
capitaine
. I guess because of my brilliant work catching that metro hacker in record time. But the fuckers are sending me to Bordeaux. Pisses me off big-time! Will you miss me?”

“Jeanloup, who wouldn't?” Capucine laughed. “Anyway, I'm sure you'll figure out a way to get transferred back to Paris in no time.”

“I'm not sure why Tallon ordered me here with you. I guess he wanted two officers present at the arrest of the murderer of a bigwig or maybe I'm supposed to give you some last pearls of wisdom before I exit your life forever.” Rivière perked up. “Or maybe he was just giving me a reward for my brilliant work. What's that old movie where the guy chats up the hottie in some seaside restaurant like this and at the end of dinner calls the waiter over and asks him if they have rooms?”