Tommy nodded, then cocked his head, shouting at a waiter who’d just pushed through the double doors. “Hey, René! Where the hell is Nappy?”
The Haitian man who’d waited on my table stopped and blinked, as if he was uncertain how to reply. “I, uh, just saw him, Chef,” he finally said. “I’m sure he’s around…”
I cleared my throat. “The last time I saw your maître d’, he was chasing your executive sous-chef into your back alley.”
Tommy winced. “Again?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “And I really think you should speak with—”
“René!” he barked again. “Did Dornier take any calls for me?”
“Your wife,” the waiter called as he moved toward the back staircase. “She rang three times during service, looking for you.”
Tommy scowled at that.
“And Mr. Wright stopped by. He needed to speak with you about something. Since you weren’t here, he spoke with Brigitte.”
Tommy’s scowl deepened.
“Chef Keitel,” I tried again. “Speaking of Brigitte, I witnessed quite a scene with her here earlier—”
“Tommy?” a new voice called from behind me. The voice was deep and male, almost guttural.
Tommy’s face instantly brightened as the stranger stepped into the kitchen through the dining room doors. “Hey, there he is!” Tommy cried. “Have any problem parking the SUV?”
The newcomer silently shook his head. He was clad in black from his pointy boots and chinos to his shiny black leather blazer. His sunglasses were black, too—so dark I thought for a second that he might be blind.
“Clare Cosi, this is Nick, a buddy of mine from Brighton Beach.”
I extended my hand. “Nice to meet you, Nick.”
The man drew his narrow hand out of his pocket and shook mine. His flesh was ice-cold, but then he’d just come in from outside, and it was November. Under his dark glasses, the man’s complexion was so pale, it looked almost pink. His hair was light brown, and it hung in long, thin strands from an elongated head. His chin had a deep cleft, and his lips were thin and expressionless—literally. He remained silent.
“Well, it was great to see you, Clare!” Tommy said with a dismissive wave. “Nick and I have some work to do.”
“But I wanted to tell you—”
“Good night now!” Grabbing Nick’s arm, he turned his back to me and swiftly led the man toward the walk-in refrigerator.
Like pale, timid monks, the line cooks watched their larger-than-life boss and his strange friend wend their way to the back of the kitchen. Joy glanced in my direction and flashed a tiny wave.
“Don’t worry,” she mouthed to me. “I’ll speak to him.”
I waved back, realizing there was nothing more to do but trust my daughter. I wasn’t through butting in. I promised myself that. For now, however, Joy said she could handle explaining things to Tommy, and I had to trust that she would.
With clenched fists, I forced myself to walk away. Though I was sad to say good night to my daughter, I was far from broken up about leaving Tommy Keitel’s restaurant. More than anything, I wanted to get back downtown to my Village Blend, where at least I could get a decent cup of coffee.
Three
The Village Blend occupied a four-story Federal-style town house in New York’s historic West Village. To my customers, however, the Blend was more than just a java joint. It was a dependable oasis of calm in a crowded, expensive, stress-inducing city that routinely stripped its occupants of their dignity.
The place was my oasis, too. Behind my espresso bar, I felt capable and in control. After that knife-wielding episode in Solange’s cutthroat kitchen, I was relieved to get back to some comfortable, familiar, sane surroundings, if only to lock up for the night and head upstairs for a fresh pot of joe and a warm vanilla bath.
As I stepped off the chilly Hudson Street sidewalk and pushed through the beveled glass door, however, I wondered whose coffeehouse I’d just entered.
Oh, it looked the same. Twenty coral-colored café tables sat on a restored wood-plank floor. There was a working fireplace, a colorful collection of antique grinding mills and tin coffee signs, a wrought-iron spiral staircase leading to a second-floor lounge, a line of French doors (which we threw open in warmer weather for sidewalk seating), and a blueberry marble counter fronting a pastry case and state-of-the-art espresso bar. What threw me, however, was the discordant noise reverberating off the exposed brick walls.
The pounding instruments mixed with the barking chant of an angry male voice had all the musicality of construction equipment. And then there were the enchanting lyrics:
The game’s all the same, homey
Uptown and down
Cell phones and names, baby
Bitches, hoes, and goin’ down
Bang, bang, for money, sonny
That’s what she want
So you bang, bang that booty, sonny!
Take it from her c—
Ack! I thought with a shudder. What barista of mine is running rap through the Village Blend sound system?!
It couldn’t have been my assistant manager. When he wasn’t scribbling one acts or landing small parts in locally filmed TV dramas, Tucker Burton was pulling shots for me to upbeat pop and retro eighties.
There was no way Gardner Evans would be playing rap, either. Gardner was a serious jazz musician who regularly decried “gangstas” making millions on selling “crack music to little crackers whose idea of slumming was going to the fringes of their suburbs for a 7-Eleven Slurpee” (his words, not mine).
The rap fan couldn’t have been fine arts painter Dante Silva. His preferences ran to Moby, Philip Glass, New Age, ambient, and space music. And if Joy’s father had been pulling shots of espresso tonight (which he did on occasion, when he wasn’t traveling the globe brokering deals for the planet’s finest micro-lots), opera or classical would have been playing right now. Unless Matt was feeling manic, in which case he’d be blasting the sort of synthpop electronica he routinely partied to in European and Brazillian dance clubs.
Unfortunately, what greeted me as I entered the Blend was none of the above.
Rich man’s got his dope, homey
Yo, he need that hit!
All his bitches get a taste
’Cause he think he the shi—
“Okay,” I murmured. “This ends now.”
I crossed the floor to the espresso bar, which appeared to be abandoned of all human oversight. “Hello!? Hello?!” I slapped my hand on the marble counter. “Is anyone here!”
“Don’t start buggin’, lady! I’m coming!”
Esther, another of my part-time baristas, emerged from the back pantry area loaded down with paper cups, sip lids, heat sleeves, and coffee stirrers. “Oh, it’s just you, boss,” she said upon seeing me. Then she dumped the stock on the counter and began to sort it out.
An NYU comparative literature major, Esther Best (shortened from Bestovasky by her grandfather) had untamed dark hair, currently stuffed into a backward Yankee cap; a pleasantly plump figure, now swathed in our blue Village Blend apron; and large brown eyes that were constantly on the lookout for anything that might require her critical observation.
“I’m glad to see you restocking.” I folded my arms. “But why are you playing rap on our sound system? You know the rules.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Esther pushed up her black rectangular glasses, rolled her dark eyes, and in an oh-so-droll tone began to recite my playlist playbook. “No rap, hip-hop, heavy metal, or arena rock.” She took a theatrical breath. “No polkas, bagpipes, Broadway show tunes, military marches, or anything recorded by Ethel Merman. Oh, and…wasn’t there one more verboten type of music on your list?”