“That’s where I started out, Detective, but it was a little rough for me. I actually thought I wanted to be a chef—you know, one of the greats. So I went to Le Relais to do a
stage
there when Luc’s father, Andre, owned the place.”
“A
stage
?” Mike asked, imitating Peter’s pronunciation of the soft “a.”
“It means a training session, Mike,” Luc said. “Like an internship. I was studying with my father, too, that summer. Peter and I became friends.”
“You stayed in the business?”
“Till I had my accident,” Peter said, holding up his hand. “I was working in the kitchen at the time, in one of Bobby Flay’s restaurants. The meat cleaver and I had different ideas about how difficult it was to prep a dinner. I’m a lefty—swung too fast and hard and I severed the tips of these two fingers on my right hand.”
Mike was the only one eating the food. I wasn’t hungry any longer.
“This is quite common,” Luc said. “You won’t find many chefs who don’t have scars and nicks, fingers chopped or cut, or who haven’t scalded themselves with boiling water, burned their hands pulling something out of the oven. Those are occupational hazards of being a chef.”
“It’s why Luc prefers working the front of the house, as they say. Anyway, it got me out of the kitchen faster than lightning,” Danton said. “But I never lost my love for the business of entertaining, for being in great restaurants, for wanting to create that unique kind of hospitality that an exclusive restaurant does. Luc’s a master at it. I think it’s in his genes.”
“What’s your game, Mr. Danton?” Mike asked. “What kind of work do you do?”
“We have an art gallery, actually. My wife, Eva, and I own it together. It’s on Columbus Avenue.”
“What do you specialize in?” I asked.
“African art. Contemporary African art.”
My thoughts flashed to Mohammed Gil-Darsin. “Any country in particular?”
“No. Anywhere on the continent. Sculptures and paintings, primarily. Ethiopia, South Africa, Ghana—there are fantastic artists working everywhere over there.”
“The Ivory Coast?” I asked.
“Sure. We’ve got a great inventory of Senufo masks. Are you interested, Alex?”
“I’m not in the market right now. I was going in the direction of current events, Peter. Do you—uh, do you know Baby Mo?”
“No, I’ve never actually met him,” Danton said, lifting his glass for another sip. “And I suppose that’s a good thing, at the moment. His wife has shopped with us, I know that.”
“Kali?”
“Yes. She’s one of Eva’s favorite customers. You’ll have to talk to Eva about her. She might have some insights that will help you with your big case.”
“And how long have you known Gina?” Mike asked.
“Maybe ten years or so. We both met through Luc. I was staying in Mougins with him and Brigitte, stopping over for a few nights on my way back from Nigeria, and Gina was there on business. We had dinner together one night, and I guess that’s how it all started. We have so many of the same interests.”
Why hadn’t I met either of these people on my trips to the South of France? On second thought, I was beginning to feel grateful that I hadn’t.
“Are you putting money into Luc’s venture here, too?” Mercer asked Danton.
“A great deal of it. We’re determined to make this work.”
“How much?”
“So far, I’ve invested three million with Luc.”
I stared across the table at my lover. My head was reeling at these numbers, and I was feeling more and more like I had been sharing a bed with a total stranger.
“I gotta tell you, Mr. Danton,” Mike said. “I had no idea there was that kind of money in African art. I mean, I look at those masks and statues, and then I see the souvenir shops at an airport in a third world country, and it looks like they were all made yesterday from the same cookie cutter.”
Danton smiled and took another drink of wine.
“You get me? It’s all women with drooping breasts and men with these enormous erect penises. No offense, Mercer, ’cause I know it’s your roots and all that, but I can’t imagine how those carvings sell for very much.”
“Then I guess you’d be quite surprised, Detective. It’s really the emerging market in the global art world. Eva and I have done quite well,” Danton said, rapping his knuckles on the table, knocking wood.
“Hey, I’m surprised every day of the week. That’s murder for you. My job is a surprise, every time I walk into the squad room,” Mike said. “So exactly how are you involved in Luc’s business, Mr. Danton?”
“Basically, I’ve done everything he’s asked me to. I think because Gina and I are here in New York, Luc’s relied on us to get the project off the ground. I found the real estate, and together we bought the building. Luc insisted on a town house, like the original Lutèce.”
“Not too rough an assignment, on a budget like the one you’ve got.”
“You’d never believe it, Mike,” Luc said. “All the restrictions the city places on us. For a building to be zoned commercial for a restaurant, it has to be within one hundred feet of a main avenue. But in order to get a liquor license, it’s got to be five hundred feet away from a church or a school. Not so easy on the Upper East Side.”
“Sounds like more restrictions than they place on where a convicted sex offender can live when he gets out of jail,” Mercer said.
“Probably so. Then the building out of the restaurant takes another couple of million—all the flues and ductworks to create a kitchen that can serve hundreds of meals a day, keeping the food fresh and preserved. The decor and furniture, and the equipment, from refrigeration and professional ranges to what the table is set with. Fine dining is all about air and light and sound and comfort, before you even get to the food.”
“Tell them about the licensing, Luc,” Gina Varona added.
“
C’est fou.
The city regulations could make you crazy. The Department of Buildings has all these guidelines you have to pass, then it takes months to get a liquor license. The Fire Department has to check the equipment and installations. Worst of all is the Department of Health.”
“The new rating system that Mayor Bloomberg started in 2010?” I asked.
“Exactly. This—this ridiculous ABC grading of restaurants. I tell you, five or six years ago, the city collected about ten million dollars in fines. Last year, it was close to fifty million dollars.” Luc was red in the face, jabbing his finger at his chest. “You think I could kill someone, Mike? I tell you it would be a restaurant inspector.
“My friends are all telling me it’s killing business. These kids—these new inspectors—they walk into the best restaurants right in the middle of service. They see three drops of water on the kitchen floor in front of the sink, they announce it’s conducive to vermin, and they shut the place down for two weeks. You know how much that costs one of us?”
“What else?” Mike asked.
“Okay, so Gina mentioned the mob. You’ll never get them out of the food business. They still control all the linens in restaurants.”
“Table linens?”
“It’s a multimillion-dollar business for them,” Luc said, holding up his white napkin. “Every piece of table linen in this city runs through one company. Try to buy or rent from some place cheaper, you’ll be dead. And garbage is worst of all.”
“What about the good old City Department of Sanitation of New York? It’s free.”
“Don’t even think about it, Mike. You get a visit from one of the private carting companies when you’re setting up shop, and they tell you how much they’re going to charge you per week to take your garbage away. The price makes you want to gag, and all you
can say to them when they hand you the bill is ‘
Merci beaucoup
.’ Roughly translated that means ‘Thanks so very much, because I’d rather pay you this outrageous sum than to have both my legs broken.’”
“It sounds like more tension in a restaurant than I’d ever stopped to think about,” Mike said.
“You haven’t even gotten to the staff yet,” Peter Danton said. “Front of the house versus back. Managers, captains, sommeliers, bartenders, and servers out in front. And then the guys who never touch the table—the sous chefs, line cooks, prep cooks, dishwashers, porters, all working behind the scenes. Think of how many people it takes to get all that exquisite food from the market onto the dinner plate. Don’t even try to imagine the rivalries between them.”
“You’re understating it if you describe it as tension, Mike,” Luc said, downing his drink. “The better word for it is rage.”
It was after ten o’clock when we left ‘21,’ Gina Varona and Peter Danton going their separate ways, and Mike and Mercer driving Luc to his hotel on their way to take me home.
“Don’t look so discouraged, darling,” he said, getting out of the car and kissing me on the top of my head. “There’s a lot to sort out here. We’ll get there, I promise. The detectives don’t need me tomorrow, so I’ll probably go up to the restaurant and do some work. Will I see you, Alex?”
“Better ask our keepers,” I said, slumped against the back door of the car.
“I’ll be in touch with you,” Mike said to Luc.
“Listen, Mike. I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done for me these last two days,” Luc said, leaning into the front passenger window of the car.
“It seemed like the right thing to do—for you and for the blonde in the backseat,” Mike said. “She’ll figure out how to express her gratitude. Have a quiet night, Luc.”
We watched him enter the lobby before Mercer started up the car for the short ride to my apartment.
“So where’s your head, Coop?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
“You’ve been hanging out with some high rollers. You got any vibes?”
“They’re not like the friends of Luc’s we’ve spent time with in Mougins. Truly. I mean I met Luc through Joan and her husband, who’s the most grounded guy I know. I’m as shocked as you are by the amounts of money involved.”
“Who’d you think was putting up the dough for the restaurant, Coop? The tooth fairy?”
“I knew his father was kicking in to help him, and that he was using a lot of his own money as well. Luc told me he was taking a big loan from a bank. He mentioned that he had silent partners, but I never asked who they were.”
“Any of your old man’s Cooper-Hoffman heart device money about to disappear into crab cakes à la Gina Varona? Maybe a Gowanus bi-valve? Bi-valve replacement surgery?”
“No. And I’m not amused.”
“Luc ever asked you for any dough?”
“No.”
“You really think it’s about love and not your money?”
“Ease off the girl,” Mercer said.
“You take all the pleasure out of a late night ride, m’man,” Mike said.
“What do you guys think?” I asked.
“About what?”
“Luc’s caught in the middle of these two murders. I’m heartsick about it. I know him well enough to believe he’s got nothing to do with either one, but I hate that all this deadly stuff is spinning around him, close enough to leave a permanent stain.”
Neither man spoke.
“I hear you. What did the Brooklyn detectives do with him today, Mike? How do you think that went?”
“Hey, Luc was great. Very forthright, answered all their questions, didn’t seem to have anything to hide.”
“They asked him about Luigi? I mean he identified the guy from the morgue photos?”
“He did.”
“I hope he told them how he knew Luigi. I mean, from his dinners at Tiro with the perfume queen,” I said, taking a swipe at Gina Varona.
“Luc actually told them he’d seen Luigi more recently.”
I picked my head up. “Really? When was that?”
“In Mougins last weekend. In fact, Luc was kind of surprised when I told him you hadn’t recognized Luigi when I showed you his photo. He said he’d been a guest at your dinner in white on Saturday.”
The three of us were standing in a corner of the well-appointed lobby of my building. “No, you are not coming upstairs to discuss this with me tonight. What is it, Mike? Are you going to tell me that you don’t believe me? Because if you do, that’s all the crap I’m going to take from you ever again. If that’s what you want to say to me, do it right here in front of the doormen and my neighbors. Tell me right now why you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you.”
“Don’t sound so lame when you say it. What’s your problem? Do you think I’m lying to protect Luc?”
Mike was slow to answer. “That possibility crossed my mind.”
“Get out of here. Mercer, take him home. I’m not kidding, Mr. Chapman. Get out of my building. Get out of my personal life.”
“Alex, he’s just baiting you.”
“I’m not baiting her, Mercer. She’s gonna marry the guy. Of course she’d lie for him.”
“I’m not going to marry Luc. I wouldn’t lie to protect him or you or Joan Stafford or anyone else. Where do you get your ideas?”
Silence.
“Did Luc tell you that? Answer me, Mike. Did he tell you I was
going to marry him? It’s not happening. I don’t know the man who was sitting in that room with us tonight. I don’t want to go to a ball game with him right now, no less marry him.”
“Oh, Jesus, don’t start to cry on me.”
“I’m not crying. I wouldn’t give you the pleasure of thinking you could say something that would upset me.”
“Let’s take this outside,” Mercer said. The man with the wheaten terrier who was waiting for the elevator was staring at us like he expected me to throw a punch.
“I am telling you,” I said to Mike, ignoring Mercer for the moment, “that I had never seen the guy in that photograph before. Maybe the slit throat threw me off, okay?”
“Maybe if you saw him done up all in white, like with the sheet from the morgue over his body. Maybe he’d look a little spiffier in white, like he was dressed for your dinner in Mougins.”
The couple entering the lobby dressed in evening clothes had opera glasses and programs in their hands. She frowned when she heard mention of the morgue.
“I left that party before Luc did. Could be Luigi and I weren’t there at the same time.”
“Could be you had such stars in your eyes you didn’t see anybody but Luc.”
Mercer put his arm around my back and started to guide me to the front door. He had left his car parked at the end of the driveway. “Hollering in this fancy building is going to get you evicted, Ms. Cooper. A little fresh air will do us all good.”