Chili Con Carnage (3 page)

“Because you watch network news.” Sylvia’s smile was a mile wide and twice as insincere.

The last thing she needed was encouragement.

Which is exactly why I ignored her.

“Donnelly’s got a new show starting this fall,” Nick said, and since it was pretty obvious Sylvia knew all about this Donnelly character, I knew this was for my benefit. “He’s traveling the country filming what he considers Americana. You know, things like county fairs and cook-offs. He’s going to feature the Showdown on his first show of the season.”

Good news for the Showdown. Even I knew that much. Celebrity chefs mean attention, and attention means better attendance, and better attendance means more customers for the Palace. If I ever came face to face with Donnelly, I’d have to remember to thank him.

A middle-aged bald guy jumped out of the RV with a camera on his shoulder. “Just taking a few shots to get things lined up and see how the natural lighting’s going to work,” he said, and when he saw that the vendors around us were suddenly popping up like zits on a fourteen-year-old’s face, he waved them away. “Carter’s not here yet. He will be. And believe me,” he added under his breath, “you’ll know it when he is.”

“You going to be filming right here?” I asked him.

He answered without looking away from the viewfinder on his camera. “Here and all over the grounds. Donnelly is particular.” He glanced at me briefly. “I’ll set up the shots now just like I’m supposed to. He’ll show up in a couple hours and want to change them all. Hey—” He shrugged. “It’s a living.”

I didn’t have to know exactly who Carter Donnelly was to know a publicity opportunity when I saw it. Maybe Sylvia was thinking the same thing. Maybe that’s why when Nick walked away and I hurried over to the RV to clean up and dust off the Chili Chick costume, she was already putting away those bottles she’d lugged over so she could restack the spice jars on the front counter.

I turned the corner from the Palace to our RV and nearly plowed into the man right in front of me.

“Roberto!” He was standing directly in my path so I had no choice but to stop on a dime.

“Hey,
chica
.” Like I said, Roberto was moderately cute and he proved it with a smile that brightened up the long shadows between our RV and the one Carter Donnelly’s peeps had parked next door. “I was hoping I’d see you today.”

“Here I am.” I tried for a smile, too, but let’s face it, when it comes to being phony, I’m not in Sylvia’s class. Truth be told, my ego had taken a beating the night before, what with ol’ Roberto being far more interested in tequila, a busty waitress, and brawling than he was in me. Call me overly sensitive. Go ahead. See if I care.

I guess Roberto realized I wasn’t exactly happy to see him, because his smile faded and he ran a hand through his dark, short-cropped hair. “I’m looking for my phone,” he said. “I think I put it in your purse. You know, last night, before the trouble started at that bar.”

“You mean before you started the trouble.”

Water off a duck’s back. But then, that’s one of the things that made me decide Roberto wasn’t right for me, and it hadn’t taken more than thirty minutes or so of togetherness for the reality to sink in. When it came to other people’s feelings and needs, the guy was clueless. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been paying for my own Miller Lites at the bar all night.

“I put my phone in your purse,” he said. “When you were in the ladies’ room.”

Now that I thought about it, I’d just walked out of the restroom when I saw Roberto and some big guy with a long, gray beard and bulging biceps squaring off with each other near the table where I’d left my purse and one of those I-paid-for-it lite beers.

“What, you knew there was going to be trouble and you didn’t want your phone to get broken?”

Roberto shrugged.

And I gave in with a sigh.

When I had gotten to the Palace earlier, I’d tucked my purse under the front counter, so I went around to the back of the booth, pulled open the door, and pulled my bag out. It was my favorite denim hobo bag, and unlike Sylvia who carried a tiny clutch purse with just what she considered the essentials inside it, I pretty much had my life in my bag. I guess that was another thing I’d learned in Chicago: A girl never knew when she was going to have to pick up and run. There was no sense in taking the chance of leaving anything important behind.

I plopped the purse down on the blacktop between us, stooped down, and dug inside. “Chocolate bar,” I said, pulling it out and setting it aside. “Lighter, wallet, makeup bag, pack of cigarettes.”

“Hey, my brand!”

Since I was looking in my purse, I didn’t so much see as feel Roberto come closer. Automatically, I closed my hand over the pack of cigarettes.

When I shot him a look and stood up, he backed off. “I was just going to ask for one.”

“The pack’s not open.”

“So you shouldn’t mind sharing. Besides . . .” As I’d learned the night before, Roberto was not the brightest bulb in the box. The effort of thinking made his eyes squinch up. “You never even came outside with me last night at the bar to smoke.”

“That’s because I quit a month ago.”

“Then you shouldn’t care if I take your cigarettes.”

I was quicker than him. Before he made a move to snatch the pack out of my hand, I had already tossed it back in my purse. “Exactly why I can’t open it,” I said. I lifted the purse and slung it over my shoulder, the better to keep it out of his reach. “If I open them, I’ll be tempted to smoke them.”

He cocked his head. “Then you should just give me the whole pack.”

“If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to prove to myself that I can carry them around and actually not smoke.”

Like I said, not the brightest bulb. It took him a moment to mull this over, and when he finally had, he dismissed the whole thing as nothing with a shake of his shoulders. “Okay. Keep your freakin’ cigarettes. It’s not like I can’t buy my own. Just look for my phone, okay?”

It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay about a guy who pretty much ignored me when we were supposed to be on a date, started a fight in a bar, and wanted to cop my cigarettes.

I let him know it with a laser look before I dropped the purse back on the ground and took another quick peek at the top layer of cargo. Latest issue of
Soap Opera Digest
(hey, a girl has to keep up), another chocolate bar quickly getting soft in the sun, a pack of gum, a datebook, my own phone, a couple dozen receipts I’d stuffed into my purse with the hopes that—someday—I’d sort them out.

“Not here,” I told Robert. I grabbed my own phone and handed it to him. “Call it.”

He did. And neither one of us heard a ring.

“Like I said, not here.” I figured it didn’t hurt to point it out again, just in case he missed it the first time. “You must have put it in somebody else’s purse. Even as we speak, that poor woman’s probably wondering who the phone belongs to.”

“Maybe. So maybe she should just answer it.” He tried his number again, listened for a couple seconds, then handed back my phone. “So, you want to hit the bars again tonight?”

I tossed my purse back in the Palace. “You’re kidding, right?”

Roberto smirked. “What, a little trouble with the cops and you run the other way? Hey, Maxie, come on . . .” He edged closer. “That’s not what I heard about you. You know, before I asked you to go out with me last night. I wasn’t expecting you to be the shy type.”

It wasn’t what he said as much as it was the way he said it. Like what he’d heard about me was secret and sleazy.

I shifted the chili costume from one arm to the other. “It would take more than a fight and a few cops to scare me away,” I said, and while I was at it, I stepped out to the front of the Palace. It wasn’t like I was afraid of Roberto. Heck, I’d dealt with plenty of guys in my time, and plenty of those plenty were plenty more intimidating than Roberto. But remember what I said about not being stupid. If I was going to reject the guy, I didn’t like the idea of doing it in the too-private privacy between the RVs. My fellow chili cook-off travelers might ignore Karmen’s shrieks, but if push came to shove with Roberto, I knew they’d have my back.

“Now a boring guy . . .” Just so there was no mistake who I was talking about, I looked him up and down. “That’s something that really could scare me off.”

“Hey!” He grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. “Are you saying—”

“I’m saying thanks but no thanks.” I yanked my arm out of his grasp and took a couple steps back, widening the space between us. It was the first I realized the guy with the camera was actually filming in front of the Palace. He wanted Americana? He was about to get an eyeful.

“I’m saying no way,” I told Roberto. “I’m saying I’m not interested in a guy who cares more about his booze than he does about the woman he’s with. While I’m at it, I’m saying get lost, because you just grabbed my arm, and I’ll tell you what, Roberto, no guy touches me like that.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. He closed the distance between us and the look in his eyes packed enough punch. “No girl talks to me like that,” he said.

“My point exactly. Girl? You have the nerve to call me a girl? You’re a lowlife, Roberto.”

“And you’re playing hard to get, right? That’s the only thing that could possibly explain the attitude.”

Even I was surprised when I managed a smile. “The attitude is genuine. So’s the message. Hasta la vista, loser!”

I turned and walked away, and honestly, I wasn’t sure where I was headed except that I was headed someplace Roberto wasn’t. Too bad my legs are so short and I can’t walk any faster. If I had, I wouldn’t have heard his parting shot.

“Oh come on, Maxie,” he called out. “Everybody around here knows your reputation. Easy and not all that particular. Why do you think I asked you out yesterday to begin with? Don’t go getting picky on me now.”

It was the proverbial straw that broke this Chili Chick’s back. I stopped, spun, and was up in his face so fast, Roberto didn’t have time to react. Me, I knew there was no use arguing with a man so stupid, and certainly no use trying to reason with him. Left with no options, I did the only thing possible.

I grabbed the chili costume with both hands, and sent a clear message in the form of one quick bonk on Roberto’s head with the chili.

The next couple of hours went by uneventfully, which was fine by me. I didn’t have to defend my reputation, dodge Crazy Karmen, and since I made sure to avoid Sylvia, I didn’t have to deal with her, either.

While I was doing the avoiding of Sylvia, I hung out in the RV, cleaned up the chili costume—and had a brilliant idea.

One of the Showdown traditions Jack considered sacred was sharing a meal with his fellow vendors the evening before every cook-off began. It was always potluck, and the menu depended on what the vendors had around. Or what they could afford. When I spent summers traveling the circuit with Jack, some nights we’d feast on pork stew that was nice and spicy thanks to the handfuls of cumin, oregano, and chili powder he’d toss into the mix. Other nights, we went all-American with hot dogs and chips. My favorite nights, though, were when Jack cooked up a pot of his famous chili.

What kind of chili?

Well, that all depended.

Jack always started with what he called his “secret recipe” and took off from there, riffing like a jazz musician as the flavors blended and he decided to up the tempo with a pico de pajaro pepper or a pinch of Saigon cinnamon, or slow things down with a teaspoon or two of licorice-flavored epazote.

I don’t know if anyone else ever picked up on it, but I caught on early in my teen years—the way Jack cooked chili told me an awful lot about what was going on in his life.

See, I could always tell when he was in love because when he had a new woman to think about, he’d add a couple ghost peppers or a Trinidad scorpion pepper, and then his chili was spicy enough to self-combust.

On the flip side, it was easy to tell when Jack’s love life was on the fritz, because then he’d make a chili with smoky undertones and just a hint of cocoa powder.

When things weren’t going well at the Palace, his chili was long on beans and short on meat. And when he was feeling flush, he’d cook up a pot of Texas Red with nothing it in but brisket and spices.

Jack cooked chili like he lived his life. Out there on the edge. Never two times the same. And though his friends encouraged it, he firmly refused to ever enter a pot of his chili in any competition even though everyone knew that Texas Jack Pierce made the rockin’-est chili this side of the Rio Grande.

And lucky me . . . before I could get too melancholy thinking about all this, I remembered there was one more small container of one of his concoctions in the freezer.

I thawed the chili, heated it, and snuck it out to the Palace in a small Crock-Pot to keep it warm, then returned to the RV to change back into the Chili Chick.

My timing was just right. By the time I got out front, there was a small crowd gathered around a sleek black Lincoln sedan that had just pulled up in front of the Palace. I didn’t need to be a foodie TV fan to know that could only mean one thing: Carter Donnelly had arrived.

Now that I saw him, I recognized the face that smiled out from the covers of so many magazines at the grocery store. Carter wasn’t as handsome as he was boy-next-door good-looking, and obviously life in the food biz had been good to him. The cut of his clothes told me he shopped in places no Showdown vendor could afford. Heck, even his shoes fairly screamed money. Somewhere, an animal rights group was enraged by the death of the critter that had given its life for his loafers.

“So that’s what the excitement is all about!”

I was so busy watching the red-haired, ruddy complexioned chef make his grand entrance, I hadn’t registered the fact that Puff had walked up to stand next to me and was watching the action, too.

Puff who?

Puff. Simply Puff.

If he ever had a last name, or a real first name for that matter, none of us knew it. Puff was the once and future hippie who’d been traveling the Showdown circuit for as long as I could remember. In all those years, he had barely changed one iota.

Puff had always been as thin as a green bean and as serene as a Buddhist monk in mid-meditation. These days, the long, dark hair he wore pulled back in a ponytail was streaked with silver. He had a wispy mustache—also striped with silver—and eyes that were perpetually red. Between that telling sign and the sweet smell of the smoke that frequently wafted out of his trailer . . . well, it was easy to see how he’d gotten his nickname.

He was a genuine loner who had the tendency to try and impress people (mostly women) with tales of a glorious past, real or imagined. But then, Puff’s specialty was the dried beans he sold from a trailer with a bicycle strapped to the back and a battered motorcycle he had hitched behind. Something told me that when he walked up to women in bars and introduced himself as the bean man . . . well, I guess he needed all the tales of glory he could imagine to help out.

“He buys my beans, you know.” Since we were both staring at mega chef Carter Donnelly, there was no doubt who Puff was talking about. “Orders them for that restaurant of his in LA. My hutterite beans, he loves ’em. Won’t use anything else in some fancy stew he makes.”

“That’s nice.” What else could I say that wasn’t, “Give me a break, Puff, you lying sack of dried beans,” or something very like that?

“He’ll probably stop by for a drink later,” Puff informed me as we watched Carter put his well-coifed head together with a frazzled-looking woman with long blonde hair who was probably his producer or director or whoever it was who was in charge of the filming. “Or at least to say hello. Sure, yeah, I bet he’s going to stop by later to say hello.”

“Give him my best.” I wondered if sarcasm could be detected from inside the chili, then decided it really didn’t matter. Even if he could hear it, Puff wouldn’t get it. And he wouldn’t take offense if he did. He was that laid-back.

Carter Donnelly, not so much.

Whatever the blonde had told him, he obviously wasn’t happy about it. Chest out and chin up, he stared at the woman and she stared back—until she broke off eye contact.

“I don’t care what your production schedule says, Amanda.” Carter softened the statement with a smile as sweet as a pimento and the stiffness melted out of Amanda’s shoulders. “I’ve got dinner plans early this evening, and I’m not changing them. Not for you. Not for anybody.”

“But, Carter . . .” Amanda glanced at that big ol’ RV parked next to the Palace. “It’s only going to take a minute for you to change. Remember? That’s why we went through the extra expense of leasing the RV. We talked about all this in the production meeting. We decided you look great in red. If you’d just dash into the RV and change into that red shirt—”

“What’s wrong with this shirt?” He looked down at the crisp white shirt that fit as if it had been made for him. No doubt, it had been, and he made the most of the fact by showing just enough skin to leave us all (well, me, anyway, and can anyone blame me?) guessing at the perfection of the body underneath. His shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and his sleeves were rolled over his elbows. “We’re in New Mexico. People are going to expect to see me in light colors.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the shirt. You look wonderful. You always look wonderful.” Whatever she was going to say next, Amanda did her best to cushion it with a smile that wasn’t nearly as brilliant as Carter’s. “But I was just thinking—”

“That is your problem.” Carter had his own way of taking their little tiff down a notch, and he did it with a wink and a kiss on the cheek that sent color shooting through Amanda’s face. “Stop thinking, honey, and let’s get to work.”

With that, Carter signaled to the cameraman to start rolling and ambled down the walkway between the vendor booths. Near the entrance to the fairgrounds and the ticket gates, he turned and, with the cameraman walking backward in front of him, started into his script.

“What could be more American than a chili cook-off?”

Of course there was more to Carter’s intro than that, but I didn’t waste any time listening. While he was still thirty yards away, I scampered as fast as stiletto-shod feet could into the Palace for the pot of chili I’d stashed there earlier.

Imagine my surprise when I realized I wasn’t the only one with a brilliant plan.

Behind the counter, Sylvia was wearing a red apron over her neat khakis and polo shirt. One eye on Carter, she stirred a pot of—

“Chili?” I leaned over her shoulder and took a look. It wasn’t the pot of Jack’s chili I’d left behind, that was for sure. The chili I’d taken out of the freezer didn’t have beans in it, and Sylvia’s did. Black beans, to be specific, and . . .

I took a whiff.

“Garlic, green pepper, onions. Just a little cumin.” Hardly original, especially for a woman who claimed she knew so much more than I did about food, but it would do in a pinch.

I backed away, and remember what I said earlier about me and suspicion, about how we were on a first-name basis? Well, every untrusting, cynical, leery thought I’d ever had about Sylvia (and believe me when I say there were plenty of them) blossomed like one of those mushrooms clouds that rise above an atomic blast. I propped my fists on the chili somewhere near my hips. “Sylvia, you sneaky, no-good, double-crossing publicity seeker. You made chili so you could give Carter a sample and get him to plug the Palace.”

“You make it sound like some kind of crime.” She didn’t spare me a glance. But then, she was busy looking outside to where Carter had apparently flubbed his lines and was starting in on his intro again. “Of course I made chili. Why wouldn’t I?” Humming a little tune, she ladled a scoop of her chili into a pretty terra-cotta bowl with a blue glaze on the inside. “If I can get Carter Donnelly to taste my chili—”

“Hold on there!” I reached for the pot of chili I’d heated back in the RV and like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, whipped off the cover. Instantly, the air around us was fragranced with peppery goodness. “Your chili isn’t going to do much to help the cause. Carter needs to taste Jack’s chili.”

As perfectly composed as a Martha Stewart clone, Sylvia ignored the obvious wisdom of this statement. She set her bowl of chili on a tray along with a blue linen napkin and a spoon. “Just think of the wonderful things Carter will say when he tries my chili.”

“You mean, my chili.” Don’t think I’d been standing around doing nothing while she was being Mrs. Stepford. Since there wasn’t another cute-as-can-be ceramic bowl nearby and I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to what I was going to serve Jack’s chili in, I grabbed one of the plastic bowls we use so customers can sample the dips and chilis we make with our spices, along with a plastic spoon and a paper napkin. Sylvia might have the whole elegance thing down pat, but I was faster than she was. By the time Carter was back in front of the Palace, I was already outside waiting for him.

Call me crazy, but I thought it might be impossible for him to ignore a dancing giant chili who also just happened to be holding out a bowl of chili to him.

Somehow, he managed.

“I’m going to spend an entire weekend here at the Showdown,” Carter said into the camera, and I found myself wondering how he looked so cool when I was sweating inside the costume like a son of a gun. “We’ll be learning the secrets of chili champions, judging one division of the competition, and while we’re at it, we’ll be sampling chili, too.”

Talk about a perfect cue!

And, damn it, Sylvia knew it as well as I did.

Just as she leaned over the counter of the Palace, her tray out like an offering to the red-haired god of cooking, I dance-stepped closer to Carter, my stilettos rap, rap, rapping on the blacktop and my bowl of chili in outstretched hands.

“Cut!” Amanda, poor thing, apparently did not adjust well to surprises. She glanced back and forth between me and Sylvia. “Who are you people? Is this in the script?” She rifled through the couple pieces of paper in her hands and when she didn’t find what she was looking for, she sent a death-ray look over at the production assistants shuffling nervously from foot to foot behind her. “Is this in the script?” she asked them.

Tap. Brush. Chug.

I dance-stepped my way closer to the Palace.

“Chili is all about the unexpected,” I said loud enough to be heard from inside the costume. “Just ask the Chili Chick!”

“And what better way to introduce a Showdown than with a bowl of delicious chili!” Sylvia’s smile was so wide, it looked like she was selling toothpaste, not spices.

Not to be outdone by her pearly whites, I did another brush/tap combination and added a hop for good measure. Honestly, I took dance lessons so long ago, I couldn’t remember if hops are officially part of the routine or not. But hey, hops are plenty dramatic.

“Texas Jack Pierce’s chili.” I danced around Carter, my words in rhythm with the staccato tempo of my taps. “It’s the best in the country, and if you could just try some while you’re doing your intro—”

“Did we hire this chili?” When he looked my way, Carter’s freckled nose was wrinkled. “I don’t recall approving budget for a chili.”

“Not to worry.” I gave him a friendly elbow in the ribs. “The Chili Chick isn’t looking to be paid. Her mission is to let everyone know that chili is the best food in the world, and that any chili can be made even better . . .” A little tapping here, just for emphasis. “. . . with the addition of spices from . . .” Now, a Vanna-like gesture toward the sign with my free hand. “. . . Texas Jack Pierce’s Hot-Cha Chili Seasoning Palace!”