“What do you think?”
“Well, the chains mostly appeal to a different kind of customer than indies do.” She tilts her head. “Maybe I’d spin a different tale if one opened across the street, but I think they mainstream the idea of quality coffee. That helps all of us.”
I recall Ella Leggett’s phrase. “Corporate coffee as a gateway drug.”
She grins. “Something like that.”
“But the anarchists don’t see it that way.”
“I’m not sure George qualifies as an anarchist. He and his team are just small-timers like me trying to make it work.”
“Still, you think they might take out their frustrations on Starbucks?”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’re just working to stay afloat. It’s something of an open secret the building owner wants them out so he can redevelop the whole block, add upper-story condos and high-end retail on street level. When you’re working your ass off just to make rent, there may not be a lot left over for extracurricular vandalism.”
“Chucking bricks wouldn’t take a big bite out of someone’s free time.”
“You’re the cop.”
“Ex-cop. Ex-investigator too.” I tell her about Hamilton letting me go. “I should have taken that kidnapped dog with the MySpace page you told me about instead.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ruby Jane once described me as having the determination of a rat guarding a chicken bone. I’m not sure she meant it as a compliment, but I take what I can get. “Gonna earn out my contract.”
I’m curious about Ella Leggett, but I decide to start with the Red and Black. It will probably turn out to be a dead-end; too easy, really, to blame the anarchists. But the sight of the glowering, dreadlocked fellow behind the counter, arms folded across his chest, suggests maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty.
“You must be George.” His stature matches my ninja, but I see no evidence of a hoodie.
“And you must be that asswipe who’s working for Star-bucks.”
Hamilton’s decision to can me is starting to look pretty good, considering how effective my attempt at a covert operation had been. I step up to the long, wooden counter. The wall behind looks like it belongs in a tavern, though on closer inspection the lined-up bottles turn out to be a variety of flavored syrups and cane sugar soft drinks. Booths run along the opposite wall. The place is half-full, the customers a mix of young hipsters and older tweedie types. Talking politics, I presume.
I want my usual-coffee, black-but I decide to test George and order a grande latte. “We call it a medium here.” I hand him a five, leave the coins behind when he slaps my change on the countertop.
“What’s your beef with Starbucks anyway?” My tone is chatty. “Besides the jargon, I mean.”
He turns his attention to my latte, disinterested in enlightening an asswipe. He fills and tamps the portofilter, pulls the shot with his hand on a knob. He moves with fluid confidence, no wasted motion. The espresso dribbling into the shot glass is the color of warm caramel.
He notices me watching him. “You know what we got here?”
“Cockroaches?”
“Ambience.”
I look around. Red stars on the wall, monochrome photos of Latin American men and women picking coffee beans. Ra-diohead posters, Che Guevara. The music is a hip-hop remix of a Ramones song.
“And you know what else?”
There’s no need for me to answer. He’s given this speech before.
“Free WiFi.”
I stare, bemused.
“At Starbucks, you have to sign up first, use one of their cards. They want your secrets before they let you surf.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t get it.”
“Maybe if I had a laptop.” Or secrets.
“Couple of times a week, I’ll see a guy sitting at one the picnic tables outside.” George steams milk as he declaims, rotating the frothing pitcher and checking the temp with the back of his hand. “On his comp, surfing the web. Drinking from a Starbucks cup.” He shakes his head as he adds milk to the espresso in a ceramic cup.
“I can see where that would piss you off.”
“Hell yeah, it pisses me off.” He presents the latte with a flourish, a work of art, the surface foam an artful swirl resembling butterfly wings. “Try it.”
I take a sip. It’s like drinking silk, as good as any latte Ruby Jane ever served me. Not that I’ll tell her that. “It’s excellent.”
“Exactly. That’s because I give a damn. Nothing’s automated here, none of that homogenous chic interior design. This is an authentic café run by actual people with genuine pride in our work. We don’t charge for our WiFi, but is it too much to ask that you at least buy your coffee from us when you sit down to use it?”
“You can’t possibly believe that Starbucks is sending them down here.”
“They’re part of a larger problem.”
“So you respond by busting out their windows.”
That earns me a derisive snort. “I’d just be doing what they want.”
“You think Starbucks wants you to break their windows?”
“They want the Red and Black to fail. Cast us as villains, turn the neighborhood against us. We don’t have a corporate behemoth propping us up during slow times. One bad month, and we could lose it all. They’re counting on that.”
I’m dubious. I remember what Ruby Jane said about the chains, how they cater to a different customer base. I doubt anyone at Starbucks loses any sleep over the Red and Black. They’ve probably got their hands full with McDonald’s. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t others who might benefit from R &B closing. The landlord, for instance, who maybe wants the space for something other than a coffee commune.
All that remains is to ask George where he was shortly after midnight last night. I don’t see the point. He’s not the tearful-confession type. I finish my latte and mutter a thanks, head for the door. “Come back anytime.” I’m tempted to take him up on it.
I find Hot Leggett’s Café in the ground floor of a building midway up the long block between Sixteenth and Maple on Hawthorne. Great spot for foot traffic from Ladd’s or the Buckman neighborhood to the north. The construction looks recent, reminds me of Ruby Jane’s description of what R &B’s landlord wants to do. I see evidence of a roof-top garden three stories above, espalier pears growing along the anodized balustrade at roof’s edge.
Inside, almost every table is in use by the kind of middle-years affluent types that seem to always find a way to spend half the morning kvetching over lattes in the neighborhood café. The furnishings are IKEA, the music reedy instrumental fusion, the aprons an ionizing shade of green. The only surprise is the Hot Leggett logo, a stylized demitasse emitting steam shaped like a pair of legs. I dig out the matchbox-the logo’s the same. I hadn’t noticed the cup the night before.
I don’t see Ella, but one of the baristas catches my eye. Zeke. He frowns, but finds a thin smile as I step up to the counter and surprise myself by ordering a small cappuccino.
“Dry or wet?”
RJ would approve of the question. “Dry.”
He takes my three bucks and gives me back a dime. The same at Uncommon Cup would be forty cents less, but then Ruby Jane isn’t paying for chi-chi recent construction and eight hundred square feet of Swedish furniture.
Unlike R &B, the espresso machine is fully automated, bean to brew. A half-minute of grinding, bubbling, and hissing, then Zeke sets a to-go cup in front of me. Guess he doesn’t want me hanging around. I take a sip. It’s fine.
“Where’s your girlfriend?”
He looks confused a moment, then recognition hits him. “You mean my sister?”
“Ella is your sister?”
“You thought she was my girlfriend?” His laugh is scornful. Last night he was the idiot; this morning I am.
“Either way, is she here?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“You mind if I ask you some questions?”