The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier (23 page)

I almost wished I’d been sent to jail so that I wouldn’t have had to get up at five the next morning and drive to Santa Fe.

I parked a few blocks away so that no one would see the Bronco near the restaurant. I was happy to find the locks had not been changed. The building was quiet and dark, but I tiptoed around just to make certain I was alone. I would have embarked on this mission after leaving court, but I knew the place would be full of staff preparing for the dinner rush. There were too many late night callers to try it under cover of darkness. Early morning is definitely the best time to do a B & E at a restaurant. No one is ever around. Susannah had told me once that B & E is what they call breaking and entering in detective fiction. I had even learned how to loid a lock from a mystery she insisted I read.

That wouldn’t work on the door I wanted to open. Its deadbolt could be moved only with a key. But the top half of the door had a window through which I had seen Molinero sitting at his desk the day I sought his approval of my charger design and asked him how he kept his office so clean because I wondered what Scruggs was doing in the office and how he had gained entry.

I knew how I was going to gain entry – through that window. Not a good method if you wanted to conceal the break-in, but I had no reason to do that. I wasn’t entering as a thief. I was looking for evidence. If I found any, I was planning to carry it away in my brief case. But first I would have to make room for it by removing the roll of duct tape, the two suction cups, and the glass cutter. You can probably figure out what I did with the window, so I won’t bother to spell it out for you.

I had never done it before, but it worked perfectly. I carried the taped glass by the two suction cups and placed it on one of the work stations. I lifted a chair through the space where the pane had been and put it down on the office side of the door. I placed a second chair on my side of the door and stood on it. I lifted one leg through the window and down onto the inside chair. Then I bent forward and swung my torso to the inside. I was now straddling the bottom of the window with one foot on each chair.

There was, of course, a half-inch ridge of glass around the opening because the cutter wouldn’t snug up completely against the frame. I had coated that ridge liberally with duct tape to avoid performing an accidental vasectomy during this part of the operation.

Had I been even an inch taller, I don’t think I could have made it. But once my body was on the office side, the rest was easy. I brought my other leg through and stepped down to the office floor.

I spent the next hour going through Molinero’s desk. I found a set of books and – for the first time – gave thanks for having studied accounting. After examining the ledgers, I realized there had to be another set of books. But they were not in the desk.

I walked to the safe and eyed its massive door. Loiding was even less of an option than it had been with the double cylinder door lock. Nor was there a window to cut. I wondered if I could drill the lock out. Go to a hardware store, purchase a huge electric drill with some sort of hardened steel bit or maybe one covered with diamonds and just drill through the door. I quickly dismissed that idea. Using dynamite was dismissed even more quickly. If I detonated enough dynamite to open that safe, I’d have to be a mile away with a remote control in order not to blow myself to bits.

A crazy thought came to me – maybe it was open. I grasped the big handle and pulled. I pushed it up and down. Well, I did say it was a crazy idea.

I moved the dial ever so slightly and listened for a click. I don’t know why. It just seemed like something to try. I got down on my knees and put my ear to the metal. I rotated the dial slowly through each of its numbers. The only thing I heard was the waves-hitting-the-beach noise you hear when you cover your ear.

I stared at the safe and thought about Bing Crosby. He died when I was in my early teens, but I’m a fan of the music of my parents’ generation – the era of crooners and big bands. I remembered a line from one of his songs:

A sentimental crook

With a touch that lingers

In his sandpapered fingers

The sentimental crook was Jimmy Valentine, the safecracker immortalized by William Sydney Porter in a short story titled, A Retrieved Reformation. Valentine’s sandpapered fingers were so sensitive he could feel the clicks that revealed the combination as he turned the tumblers.

I rubbed my fingers against the low loop carpet. Not exactly sandpaper, but it did make them feel sensitive. I laid my hand gently on the dial and turned it slowly. I felt nothing. What an idiot I am, I said to myself. If people could open safes that easily, what would be the purpose of having one? You can’t loid or drill or sandpaper-finger your way in. You have to have the combination.

I was famished. I’m not used to skipping breakfast. I returned to the kitchen by reversing the moves I had used to pass through the window into the office. I found some sautéed beef tips and microwaved them. There were no tortillas, so I put the beef between two slices of bread. I found a white plastic tub labeled ‘jalapeños’ and took it and the sandwich back to the office. I slipped through the window with ease. Having mastered the moves, I could now do it even with a sandwich in one hand and a plastic tub in the other.

Unfortunately, the tub turned out to contain just vinegar and jalapeño juice. The actual chiles were gone. I took a sip. The liquid was acidic and hot. But it was useless because pouring it on the sandwich would have made the bread soggy. The sandwich was too plain and dry to eat. After a few bites, I rolled it in a paper napkin and tossed it in the trash.

I looked for the combination. It wasn’t on a piece of tape stuck under a drawer. It wasn’t in Molinero’s daily planner. It wasn’t in his files under ‘C’ for combination. I went back through the books looking for numbers that had nothing to do with accounting. I went through his rolodex and found some numbers that weren’t in telephone format. One read, 234587 Cerrillos Road. Another read, Hansen Wholesale #4952. There was a heavy three-hole punch with the number 234332 taped underneath.

I arranged the numbers I’d found into possible safe combinations: 23-45-87, 4-9-5-2, 23-43-32 and so forth. I tried all the combinations and the permutations I could think of. In the back of my mind, I knew I was on a fool’s errand, but irrational hope kept whispering to me.

The next voice I heard was not whispering.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I turned to see Molinero glaring at me though the window.

“I was checking to see if the safe was open,” I temporized. “Fortunately, it’s not, so I guess whoever broke in wasn’t able to get into the safe.”

A slight furrowing of the brow indicated he might buy it, so I continued. “I came back to see if I could find my watch, but when I came in, I saw your window glass had been removed. My first thought was a break-in. But maybe you’re just having new glass installed.”

I know it was lame, but it was the best I could do on the spur of the moment.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

He unlocked the door and pushed it open. It swung back towards the frame but did not quite close. He walked to the desk and looked down at his open ledger.

“Why were you looking at my books?”

“I wasn’t,” I said in a voice that even I didn’t believe. “Like I said, I saw the—”

“Yeah, yeah. You saw the window gone and wanted to check the safe. And you came to look for your missing watch when no one was here.”

He reached into his jacket and came out with a gun. I don’t know anything about guns, but I knew everything I needed to know about this one; namely, it was pointed at me.

“Sit down,” he ordered, motioning with the gun barrel toward his office chair.

I sat.

He looked at me and laughed. “You of all people. I knew there was a risk someone would figure it out, but not you. Never you. You know nothing about restaurants. How did you do it? How did you figure it out?”

I tried to make a hasty calculation. Should I continuing to play the innocent or should I admit I had figured it out? Which would make him less likely to use that gun?

“You made a mistake,” I said.

“What was it?”

“When you left my shop that first day, you said, ‘You won’t regret this, Mr. Schuze’.”

“So?”

“You introduced yourself as Santiago Molinero, but all I said to you was, ‘I’m Hubert, but people generally call me Hubie’. Yet you called me by my last name as you left.”

“So? I could have known your last name before I entered the place.”

“Obviously, you did know it. But you pretended you needed to use the bathroom and picked my shop only because it was empty.”

He seemed to be weighing options. “You did look at the books, right?”

I nodded.

“And?”

“They are strictly on the up and up,” I said.

“But you knew there had to be another set. That’s why you were trying to open the safe.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said with more bluster than I felt. “There’s no way I could open that safe. Why would I even try?”

“Because you’re a dreamer and a fool.”

That stung, even considering the source.

“I did know who you were,” he said with a cocky expression on his face. “I knew a lot about you. You were almost perfect for my purposes. I could run up expenses by having you make special chargers. And you’ve been charged with murder before, so I figured if I had to get rid of anyone, your record would make you a good suspect, especially if I used one of your glazing chemicals for rodent control.”

“And the rat was Barry Stiles,” I said.

“He recognized me. He threatened to expose me if I didn’t fire Kuchen.” He gave a short raspy laugh. “Can’t have rats in a restaurant.”

He aimed the gun at me.

“Why ‘almost perfect’?” I said to keep him talking.

“What?”

“You said I was ‘almost perfect’ for your purposes. Why almost?”

“I knew you had been an accountant. That worried me a little, but I figured all you were going to do was make chargers. I had no idea the staff would cook up this hare-brained idea of an Austrian/Fusion restaurant and even less that you would get involved.”

“Why did you let them go through with it?”

He shrugged. “I guess it won’t hurt to tell you at this point. As you saw in the meeting, I was opposed to it at first. But I was thinking while that idiot Billot was talking. I figured if I refused to let them try, they might attempt to track down the investors and get them to approve the plan. The staff seemed determined, and I didn’t want them snooping around. But the best reason for me to let then go forward was I thought they would make the failure story even more complete. I still can’t believe those idiots are making money.”

“So when they started turning a profit, you tried to undermine them by making an anonymous call to the police telling them to check Barry Stiles’ body for barium carbonate.”

“Yeah, that was me. What else?” he asked.

“You got Wallace Voile to picket.”

His eyes narrowed. “You know too much.”

“I know you swindled the investors,” I admitted, “but I have no interest in that. I just want to get out of here and forget the whole nightmare.”

“If you’re not interested in the swindle, why were you poking around in my office?” He waved the gun at me. “And don’t tell me any crap about a burglar being here before you arrived.”

“O.K.,” I said, “here’s the truth. I was trying to get into the safe to get back my five thousand dollars.” I told him about the advance I had made to pay the staff the morning after the Grand Re-opening. Or Second Opening. Or Second Coming. By whichever name, I wished it had never happened.

“Forget the five thousand dollars,” I said. “Use it to fix the window I cut. Just let me walk away. I’ll never say anything about the swindle.”

An evil grin curled his lips. “You’re forgetting about Barry Stiles.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” I bluffed. “I barely knew him.”

“Which is why the cops let you go. That and the fact they think Dorfmeister it.”

I shrugged. “Maybe he did.” I felt like a rat saying it, but my life was on the line, and I could always apologize to Jürgen later. Unless he turned out to be the accomplice.

A light seemed to go on in Molinero’s eyes. “What the police need is stronger evidence. Like a confession. And you’re going to write one. Pick up that pen.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I shouted.

He was manic now, his face pulsing through a rainbow of orange and red shades. “I know that, but the police don’t. Write this: I killed Barry Stiles.”

“There’s nothing to write on.”

“Use the desk blotter, you shrimp.”

“Don’t you think the police will wonder why I broke into your dead-bolt-locked office to write a confession? Maybe they’ll figure out you forced me to do it.”

“Write it on a piece of paper. I can plant it somewhere else.”

I started to open the top right-hand drawer.

“No tricks,” he said. “Open the drawer on your left.” He said he knew a lot about me, but he obviously didn’t know I’m left-handed.

The drawer on the left was just under the plastic tub of jalapeño juice. My heart was pounding and my hand shaking, but I managed in one continuous motion to grab the jug and sling its contents in his face. The jalapeño juice wasn’t useless after all.

Molinero yelped and bent over in pain when the stinging liquid hit his eyes. I raced around the desk before he could regain his composure and pushed him to the ground. I flung the door aside and ran headlong into the chair I had placed on the kitchen side of the door.

Which was a good thing because that was probably why the bullet that whizzed by missed me. I rolled to the side to escape Molinero’s line of fire. But when I started to get up, I saw M’Lanta Scruggs running at me with a pistol in his hand.

The first thought that ran through my mind was I was right about him being the accomplice. He had been first on my list because of his being able to get into Molinero’s office.

My second thought was I am about to die.

He raised the pistol. I closed my eyes. Another bullet whizzed by. I heard a scream from behind me and then a thump. I opened my eyes and turned to see Santiago Molinero sprawled on the floor, his gun in his hand. His ochre face had streaks and blotches the color of normal Caucasian skin.