by Sarah Zettel
I was able to keep myself looking good and busy until the last of the closers, including Zoe, waved good-bye and disappeared out the back door. Only then did I push my chair back and run both hands through my hair. I used to have hair down to my waist, but after that fire last year, I had to get most of it chopped off, and I still felt strangely naked without it.
There was one way to get the answers I wanted, and that was to go straight to Oscar Simmons himself. I even knew where he’d be—the same place the rest of Manhattan’s chefs were at three in the morning: a crummy little bar called Charlie’s Blue Plate. This was dead convenient, because if there was one thing I needed more than answers after the day I’d had, it was beer.
Happy thoughts of food and alcohol being served to me were interrupted by a knock at the back door, followed by a familiar voice.
“Hello, Charlotte?”
“Chet!” I was on my feet and around my desk in time to hold out my arms for my undead younger brother as he strolled into the kitchen.
“Hey, C3!” Chet used my old family nickname. We hugged, with enthusiasm, but a whole lot of care. On my part this was because Chet’s a vampire and consequently he’s light enough for me to pull off his feet if I’m not careful. On Chet’s part because, well, he’s a vampire and could very easily crack my ribs.
Chet was turned nightblood at nineteen. As a result, he’s an eternal and very pale college freshman; cheerful, good-looking, possessed of questionable judgment and a “why the hell not?” attitude. Despite this, or maybe because of it, he’s also recently become a successful businessman in his own right.
I stepped back and gave my brother an appraising look. Chet and I share the family’s light blue eyes and dishwater blond hair. Tonight, though, while I was in my stained black T-shirt, open white coat, and baggy checked pants that—trust me—look good on no one, my brother was perfectly put together in his European-styled sports jacket, bright blue button-down shirt, designer jeans and shiny loafers.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
Chet smirked and folded his arms. “Hello, little brother, what a surprise! How are you? Want something to drink?” He looked meaningfully at the mini-fridge under the counter where he knew there would be plastic-wrapped containers of blood left over from dinner service.
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off, but I did ladle him out a mug of the veal blood we use for making the foam that goes on the cold consommé. “You know all that. What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by.” Chet leaned against my desk and accepted the mug.
“Zoe called you, didn’t she?”
Chet shrugged. “She said you’ve had a weird day, and it might help to talk to family.”
“I’m banning cell phones from the kitchen.”
“Yeah, but you’d have to start with yours, and you’d get the shakes from withdrawal.” Chet drained his cup. “So, what got weird?”
I watched my undead brother casually ladle himself a second helping of blood. What could possibly qualify as weird in a life where this was normal?
“How’s Ilona?” As an attempt to change the subject, it was less than graceful, but it was all I had. Ilona St. Claire was Chet’s girlfriend. We did not get along. She had views about daybloods, especially the ones who maintained relationships with their vampire relatives. I had views about vampires with gothic pretensions, separatist rhetoric, and questionable taste.
Chet’s answer to my question was to shrug, sip blood, and change the subject back. “How’re things here?”
“We’re on target to turn a profit this month.”
“Is that before or after you pay these off?” He ruffled the edge of my invoice stack.
I decided to plead the Fifth on that one and dug around for some more small talk I might have overlooked on the first pass through.
“How’re things at the spa?” I tried.
“We’re booked solid through the end of this year. Marcus is talking about expanding.” Chet drained his mug again. “Speaking of the spa, have you thought about my offer?”
The invoices rustled uneasily. “Yes.”
Chet had offered to make me a loan of twenty thousand dollars. It sounded small in the face of the other numbers that had been getting waved around today, but it was enough to clear this stack, if only to make room to start building a new one.
“Did you think about it seriously?” asked Chet.
“Very seriously.”
“It’d be enough to get the food truck you’ve been talking about…”
“Reese has been talking about a truck.” In fact, my number two sous had been talking about very little else lately. “I haven’t.”
“Why not? They’re all the thing…”
“And that’s why,” I said. “They’re all the thing. Everybody’s got one. We haven’t got the time, the money, or the personnel to take it on, let alone to do it right.”
Chet sighed and put down his mug. His pale skin had drawn tightly over the bones of his face. “Charlotte. I can help,” he said, softly, so I could hear the hurt under the words. “Why won’t you let me?”
“It’s not you; it’s me,” I said, which was true. “Besides, I’ve got a new gig that should take care of the backlog.” Attempting to keep my voice at the appropriate level of warmth and enthusiasm, I filled him in on the pertinent details of the Alden-Renault wedding.
Chet straightened up, one vertebra at a time. “You’re catering the wedding of a Maddox and a vampire? What’s next? Setting up the buffet for the Hatfield-McCoy family reunion?”
“Not my business who’s marrying who, as long as the check clears.” I shrugged, smoothed the plastic wrap back in place over what was left of the veal blood, and stashed it back in the fridge. That this kept me from having to look Chet in the eye was strictly a side benefit. “As you’ve so helpfully pointed out, I’ve got a cash flow problem. Besides which, what I do with my business is not really your problem, is it?” Pride’s a nasty thing. It rushes you into hot spots before you’ve had time to get your asbestos panties on.
“You’re my sister. It is my problem,” he shot back. “I helped build Nightlife. I’ve still got—”
I did not need to hear the end of this sentence. “You left, Chet! You wanted to go run your spa and get your own existence. Fine. You got it. But you don’t get to tell me how I run the place you walked out on!”
“I cannot believe you are still mad about the spa.” Cold lights sparked under the blue of my brother’s eyes, and I had to drop my gaze, fast. “Is that why you won’t take the loan? You can’t stand to be reminded that I’m making it and you’re not.”
“I do not need you to prop me up so you can take the damned tax break!”
We were both on our feet, just inches from each other, a whole world of old arguments and old hurts swirling between us.
Chet broke first, backing up and swinging around so he could plant his hands on the edge of the counter. If he dented my stainless steel, I was going to stake him a good one.
Judging from the way Chet curled his fingers into fists and pushed himself back up, the same thought had occurred to him. “Okay.” Chet dug his hands into his pockets and looked around the kitchen as though hoping somebody had left an answer lying around. “Okay. Are you heading out? Want me to walk you to the subway?”
I swallowed, hard, and with an effort set aside the argument. There was absolutely no winning it. “Um…it depends.”
“On what?”
I don’t want to say this. Don’t make me say this.
“On what?” asked Chet again, slowly, in case I’d missed something the first time.
“On whether Anatole’s out there tonight.” Anatole Sevarin was another vampire, one whom I’d met at pretty much the exact same time I’d met Brendan Maddox, and like Brendan, he’d kind of not gone away.
“Sevarin?” As Chet said the name, he proved he had a frowny face of his very own. “I thought you w
ere dating Brendan.”
“I am. Mostly. But Anatole stops by some nights.”
Chet looked down his nose at me, and I felt the beginnings of a long, slow blush. “I don’t ask him to,” I said, even though part of my brain was yelling at me, Just keep quiet! “He just stops by.”
“Anatole Sevarin does not ‘just’”—Chet paused to make the air quotes—“do anything.”
“You barely know the man.”
“I’ve been asking around.”
“Why?”
“Because he wants to date my sister!”
A shiny new penny dropped, and I glowered at my brother. “So, what? You think I need a chaperone now?”
“Between Sevarin and the Maddoxes, I’m starting to think you need a keeper!” I watched while those words replayed themselves inside Chet’s head. It must have sounded just as good the second time around, because he backed away one step. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did.” Anger has always brought out the honesty in our family. “And you can go now.”
Chet closed his mouth and turned around, heading out the way he’d come in. I tried not to wince as the door thumped shut, and I failed at that too.
I turned away and headed for the lockers. Now I really needed that beer.
5
It takes a special kind of place to become a hangout for professional chefs. First, it’s got to be open between three and six a.m., which is when most of us are out on the town, if we’re out at all. Second, it’s got to look so scary that tourists and reviewers will give it a wide berth. We don’t want their kind hanging around when we’re off shift. Finally, it’s got to serve food so scary nobody in their right minds would eat it.
Charlie’s Blue Plate meets or exceeds all the above criteria. Stuffed with scarred wooden tables and creaky bent-back chairs, it’s a pocket-sized bar that reeks of old beer and hot grease. Once upon a time it would have been filled with smoke. The streaks of ash and soot are still visible on the ceiling. In summer, the patrons take their plates outside and stand around on the sidewalk, in violation of a whole bunch of municipal codes we could recite in four-part harmony, and probably would after enough beer.
When I walked in, Charlie’s brimmed with off-duty chefs and cooks, crammed knee to knee around those little tables. They were drinking hard and chowing down on plates of the house specialty: deviled kidneys with a blow-the-top-of-your-head-off dipping mustard. Mama Charlie presided over the front of the house, wedged behind the tiny bar in the corner. She was a big, gray, placid woman with a nose so crooked it must have been broken at least once. Charlie himself was a fireplug of a man with a bald head and hairy arms; he never wore anything but a white undershirt and jeans. Not that we usually saw any more of him than his beefy hands as he shoved fresh plates of kidneys or similar delicacies through the pass and bellowed, “Order up!”
It was not the kind of place an outsider would have expected to find the latest darling of the celebrity chef circuit, but there he was. Oscar Simmons sat as far in the back as the pint-sized dining room would allow, surrounded by a gaggle of would-bes and wannabes. The all-male crowd laughed at something I didn’t hear and picked up hot kidneys in their fingers to dunk in the mustard before tossing them in their mouths like popcorn. This is competitive eating in its purest form. If your eyes water as you chew, you lose.
Letting my gaze slide straight past them as if they were an uninteresting part of the scenery, I pulled up a stool at the bar. “Hi, Mama. Kidneys and a Heineken.” Hey, I was hungry too.
“Special for the bar!” Mama bellowed toward her husband on the other side of the pass while opening my beer bottle and plunking it on the counter.
“Yo, Chef C.” Minnie Perez, a line cook I’d known on and off forever raised her shot glass to me.
“Yo, Cook M. How’s it going?” Minnie was a medium tall, medium brown woman with close-cropped hair whose ancestors came about evenly from Ecuador and Haiti. We weren’t the only women in the place, but it was close. The gender gap in the kitchen is closing, but it’s closing slowly.
She shrugged and downed the shot of crystal clear something. “I’m quitting. I’m going back to school and getting my accounting degree.”
“You’ve been saying that for what, five years now?”
“Yeah, but this time I mean it.” She pushed the glass back toward Mama Charlie, who shook her head and filled it up again with a distinctly non-top-shelf vodka.
“You know what’s up with the cock party over there?” I nodded toward Oscar and his boys. I meant it as a play on “hen party.” Really. Stop looking at me like that.
“You’d know more than me.”
“Aren’t you going out with one of Perception’s fish guys?” It’s tough for a cook to have a social life. We’re up all night, asleep all day, and working holidays and Sundays. Unless we’re into nightbloods, we’re stuck dating one another.
“Nah. He decided he was going to trade up for some pretty little thing working the door at Moody’s.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. She can have him. Guy was useless. Still.” She grimaced as another burst of laughter exploded from the Simmons environs. “They do seem to be having a good time over there. Wonder who he screwed this time?”
That was indeed the thousand-dollar question, but I just shook my head, and drank my beer. My kidneys arrived, piping hot and smelling richly of cayenne and cardamom. Other colleagues came up to us for an exchange of hellos and gossip. I heard from Ted that he’d been promoted to saucier at Savorings. I heard from Peter that the head housekeeper at the St. Francis had quit and management was making everybody’s life hell as a result. Colon was out of work again and trying to put the moves on Minnie anyway.
All the while, I was aware of the way Oscar kept looking at me out of the corner of his famously photogenic dark eyes. I ate and laughed and drank and groused, and waited.
Finally, Oscar heaved himself to his feet and sauntered over to the bar. Or, he would have sauntered if there was room for it. As it was, to get between the tables he sort of had to turn and scoot and suck in his gut, which was starting to overhang his belt just a little. Too many good dinners are ever the professional hazard of the working chef.
“Charlotte Caine.” Oscar’s British accent is smooth and rich, with just a hint of the Gordon Ramsey temper waiting in the wings.
“Good morning, Oscar.” I lifted my Heineken to him. “How’re things on the celebrity-chef circuit?”
“It’s quite good, isn’t it? We’re developing our own line of exclusive products.”
“Congratulations.”
“Branded marketing, Charlotte. It’s the way of the present. I could put you in touch with people.”
Those photogenic eyes made a slow and thorough appraisal of my person. They weren’t looking for weaknesses exactly, more like signs of wear. If I was honest, except for the telltale softening around his middle, Oscar still looked good. The gray streaks in his hair lent him gravitas, and his square, heavy-boned face was aging gracefully. Someone would have to look hard to see this man never stopped making calculations about who he was with and what were they good for. I looked hard, every time.
“Actually, somebody’s already been in touch.” I popped another kidney.
“Felicity Garnett?”
“No points for that one. I guess the Aldens decided it was time to get serious about the food.”
To my total and complete surprise, Oscar did not rise to the bait. Instead, he mimed tugging at a forelock. “I wish you and Felicity very happy.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what happened with you and the Aldens?”
Oscar smiled. “Like you’ve always said, I’m a spoiled little boy in a big chef’s coat. Who knows what I’ll do next?”
An uneasy ripple strolled slowly up my spine. Oscar was into all kinds of things, but self-deprecation was not one of them. “I think you found out they couldn’t pay.”
His smile sprea
d, just a tiny bit. “You would think that, wouldn’t you?”
“If it’s not the money, then what? The bride wouldn’t sleep with you?”
“What’s the matter, Charlotte? You in over your head? Again?”
There was a snicker from somewhere deep in the entourage. Of course they were listening. The entire place was listening. I was surprised one of the boys wasn’t out on the street hawking tickets.
“Not me, but you clearly were. I saw that menu you put together. It looked like you were auditioning for head chef at an all-you-can-eat buffet.”
The bar went dead quiet, leaving my words to hang in the air long enough for me to wonder if I’d maybe gone a little too far. I also got to watch the fascinating way the color red seeped up from under Oscar’s collar to engulf his entire face.
“Oh, this is pure Charlotte Caine, isn’t it?” he said, low and dangerous. “Always so sure she knows just what’s going on. So keen to put the rest of us in our places. You want to know why I quit? I don’t like being bribed or jerked around.”
Deanna had been right. “Jerked” was definitely not the first word he’d thought to use. “You were bribed?”
He nodded. “To plant some gossip about Karina Alden in the media. It didn’t matter what, just something that would get her name out in the press in a bad light.”
“What would you possibly know about Karina Alden?”
He rolled his eyes in disbelief. Ah. So that was it. He’d managed to start sleeping with Karina. It did, however, raise the question of why no one had seen fit to mention their ex-caterer was also the boyfriend, or at least the hookup, of the bride’s on-the-outs sister. The Aldens were starting to make my personal relationships look straightforward.
“So, who put in the order for character assassination?” I asked.
“You know, if you’d called me first, I might just have told you. But as it is, you wanted this job so bad, you can find out for yourself just what kind of mess you’re in.” Oscar reached down, dipped my last kidney in mustard, and popped it back, chewing. His eyes didn’t water either. “Good-bye, Charlotte Caine.” Still chewing, Oscar strolled back to his waiting followers.
