I must have gone down, because the next thing I remember was coming back to reality by the shock of cold water. Someone had filled a bucket and dumped it over my head. I yelped and opened my eyes at the icy jolt. A large man with beefy hands and thick, muscular arms was holding me. His round head was shaved, but his shoulders, chest, and torso were covered with curly hair. He looked at me through brown eyes filled with concern.
“Are you all right, Clare Cosi?”
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“I’m Nick, of course. The man you came to see. Nikolai Pedechenko.”
“You’re not the man I met at Solange!”
“I’ve never been there. And we never met, Clare Cosi, because I would’ve remembered someone as attractive and determined as you.” He grinned.
I disengaged myself from his grip. “This has been a terrible mistake. I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
“No trouble at all,” Nick replied. “But I believe I know the man that you are looking for. His name is Nick, too. And he was a friend of Tommy Keitel’s, the chef at Solange.”
That’s him! It must be! “Do you know where I can find that Nick?”
“Let me find him for you. You go shower and cool down. I’ll make a call.”
“Okay, thank you,” I said.
“Good-bye, Clare Cosi. It has been a pleasure. My byki will show you out.”
The naked bodyguard took my arm and led me to the door. Olga greeted me on the other side. “Take a cold shower,” she said, thrusting a glass of clear liquid and garlic cloves into my hand. “And drink that right down quick. You’re dehydrated.”
Inside the shower stall, I dropped the towel and stood under the cold flow for a good ten minutes. When I came out, I was trembling, as much from nerves as from the cold. The glass was waiting for me on the bench, beside a clean robe. It was vodka, not water. I suspected as much. I drained the glass anyway.
I did my best to dry my hair with the weak hair dryer supplied by the house. I used the key to unlock my locker—a joke, since it was clear my stuff had been rifled. Nothing was missing, not even Brigitte’s note. Apparently Nikolai Pedechenko felt he had nothing to hide.
When I finally returned to the café, Esther was in a better mood than when I’d left. I’m sure the vodka helped, because she was obviously feeling no pain.
“Hey, boss, you’re back,” Esther cried, slurring her words.
I was glad to see Boris wasn’t in the same state. He was stone sober.
“After the first glass, no more vodka for me,” he explained. “Better not to drink and drive.”
“Ain’t he sweet,” Esther giggled. “You should try the boss, borscht…I mean, try the borscht, boss. It’s spectacular!”
I was about to suggest we leave when a man at another table caught my eye. Behind dark sunglasses I saw a pale face framed by long brown hair, thin lips, and a cleft chin. He removed his sunglasses and motioned me forward.
It’s him… “You’re Nick,” I said.
“Yes.” He rose, shook my hand. “I am Nick Vlachek. I recognize you. We met at Solange the other night.”
He offered me a chair. “Please sit down, Ms. Cosi.”
I was sure Nick knew that Tommy had been murdered, but he probably hadn’t heard who’d been arrested for the crime. I decided to keep him in the dark. Keitel had introduced me as a friend of his. Nick didn’t need to know that I was also Joy Allegro’s mother.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “I got a call from Mr. Pedechenko. He said I should come right over and talk to you. He also suggested I bring some of my new shipment—a nice Caspian beluga.”
“Caviar?”
Nick nodded. “I have a restaurant not far from here. And I import caviar, among other commodities.”
“So you were one of Tommy’s vendors!”
He nodded. “I met Chef Keitel a couple of years ago, after your country banned the sale of beluga caviar…”
“It did? I mean…we did? Why?”
Nick shrugged. “Because Black Sea sturgeon is on the endangered species list. Tommy wasn’t satisfied with the substitutes. He wanted the real thing for his restaurant.”
“And you could get it for him? Even though it’s outlawed?”
“Tommy wanted the real thing,” he said with pride. “I got it for him. No crime. What I call a crime is what some of my unscrupulous colleagues do. They import Finland burbot and pass it off as beluga.”
“The business is that profitable?”
Nick nearly choked on his vodka. “The market value for beluga is ten thousand dollars a kilogram.”
“Oh. I see. Well, that would be profitable then, wouldn’t it?”
Nick nodded. “At least Tommy knew the value of the real thing.”
A waitress appeared. She placed a basket of toast points, a bowl of chopped hard-boiled eggs, another of minced onions, a bowl of sour cream, and two glasses of vodka on our table. In the center she set a tiny bowl brimming with what looked like silver jelly.
Nick smeared caviar on a slice of toast with a tiny spoon made of mother-of-pearl. “Caviar should never touch metal or it will taste like metal,” he explained.
He handed me the toast, and I took a bite. I wasn’t a caviar eater. I couldn’t afford it, and I’d never actually eaten really good caviar—not the kind Nick was offering me now, anyway. The texture was soft, the taste briny and salty and mildly fishy, too, with a subtle hint of acid, more layers of flavor than I’d expected.
“Beluga is prized for its large, pea-sized eggs,” Nick said, chewing. “It can be silver gray, dark gray, or even black. The lighter varieties come from older sturgeon and are the most highly valued.”
I reached for another toast point and slathered on the caviar. “I think I could get used to this stuff.”
Nick laughed. “Don’t bother with the eggs or the onions. The best caviar needs no embellishment.”
“No wonder Tommy sought you out,” I said after I cleared my palate with a few sips of vodka. I was starting to feel no pain…but then I remembered my daughter.
“Nick, I have some questions for you about Tommy Keitel. I saw beets on the prep table where he was murdered. I smelled stock simmering on the stove. Were you there last night, Nick? Were you there when Tommy was murdered?”
“No. And if you’re asking me if I murdered Tommy, the answer is also no. Friday is my busiest night of the week. I was running my restaurant until almost two in the morning last evening. Hundreds of people saw me. So you can believe me. More than that,” Nick added, a shadow crossing his features. “I was going into business with Tommy. A profitable one. Why would I kill him?”
“What business? Importing?”
“No. Tommy wanted to learn Russian cuisine. I know some of the finest chefs in Moscow and St. Petersburg. I was paving the way for Tommy’s move to Russia.”
My jaw dropped. “He was moving to Russia?”
“In seven weeks, his contract at Solange was up. He said he was ready for a new challenge. He’d become bored with French cuisine. He wanted to learn how to cook authentic Russian dishes in Russia. Then he was going to return to America, and we were going to open a new restaurant together.”
I heard the sadness in Nick’s voice, not only over the lost opportunities, but because Nick had also very clearly lost a friend.
“These are bad times,” he said.
Tell me about it. “Did you know Brigitte Rouille?”
Nick nodded. “Yes. And Nappy, too. Of course when I’d first met them, they were still lovers.”
I blinked. “Lovers? I’m sorry, but…I’d assumed Napoleon Dornier was gay.”
Nick laughed. “I think he cultivates that impression. Goes with his pumped-up French accent. But Nappy is definitely not gay, and he owed Brigitte—quite a lot. He was no more than a waiter at Martinique when she took over its kitchen. It was Brigitte who used her influence as executive chef to help him move to sommelier and then maître d’. That’s why; Dornier always took care of Brigitte, even after they broke up.”