Basil Instinct

by Shelley Costa

  “Any breaking and entering?”

  “Hey, bucko, you were with me!”

  “To keep you from committing a felony.”

  “Do we really want to split these particular hairs?” I said patiently.

  Then: “Free for lunch?”

  “Are you asking, or just telling me you have no social life?”

  “Asking.”

  “Because I’m sure Kayla’s available.” Low, Eve, low. He had shown remorse. Or, at least, a degree of embarrassment.

  With a sigh, he explained, “This is a business lunch.”

  “Oh.” More lighted matches. “I knew that.”

  “My place in twenty?”

  And then I got prissy. “I thought you said it’s a business lunch.” Was this the same woman who had plunged a Wüsthof knife into a butcher block not all that long ago? Maybe I should ask Renay where she got her python tattoo . . .

  “It is. I mean my office.”

  “Of course.”

  Then his voice spiraled up in confusion. “I mean, I assume you want my legal help, right? I mean, this isn’t just a social call, right?”

  “I believe I paid you a retainer.” Which was somehow beside the point, but I was fast losing a grip on the point . . .

  “One dollar.”

  I sounded haughty. “Will you be needing more?”

  He laughed. “Than a buck? Depends on what I have to do for you, Angelotta.”

  Was the man actually flirting with me? Or had it really been that long since my one-off and misguided back-office romp with the FedEx guy that anything sounded sexy? “Well—” Why was my brain drifting to the leather couch in the Miracolo office? Was I truly no better than my flaky farming cousin?

  “See,” he went on, “you could have said it’s a social call, and then wormed the legal advice out of me anyway.”

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Huh?”

  “You should be so lucky,” I said with some spirit that really pretty much put me on a level with L’Shondra and Renay. “If it’s ever a social call, Joe Beck, you can be sure I’m not there—” I searched for the stuffiest words I could find—“under false pretenses.”

  “Good!” said Joe Beck. Then, with a smile in his maddening voice, he added, “I’ll look forward to it. Now, what say you swing by Sprouts and pick us both up something for lunch. And, if you’re worried about our lawyer-client relationship staying pure, I won’t even offer to pay you back.”

  “I should hope not.” What just happened here?

  “I’m at 1220 Franklin Crescent. See you in twenty.” With that, he hung up.

  * * *

  After multiple calls to Choo Choo, to begin the extravagant reaming I had in mind, went unanswered, I decided it was probably better done in person. Although it may involve a bit of a footrace. Note to self: Bring tennis shoes and a cheese grater. I swung by Sprouts—a trendy veggie restaurant, all of whose sandwiches are named after food warriors—just up the street from Miracolo. For Joe Beck I ended up with a Michael Pollan gluten-free wrap with locally grown, seasonal, and not too many vegetables, and for me I got an Alice Waters bagel with goat cheese schmear topped with sprouts grown by schoolkids. Then I swung by Starbucks and got two Ventis of the real thing, bold and black.

  Two miles south on East Market Street, I turned west onto Franklin Boulevard and hit construction, where I waited out the lethargic (not to mention cryptic) hand signals of a hard-hatted gal planted on the blacktop in the bright June sunshine, and turned at last onto Franklin Crescent. The Crescent was a new three-story “colonial” office complex, where the developers were hoping you’d overlook the exterior glass elevators and underground parking warren in their attempt to make you think you were back in William Penn’s day. It turned out Carson and Beck, Attorneys at Law, were on the first floor of the second building, which I could get to through a beautiful brick archway and then a courtyard with a fountain I was pleased to see did not depend on cherubs peeing.

  At that moment—in that place—I felt very far away from Miracolo and the Quaker Hills Career Center. There’s something about the smell and sound of a fountain that makes me feel like I’ve landed on my time-traveling feet in a piazza somewhere on the Mediterranean. The sun, overhead, was glancing off the arc of the spray. It’s irresistible. I dug into my hemp bag and came up with my change purse, which actually held more than three coins, but that’s all my fingers pulled out.

  A dime and two pennies.

  Going for the cut-rate dreams, I pitched my puny twelve cents into the fountain, vowing never to tell Nonna. I don’t like to encourage her. Mind you, I really wanted to wish for nothing bad to happen to her at the hands of the Psycho-Chefs Club—really I did. But then I thought about wishing for the doomed Choo Choo Bacigalupo to trip on some little irregularity in the sidewalk as he beat it on down the street just ahead of me in my tennis shoes while I hurled my cheese grater at his bald head. In the end, though, as crazy as it sounds, I just wished for a nice lunch with Joe Beck—nice and not too business-y. Some laughs and longing looks from him that might have nothing to do with wishing for more mustard to mysteriously show up on his Michael Pollan wrap would also be welcome.

  Inside the offices of Carson and Beck, I was pleased to see a male receptionist. Strictly from a feminist angle, of course. The kid had the basics of grooming down, in that his pants covered his flesh, and whatever body art he may have had was staying coyly out of sight. I also appreciated his not sending anything flaming in my direction. In short, Milo Corwin (according to the nameplate on the kidney-shaped desk) looked like he most definitely did not fall out of CRIBS.

  I set the cardboard multicup coffee holder and recyclable Sprouts bag on Milo’s desk. Then, just as I was giving the lad my name, with my hands stuffed in my pockets, which for some reason was reminding me of some movie with Charlize Theron, Joe Beck emerged from the office of the same name. He’s a compact kind of guy—about five foot nine inches’ worth of trim and lean—with dark blond hair cut short but not so short every single hair didn’t add to the total, beautifully shorn and golden effect.

  He had blue eyes that really looked at you even when you wished they didn’t. He had the shoulders of a Marine and the hips of a work by Michelangelo. He had a smile that made you think all was peachy in the world even though snow leopards were endangered. And let’s not even address that dimple in the right cheek that rivaled all other facial sinkholes in all other humans. Just three weeks ago I had to stop my cousin, the kale-loving Kayla, when she wanted to share the details of her three-night fling with this man. Because if there’s one thing I hate more than pepperoni pizza (a failure of imagination), it’s experiencing glorious things only secondhand.

  Today he was wearing a crisp white shirt and summer-weight gray pants. In the awkward silence when we stood there looking at each other with our hands in our respective (instead of each other’s) pockets, Joe Beck said, “Angelotta,” with a smile that was just a little bit wary. The dimple was only semideployed.

  “Beck,” I countered, thrusting the lunch at him.

  “Hold my calls,” he said to Milo, which felt thrilling to me in a Hollywood kind of way. Then he opened an arm toward his inner sanctum—Milo actually gave me a look that told me it was all right, not that I asked, thank you very much—and I swept in front of Beck Boy into the heart of his lawyer lair.

  I took a seat in an armless black leather chair and set the coffee on a glass and teak desk that I judged to be the size of Delaware. My esteemed counsel set down the Sprouts bag and took a seat in the Aeron chair the commercials have been calling “true black” for the last two years, easy. In silence he dug out the sandwiches so slowly you’d think they were evidence in a homicide. “It’s not evidence in a homicide,” I said with a little eye roll as punctuation.

  “It will be if you keep it up,�
�� he rejoined (I think that’s the proper word).

  For a moment I felt like the very annoying Brigid O’Shaughnessy from The Maltese Falcon. I uncrossed my legs. “Mine is the bagel.”

  He grunted and we ate for a while in silence, our eyes on fascinating spots on his glass desk, on which sat an iPad and iPhone and (unbelievably) an old-fashioned desk calendar. All I could read upside down was something as fascinating as “pick up dry cleaning” on June 27th. What a life. I dabbed a Starbucks unchlorinated paper napkin at my lips, after which I wondered if I still had some lipstick going on.

  “The problem?” he prompted, halfway through his Michael Pollan. No longing looks were coming my way that had anything to do with either mustard or sex. So be it.

  I wound up: “Maria Pia got an invitation from Belfiere.” There. Enough said. Let him do what lawyers do: get restraining orders, file motions, put up billboards.

  He waved his sandwich around in a dim but encouraging way. “Who is—?” said Joe Beck slowly.

  “Belfiere,” I repeated, licking at the goat cheese schmear. “To quote my nonna,” I said, trying to be impartial, “the oldest all-female totally secret culinary society in the world.”

  Joe Beck in the crisp white whatever and summer-weight ya-ha picked up his bold and black Venti. So did I. Together—if that’s what you can call it—we blew across the hot coffee and locked eyes. Was it a promise of things to come? Had I gotten all this on a mere twelve cents?

  “And the problem is—?”

  “Short story?” I said, trying to keep my mind on the problem.

  “Yeah, whatever,” said Joe Beck, ditto.

  “Landon and I—”

  “Landon?” He looked like this was a first.

  “My cousin.”

  “Right, right, right.” And then he added, in case I was in any doubt: “Landon!”

  “I’m glad this is a business lunch.”

  “Totally.”

  “We make a good team.”

  He studied my lips. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “Landon.” I blurted, setting aside the rest of my Alice Waters bagel.

  “All right, all right. Landon.”

  Be professional. This man doesn’t like you, I reminded myself. Have some pride. Use some common sense. For the love of God, you’ve invested a buck. “Landon and I”—I launched into the facts, just for a change of pace—“did some research and discovered a post on a blog for the victims of cults by someone named Anna T. She had been a member of Belfiere.”

  “Go on.” Joe Beck steepled his fingers. How could such short hair look so, well, disheveled?

  I wiped my lips and fingers on a paper napkin and found myself wondering just how much weight a glass-top desk could withstand. “Anna T. described a poison-guessing ‘game’ they played that led to the collapse and death of one of the members.”

  Joe Beck Lawyer kicked in. “Well, the police will have a record—”

  I shook my head, smiling what I hoped was a knowing and superior smile. “Ah, no,” I countered. I actually raised my index finger. “The police,” I said, raising my eyebrows at him, “were never called.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Anna T. says nothing about the death ever appeared in the local newspapers.”

  Joe Beck glowered at me.

  I swirled my coffee and looked steadily at him over the plastic rim. Marine shoulders. Michelangelo hips. Twelve cents, baby, twelve cents. Have I caught his interest? I wondered, breathless. “And they make you get a tattoo!” I blurted, like it was worse, even, than killing off their own members here and there. “On your wrist! A B for Belfiere!”

  I watched it all sink in. It was like watching the moment when a four-beer buzz leaves, and what’s left is called sobriety. Finally, Joe Beck sucked in air while he studied the ceiling, and he pushed himself out of his chair and came around to my side of the desk. “This is worrisome, Eve,” he said softly, setting a hand on my shoulder. It needed to be lower for any real pleasure, but I murmured anyway, which I hoped he didn’t hear. “I’ll put Milo on it.”

  Then I told Joe Beck about my first class of Basic Cooking Skills at the Quaker Hills Career Center. His eyes were wide. Like listening to his dad tell him when he was eleven about the birds and the bees. Thrusting out my lips, I concluded the tale of matches, knives, and Death Eaters with, “Apprentice felons. Believe me, no squirrel is safe around these guys.”

  Joe Beck nodded. And nodded again. Leaning against the door to his office, Joe Beck suddenly switched subjects. His beautiful blue eyes were closed. “About Belfiere,” he said, “since there’s no known crime—yet—my advice is for you to stand back and let your grandmother make her own decisions.”

  I bristled. “Well, that’s crummy advice.”

  “What do you want for a buck?”

  “A buck and a sandwich,” I protested, getting to my feet.

  “I stand corrected.” He moved toward me.

  For some crazy reason, it sounded sexual, but maybe it was me.

  At the same time, we both blurted, “I need more info.”

  He whirled and went to the outer office, apparently to put Milo on the case. I’m pretty sure there were snorts.

  When he was gone, I pushed my thick auburn hair from my face and stalked around my lawyer’s office. All in all, for a business lunch, I think it went pretty well. I think maybe he disliked me a little less. I think maybe Joe Beck and Eve Angelotta could be—

  And then, with a little swagger, I stopped in front of his open calendar.

  The entry for July 5 read: National Trial Lawyers Association Dinner Dance. Philly Ritz Carlton. 8 p.m.

  Not in itself bad.

  And then my eyes settled on the line below: Kayla. 7 p.m.

  At which I went weak in the knees and I’m sorry to say it had nothing to do with any granting of wishes that cost me all of twelve cents.

  4

  So Wednesday June 18th was shaping up to be the Eve Angelotta contribution to Miracolo’s Grief Week. What with the body blows from the miscreants in my Basic Cooking Skills class and the discovery that Joe Beck was taking the odious Kayla Angelotta to a swank dinner dance, I found myself wondering what framed photo of myself I could add to the Grief Week shrine on the bar. Eve Angelotta: Run Over by the Lying Underhandedness and Crappy Romantic Choices of Others.

  Wretched didn’t quite cover what I was feeling by the time I left the offices of Carson and Beck, Attorneys at Law. As I passed him, where he was talking to Milo, I just couldn’t bring myself to call him out on dating my cousin—dating her and not coming clean about it—so I thanked him for his time, said I’d see him around, and got out of there as quickly as I could. He looked kind of quizzical at my speedy exit, but maybe he could apply Milo to that problem as well . . .

  The only bright spot about Joe and Kayla’s upcoming date was my knowledge that Flaky Farmer Girl couldn’t dance. Let’s put it this way: two left feet would have been a considerable improvement.

  I drove slowly to the restaurant, stopping home briefly for my work clothes. And when I parked down the street from Miracolo, it looked like we were besieged with vendors, what with their vans double-parked outside. I liked Arne the table linens delivery guy, but creepy Sandor the carpet delivery guy was also on hand, waiting for me to make an entrance so he could make his Sandor versions of erotic remarks with an attitude that implied the only thing standing in our way was the rest of the staff. The good news was that the Kale and Kayla Organics van was also there, so maybe Sandor would find an easy Eve substitute. And I do mean easy. Kayla’s van gave new meaning to the term hot wheels.

  Slipping inside the restaurant, I was barraged with four times the usual energy level for an average Wednesday. I figured Choo Choo was around somewhere since The Best of the Rolling Stones was slinging itself around the dining room on the sound system. G
iancarlo Crespi was inventorying the liquor; Sandor was spreading clean floor mats and ogling Vera Tyndall. Paulette was arguing with a delivery guy I had never seen who was trying to get her to accept—a day earlier than arranged— an order of scallops for Maria Pia’s scallop fritter appetizer on Friday night. She was poking his chest and yelling something like You think we’re going to serve two-day-old scallops, hey?

  The Stones were rocking out to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” which, as I made my way through the throng of busy staff, I thought maybe I’d take on as my personal theme song. At a back table was Nonna, poring over her recipe books and acting surprisingly in control. I thought she must have had a couple of mojitos with her eggs over easy that morning.

  “Nonna!” I yelled over Mick’s insisting that sometimes you just might find you get what you need. Maria Pia looked up at me, pulling her red reading glasses off her nose. “The new help’s coming at three p.m. today.” I kept walking, but not so fast I didn’t hear her “Bene!” sailing after me.

  In the kitchen, the lean and lovely Jonathan was showing Landon the signs he had just brought from CopyMax. He was wearing jeans and a pale blue fitted shirt and as I angled in close for a good look at the handiwork, I got a heady whiff of CK Man, which should most definitely be charged with incitement to riot. Landon flashed me a wry, longing look: I know, I know. CK Man was his chief inhibition killer. I noticed he was actually sitting on his hands on Li Wei’s stool.

  Jonathan smiled and held up the first sign. It was a nice little workmanlike eleven-by-seventeen-inch piece of red cardboard with bold black lettering—pretty much your basic bordello colors—and although the font wasn’t as appealing as Nonna’s tattoo, it was plain and legible. Miracolo Will Be Closed Friday, June 20, for a Private Party. We Regret Causing Any Inconvience and Look Forward to Serving You the Finest in Food and Drink on Saturday. Mille Abrazzi, The Staff.

  I nodded encouragingly. Should I mention “inconvenience” was missing an entire syllable? Jonathan might know his wines, but he was not so great with the spelling. In a split second I decided the message was still plain—we’re closed—and he had brought two Angelottas such pleasure already today with his CK Man, which was more important than correct spelling. I didn’t mind being inconvienced in the least.