They all looked at her. Quill rubbed the back of her neck. She coughed slightly. Ernst Kolsacker was looking at her with a slight smile. She sent him an appealing glance and the smile broadened. Not for the first time since she had come to Florida, Quill felt she was a pawn in some lunatic chess game. She got to her feet. "I want to assure you that Mr. Taylor - " she began. She cleared her throat. "Mr. Taylor has apparently purchased just the institute's buildings. Not," she said hastily, "the program or anything like that. The Florida Institute for Fine Food is still a... a... viable entity." Two of the kitchen chefs eased back into their seats. Heartened, Quill continued, "You don't exist because of this building. This building exists because of you." Without realizing it, she held up her hand for silence. It seemed to work. The outbreak of noise quieted. "I've been thinking about it. You clearly have a wonderful place here, with loyal staff and dedicated students, and why can't your board of directors find another facility-maybe even nicer than this one - where you can all run the program in peace?" She sat down, slightly breathless.
"Do you know how much a facility like this costs, Miss Quilliam?" asked Birdie coolly. "It's a nice idea, but really, dear. This is a four-or five-million-dollar plant at least."
"But it's profitable, Birdie." Bea looked alert. "And I must say, it would be nice to have a little more control over things."
"But what is he going to do with this building?" shouted the manage a gare.
"Well, um..." Quill looked again at Ernst Kolsacker. He shook his head sympathetically. "He's going to bring the Southern Fried people in. In sort of a training center."
"Fried food!" shrieked the salad chef. "Fast fried food?"
"I will not give up my kitchen to such. Me? Non!" roared Chef Jean Paul. "I will kill this son of a sea cock. This bastard. This canaille."
"You don't think. Birdie and Bea, that we could find another building for everyone?" Quill said. "I mean, it's profitable, surely?" She raised her eyebrows at Linda Longstreet.
"Profitable," said Linda. "Well." She twisted a piece of tissue her hands and bit her lip. "On a month-to-month basis it's profitable, yes. But overall..."
"What does that mean?" Quill asked in a nonconfrontational way.
Birdie's eye sharpened. "Yes, Linda. Tell us now, if you please. When we convene every month, we look at cash flow, receivables, and that sort of thing. But come to think if it, we haven't seen a balance sheet all year - have we, Bea?"
"No, we haven't, Birdie. Tell us, dear - just what is the outstanding debt?"
Linda told them. There was a glum silence.
"It was pledged against the equity in the building, of course," said Linda.
Ernst gave a snort.
"But the Institute doesn't own the building, does it?" asked Quill. "I'm a little confused here."
"The building was mortgaged through Florida First," said Linda.
"Verger's bank," said Bea, in an aside to Quill. "And Florida First pledged the loans the Institute it- self took out against the equity in the building."
"Pledged?" Quill frowned. "You mean that the loan to your institute was secured against the equity in the building?"
"No. I'm afraid not. There was an assumption that if we needed money, there'd be enough equity to cover our debt, so it was really just a handshake deal." She turned to the stunned onlookers. "The man at the bank said it would be fine. And not to worry about it."
"But is that legal?" Quill asked. She looked at Ernst. His face was an impassive mask. After a moment he said, "Yes. It's legal."
"How can undisclosed debt be legal?" Quill demanded.
Ernst smiled. "Oh, I think you'll find it's disclosed, all right. Nobody's tried to hide anything. When we bought the building, there were no legal liabilities attached - other than the balance of the mortgage, which Taylor Inc. paid off, of course."
"So we're all out of a job?" Linda asked steadily. "Is that what this means?"
"Verger would like you all to stay on until the end of the week."
"Not me," Linda said bitterly. "He fired me right now." To everyone's intense discomfort, Linda burst into tears.
"Everyone else," Ernst continued, "is to stay on. We have two famous guests with us-Chef Quilliam and her sister, who's a well-known artist-and we wouldn't want any bad publicity to interfere with events going on this week. Isn't that right, Miss Quilliam?"
"She," Chef Jean Paul blurted, red-faced, "she is interested only in the saving of Chef Meg. For the star, you understand. I say pah! and pah! again to this." He spat impressively on the floor.
"This means you'll stay the week?" Ernst said.
"For what? For what do I stay this week? I walk out on this week."
"For a decent severance package. I can talk Verger into that much."
Chef Jean Paul spat on the floor once more, then said, "I demand a month, me. And for my friends, two weeks."
"Hey!" Chef Brian leaped to his feet. "How come you get a month's worth of pay and we get two weeks?"
"Because I am the master, you scum!" Ernst spread his hands in a gesture of conciliation. "Tell you what, guys. Come up here and we'll talk it over."
The six chefs clustered around Ernst like cabbage flies on new peas.
Quill was shaken. "I wish," she murmured to Bea, "I'd never heard of Tiffany Taylor, that'd I'd never accepted this project, that I'd never heard of Palm Beach, and that Florida didn't exist."
Bea patted her hand in a sympathetic way and said briskly, "Well dear, you did, and it does. What are you going to do now?"
"Find Meg, I suppose, and carry on."
"Good girl." She raised her voice. "Ernst!"
"Yes, Bea."
"You can tell Verger from me that this move may be a profitable one, but it is heartless, heartless. These are my friends - Chef Jean Paul, Chef Brian, Linda, and the rest. Taylor has summarily put them out of a job and like many such tactics in the business world, I disapprove. I highly disapprove."
Impulsively Quill applauded.
Linda Longstreet looked at Bea with damp eyes. "Does this mean that you and Mrs. Goldwyn and Mrs. McIntyre will help us find a new building?"
"I doubt it, Ms. Longstreet. We'd do far better to take that investment and buy a few more shares of Taylor Incorporated. Ernst? Will you see to that? Quill? You look..." She paused and regarded Quill quizzically. "A little dismayed. This is how you keep wealth, my dear. By hanging tough. Sentiment should never enter into it, or so my dearest Charles always told me. Birdie!"
"Yes, Bea."
She nodded majestically. "We are going in search of Chef Meg. I have always wanted to learn how to jug a hare."
-7-
"This is rabbit," meg said to the assembled students, "is not a rabbit but an American hare, which means that the meat is all white. As you can see, it weighs around... " She stopped, pursed her lips, and placed the soft limp body on the scale. "Eleven pounds, two ounces." She looked up sternly. She was wearing her toque and her dress-whites trousers and tunic. There were seven students standing around the butcher block table in the center of the chacuterie kitchen. They were all wearing white jackets and the starched white berets that distinguished the cooking students from the chefs. One of them stood apart from the others: a tall, slim woman with a calm, beautiful face. Her hair was a silvery gray and she was graceful, attentive, quiet. Quill was reminded of the scene from Galsworthy's Indian Summer of a Forsyte, with the beautiful Irene coming across the grass: the spirit of beauty in a twentieth century kitchen in Palm Beach. Two things to paint here, then: the sky over the sea before a hurricane and Cressida Houghton. Tiffany Taylor stood closest to her, a neon light next to a glowing candle. There were lines around Tiffany's mouth that Quill hadn't noticed before.