Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe

by Nan Lyons

  “You know about his plans?” Natasha asked.

  “Do I know? I have been searching for him for a chef. And who do you think negotiated for him to buy this café?”

  Natasha moved her heel onto the toe of Max’s shoe and began pressing down. “No particular reason for being here?”

  “Ouch,” Max yelled, pulling his foot out from under the table.

  “You do not act like you are divorced,” Auguste said. “That is nice. But, chérie, he did not tell you perhaps because he wanted to surprise you. I think, for myself, his restaurant is disgusting. But he knows I feel this way. Still he pays me very well. So it does not matter.”

  “Auguste,” Max asked to change the subject, “do you have any idea who might have killed Louis?”

  “Of course.”

  “A waiter,” they all said simultaneously.

  “Or another chef?” Natasha asked.

  “C’est possible. Or, if they were not so spineless, a maître.”

  “But who?” Natasha asked. “Do you know of someone in particular who hated Louis?”

  “Everyone hated Louis. Even his friends. What does that prove? We would not kill him. His food was too good. The murderer must be someone who loved Louis, or someone who hated food.”

  “Auguste,” Natasha began, “the police think I killed Louis and Nutti.”

  “Incroyable!”

  “Do you know anyone who would have wanted to kill Nutti?” Max asked.

  “Nutti is different. He was not Louis. He did not have so many who hated him.”

  “Do you think the same person killed Louis and Nutti?”

  “Naturellement. And that is the reason the murderer must be a waiter or another chef. They were each prepared for cooking. I do not like to talk about it. But,” he said, patting his breast pocket, “he will not get me. Have you seen Hildegarde?”

  “Did the Titanic see the iceberg?” Natasha asked.

  “You know, she knew always about you and Louis.”

  “I know. She told me.”

  “But she loves you very much,” Auguste said, patting her hand.

  “Thank you.”

  “Now I must go. They have already begun serving the lunch and I know they have ruined everything. Ma petite,” he said, getting up and kissing Natasha’s hand, “if I am not murdered before Monday, I will see you. And you will eat a meal that van Golk himself would kill for.” He turned to Max and they shook hands. “I have not yet received the check. Of course, I do not worry about such things. But you will remind them for me. After all, I could be murdered at any moment.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Max said.

  “And do not give her a hot puppy for lunch. Take her to Bertrand’s. He has a new salad chef from Belgium. He talks to the lettuce. I like him very much. Au revoir.” He blew a kiss to Natasha. “Mon amour.” Auguste turned briskly and walked away, holding one hand inside his jacket as though he were impersonating Napoleon Bonaparte.

  “Let’s go to Bertrand’s,” Natasha said, getting up. “Unless you’ve bought him too.”

  “No, but I’ve got a deal for Fauchon to package its own bubble gum.”

  Hiram, Hiram, Hiram …

  You wouldn’t believe it.

  Somebody killed Louis Kohner. Not that he was exactly my favorite person in the kingdom, but someone knocked him on the head and stuffed him into an oven. Then they baked him. In case you want the recipe, the police say he died of suffocation because the flame took all the oxygen and what was left was hot enough to sear his lungs. Then he exploded yet. Talk about the joy of cooking. Someone had a terrific sense of humor. Oh yeah. I think I would have been the prime suspect had it not been for the lady of the evening with whom I spent the evening. Wait until I tell you what she did with marmalade. If only we could advertise it, we’d make a fortune. IT WAS BETTER THAN WHAT BRANDO DID WITH THE BUTTER!

  So, being of quick wit, I xxx’d Kohner off our list and hightailed it to Paris. (Remind me to tell you what it’s like to be questioned by the police. They almost had me convinced I had done it.) Anyway, you must have gotten the papers on the Norma deal. It’s a honey of a place. I don’t agree we should shut it down right away and keep it dark for four months. Why not let it stay open, begin moving in our staff, eggs and all, and have some practice time. Then shut down after Christmas until the renovations are finished, open in March, and be ready for the spring onslaught. Check it out. It makes more sense. They’re making enough money at the Norma now to fund our trial period, which I would rather we did under their flag.

  I don’t like the idea of twenty types of omelettes. First of all, I can’t taste the difference between American and Swiss cheese; there’s hardly any difference between ham, pork, and bacon, and a green herb is a green herb. I want the following:

  Omelette Naturelle (butter, eggs, salt, pepper)

  Cheese Omelette (FRESH Cheddar)

  Herb Omelette (fines herbes, croutons)

  Spanish Omelette (tomatoes, onions, green peppers)

  And that should be all. Otherwise we become a crêpe house. I don’t want all kinds of fillings standing around getting dusty. The gimmick here should be that everything is FRESH. Fresh eggs, freshly grated cheese, fresh herbs, freshly cut tomatoes, onions, and peppers. No sauces. No frozen nothing. I want all ingredients visible. Big wheels of cheese, baskets of tomatoes, peppers, and strings of onions. I’ve checked prices and we can get the same price by placing a standing order for daily deliveries as we can by getting it in all at once. The trucking charge is offset by our storage costs. And I think we should take the risk on serving fresh. It adds something to the tone of the place. Also, we can charge more.

  The most immediate problem I see is that of the beverage. We’re okay with wine, beer, coffee, tea, milk, soda, but I think we should have something unique. Not sangría, and not cider, but something we made up, and not available anywhere else. Tell the kitchen to look through their files. I like the adjective Normandy or Brittany preceding whatever the name is.

  I read carefully the twelve pages on crinkle cuts vs. traditional cut and I think it’s a lotta crap. Crinkle cuts remind me of Coney Island, and the others of a delicatessen. The spirals are a pain in the ass, and the onions in home fries would conflict with the omelette’s taste. I say go back and try again for juliennes. With coarse salt already on them. The idea is to discourage the wanton use of ketchup, which we can do only if we give them a potato that doesn’t look like their normal potato.

  Also a pain in the pain is the bread crisis. No small individual loafs, no pumpernickel, no salt sticks that get soggy by the next day. The best bet, again, is the real thing. Use long loaves of French bread (have baskets filled with them also) and cut what you need as you need (knead) it. Unless the copy boys are dead set on claiming everything is done in butter (except my London marmalade lady) I think we can get away with margarine whipped into some shape. Again, don’t try to make it look like butter and no one will expect it to taste like butter. But please, no butter balls. They remind me of undescended testicles. How about a fleur-de-lis mold or something?

  Sheldon’s designs for dishes stink. I’m pretty bored with white and green circles around the rim. Why not something really distinctive (and not the Humpty Dumpty fairy-tale pictures Sheldon tried to sell us on), like an over-all floral pattern? Something “country French” that’s Busy, Busy, Busy. The real problem with Sheldon’s drop-dead chic is that an all-yellow omelette with all-yellowish potatoes on a white plate does nothing for the eye. If we had a busy floral plate then the egg would stand out, and the irregular shapes of the potatoes would let some pattern peek through. Tell Sheldon to get the hell out of “dry dock country” and see how the real people live. That fag.

  Jesus. I almost forgot. Dessert. I didn’t like any of the ideas in Harry’s report. Read it. It’s ONLY FIFTY PAGES. Can you believe it? I say make it chocolate mousse, some kind of almond cookies, and maybe some (don’t pee in your pants) whole, unpeeled fresh frui
t. (Again, think of the display possibilities.) I’m throwing out all the reports you sent because they are shit.

  I have to tell you that there’s a firecracker up the ass of Paris because another chef, in Rome, was killed two days after Kohner (this one they drowned and split down the back like a lobster—I SWEAR IT ON LAURENCE OLIVIER’S CAMERA) and everybody is watching the family jewels with great care.

  Hiram, I need a few days of peace. I’m disappearing for three, four days. Trying to organize the French is like selling bagels in Cairo. Tell the powers that be I got an incurable hard-on and can’t get into my pants. (Not far from the truth.)

  Enclosed is a payment voucher for Auguste Foressemont. I thought I had sent it with my last letter, but forgot to. I want a check to go out TODAY, air mail special.

  Don’t write, wire, or call me. I fell off the edge of the earth—if only she’ll have me.

  Remember to comb the hair growing out of the wart on your nose.

  Max

  Chapter 10

  Achille opened his eyes and stared up at the cherubs on the ceiling fresco over his bed. He looked at them and envisioned plump marzipan bodies covered in spun sugar, ribboned with red currant jelly, holding bouquets of pastel fondant candies. The cherubs were smiling. They were constant in an ever-changing world. With Estella, without Estella, wintertime, Christmas, sickness, or spring. And even on the morning after he had killed Nutti.

  He raised his hand to his stomach, rubbing slowly against his blue silk pajamas, as though trying to quell the pangs of hunger, the incessant, internal begging. That was a fine image, he thought, one with which he could compete successfully. He did not consider himself a beggar, any more than he considered himself weak-willed. He had taken the doctor’s prescribed diet and given it to his staff with instructions to prepare an “edible” menu that offered no compromises. No sugar substitutes, no skimmed milk, no carrot sticks, and no fat-free cheeses. Unless he was able to eat according to the original recipe, the dish would not appear on the diet. The only concession he offered was in terms of quantity.

  Indeed, the diet was tolerable because it gave him the opportunity to focus even more closely upon the quality of the ingredients and the perfection of their preparation. Even the wines, because of the limited quantity he could have, were scrutinized in an atmosphere of challenge which compensated for the small amount in his crystal goblet. In a sense, the diet was a weapon with which he could challenge the farmer, the fisherman, the greengrocer, the vintner, the chef, and God.

  Although it had been nearly thirteen years since Estella last shared the bed with him, Achille continued to sleep on the left side. Once he had tried sleeping in the center, but lay awake all night. And once he had taken away her pillow, but when he got into bed he began to cry. In the thirteen years since Estella first went to the clinic, he had never had another woman. Not because he was faithful, but simply because he refused to substitute Camembert for Brie.

  His hand reached almost automatically to Estella’s pillow, where Cesar lay wheezing. Achille stroked the cat and he began to purr. Cesar was fifteen years old and his belly hung to the floor White angora fur covered Cesar’s legs so that when he walked, which was rare, he had the appearance of a pull toy with hidden wheels. For the past year and a half Cesar had been unable to jump and had to be lifted from floor to bed, from bed to floor. The veterinarian told Achille months ago to have Cesar put to sleep. But Achille could not bear the thought.

  It was time to get up. He rolled himself to the edge of the bed, and put his feet over the side. Then he slowly pushed himself to a sitting position and, bending his knees slightly, stood up. Cesar meowed as Achille walked into the kitchen. Estella had had the kitchen moved near the bedroom, since most of their meals at home had been eaten while sprawled on the bed editing articles or reading recipes to each other. He opened the stainless steel refrigerator and took out the only item it contained, a bowl of freshly boiled and cleaned shrimp. He opened a stainless steel drawer and took out a spoon of Georgian silver. He put three tablespoons of shrimp into a pink Meissen bowl. Cesar was standing on the edge of the bed meowing loudly. Achille walked back into the blue rococo bedroom and put the dish on the bed. Cesar brushed the side of his face against Achille’s hand, and then began breakfast in bed.

  Achille went into the pink marble bathroom. He took one pill from each of six bottles on the shelf above the pink marble sink. He turned the gold griffin’s-head faucet and filled the engraved crystal glass with cold water. After taking his pills, he reached for a small decanter and poured some cognac into the glass. He took his toothbrush, dipped it in the cognac, and brushed his teeth. He used the remaining cognac as a mouthwash.

  He sat down on the pink marble toilet. After urinating and moving his bowels, he pressed a button that released a spray of hot water onto his anus. After a moment, there was a spray of warm air to dry him. Achille had the device installed because nothing was as repellent to him as the use of toilet tissue.

  He walked to the doctor’s scale he had recently bought. It was set at 310 pounds, his weight on Tuesday. As he stepped on it, the arm did not move. 309. 308. 307. 306. 305. He smiled with pride. Another five pounds. He had lost twelve pounds in one week. His diet was working.

  After opening the stained-glass door to his shower, he unbuttoned his silk pajamas and dropped them to the floor. He turned on the shower. Water came in needle-sharp bursts from six locations, including straight up from the center of the marble floor. He used no soap, but rubbed himself with a large curved sponge. He turned off the water, stepped out of the shower without reaching for a towel, and dripped freely onto the thick mats atop the marble floor. Once at the sink he turned on the overhead heat lamp and blowers that would dry his body. With a small amount of lather from a professional hot-lather machine, he patted his face and then shaved, using a straight-edge razor with a tortoise-shell handle. When he finished shaving, he left the razor open on the sink and splashed his face and under his arms with strawberry vermouth. He walked from the bathroom without turning off the light. The policy had been adopted some time ago to leave everything for Mrs. Booth.

  Mrs. Booth was once a companion to a cousin of Queen Mary. For the past twelve years, however, she had come in daily except Sunday to put back Achille’s toothbrush, clean his glass, fold his razor, and pick up his pajamas. Mrs. Booth’s sister, Mrs. Wickes, came once a week to clean thoroughly. Achille’s flat, in addition to the pale-blue rococo bedroom, the stainless steel kitchen, and the pink marble bathroom, had an enormous living room-dining room-salon that had once been four separate rooms. One complete wall, air-conditioned behind a floor-to-ceiling glass partition, held Achille’s wine cellar. Over a thousand bottles rested in vibration-free, controlled temperature behind tinted glass panels. The two parallel long walls were covered with bookcases in which resided Achille’s collection of cookbooks, books about cooks, histories of food, analyses of national cuisines, and the oversized volumes in which Achille had recorded for over twenty years every meal he had eaten. On the fourth wall was an original Breughel. The room held three overstuffed sofas, half a dozen large chairs, and numerous tables and desks. The original windows in the room had been covered over to avoid the sunlight, dampness, or sudden temperature changes, which could affect the books. A constant temperature was maintained throughout the flat.

  The sofas, chairs, and exposed walls were covered in a striped maroon-gold-and-blue fabric. Pale-blue oriental rugs rested on beige carpeting. Large vases were filled twice weekly with Estella’s favorite flowers. In thirteen years Achille had never once sat in that room. He only walked through for a bottle of wine, or to shelve a completed volume of his dinner records. The room had once been lively with people. Friends of Estella’s. Boring people, but with lovely voices.

  He picked Cesar off the bed and, bending over with great care, put him on the floor. The cat brushed against his leg and then found a corner of sunlight in which to sit while he cleaned his paws. Mrs. Booth woul
d remove the dish from the bed.

  Achille sat on a high chair in order to put on his blue lisle socks. He lifted each leg slowly and with great effort. Then, holding on to the dressing-room door, he put on his freshly ironed, monogrammed blue undershorts. He took a monogrammed blue shirt from the closet and slowly got into it. He selected a maroon tie, and then his blue-and-maroon plaid suit, which felt less constricting than it had a week ago. It was nearly eleven o’clock when he left the flat and took the elevator downstairs.

  Rudolph came to attention and threw his cigarette behind him as Achille walked out the front door. “Good morning, Mr. van Golk.”

  Achille grunted. Rudolph opened the back door and helped him inside. He picked up the morning paper as Rudolph started to drive the five blocks from his Hertford Street flat to the office on Curzon Street. He could find nothing about Nutti’s death.

  Rudolph helped him out of the car, and then ran ahead to open LUCULLUS’s red door. “Good morning, Mr. van Golk,” the receptionist said. Achille nodded. Rudolph opened the elevator doors, pressed 5, and closed the doors after Achille. As he reached the top floor, Miss Beauchamp opened the doors.

  “Good morning,” she said, not expecting the greeting to be returned. As they walked to his office, she stopped to pick up her notepad. It was filled with messages. She had called Achille at ten o’clock the previous evening to tell him that while he had been in Geneva, Nutti Fenegretti was killed. The chef at the British Embassy in Rome, who often translated recipes for them, had called to tell her. When Achille heard, he said merely “Mala fortuna,” and hung up.

  She followed Achille as he sat behind his desk. For the first time, he looked directly at her. “Call the Grand. I want to speak to Natasha.”

  “She’s not there. You got a cable this morning. She’s in Paris. At the Plaza. With Mr. Ogden, no less.”