Let Them Eat Stake: A Vampire Chef Novel

by Sarah Zettel

  “So, who finally got the cabrón?” asked Marie.

  The remark was, of course, in very poor taste, not that any of us were going to tell her that. “Nobody as far as I know,” I said. “They’re saying it was a massive stroke. He was found at his desk.”

  “Now, that is a surprise,” muttered Reese.

  While I was grateful to find that my dislike of Oscar was not the result of some unique personal flaw, this was not the kind of talk I cared to encourage, not when the media might come calling or knocking at any minute. Elaine wasn’t wrong. With Oscar so suddenly dead, so shortly after having suddenly quit a society wedding, assorted columnists and chatty types were going to be clawing after the juicy details, and they’d figure as both replacement and ex-employee, I would have them. Nightlife had to be ready for the onslaught. Too bad city building codes did not allow for shark-filled moats.

  “We are all very sorry,” I said firmly, meeting each of their gazes in turn. “Oscar was a true professional and a highly respected member of the community. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time.”

  “Did he actually have family?” asked Zoe.

  “Hear him tell it, he sprang full grown out of the head of Escoffier,” said Reese.

  “He sprang full grown from somewhere,” added Marie. “I would not say it was anyplace so elevated.”

  “We are all very sorry,” I repeated, because obviously my staff had not heard me the first time around. “Oscar was a true professional and a highly respected—”

  “Horse’s arse,” announced Robert Kemp, who at that moment strode through the door, his white hair flying and suit coattails flapping. “Yes, I’ve heard. I would have arrived sooner, but the sodding subway had a nervous breakdown. Flowers to Perception and for the memorial, yes? Thoughts and prayers with the family during this difficult time, yes? Yes.” He tossed his keys down on the host station podium, scooped up the house phone, and began to both dial and regather his trademark aplomb.

  “You heard the man,” I said to my three chefs. “And this is all anybody who calls wanting a statement needs to know. I don’t care which channel, blog, or rag is behind them. Clear?”

  “Yes, Chef,” said Reese and Zoe. Marie inclined her head.

  “Good. Now. What have you got for me?”

  With that, we were off to the races. There is nothing like work to distract you from tragedy, especially one that’s not yours and that you can do—as Robert might put it—sod all about.

  If being a good cook is only part of what makes an executive chef, it’s even less of what makes a successful caterer. That’s all about logistics and proper staffing. What can you get to the space, what can you do in the space, how many people do you need to pull it off, and how much time do you have? This is where Reese with his army career was my ace in the hole. I swear they drink logistics down with their beer at night. Munitions or puff pastry, it made no difference. It was all stuff that needed to be gotten in place and set up.

  Zoe, on the other hand, was ten pounds of creativity in a five-pound bag, and it was pretty clear none of that creativity got any sleep last night. She spread out sketches and ingredient lists for a whole series of appetizers, and full dayblood and nightblood menus. She hadn’t even bothered to do cost breakdowns. These are Aldens, I could hear her thinking. They can afford it. She had grand dreams of whimsical creations: spicy prawns on spears of lemongrass served standing upright from bowls of jasmine rice; rosemary-perfumed chickpeas in lacy cones made of Parmesan fricos; miniature frozen cappuccino pops; a cold gazpacho, discreetly seasoned with pasteurized bull’s blood; a truffle-infused cream; and an amusing little caviar- flecked savory custard. Then there was the buffet for the bridesmaids and guests while they were waiting for the ramp-up to the wedding…

  This started Reese reminding her that all these ingredients for these elegant dishes had to be found, and purchased, and hauled, prepped, and stored, and if these were the appetizers, what was she thinking for the dinner…and…and…

  Marie, true to form, just plucked the proposed dinner menu out of Zoe’s stack of papers and started to read. What she read led her to a curt demand as to how this was going to affect staffing and budget for the sweets and was Zoe expecting her staff to bake all the savory pastries and breads she had planned in that menu? She, Marie, also had work to do.

  To tell you the truth, I was mostly there to keep the three of them adding a knock-down, drag-out portion to the planning session—just another one of those little details of being an executive chef they don’t tell you about at culinary school. Nothing was made easier by the fact that about halfway into it, the phone started to ring off the hook, and I could hear Robert in the background, laying the plummy accent on thick with the callers about how very sorry we were to hear of the loss of such an esteemed professional and our thoughts and prayers were with the Simmons family at this difficult time.

  Except none of us was really sorry, and I’d just talked to him last night, and he was dating, or at least in bed with Karina Alden, and I didn’t know if it really had been a stroke that laid him out so abruptly and completely. And none of this would get out of my head.

  It took a certain amount of verbal arm-wrestling, but I got Zoe down to a dinner menu with two salads, a soup tasting, and just four entrée choices. Reminding myself we had a sky’s-the-limit budget, I promised Marie that we would add a third assistant pastry chef for Alden week. We all agreed that the apricot-walnut cake with lemon-ricotta filling, the vanilla cake with raspberry, and the triple chocolate with brandied-cherry filling samples were perfect to take to Brooklyn for the scheduled tasting. This cleared the deck so I could assure Reese that I did know Mel Kopekne, the manager at the event site, personally. I would swear on my sense of taste that Mel could get us whatever we needed, and that we’d be in the space in plenty of time to check the layout and facilities.

  But this was nothing compared to the horror of reworking the schedule for the Nightlife staff to adjust for the fact that both Reese and I would be missing for more than a week.

  It had gone on four, and the back-of-the-house people were beginning to arrive. No matter who was getting dead or wed, we had prep to start. I dismissed my staff, but stayed at the table a little while longer, flipping over my notes and wishing I could stop thinking.

  I don’t like mysteries. As I may have mentioned, chefs are control freaks by nature, and unanswered questions bothered me badly. Especially when people’s lives and my work schedule were going to get messed up because of them. Even more especially when I could not get rid of the feeling that I had been dragged into the middle of them deliberately and with malice aforethought.

  Not that anybody who wanted Oscar off the job and me on it could possibly have known Oscar would turn up dead the next day.

  Could they?

  I tossed down the pen I had been toying with. The Nancy Drew tendencies I had been so sure were long gone appeared poised to make a spectacular eighth-inning comeback. I got up and I stretched my back and neck until the popping began. I looked toward my kitchen, where I should be right now, because prep was starting and it was Friday.

  Instead, I walked over to the host station. Robert had found time to change into his tidy dark work suit and was going over the reservations list. The phone miraculously had gone quiet for the moment.

  “How’re we looking for tonight?” I asked.

  “It should be another full house,” he answered, without looking up. “A number of them new since yesterday. I think word of your association with the Alden wedding has leaked.”

  Now there was a surprise. Not. “Robert, in your précis on the Alden family yesterday, you didn’t say anything about Karina Alden.”

  “I assumed you’d at least heard of her.” He did not lift his nose in the air, but I got the distinct feeling that was due to that famous British self-control, and the fact that I pay his salary.

  “Why would you assume that?”

  “Bec
ause she is the K. Alden of Exclusivité.”

  I sighed. “Robert, please remember I don’t get out much.”

  “Exclusivité is one of the few independent perfumeries in the world. They create custom fragrances for a highly select clientele.”

  “So they’re in the ‘if you have to ask, you can’t afford it’ range?”

  “It would be more accurate to say they are in the ‘if we don’t already know your name, you need to present references to be allowed through our door’ range.”

  “Wow.”

  A smile flickered on his thin lips. “Exactly.”

  Taking this new information with me into the kitchen, I buttoned on my white coat, tied my bandanna over my too-short hair, and got to work. I stashed Robert’s newsy tidbit on a shelf in my brain along with all the other facts, fresh and stale, that I had about Oscar Simmons, and spent the rest of prep trying not to look at it.

  The high-pressure dance of dinner rush shoved all the events of the day to the back of my mind. It was a relief. As long as I was in my kitchen, I was competent and in control, and if I was surrounded by things that could cut me up or burn me, at least it wasn’t personal.

  Naturally, it couldn’t last.

  “Chef Caine?” I heard my front-of-house manager, Suchai, say behind me.

  “Pick up, ten! Pick up, sixteen! Order in, fourteen—two consommés, one pumpkin soup! What?” I asked, taking up the squeeze bottle of white truffle oil and dotting it carefully onto the plate of mixed summer greens with field mushrooms and balsamic vinaigrette in front of me.

  “Deanna Alden and her wedding party just walked in. Robert’s seating them at twelve.”

  Of course he was. One of the reasons we employ Robert is because he knows exactly when to roll out the red carpet.

  “Okay.” I focused on the composed salad in front of me, adding pinches of fennel pollen to the plate, even though a profound sinking feeling had settled into my premonition lobe. “Thanks.”

  “You’re coming out to shake hands, right?” said Suchai gently.

  “Order up!” I set the salad on the pass. “Yes, I’m coming out.” I undid my apron. “Zoe, take over.”

  I followed Suchai into the cool of the dining room. The subdued lighting bathed us in its calming glow, and the shouts and the steam were replaced by the complex aromas of the food, the murmur of voices, and the clink of silverware against china. Well-dressed patrons lined the bar, waiting for Abe’s elegant cocktails. Recognizing a pair of African American nightbloods who were becoming regulars, I gave them a welcoming nod.

  I knew good and well the Alden-Renault party had no reservation. Nevertheless, Robert had seated them at table twelve, dead center in the dining room. Any experienced maître d’ keeps a table or two open, just in case of a VIP walk-in. So far we hadn’t had much call, and the sight of one of our best tables sitting empty on a nightly basis got under my skin, but tonight I was glad he’d done it. Customers who obviously had way more time than I did to read the papers and the gossip blogs were sneaking glances at the party of six.

  Not that they’d dressed to be subtle. Deanna Alden had gone all out, a tight, bright blue dress with a hand-painted daylily splashed across one shoulder. Her hair was swept up and back to make the most of her pixie face, dangling diamond and sapphire earrings, and matching diamond choker that mostly covered the bite marks on her neck. Flanking her were two other dayblood girls—I assumed they were Lois and the unfortunately named Peridot. One had pale blond hair that had been aggressively straightened to the demands of current fashion. Her paisley silk top looked as if it had been standing too close when an eighteen-wheeler ran over the seventies. The other woman was a natural carrottop, her red hair pulled into a French twist and her summer green spandex top trimmed with smoke gray stones that matched the topaz in her necklace and earrings. She sized me up sharply as I approached the table, and I found myself wondering how I’d earned such a hard look from a bridesmaid.

  “Chef Caine.” Deanna had the dazzling smile of someone who had appeared in public a lot and knew how to behave when being watched. “Really sorry to walk in at totally the last minute like this, but we were starving.”

  “Very glad to see you, Ms. Alden.” Here in the dining room I was very much on stage. It was game face time. “I don’t think we’ve met…” I turned to the nightbloods.

  “Gabriel Renault.” The younger-looking of the two nightbloods held out his cool, light hand to me. I glanced at his face just long enough to catch waving chestnut hair, almond-shaped eyes, and a strong aquiline nose. His cheekbones were high enough and sharp enough to make his pale cheeks look dramatically hollow—kind of David Bowie on the dark side. I didn’t catch his eye color. Looking strange vampires in the eye is a hazardous pastime.

  “Very glad to meet you, Chef Caine,” said Gabriel. “Let me introduce my sire, Henri.”

  Henri Renault got to his feet and bowed. “Bonjour! Vous êtes notre chef magnifique, n’est-ce pas?”

  Something people forget is that really old vampires tend to be really short. If Henri Renault was five feet tall, it was in heels. He was also what used to be described as “dapper.” He wore a neat cream-colored suit, complete with a patterned silk vest and a gold watch chain, which, I was willing to bet, had an actual gold watch on the end. Cuff links, a sapphire tie pin, and a gold ring with a bright blue stone on his right hand added to this serious cache of antique bling. He had also clearly been converted before the idea “less is more” came into vogue, because his hand rested on a gold-headed walking stick, and he adjusted his monocle to peer up at me.

  And yes, that was cologne I was smelling, a heavy wave of musk and cloves. Wow. Henri Renault left no detail overdone.

  “I do so look forward to tasting you—pardon me—your work,” Henri went on in French. He did not repeat the remark in English. I suspect that was because he didn’t want the rest of the party to know he’d just made a really clumsy come-on. Gabriel struggled to keep the shock off his face. Deanna just blinked brightly as her girlfriends giggled. Evidently they weren’t covering French at prestigious private schools these days. What was this world coming to?

  “But of course,” I answered in my best backstreets-of- Paris French. “And understand, Monsieur Renault, I know you’re a fake.”

  My first stage—that’s kitchen-speak for apprenticeship—was in a French kitchen. I was quickly shunted over to pastry, because that’s where us girls get shunted in traditional French kitchens. There, I learned three things. The first was that I was in no way temperamentally suited to pastry. The second was the rule not to date where you work, especially not the boss. That, however, is a long story and it does not make me look good, so I don’t usually tell it. But the third thing was how to speak enough French to survive in a kitchen, dining room, or bar full of casually crude French guys. As a result, I could spot genuine French idiom when I heard it, and when I didn’t.

  Henri Renault’s fang-baring, oh-so-gracious smile began to tremble around the edges. I’d scored some kind of hit. I could figure out what kind later.

  “But please do not concern yourself unduly, Monsieur,” I continued, still in French. “It is not any of my business.”

  “I understand you very well, Chef Caine.” Renault sat and folded his hands on top of his cane, his demeanor as smooth and unruffled as if we’d been talking about the weather. He also switched to lilting English. “I am so sorry that I cannot introduce you to my other son, Jacques. Gabriel, what is keeping your brother?”

  “He said he’d be here.” Gabriel frowned at the door, and, because he was a nightblood, I could feel the tendrils of both worry and anger creeping out from him.

  “Always late, that boy. I have tried to teach him manners, but it is hopeless.” Henri waved his hand and gave a heavy sigh. “So, Chef Caine, I understand you have stepped in to assist with la grande affaire?

  “She tore Oscar’s menu up and tossed it out,” crowed Deanna. “It’s going to be perfect! Actu
ally,” she added, “Chef Caine was my first choice. If I’d had my way, we’d have talked to her months ago.” Deanna beamed. The dining room whispered and smartphones were whipped out by compulsive text messagers. I struggled to keep my mouth shut. Did she not know about Oscar? Or was she trying to milk the situation? And why in the hell was this happening in my dining room where I couldn’t demand to know what the hell was happening?

  Think fast, I told myself. And diplomatically.

  “Thank you so much, and congratulations again to you both. Now, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me.” I beckoned Suchai over. “I hope you’ll enjoy your meal. Suchai will be taking care of you personally tonight.” I met my manager’s eyes. He nodded, and in turn signaled to Frederico, our most experienced table captain.

  The Alden-Renault table would get a complimentary course, and some of the house special sangria for the nightbloods. They were VIPs; they’d be treated as such, whether I liked it or not, and I found I did not like it—at all.

  Zoe eyed me as I stepped back into my spot at the expediter’s station.

  “You okay?”

  “I’ll tell you as soon as I know.” I slotted a new ticket into place on the dupe slide. “Where are we on fifteen?” I shouted over my shoulder.

  “Fifteen, two and three working, Chef!”

  I don’t think I looked up for the rest of my shift. I pushed myself into high gear and stayed there. But I couldn’t work fast enough to silence the questions in the back of my brain. I was not the only haute noir chef in this city, or in Felicity’s address book. I’d never had my name on an event this size, and I was in fact a liability when it came to the peaceful completion of this wedding. I had bad blood with the guy who had the job before me, who was now, surely coincidently, dead.

  So we were back to the question Brendan asked me on that Brooklyn sidewalk—why me?

  8

  I was sorting through time cards and nodding toward Jose the dishwasher as he headed for the back door when my phone started playing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” the ring tone I’ve reserved for Chet.