T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril (21 page)

“Oh.” She shivered. “How can I help?”

I realized that it might be less conspicuous for her and Spud to wander around the restaurant than it would be for me to do so. And I knew for a fact that my father could play a role. I’d seen him in action several times before. We came up with a game plan while we ate our hickory-and-ginger-spiced ribs.

Before the entrées were served, I turned on the pen, passed it to Spud, and sat back to watch him and Fran in action. Their first stop was the GT. I couldn’t quite make out her words, but Fran chatted away while Spud hung behind her, pen in hand. The head server, Deanna, appeared instantly and gave an “I’m sorry” gesture to the Green Table’s occupants. When Deanna noticed that Spud and Fran were wandering rather than returning to their own table, she offered to escort them.

Spud declined.

I heard Deanna ask if they were looking for the restrooms.

“Oh, we don’t need a bathroom, sweetie,” Fran near shouted. “His prostate is just fine. I can vouch for that.”

Deanna’s face remained impressively blank.

“We want to walk a bit before we eat,” Spud said. “My legs cramp up if I sit too long.”

Deanna moved off but continued to keep an eye on them.

They ambled through the restaurant, stopping periodically so Spud could “rest” on his cane.

It wasn’t long before Deanna found me. “Hey, you’re Jersey, right?”

I confirmed that it was indeed me, Jersey Barnes, asker of questions and buyer of drinks at Level 5.

She pointed at my father. “Is that couple dining with you?”

I confirmed that they were.

“They’re sort of making people uncomfortable. You know, walking around like that and stopping next to tables.”

“I imagine they’ll sit back down as soon as our food shows up,” I told her.

Deanna disappeared. Three chef’s specials were delivered approximately four minutes later. The kitchen must’ve moved our order to the top of the list. Seeing the food, my father and his girlfriend meandered back to our booth, his yellow walking cane leading the way.

“Looks like a piece of fish served at any other restaurant,” Spud said, bouncing up and down a few times to settle in on the booth seat. “Only they’ve squirted a sauce over it and the vegetables are stacked into a little pyramid.”

“Fine dining is always a bonny experience,” Fran said.

Spud and I looked at her. “What?” we said in stereo.

“That’s a calendar word today. Bonny. It means pleasing to look at.”

“Well, for crying out loud. That word doesn’t even sound pleasant.”

Digging in to my pyramid of vegetables, I asked what they’d learned during their tryst through Argo’s.

Spud proffered my RF signal-detecting fountain pen. “It only vibrated when we first stopped at that big corner table, where the TV people are sitting.”

“Nowhere else?”

“Nope,” Spud said, and dug in to his plate of fish. “This plate has a boner, too.”

“The word is
‘bonny
’” Fran corrected. “The presentation of the food is bonny, as in artistic.”

“It’s still a stupid word, for crying out loud.”

While they ate, I headed for the bathrooms, special fountain pen in hand. I pretended to walk into the men’s room by accident. No bugs. I checked the women’s room. No vibration. The pen detected nothing until I moved past the hostess stand. It vibrated, much like
a silenced cell phone. That meant two bugs so far: the GT and the hostess stand. I walked through the kitchen, pretending to look for Morgan. Nobody paid me much attention. And the fountain pen remained still. Morgan’s office door was shut, but I sensed him inside. I knocked. He didn’t answer. I found a server and asked for a piece of aluminum foil. She pointed to a shelf that held stacks of dispensing boxes. One of them held foil. I tore off a tiny strip, returned to Morgan’s office, and slid the foil a few inches beneath the door, shiny side up. It served as a crude mirror, and I detected movement—just barely—on the other side of the door. Probably the desk chair rolling on the hard floor. Who else would be sitting in the chair if not Morgan? Of course he was in there. Why he refused to answer the door was puzzling, though. Unless my budding theory about the big corner table surrounded by Jonathan Green’s artwork was correct.

Back at the booth, I ate my fish. It was tender and flaky and topped with an exotic fruit sauce and toasted pine nuts. The GT’s occupants appeared to be getting ready to leave. On a hunch, I slid out of my seat and went to the Green Table.

“Hi,” I said. “And so sorry to interrupt. Just want to apologize if my father disrupted your dinner. You know, the elderly couple who came over earlier?”

A group of four—two men and two women—eyed me. There were cocktail glasses on the table, as well as a bottle of red wine. Not to mention two empty dessert plates and two coffees. I imagined their tab to be at least three hundred dollars, if not more.

One of them waved a hand as if to say,
No big deal.
“Don’t worry about it. They wanted to know how they could get into the business as on-camera extras. Cute couple. Not rude at all.”

“Good,” I said. “That’s good. By the way, the new owner of this restaurant, Morgan, is a dear friend of mine. And his daughter is a
huge
fan of
One Tree Hill.
He just told Deanna, your server, to completely comp your tab. Food and bar.”

“Wow, that’s fantastic,” said one of the women. “We’ll have to be sure to send a thank-you note.”

“You folks dine at Argo’s anytime, and keep in mind that Morgan simply
won’t
take your money,” I said. “Oh, he might like a logo T-shirt or a day pass for his daughter to get on the set during filming. But in all honesty, he’s just thrilled to have you in his restaurant.” They stood and gathered belongings. I reminded them to leave a tip before returning to my booth. The group exited happily without paying for their meal.

Morgan appeared instantly. “What the hell do you think you’re do—” He stopped in midsentence when he realized what he’d done.

“Let’s take a walk,” I suggested. “I’ll show you my boat.”

Spud and Fran were content to stay inside Argo’s and share a dessert special: bananas Foster served with a spiced rum raisin sauce. Morgan caught Deanna’s attention, and after inquiring about the GT’s tab amount, he told her not to worry about the dine and dash—that he’d comped them.

“Thanks so much for giving away three hundred and eighty-four dollars,” Morgan said once we were outside.

“It worked, didn’t it? I got you out of that office of yours.”

“I couldn’t let you go around telling the whole restaurant their food is free. I do have a business to run, you know. And my
daughter
loves their TV show? Nice touch.”

“Thanks.” The evening sky had darkened considerably since I’d docked
Incognito,
and Argo’s was beautifully lit up from our vantage point on the water. We sat in the air-conditioned salon, the boat rocking just enough to remind us we were on water. Morgan declined anything to drink.

“How does it work?” I asked.

His shoulders slumped. “There’s a hidden microphone.”

“Yeah, I figured that much. Tell me how it works. And why it’s at the GT.”

He went to the galley and returned with a beer. “Changed my mind.”

After a few beats of silence, I asked again: “How does it work?”

“It was already in place when I took over the restaurant.” He told me the story of how he’d found it accidentally, how there was a wireless microphone in the Green Table’s centerpiece along with a receiver in the ceiling that was wired directly to his office, and how something would divert his attention every time he went in early to dismantle the setup. He wanted to get rid of the microphone, he said. He just hadn’t done so yet.

An owl sounded from somewhere nearby, and its call echoed faintly across the water. “And why, specifically, were you listening to the Divine Image Group?”

Morgan stared at his untouched can of beer. “I was listening to everybody.”

There had to be more. I waited.

“When my fiancée showed up with her old boss,” he said, “I put them at the GT because I
wanted
to listen in. I had to know what was going on. When I heard them talking, I knew in an instant that they were sleeping together. It felt like somebody ripped my gut out with one of those fillet knives they use in the kitchen. But I kept listening. I learned that they were together the whole time she was with me.” Morgan looked straight into my eyes. “I’m glad I found out the truth. Now I know what a shallow, conniving, immature person she is. I’m glad she didn’t marry me.”

“And after that?”

His eyes left mine and found the water, a bright moon giving its surface ripples a reflective glow. “I just… I just put the earbud in one more time. To listen to another conversation. I didn’t even know the people. I guess I wanted to listen to somebody—anybody—because everyone else’s life is so much more interesting than mine.”

“And tonight? Why were you listening to the Green Table tonight? The hostess said you weren’t here, but I saw your car in the parking lot, Morgan. I even knocked on your office door. What do you care about the private business of a television series producer?”

“I don’t care who sits at the GT It doesn’t matter. I listen to everyone, even the random groups of tourists who get seated there because they know somebody. It’s … it’s hard to explain. It’s an escape from my real world.” He dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, Lord, what have I become?”

He might have been crying, but I didn’t want to know. I can’t stand to see an adult cry. “Morgan, people can get addicted to anything. Drugs, gambling, looking at porn, whatever turns you on. I’m no shrink, but it sounds like you’ve become addicted to eavesdropping on people.”

Head still in his hands, he nodded. “I suppose so. I can’t wait to get to the office every evening, so I can put in my earbud and listen. Sometimes I’ll watch them on the overhead monitor, so I can see who is saying what. Mostly, I listen. My life sucks, Jersey. But when I’m hearing about other people’s issues and problems and plans, I feel… really …
alive.
Energized. You know?”

I didn’t know. I couldn’t quite grasp the appeal of eavesdropping on total strangers. The judge had warned me that her brother was an outsider, a shy introvert with no friends and no social life. Perhaps he got off on living vicariously through his dining customers, even if only in short snippets.

“You do realize that what you’re doing is illegal?”

He sat up. Breathed deep, straightening his posture. Took his first drink from the can of beer and regained his composure, once again looking like an attractive young professional. “Yes. I’m sure it probably is.”

“Were anyone to find out, there could be criminal charges. And civil lawsuits. Argo’s would likely be forced out of business.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve thought about that.”

But just like a junkie using the pharmaceutical drug network, Morgan allowed the pleasure he derived to override any fear of getting caught.

“Are you recording people’s conversations, too?”

He shook his head no. “I wouldn’t even have a clue how to do that,” he said. “I just listen.”

We stepped off
Incognito
and returned to the dining room. Spud was teaching Fran how to play blackjack. Their dessert plate had been cleared, and they were slurping coffees. Spud explained that Fran needed practice for the cruise ship’s casino.

“I’ll be a few more minutes,” I told them, and dropped a credit card on the table to pay our tab.

“I’d comp you guys,” Morgan said as we walked to his office in the back of the house, “but I’ve already given away a four-hundred-dollar tab tonight.”

At least he’d kept a sense of humor about my little stunt.

Argo’s kitchen brimmed with hurried staff, and I wondered how they managed to get through a shift without crashing into one another. Three chefs stood over burners and a fourth tended a grill, all of them communicating in a clipped language that I couldn’t quite decipher. It was an entirely different world from the laid-back kitchen at the Block.

Morgan unlocked his office and we went in, shutting the door behind us. One more person in the little space and it would be uncomfortably crowded. He showed me the small blue box he’d talked about, along with the wired earbud coming out of it, and showed me how to adjust the volume with one of the dials. I held the bud to my ear and heard a woman talking about a Lexus they’d recently bought and how she hated to have a car payment again, but what a great
financing rate they got. A man told her that she deserved a new car. A younger female, probably their daughter, asked if she would get the car in a few more years, when she left for college. All of the voices were intimately clear. I felt as though I were sitting at the GT with them, and when I looked at the security monitor overhead view, I suddenly understood how Morgan might get a rush by doing what he’d been doing. Especially since he didn’t have a life outside of Argo’s. And especially since people will talk about almost anything while they’re having dinner: finances, travel, sex, work, gossip. Probably, though, Morgan’s interest in the Green Table would quickly fade if he were to make some friends and take up a hobby and find a new girlfriend and get a life of his own.

I killed the volume, removed the earpiece, and examined the blue box. I hadn’t seen the exact setup before, but it appeared to be a basic box with audio connectors. A single cable ran downward and connected with the back of the computer console. I asked Morgan how he switched to the hostess stand microphone.

“What hostess stand microphone?”

“The Green Table is the only hidden mike you’re aware of?”

He nodded.

“What about the computer?” I said.

“What about it?”

“Any audio files on there?”

“You mean like a song that somebody would listen to on their iPod?” He shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

I called Soup and found him at home. He answered on the first ring.

“I’m still working on it, Jersey. I’ll call you the nanosecond I have the full scoop on your divine doctors.”