“Jesus Christ!” Chef Chastain spat. “Will you give it a rest. Some of us are here for a relaxing evening!” He lowered his voice. “I’d like to digest.”
Perry’s flushed face glanced around. “Sorry,” he said and sat back in his chair.
Damn!
Chastain’s outburst effectively doused Perry’s rage. I was annoyed at first—he’d been
so close
to a real threat—but then I thought it over.
Would an adolescent mind close to homicidal rage really be able to control his temper so fast?
“
Ikan bakar
,” the hostess announced.
“How delightful,” Roman said, his own fury dissipating in the tempting aromatics of the newly arrived dish.
“What is it?” I asked quietly.
He leaned toward me. “It’s a Malaysian dish of seafood grilled using fragrant charcoal.”
“Is that all you’ve got for her, Brio?” Chastain drained another glass of wine and turned toward me. “
Ikan bakar
means ‘burnt fish’ in Malay, honey. The seafood is marinated in a slew of spices and a chili and fermented shrimp paste called
sambal belacan
.”
The tight space filled with a charcoal aroma as the plates were served. Each dish contained three strips of seared white flesh with blackened edges and visible grill marks, served on a banana leaf.
“Man, Chef Moon Pac really went all out on the presentation.” Perry’s genial mask was obviously back in place (if it
was
a mask).
Chastain signaled to his waiter. “Is this
sotong
?”
“That’s squid for you civilians,” Roman said.
The waiter shook his head. “Stingray.”
As I considered my next line of questioning, I watched the waiters place three large white bowls on the table. Each contained a mashed chili paste that resembled a thick salsa. Beside each was a plate of bamboo skewers.
“This is
sambal belacan
, very hot,” the hostess said. “It contains a chili pepper called
bhut jolokia
—”
“Christ, are you kidding me?” Chastain squawked. “That stuff’s like an 800,000 on the Scoville scale!”
“The what scale?” asked a man at the end of the table.
Roman rolled his eyes. “The Scoville heat unit is used to assess the chemical heat given off by capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers.”
“Please use the skewers to dip the seafood into the sauce. Don’t get any on your hands, or touch your eyes,” the hostess warned. “When we handle these peppers in the kitchen, we wear rubber gloves.”
As an added precaution, the waitstaff set small plates of black-speckled salt beside the volcanic sauce. Curious, I tasted some with my finger. It was salty, of course, but with the added licorice taste of five-spice powder. (I didn’t know a lot about Asian cooking, but I did know five-spice powder was used extensively in Chinese dishes and consisted of equal parts cinnamon, cloves, fennel seeds, star anise, and Szechuan peppercorns.)
“If the fire is too much, use the salt to cleanse your palate,” the hostess warned. “Wine, water, or tea will only make the peppers burn longer.”
Rafe Chastain boldly skewered a strip of stingray and dipped it into the sauce. As he chewed, we all waited to see if he’d keel over or run screaming from the room.
“Wow,” he said, face flushed. “That’s a real mouth peeler. But
tasty
.”
Intrigued, I followed his lead, touching the corner of my fish into the potent sauce. When I bit into the stingray, nothing happened at first. Then the inside of my nose began to burn, and I blinked back tears. When the heat reached my throat, I was certain I’d swallowed fire. But as the burn subsided, other layers of flavor surfaced. I coughed, tasting a sweet and tangy smokiness.
Unable to stand the burn, I took a quick spoonful of salt, which made me cough some more. I felt a bead of perspiration roll down my back. The experience was capped by a rush of pleasure that must have resembled a drug high.
“Whoa . . .” I croaked. “That clears your sinuses.”
“Feeling good, Clare?” Chastain grinned big as he took another look down my blouse. “Pleasure chemicals are releasing now in that hot and tasty little body of yours to counteract the capsaicin. Endorphins are a real aphrodisiac, by the way. It ain’t opium, but it’s legal.”
Good Lord, Chastain’s getting drunker by the dish. But I’m not cutting him any slack. One more look down my blouse, and I’m pouring that hot sauce down his pants!
Neville Perry opened his mouth and waved air into it. “I’d serve this—if I still
had
a restaurant.”
The tone was dry again. Perry was back to self-deprecation. He even shot me a wink. Clearly, my friendship with the hated Breanne wasn’t that serious of an issue to him.
Maybe if I poke the wound a little . . .
“But, Neville, your restaurant was
ruined
. Your reputation
shredded
. Don’t you miss running your own business?”
Perry shook his head. “Truthfully, Clare, I have no regrets. In the end, having the Wicked Witch of Style criticize my restaurant was a stroke of luck.”
“Luck?” I blinked. “You’re being ironic, right?”
I was waiting for the rage, the obscenities, the verbal threats to Breanne that he’d naturally want me to convey to her. But Perry remained relaxed, authentically, it appeared.
“Honestly, running that place was wearing me down. Now that it’s closed, I’ve launched a new career as a food writer. My blogs about Breanne have opened up some surprising opportunities. Her rival publications are lining up to offer me assignments in
their
magazines, a publisher’s just bought my cookbook, and two newspaper syndicates are in a bidding war to put me under contract for a national column on food and wine.”
“Wait . . . you’re saying that you’re
happy
with how things turned out?”
Neville shrugged. “In a way, I owe Breanne a thank-you—not that she’s ever going to get one from me. Skewering
Trend
’s trendsetter is just too damn much fun. She’s burned a lot of people over the years, and they’re my most loyal readers.”
Neville Perry was glowing now, and it was more than the effect of the
bhut jolokia
. The culinary school graduate was obviously a mama’s boy who wanted fame and fortune but didn’t want to work very hard or long to get it. Writing blog entries and restaurant reviews was apparently a lot easier for Perry than running a restaurant, so he’d found a happier career path. He looked pretty proud of himself, too, and the truth is, the man really was turning his devastating failure into success. I couldn’t condemn him for that. More to the point, I was beginning to conclude that Matt’s bride-to-be had been right all along.
This man was a joker (or a
joke
, depending on your view of his past). But a killer?
No, I don’t think so.
Sure, his feelings toward Breanne weren’t charitable, but then neither were mine.
I began to get irritated with myself for going on this wild-goose chase. The day felt totally wasted. What I’d witnessed at Breanne’s magazine was classic office politics.
Big deal. Alert the media.
Neville Perry’s black-wrapped meat cleaver was my strongest lead—and it had led me to a dead end. I was sure of it.
I forcefully speared another piece of stingray and dipped it in the hotter-than-hell sauce. But before I could take the first bite, there was a loud crash in the foyer, and a woman cried out.
I stared in horror, the skewer hanging between my plate and my mouth, as our gentle hostess was pushed through the kitchen doorway so hard she bounced off the wall. Then the waiters and two men in kitchen smocks marched into the room single file, their hands behind their heads.
Finally, three men charged into the room. They were all in dark clothes, and their heads and faces were covered with black ski masks. The tallest of the three waved a big, nasty-looking handgun.
“If nobody moves, nobody gets hurt,” said the tall man with the gun, his voice muffled by the ski mask.
“What’s going on here?” One of the well-heeled guests rose from his chair. “What do you men want?”
You idiot,
I thought.
Sit down and shut up.
Too late. One of the two shorter bandits stepped forward, snatched a bottle of wine from the table, and clubbed the man with it. The woman beside him screamed as the outraged diner dropped back into his seat, clutching his head.
“Didn’t you hear me?! I said nobody move!” the armed man cried, dark eyes wild behind the mask.
The shorter bandit stepped around the gunman.
“Your wallets, jewelry, watches, and money in this bag.” He tossed a red pillowcase at the woman. “Fill it now, lady! Before
jefe
decides to pop someone!”
NINETEEN
THE room was silent as the trembling woman stripped off her earrings and dropped them into the thief’s red pillowcase. Beside her, the less-than-brilliant diner who’d protested the invasion clutched a bloodstained napkin to his head.
“Where’s the purse, lady?” the man with the pillowcase demanded.
“It’s on the f-floor,” the woman said, her voice breaking.
The thief placed his gloved fist against the side of her head and mock-punched her. “Yo, bitch, pick it up!”
Silently sobbing, she lifted her Christian Dior clutch and dumped its contents into the cloth sack.
“The purse, too.”
With a sniff, she released the Dior into the sack.
Oh, God.
My mouth was dry, my skin clammy. The shock of the robbery was making everything move in slow motion.
Stay calm, Clare. Hold it together.
Quinn once told me the best thing I could do in a situation like this was to stay cool and give the robbers what they wanted.
“No money or piece of jewelry is more valuable than your life, sweetheart. Just give it up and get away . . .”
I couldn’t agree more. I certainly wasn’t going to put up a fight for my stupid Fen bag or the money inside it.
Waiting for my turn to be fleeced, I placed my hands on the table, in plain sight. A soft whimpering came from beside me. I glanced to my right and saw it was Neville Perry. The man looked ill, sweat was slick on his brow, and he was quivering like a mass of
panna cotta
.
Wow, what do you know. Under pressure, the crazy, cleaver-wielding Prodigal Chef is no different from the rest of us.
Then I heard another sound, one I couldn’t believe. On the other side of me, Rafe Chastain was softly chuckling. I glanced in his direction and saw the bemused smile on his well-lined face.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered with a glance my way. “This is the third time this year I’ve been robbed.”
Okay,
I thought,
maybe
all
of us aren’t quivering masses of
panna cotta
.
“Shut up, you!” the gunman cried, hearing Chastain’s little laugh. “Or you can eat this.” He gestured to the gun barrel.
Chastain lifted his hands. “You’re the boss, kimosabe.”
Thank goodness Chastain’s being smart. No stupid heroics.
The red pillowcase was passed to the next dinner guest, the bleeding man. He dropped a Rolex and very nice leather wallet into it.
While the tall man held the gun and the other gathered up the loot, the third robber held back, letting the others do the work. That’s when I noticed his back reflected in a wall mirror and saw the familiar dragon design on his jacket.
A chill ran through me. These were the same guys I’d spotted loitering in front of the Taiwan Center on Northern Boulevard. I’d thought they were fellow diners. Now I wondered. Had the men been shadowing Roman and me, specifically? Or had they heard about this dinner from another source?
I jumped when someone nudged my foot. It was Roman. I looked across the table at his panicked expression. He mouthed
Breanne
to me, and with a sick jolt I remembered the wedding rings.
Oh, God. Oh, no.
Roman had promised Breanne that he’d keep the rings until the wedding day, and guard them with his
life
. I could tell from the look on his face that those one-of-a-kind Nunzio rings were on him right now.
I grimaced, watching the fleecing continue around the table. Finally, they got to Roman.
“Give it up,” the thief snarled, holding the red pillowcase out.
Roman pulled up his sleeve and fumbled with the clasp on his expensive watch. He dropped it into the sack, followed by his wallet and a polished titanium money clip stuffed with bills.
The thief was ready to move along, but the man in the dragon jacket pointed directly at Roman. “He didn’t give it all up,” Dragon Man calmly said. “We need those rings.”
Rings? How does this guy know Roman’s carrying rings?