Love You to Death

by Grant Michaels

  “Stani,” she said, using the nickname that my Czech grandmother liked, “why don’t you go dump that in the kitchen? You’re the only one out here still holding food.”

  It was true. In the time since I’d taken the platter from Laurett, all the other servers had long since left the floor of the party hall. I snaked my way through the crowd back toward the kitchen. Along the way, hands appeared from behind bodies and snatched the last pieces of smoked seafood from the salver. By the time I got to the kitchen door, the platter had been picked clean by the starving rich.

  As I was entering the kitchen, Liz Carlini was coming out. “Are you still serving food?” she asked curtly.

  “Just returning the empty platter, Liz. Feeling a bit testy tonight?” I thought perhaps some light humor might loosen her up. It didn’t.

  “The guests need time before dessert,” she said flatly. “The floor should be devoid of food for at least a half-hour.”

  “That doesn’t seem hospitable.”

  “We are not here to be hospitable. We are promoting a new business venture.”

  It was interesting to see one of my clients in real-world action, outside the salon. I’d already guessed that Liz Carlini was ambitious, but now I saw that she was unpleasantly quick-tempered under pressure. It seemed an unsuitable trait for working with the public, especially with a company whose product was ultraluxe chocolates.

  In the kitchen I got rid of my tray and was about to return to the party when I heard Laurett’s voice arguing with someone else. It seemed to be a night full of social conflict. I followed the sound of the voices until I found her. She was trying to supervise the preparation of dessert—chocolate truffles and more champagne, along with coffee or tea for those of us with more pedestrian needs. But another woman was alongside her, yelling at her and interrupting her work. She was in her early sixties, small and wrinkly like an irritable old terrier. And she had a henna rinse in her hair that could have only been done in a bathroom … or a garage.

  “Keep your fingerprints off them,” she yelled at Laurett, who was trying to rearrange a large platter of truffles that had . been upset.

  “Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t work for you.”

  “You don’t deserve to work for anybody here. You island people should go back where you came from.”

  “Just leave me!” wailed Laurett. I saw tears in her eyes.

  “And you get him out of here too,” yelled the older woman, pointing to a stranger standing partly concealed in a dark corner a few yards from the work table. Then she turned away from Laurett and stormed past me on her way toward the kitchen door. Her angry footsteps seemed too heavy for such a small person.

  When she was gone, I asked Laurett, “Is everything all right?”

  Laurett nodded silently.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “That is Mary Phinney,” she said, trying to control a sniff. “She hates me because I’m being the manager in the new store, and she wants that job.” Then, after a moment of calming herself down, Laurett resumed working on the chocolates in front of her. I watched her carefully apply a miniature candy blossom to the top of a plain truffle. I noticed two other truffles already decorated with flowers, each one on its own small sterling silver plate.

  “Are those for the guests of honor?” I asked.

  “Sure-you’re-right,” answered Laurett, saying the phrase as one word. She finished the job with a small flourish. “There,” she said with a tiny sniffle. She spoke to the chocolate as she placed it on the third silver plate. “Now you be perfect too.”

  It was then that the stranger who’d been lurking in a nearby corner came into the light and slouched against the wall. He stared at Laurett and me. He was young, mid-twenties, good-looking, and muscular, like a spoiled pretty-boy from the suburbs. But he also had the cold, manipulative look of an opportunist. He spoke with a weak, raspy voice, as though he needed water badly. “What about a piece for me, babe?” he said, then snickered vacantly at his own words, as though he was drunk or drugged.

  “Not now,” answered Laurett.

  “Who’s that?” I asked quietly.

  Laurett frowned and didn’t answer me. She obviously knew the man, but didn’t want to introduce him. It seemed that the approach of Valentine’s Day was causing more friction than affection among the loving couples I’d met that evening.

  Sensing trouble, I asked, “Do you want me to stay around?

  She shook her head no. “You go back out and enjoy yourself.” But I could tell she was forcing her voice to sound steady and controlled.

  “There’s no fun, Laurett, now that the food’s gone.”

  “Vannos, there were being some nice-looking men out there. Don’t put all your mind on the food.”

  I wanted to protest that I wasn’t one of those people who satisfy their sexual frustration with food, but it would be futile. I fully realized that the only time that night when I’d neglected my alimentary canal was during the brief and vain pursuit of Rafik.

  The tough stranger standing in the corner of the kitchen spoke up again. “Hey, babe, who is this twink? Can’t you get rid of him?”

  On a closer look at the man, he seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Had he been to the shop?

  Laurett scowled at him again, then spoke quietly to me. “Vannos, please go now. I have work to do.”

  Uneasy, I left the kitchen and returned to the party floor. As I came through the doorway, though, many people looked my way, as though I might be bearing a new course of snacks for them. Contrary to Liz Carlini’s belief, these folks still wanted chow. And since many of them appeared to be couples, and presumably were sexually satisfied, I wondered what their craving for unneeded food meant for them.

  I saw Nicole talking, or rather arguing, with Liz Carlini. I approached them, and when Liz saw me, she turned abruptly and walked away.

  “Liz seems edgy tonight,” I said.

  “Stanley, that woman is rude.”

  “What happened now?”

  “She’s making accusations.”

  “You mean the same ones women usually make after you’ve met their husbands?”

  “Stanley, that remark is uncalled for.”

  “Aw, Nikki, even if you do prefer grad students and married men, I still love you. Besides, Prentiss Kingsley has troubles of his own, even without you breaking up his marriage.”

  Nicole replied, “From what I’ve seen tonight, no one is too happy to be here, as though the whole event is an obligation and not a party.”

  “Amen, doll.”

  Just then the kitchen doors swung open and a long line of servers filed out into the crowd.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “The grand finale. Dessert time.”

  Each server carried a tray, some with chocolate truffles piled into pyramids, some with champagne flutes full of bubbly, others with hot coffee or complete tea services. Laurett Cole was with them, but she went to Dan Doherty, Liz Carlini, and Prentiss Kingsley and presented each of them one of the specially decorated truffles on a small silver plate. She was extra careful about who got which plate. After a few more minutes, every guest in the party hall was holding a chocolate truffle in one hand and a champagne glass or hot beverage in the other. The lights were lowered except around the three special guests, who now stood apart from the crowd, as though they were receiving Olympic medals. The salon orchestra played a little fanfare before each one of the three made a little speech. Prentiss Kingsley went first.

  “By helping my young wife Elizabeth start Le Jardin, we are continuing the fine tradition of quality and service begun by my great-grandmother, Gladys Kingsley, and which has continued through the family line until my dear late mother, Helen Kingsley. We are proud of this moment ….” He went on like that, rather too regally, and I thought his words were in bad taste, referring as they did to all the old dead Kingsley ladies. However, the quiet appearance of Rafik behind me, covertly squeezing my nether cheeks during the spiel, wa
s not in bad taste at all.

  When it was Liz Carlini’s turn to speak, she said—and I’ll give the woman credit for bragging so blatantly in public—“Le Jardin is a new concept in chocolate. We have gone beyond tradition to create new pathways in the art of chocolate-making. The days of old-fashioned boxed chocolates are ending.” As I said, empty, but in complementary taste to her husband’s words. Meanwhile, Rafik continued his good taste in seduction tactics by whispering into my ear, grazing the lobe softly with his lips.

  “Mebbee you like to ride my truck?”

  It sounded like kinky fun until I found out he was the driver for Le Jardin’s spiffy new delivery van.

  Then Danny took the floor, and after glaring at Rafik and me, said, “I’m grateful for the opportunity to have my ideas seen by the world. I owe a lot to Prentiss and Liz. Enjoy the chocolate, folks.” Did I mention that Danny was young and idealistic? His words may have been trite, but at least they were brief and honest. At Danny’s words, Rafik had disappeared, the coward.

  Then, simultaneously, all three speakers took a bite of their truffle. Liz Carlini bit into hers, but watched Danny and her husband intently, waiting for their reactions. For his part, Danny barely had one. I think to him it was just another hunk of chocolate. The better reaction was Prentiss Kingsley’s. Though he is a handsome gent, his refinement borders on blandness, except for what he did at that moment. He bent his head over the silver plate in his hand and spit out his mouthful of truffle onto it. He looked like an obtuse child who couldn’t bear the taste of grilled eggplant. The audience gasped at the seeming impropriety of the act.

  Then we all heard a long, loud scream from the kitchen.

  At once I recognized Laurett Cole’s voice and ran to help her. She was standing at one of the long stainless steel counters, screaming at a man lying on the floor, who was writhing in pain and making loud, dry, gasping sounds. It was the same person who’d been in the kitchen earlier, the one who’d been bothering her and insulting me. I went to him to try to help. In my mind I pressed “Play” to start the mental cassette of the CPR class I’d taken months ago. The man’s shirt collar was already open, but I went through the motions of loosening it further. There was melted chocolate in and around his mouth. I put my fingers in there and felt around for any blockage in his throat, but came out with nothing. Besides, through the gasping and grunting, I could hear the air going in and out, so I figured the airway wasn’t blocked.

  “Where does it hurt?” I yelled stupidly, as though he couldn’t hear me.

  But the man didn’t answer. Instead, he squirmed violently on the floor, then he lapsed into spasms. I cleared the space around him so he wouldn’t hurt himself. Perhaps he’s epileptic, I thought. But within minutes he’d turned as red as a cooked lobster, and then he stopped moving. Everything stopped—his arms, his legs, his head, his breathing. I felt for a pulse, first at his wrist, then at his jugular. Nothing.

  Quickly I tilted his head back, pinched his nostrils, and administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Giving the breath of life had seemed so easy in CPR class, kind of like kissing from the diaphragm. But I can tell you, it’s not pleasant when you do it for real, when you’re trying to revive through a filthy mouth what you know in your head and heart to be a corpse.

  I continued puffing him up for five minutes, then surrendered to the facts of life. The guy was dead.

  I looked up from where I was kneeling on the floor. Nicole was standing above me, along with two of the party’s security guards. Behind them the crowd of guests was gathering and craning their necks in morbid curiosity. I said to the guards, “You’d better lock the doors until the police get here.” One of them radioed his crew to seal off the party room and the rest of the building immediately. Meanwhile, I stood up, found a telephone, and called the Boston Police Department to report a dead man.

  2

  MY OLD FLAME

  WHILE WE WAITED IN THE MAIN HALL for the police to arrive, I got to watch how the unexpected arrival of death was affecting some of the party guests. Prentiss Kingsley was holding his wife, Liz Carlini, close to him, almost tenderly. I’d never figure a Brahmin capable of such warmth, especially in public. Then again, perhaps the lovey-dovey bit was only because they were in public. For her part, Liz Carlini was pale and shaky. I guess among all the details of her grand scheme that night, she hadn’t counted on death appearing as an uninvited guest at her party.

  Near them, and also standing together, were Dan Doherty and Rafik. They looked confused and lost, as though the drama of their rocky romance had been rudely interrupted by sudden death. The curtain had come down on them mid-scene.

  Farther away I saw John Lough with Mary Phinney. I recalled that earlier he’d been arguing with Prentiss Kingsley, and she had yelled at Laurett in the kitchen. The unlikely twosome—a growling brown bear and a yappy yellow lapdog—looked around the crowd suspiciously while they exchanged words through tightly held lips. I couldn’t quite make out their relationship. Were they husband and wife, brother and sister, or just corporate colleagues? Whichever it was, they looked personally bothered by the turn of events, as though the inconvenience was solely theirs.

  Nicole, Laurett, and I were together too. Nikki was comforting Laurett, who was weeping quietly.

  Meanwhile, the security guards had their hands full trying to keep order through the rest of the crowd. A few bloodthirsty souls wanted to get into the kitchen to see the dead man firsthand, but most of the guests wanted to leave the premises entirely. Their clean, insulated lives rarely had to face death so directly, and they wanted no part of it. For them, death was probably an antiseptic, secondhand experience by telegram or telephone, some sorrowful words describing the merciful passing of a favorite aunt, along with the bitter news that you now own the property in Martha’s Vineyard or Belvedere. “Isn’t it sad?” they utter mournfully; but mentally they’re jumping dikes and thinking, “How swell!”

  The noisy arrival of the police only roused them all to the kind of emotional chaos usually reserved for a Dow-Jones plummeting. For their part, the cops entered with their inimitable style—all heavy feet and loud voices and squawking radios. Their particular kind of intrusion can push anyone’s latent hysteria over the edge. They probably plan it that way.

  The leader of tonight’s gang turned out to be a familiar face, one Detective Lieutenant Vito Branco. I’d met him previously, and we … well, let’s just say we spent a lot of energy trying to get along with each other.

  On the positive side, Branco is a Mediterranean dream-boat—tall, proportioned and muscled like an athlete, with olive-toned skin and black curly hair, and those glittering blue-gray eyes. He’s also straight, which makes him good fantasy material. His greeting?

  “Christ, not you again.” The lover spaeketh to his beloved.

  “Hello, Lieutenant,” I said with a fey wave of my left wrist. “It’s been a while.”

  Branco responded with a grunt, which was his version of a quick retort. “Not long enough,” he muttered. Then he asked, “What happened here?”

  I explained the events as clearly and as calmly as I could. “I was with the others out here in the party hall. We all heard a scream, and I recognized Laurett’s voice, so I ran into the kitchen to see what was wrong.”

  “Which way is the kitchen?”

  I pointed the way, and Branco ordered some cops to go there. Then he turned back to me. “Who’s Laurett?”

  “She’s my friend.” But when I went to point her out, she’d vanished from Nicole’s side. “She was here a minute ago,” I began to explain, but Branco turned to one of his assistants and barked an order.

  “Find her!”

  Then, as if to win a round of an ongoing but unstated contest between us, he said to me, “We’ve got the place surrounded. She won’t get away.”

  “Lieutenant, she’s not trying to escape. She had nothing to do with this.”

  “We’ll decide that. Go on with your story.”

/>   “Sure,” I said, and looked directly at his face—a brief look that required me to reconcile, yet again, that this handsome creature who seemed to exude an intoxicating scent of wild balsam was, technically speaking, the enemy. After a moment of visual and olfactory pleasure, I continued. “Laurett was trying to help the man, but he wasn’t responding.” It wasn’t exactly what I’d seen happening earlier—she hadn’t tried to help him at all. But I wanted her to appear blameless, so I enhanced the facts a bit.

  “Then what?” asked Branco.

  “Then I got down to help him. I thought maybe he was choking, and I know CPR. But I couldn’t do anything for him. He was gone within minutes.”

  Branco turned and addressed the crowd of restive party-goers. “You’d better get comfortable, folks. We’re going to be here a while.”

  One of the crowd spoke up. It was John Lough. “Can’t this be done another time?” he said. “It’s inconvenient for some of us to wait around here at your leisure.”

  Leisure is not a word I’d use with Branco, who replied coldly, as if reciting from his rule book, “We’ll question you all here, now, one at a time.”

  Of course, that kind of arrangement wouldn’t go down with these people. Mortal upsets didn’t play any part in their pastel-ordered lives. But as it dawned on them that they couldn’t delegate this unpleasant task to some minion, they began muttering and grumbling among themselves. Branco raised his big right-hand palm to silence them, and damn if it didn’t work—they all shut up. Then he gave orders to his sergeant to organize them for questioning. He turned back to me and said, “You stay here. I want your story first.”

  “So, I’m head of the class?”

  Branco sneered and pointed a scolding finger at my face. “Kraychik, don’t start that wise-mouth stuff again. I got a bellyful last time and that was enough.”

  “Mea culpa, Lieutenant,” I replied, but I’d barely heard his harsh words. No, I was in bliss—for Branco had remembered my name. It was like high-school days with the gym teacher, a seedy but muscular ex-Marine with a military haircut much like my own recent clip-job. He had acknowledged by name only the most athletic jocks and me, the class sissy. My distinction? I’d gloriously failed every one of the tests ordered by the President’s Council on Fitness. But I redeemed myself when it came time to transform the coach’s gym for the annual spring cotillion. No mere crepe paper decorations for my grand designs. Under my direction, the double basketball court became mise-en-scène.