“Excuse me?”
“The extra ten percent. We take fifty percent up front for deliveries, and we get the other fifty percent—plus ten—at the end of the season.”
“I, uh…suppose that’s…okay,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.
“Great. Just ask Jacques about it if you have any questions,” he added, clearly sensing my confusion. “He’s the one who worked it out.”
I hung up, even more confused.
Why, I wondered, would David Mintzer sign off on such a terrible arrangement? He had more than enough capital to pay for all of his deliveries on time. Even if he’d wanted to delay payment via a credit plan, there were certainly better interest rates out there than ten percent.
The more I thought about it, the fishier the deal sounded. David would not have signed off on such a deal, but the man at the dairy didn’t mention David. “Ask Jacques,” he’d said.
Clearly Papas was up to something—but what? Embezzlement?
I checked my watch. Papas had been gone only thirty-five minutes, so I figured I had time to do a little sniffing. I began searching through the mess on his desk, hoping to find the blue book he constantly carried. I fumbled through a week of piled up newspapers without success. Next I decided to go through the drawers in the man’s desk.
The first one I opened contained personal items—toothbrush and toothpaste, several bottles of very expensive cologne, a hairbrush, and so many men’s hair care and styling products I expected to find a tiny Vidal Sassoon in there with a pair of scissors. The second drawer contained stationery, envelopes, pens and pencils, and a stapler. The third drawer was locked.
Before I could look any further, however, Papas’s angry voice shattered the silence.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Oh, hi, Jacques, I, uh—”
“Who gave you permission to come in here?”
“I had to call the dairy. We were out of half-and-half, and far too low on milk and cream.”
Jacques Papas’s nostrils flared as he stared at me, obviously seething.
“Since you weren’t here, and we needed the supplies, I found the dairy’s number and placed the order myself,” I continued. “The dispatcher was very nice. The truck will be here within the hour.”
My words seemed to calm the man. He nodded. “You should have told me you needed supplies before I stepped out. I would have placed the order.”
“I didn’t know until I checked the walk-in. And I didn’t want to trouble you.”
Jacques nodded again. “Fine. I shall be here to meet the delivery man.”
“Great,” I said. Then I slipped by the man and out of his office.
Eight
After being jolted into near-drowning by a Suffolk County Police bullhorn and uncovering a possible extortion scheme by a workplace colleague, I didn’t think anything else could surprise me today, but that evening something managed to do just that—or rather someone.
Madame glided into Cuppa J in an elegant chartreuse sundress, on the arm of an elderly man I’d never seen before. His gray beard and tweedy blazer gave him the air of a professor, but his short, white ponytail, French beret, distressed jeans, and trendy rectangular glasses made him look more like a patriarch of West Village pop artists.
“Clare, you look so stressed,” Madame told me as I walked up to her cafe table. “Perhaps you should call it a night.”
Madame’s suggestion was kind but impractical. From five o’clock onward, the restaurant had been packed. It was now ten in the evening and most of the customers were here for coffee service and dessert. That may have slowed things down for Victor and Carlos in the kitchen, but not for me in the dining room. Because we were understaffed, I was pulling double duty, managing as well as waiting tables.
“We’re far too busy for me to ditch early,” I told my ex-mother-in-law with a patient smile. “Besides, I’m not at all tired.”
From her seat on one of the first floor’s green velvet couches, Madame raised a silver eyebrow. “I didn’t say tired, my dear. I said stressed.”
Sitting cozily beside Madame, the bohemian-looking senior stroked his neatly-trimmed beard and remarked, “I think perhaps your daughter-in-law has been spending too much time on the ‘fashionable’ side of the highway.”
I might have taken more offense at the man’s familiarity, if his bright blue eyes hadn’t been sparkling attractively with humor as he said it.
“And you are?” I asked.
Madame’s date stood up, clicked his heels, and extended his hand. “Edward Myers Wilson.”
I placed my hand in his. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Clare—”
“Allegro,” the man replied. “I know. Blanche has told me much about you already and your…shall we say very interesting Hamptons summer.”
I bristled at both points. Firstly, my surname was no longer Allegro. I had gone back to Cosi after the divorce. Madame knew this, of course. She just didn’t like it and, obviously, had misinformed Mr. Wilson.
“Clare, I can’t believe your giving up your married name,” she’d said to me years ago when I’d first told her. “Your daughter’s last name is Allegro. That’s never going to change. Why don’t you consider keeping it?”
“Because,” I’d answered, “your son is never going to change.”
Ever since, Madame would occasionally “forget” that I took back Cosi, an act of total passive-aggressiveness as far as I was concerned. But then, what else could I expect from Joy’s grandmother? Like my own daughter, Matt’s mother could be as stubborn as she was effervescent; as reckless as she was adventurous; as contentious as she was understanding. Also, like Joy, Madame wanted to see Matt and me get back together. In the past she’d even tried crazy schemes to achieve this goal. My greatest fear was that, one day, she might actually accomplish it.
For the moment, I silently shrugged off the Allegro surname error. I’d never seen this Wilson character before and I didn’t expect to see him again, so who cared if he got my name wrong? What I couldn’t let go, however, was Madame’s apparently telling this perfect stranger about the shooting at David’s party.
Hoping I was mistaken about his pointed implication, I went fishing. “Yes,” I replied to Mr. Wilson. “Working here has been very interesting.”
“I’m sure it has,” he said, easing back into his green velvet seat next to Madame. “But not as interesting as trying to track down a murderer, eh?”
I sent a three-alarm glare my former mother-in-law’s way. She responded with a wave of her hand.
“Don’t worry so much, Clare,” she chirped. “Edward’s here to help.”
“Help?” I whispered, glancing around me to make sure no one in the crowded dining room was listening. “How can a perfect stranger help?”
Edward Wilson appeared amused at that. He turned to Madame. “Blanche, I think perhaps you’re right. Clare does appear rather stressed this evening.”
Madame laughed.
With two fingers, I massaged the bridge of my nose, feeling the edges of a headache beginning. It was bad enough that my daughter and I weren’t talking at the moment. Now I had to put up with Ma and Pa Enigmatic.
“Edward’s not a perfect stranger,” Madame informed me.
“Although some of my colleagues have accused me of being perfectly strange,” he quipped.
“Only when the moon is full,” Madame retorted.
“And I’m out of single-malt Scotch. Either that or every last tube of 538.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Madame said. “You are obsessed with Prussian blue, aren’t you?”
“Not the color, love. The sky. Matching its palette out here has been a lifelong obsession.” He put his arm around Madame’s shoulders. “One of them anyway.”
I raised both eyebrows at the old guy’s smooth move, wondering whether or not Mr. Wilson knew (or cared) about Madame’s ongoing relationship back in the city with Dr. Gary MacTavish.