“Not from me, he’s not,” declared the American. “Here, you can have the rest of mine. And all of this awful aspic, too.” He bounced a piece derisively against his plate. “Look, it’s just like rubber.”
“No, his gelée isn’t up to his foie gras, it’s definitely the commercial variety, right out of a package. Very nasty stuff.” Tama pursed his lips. “I wonder, though, if we can’t make it disappear by some other way than just eating it? Let’s see now, I think this menu would be just about the right size if we tore it in half...”
Colonel Yashimoto watched curiously as Tama ripped the piece of paper neatly in two, then reached for a piece of shiny round aspic the size of a silver dollar. Laying the aspic precisely in the middle of the paper, the Commissaire carefully folded the paper around it until it was wrapped securely in a tight little packet of multiple folds.
“Now then,” said Tama, tapping the packet against the rim of a wine glass, “what we’ll do is place this right here in the middle of the table. And then we’ll put your hand over it like this just to make sure it doesn’t go anywhere, and then I’ll put my hand over yours to make doubly sure—” his enormous hand entirely covered Colonel Yashimoto’s “—and then I’ll say the magic words, ‘Be gone, wretched aspic!’ And then we’ll open it up to see if it’s really gone.” He withdrew his hand. “Here, you open it.”
The unfolded packet was, of course, empty. “I suppose you’ll never tell me how you did that?” said Colonel Yashimoto sourly. “Of course not — I’d be drummed out of the magician’s union.”
“Then you’d better not try finding it in my ear later on — or I’ll show you just why they used to call me Mad Dog.”
The next course was a simple salad with a few pieces of diced foie gras scattered among the garlicky croutons. It was followed by a slice of foie gras that had been sauteed golden brown along with small green grapes. “Marvelous,” rhapsodized the Commissaire de Police as he washed it down with a chilled Gewurztraminer from Alsace, and even Colonel Yashimoto agreed that it was worth tasting.
“And now,” said Tama, “we come to a very interesting junction in the menu. We can have either the confit d’oie, which is preserved goose fried brown and crispy, with sarladaise potatoes, or we can have the filet mignon on an artichoke heart stuffed with foie gras, accompanied by bordelaise sauce. You know,” he said to the awestruck waitress, “I think I’ll have one of each — that way we’ll be sure of using up all of those poor geese who so nobly contributed to making the foie gras.”
“They really do pour food down a funnel into the poor geese,” asked Colonel Yashimoto as they watched red wine being poured, “to make them fatter?”
“I’m afraid so. The whole point is to make the liver as big as possible. The liver for a good foie gras is at least three or four times the size of a normal one.”
The Hawaiian shuddered slightly. “You don’t think that’s awfully cruel?”
“I don’t know,” said Tama with a massive sigh. “The anti-foie gras people say it’s cruel, the people who raise the geese say the geese love it and follow them around just begging to be fed.” He waggled a thick finger. “Suppose I turn you into a goose — and let you find out for yourself?”
Some time later Colonel Yashimoto picked halfheartedly at his enormous piece of crispy goose breast. “I suppose there’ll be foie gras ice cream and then pitchers of goose fat to pour into the coffee? Can you get me an appointment with a cardiologist for tomorrow morning?”
“Nonsense! It’s been scientifically shown that Frenchmen who eat geese and goose fat live far longer than—”
“More wine, messieurs?” murmured the rosy-cheeked Tahitian waiter. He poured for Colonel Yashimoto, then reached across to pour for Tama.
“You dolt!” hissed Michel-Pierre LaRochelle, who, freshly changed into a clean white tunic, had been making his way triumphantly from table to table through the dining room, a glass of champagne in hand. “I told you to always pour from the right! Can’t you damned faggots ever get anything straight?” Seizing the bottle from the boy’s hand, he poured a glass for Tama. “Excuse me, Monsieur le Commissaire, someday I’ll see if he can’t get something right.” He thrust the bottle back at the cowering waiter. “Here! Now go do it right for the rest of the guests! Or I’ll kick your cute little ass for you!” He reached out and pinched the boy viciously on the cheek. “There, maybe that’ll help you remember, Cherry Cheeks! Enjoy the rest of your meal, messieurs,” he murmured unctuously and swaggered on to the next table.
Tama’s fingers drummed furiously on the table. “I can’t believe the Inspecteur de Travail will permit such behavior! I’ll personally have a word with—”
He was interrupted by a startlingly loud sound that it took a moment to identify as silverware being banged against a crystal wineglass. Tama and Colonel Yashimoto peered around the room until their eyes came to the far comer. Here a thickset woman in a plain black dress stood by her table, whanging a glass lustily. In the restaurant’s flickering candlelight all Tama could see of her clearly was an enormous mop of thick blond hair and the largest heart-shaped violet sunglasses he had ever seen.
“Good evening, friends,” said the blonde in a voice that was hardly more than a husky whisper and that yet filled the room effortlessly. “I hope you’ve all enjoyed your delicious dinner.” She cast a broad smile to all sides while two male companions moved away from the table and began taking photographs. A few tentative bursts of applause died away as the flashbulbs flared brightly.
“A delicious dinner procured from the bodies of tortured animals!” cried the woman with sudden passion, pulling off her blond wig and throwing it to the floor. A moment later, as the flashbulbs flared again, she tossed away her sunglasses.
“Dear God, it’s Valérie Valescu,” muttered Tama disgustedly in English. “Just what we needed to ruin a perfect meal.”
“Valérie Valescu the actress?” murmured Colonel Yashimoto in awestruck tones. “But...”
“... she’s nearly as fat as I am. No, retirement hasn’t been kind to her. I wonder how she got in here?”
The one-time sex goddess of the French cinema shook her closely cropped black hair with its famous stripe of platinum gold running across the top and raised a hand to silence the once-again noisy dining room. “I know, dear friends, that none of us likes to think about where our delicious food comes from, but sometimes we have to! When we have beautiful scallops of pale white veal, for instance, do we think about the tortured little calves locked up in their—”
The voice of the world’s most famous animal-rights activist was drowned out by a wave of hisses and derisory catcalls, as if she were a nearsighted referee at a football game.
“Hou! Hou!”
“Shut up and let us eat!”
“Take off your clothes and go back to showing your ass!”
All the time her two grinning companions were hopping about the room and rapidly snapping pictures.
“So that’s how she got in,” shouted Tama to Colonel Yashimoto above the uproar. “Those clowns with the cameras are the owner and editor of one of the local rags. I knew she was here in the islands incognito, but thought she’d gone over to Brando’s island to commune with nature at the bird sanctuary. She must have heard about this little dinner and figured she could get some free publicity by smuggling herself in.”