Turn Up the Heat (17 page)

“Did you guys get these at one of those wholesale stores or something? This is the biggest bottle of sesame oil I’ve ever seen.” There were also many expensive olive oils and vinegars that I strongly suspected were too pricey for Snacker, Stein, and Josh’s budget. “Wait a minute! This is the same oil you have at Simmer.” I held up a very tall, slender bottle of Spanish olive oil. Its label had elaborate script and was covered with distinctive pictures of stone statues.

Silence fell. Then Blythe giggled.

The truth hit me. “Did you guys steal this stuff from Simmer?”

“I don’t really think of it as stealing,” Snacker answered unabashedly. “It’s more of a way to collect what we deserve. Bonuses, I guess. Where do you think I got all this chicken we’re using?”

I stared at Josh, who, I assumed, would be horrified to learn what Snacker had been doing. Josh, however, looked not at all surprised. “You, too, Josh?” I felt like Julius Caesar:
Et tu, Brute?

Josh just shrugged and kept wrapping foil around a tamale. “Snack’s right. Once in a while we have to take a little something.”

“Doesn’t this kill your food cost and everything? I thought you were worried about that all the time! And you’re stealing all this stuff? Oh, you guys took that beer in the fridge, too!” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I could understand why overworked and underpaid chefs might feel entitled to everything they could get their hands on. But the social worker in me was alarmed at the blatant thievery. And, of course, I was worried about Josh’s job. What if he got caught?

Josh stood up and poured water into the pots of tamales that were ready for cooking. He covered them, turned up the heat, and grabbed Coronas for himself and Snacker. “Yeah, it can take a toll on the food cost, so you have to be careful about it. But, look, Chloe. Everyone steals from restaurants. Just the nature of the beast, I guess. But not everything in this kitchen is stolen. Gavin lets us buy a lot of stuff from the purveyors for our own use, so we get it cheap. When it comes to stealing at a restaurant, you don’t always see it, but you know it happens.”

“It’s not just these criminal chefs,” Blythe said lightly, teasing Josh and Snacker.
Yeah,
I thought,
tell me something I didn’t know
. She stood up and went to the sink to wash her hands. “The bartenders always have their own cups behind the bar, drinking the restaurant’s liquor. And the waitstaff will take stuff like silverware and napkins.” The pot calling the kettle black! A restaurant cliché if there ever was one! When Belita had said that Kevin was taking bottles, she really had meant that he was stealing—just like everyone else at Simmer. And Blythe? Was she one more ordinary restaurant thief? Or something worse?

“It happens at every restaurant,” Snacker agreed. “But it’s the customers who are the worst. Christ, they’ll take the salt and pepper shakers right off the table, steal their napkins, candleholders, small vases, all that kind of stuff. Women just drop stuff into their purses.”

“Nobody really gets caught,” Josh said. “It’s just part of restaurant life. The only time it pisses me off is if someone steals a whole eighty-dollar tenderloin that I could’ve sold for three hundred and fifty dollars in plated dishes, and it blows my food cost to hell. Or when someone does something really stupid, like steal obvious appliances. That’s just dumb. But the worst is when someone takes something from my toolbox. Like my knives. That’s my money they’re taking, and I’m sick of having to lock up and bolt down everything I own in my kitchen.” Josh practically shuddered. “Don’t even get me started on what’s been taken from me.”

Blythe didn’t flinch. Maybe she was a great actress. Maybe she truly believed that she’d had the right to steal from Josh’s kitchen and that her pilfering would have no impact on my underpaid chef. “There are two things that always hold true in this business,” she said. “Everyone steals, and everyone sleeps with each other.”

Snacker sat up straight at that statement.

“Oh, speaking of which,” she continued, “I found out that one of my friends from law school, Katie, slept with our Kevin. She picked him up at a bar!”

“Well, hey! All right, Kevin!” Snacker clapped his hands together. “Come on, guys. Let’s go sit in the living room while the tamales cook. Should be about another hour and a half.”

I downed my Corona and took another from the fridge of stolen food. I stared at the assortment of vegetables and meats resting comfortably in Josh and Snacker’s kitchen and shook my head. Then I shut the refrigerator door and headed for the living room.

Snacker cranked up some Black Crowes and held Blythe closely while he spun her around the room and belted out a raspy “No Speak No Slave.” Blythe laughed and kept her arms wrapped around his neck. She did seem to like Snacker, but I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the prospect of the two of them as a couple. In fact, I wouldn’t know what to think of Blythe or how to feel about her until I’d sorted out her role in stealing from Simmer. Or, of course, in murdering Leandra.

Josh was on the couch looking at me. God, I just loved him. No amount of fatigue could wipe away how gorgeous he was in my eyes. I sidestepped the dancing pair and sat on Josh’s lap. I ran my hands through his dirty-blond hair and kissed him softly on the lips. “I love you,” I whispered in his ear.

“I love you, too, babe. I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered back.

By the time the tamales were finally done, the four of us had gone through a good portion of the pilfered beer. The apartment lacked a dining room, so we sat at the kitchen table.

“Who’s hungry?” Snacker asked loudly as he placed a platter of steaming tamales in the center of the table.

I reached behind me and lifted my garlicky salad bowl up and onto the table. I nudged it toward Blythe.

“Here’s to Simmer!” Josh toasted, raising his bottle high in the air. Blythe, Snacker, and I all clumsily clinked our bottles against his.

“Okay, now open them neatly!” Snacker demanded as we reached for delicious-smelling bundles. “We have to show a little respect for the tamale! Fold your foil back and tuck it under the packet, and then gently peel back the banana leaves to reveal the contents! And don’t go dumping it out in a big mess, either!” Snacker was shouting excitedly. “Oh, yeah! Look at that baby!” Steam was rising up from his plate.

Fact: to a person in a beer-induced haze, there is no better food in the world than fresh, hot tamales. “Good God, these are perfect,” I said with a groan.

“Yeah, my friend really hooked me up with this recipe, huh?” Snacker looked very pleased with his dish. “You ladies will have to take some home with you.”

“Yeah, if there are any left,” Josh said with a laugh.

We worked our way through the salad and an obscene number of tamales without making much of a dent in the hundred or so that we’d cooked. The ones I’d take with me would be perfect for the nights I ate at home alone, the nights when Josh was working. And there’d be many nights like that. I sat back in my chair and faintly regretted that last tamale. I was stuffed. “Snacker, you have to give me this recipe. I bet these would be great to give as holiday gifts to friends.”

“Oh, definitely. I usually do exactly that. And you’re in luck because I’ve already got a bunch of photocopies of the recipe. Here,” Snacker said as he reached behind him and grabbed some sheets off the counter.

I gasped as I skimmed through the ingredients. “Fifty chicken thighs! Forty tomatoes!”

“I know it sounds crazy, but if you’re going to go to the trouble of making tamales, you might as well make one giant batch,” Snacker explained.

“I guess that’s true. It’s pretty labor-intensive, huh?”

“True, but totally worth the time,” Josh added as he licked his fingers.

“Hey, Snacker,” Blythe began. She pointed to his hand. “How did you get that big scar on your finger?”

“Battle scar from a few years ago,” he explained. “Not a big deal. Everyone done here?”

Josh started laughing. “Not a big deal, is that right? You’re not going to tell them?”

“Come on, dude! Don’t do that to me! I’m trying to make a good impression here.” He winked flirtatiously at Blythe.

“If she still likes you after this, then you’re safe!” Josh spoke way too gleefully. He stretched back in his chair. “So this was back in the days,” Josh started in his best storytelling voice. “Back in the days of mayhem, when we were known to get a little wild. Not like now, of course, because we are very serious and professional at all times.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I laughed. “Go ahead.”

“Snacker and I were working at this awful little restaurant together, where we were both line cooks. All we served was crappy frozen appetizers that we had to fry up for service and stuff like that. But the place was always packed, and the so-called chef was hardly ever around, so it was always me and Snacker frying up mozzarella sticks and wings. So one night,” Josh said as he took a swig of his beer, “Snacker and I were getting slammed at the restaurant, and he cut his finger pretty badly on a meat slicer. I tried to get him to go to the ER, but he said he wanted to wait until after service, since it was only the two of us and a dishwasher there. So we wrapped his finger up in a pile of bandages and taped it good and tight, so he had this big old sausage on his hand.”

Snacker continued. “It was still bleeding a lot, though. So after a while, I went to change the bandage. When I pulled it off, all this blood started spurting out, and I guess I passed out.”

Josh started giggling uncontrollably as he spoke. “So obviously I had to take him to the hospital. When we got there, I kept telling them that Snacker had been throwing up and that he felt really sick and all that.”

“Why is this so funny?” Blythe asked. “This is a horrible story!”

Snacker slammed his beer down with a smile. “Because Josh was trying to convince them that I couldn’t take any medication orally, and the only way to get any medicine into me was to stick it up my—”

“No!” Blythe gasped.

I leaned over and playfully pushed Josh. “Some friend you are!”

“And that’s how I got this lovely scar.” Snacker held his hand up in the air, and we all clinked bottles again in honor of his kitchen wound.

“On a serious note,” Blythe said once we’d stopped laughing at Snacker’s misfortune, “what do you guys think about Leandra? Can you believe that she was killed with an apron from Simmer?” Blythe’s speech was starting to slur.

“Pretty freaky,” said Josh.

“Who has keys and the alarm code and could have gone in and out of Simmer after hours?” I wondered aloud.

“All of us do.” Snacker gestured to Josh, Blythe, and himself. “And obviously Gavin. Wade and Kevin. And Leandra. What we don’t know is if she was killed inside and moved outside to the truck, or whether she was killed in Owen’s truck. Either way, it seems the killer ditched the apron with our laundry, because I don’t think the police found anything in the Dumpster in the alley.”

“I can’t believe we have this memorial thing tomorrow. What a joke. But if you ask me, it was probably Wade who killed her,” Blythe offered up. “He is such a backstabber, I wouldn’t put it past him.” Snacker and Josh nodded in agreement.

“Well, I don’t know if he killed her, but he
is
an asshole,” Josh said.

“What’s wrong with Wade?” I asked everyone. The only thing I could remember to Wade’s discredit was Gavin’s having said that Wade was putting down Josh. Now, I had the feeling that there’d been more than that isolated incident.

Josh put his arms on the table and leaned in. “Oh, he does shit like act like my best friend and then go and bad-mouth me to Gavin. For instance, one time, we had a small party for dinner, and I misread one of the orders, so things were about ten minutes late. Not a big deal, right? And the customers didn’t complain. But Wade took it upon himself to tell Gavin about it and say that I couldn’t keep up. Another time, I asked him to run to the store for me and pick up a gallon of scallops because we were low. Wade acted like it was no problem, that he’d be happy to help. Later I found out that he told Gavin that I was too lazy to do it myself, that I’d screwed up our ordering, and on and on. One minute he’s your best friend, and the next he’s shitting all over you. What’re you gonna do?”

“Yeah, and I’m so sick of him kissing Gavin’s ass all the time,” Blythe said with a burp. “Wade talks crap about Gavin like we all do, but he’s Gavin’s faithful lackey. And meanwhile Gavin is running Simmer like it’s a chain restaurant or something, with his stupid management software.”

Snacker said, “Gavin doesn’t know what’s going on at the restaurant most of the time. Josh, and even Wade, probably know three times more than Gavin does.” He nodded in Josh’s direction.

I started carrying plates to the sink. “But mostly you guys like Gavin, right?”

“A lot of time, he’s fine,” agreed Josh. “But then you’ve got the times he says stuff to me like, ‘I’d outcook you any day,’ or ‘How ignorant can you be?’ and ‘Can’t you get it through your thick skull?’ Yeah, he’s a dream. He thinks he can outcook me, and meanwhile he’s trying to have me precook and then freeze fish when it’s getting old. But the best is when he tries to jump on the line!”

Snacker started laughing. “Yeah, any time Gavin tries to work with us, he gets all flustered and irritated because he can’t keep up, can’t deal with the chaos, and can’t keep from burning everything. Plus, he loses orders and just tries to cook whatever he feels like off random order slips!”

“Yeah, Gavin’s a
great
chef,” Josh said with plenty of sarcasm. “Oh, and then there’s that time he blew up at me in the office, screaming that my food cost had gone up ten thousand dollars in one week.”

“What? How the hell did that happen?” I felt sick. Could Josh have messed up that badly?

“Oh, my food cost was fine. It had gone up by a
hundred
dollars, which is nothing, but Gavin didn’t figure that out for another few days! He’d entered something in the wrong column of his goddamn spreadsheet. Do you think I got an apology?” Josh shook his head and tossed his hands up in the air. “But it’s his restaurant, right? He can do whatever he wants.”