Killer Getaway

by Amy Korman

  Bootsie, Holly, and I were perched on stools in Vicino’s kitchen, which luckily had one small window that faced the alley and had no view of the buzz of activity at Gianni Mare. Channing was running his hands through his wavy brown hair as he explained to us why he was so puzzled about what had happened to Slavica the night before. While he talked, his sous-­chef Rob, an old friend of Channing’s from culinary school, was Lysoling the stainless steel counters, though they were already gleaming. Both chefs had been up most of the night, methodically inspecting every single item of food in the walk-­in fridge and freezer. Bleary-­eyed, they’d torn apart the kitchen to try to figure out how Slavica could have possibly gotten so ill.

  “We buy from only two seafood vendors: Locally, we deal with the Martinez Brothers, who are incredibly good. They have exclusive deals with a few local fishing boats, and they’re absolutely nuts about safe storage practices and transporting fish. As soon as it’s off the boats and on ice, it’s literally on its way here. And then there’s Maine Coastal Catch, a company that overnights some of our shellfish, plus trout and bass caught up north. Their lobster and cold-­water fish are seriously pristine,” Channing told us, handing around mugs of coffee he’d just brewed.

  “But we rarely sell fish that isn’t caught locally—­to be honest, I’d like to insist on going one hundred percent local and sustainable, but customers want lobster,” the hot chef continued. “But all the clams we sell are all harvested in Florida. Plus, clam farming is a totally clean industry—­no chemicals or antibiotics, since clams can’t tolerate them. There’s great shellfish down here—­the littlenecks from the Keys are delicious, and then there’s the Florida Spike, the Moccasinshell, the Chipola Slabshell. All fantastic!”

  Channing, though clearly sleep-­deprived and upset, looked briefly enthused about the local seafood harvest. He opened a stainless steel door and stepped briefly inside the walk-­in refrigerator to pull a rectangular white plastic container slightly larger than a shoebox from a shelf in the back. He lifted the lid so we could see the shellfish it contained.

  “I’m pretty sure these are how Slavica got sick,” Channing said. “Any clam that’s alive should be totally safe to eat.

  “See these? Notice anything?”

  The small pile of tiny clams nestled on a bed of seaweed looked benign enough.

  The three of us all shook our heads, admitting we didn’t see a problem—­but then again, Holly doesn’t eat, Bootsie can’t cook, and I wouldn’t know a mollusk unless it came in a can of Progresso Clam Chowder. Given Slavica’s reaction last night, we all kept our distance, as if one of the small bivalves might leap out of the Tupperware and somehow attack us, horror-­movie style.

  “They’re bad clams—­dead clams. And they’re not from Martinez Brothers—­this isn’t the Martinez packaging. Usually Rob and I log in all the deliveries, and we would never have accepted these, but when dinner prep is on, it’s crazy-­busy in here. One of the staff might have signed for the clams without checking with me first.

  “We serve forty-­two-­dollar seafood risotto and fifty-­dollar steaks—­we can’t afford to be anything less than perfect.” Channing explained that he’d sent the staff home at eleven after the dinner ser­vice so that he and Jessica could inspect the kitchen, finally realizing that someone must have delivered the rogue clams when he was distracted. “We can never, ever serve another bad clam—­if that’s what it was—­again. Especially because Slavica’s the most connected woman in all of South Florida.”

  “She’s been on the phone and Yelp all night,” Jessica said sourly, coming in from the dining room, holding up an iPad with the foodie website open. “She described her experience here. In detail.”

  “There was one other giant clue that the clams were the culprit,” added Rob. He held up a colorful little box. “This was left right behind the box of dead shellfish—­a bottle of Pepto-­Bismol. I guess whoever delivered the bad clams decided to make one hundred percent sure we got the message.”

  “Is it hot in here, or is it just that I’m looking at Channing?” Bootsie leaned over to whisper to me and Holly. She’s always close to an overheated, full drool when she sees the hunky chef, but actually, the room temperature was noticeably on the rise. She grabbed the plastic top of a food bin and started fanning herself. “I mean, I know we’re in the kitchen, but the stove isn’t even on.”

  It was getting kind of sweltering. Jessica overheard our whispered conversation and, obviously, took note of Bootsie’s somewhat dramatic self-­fanning.

  “I’ll go turn up the A.C.,” Jessica said, disappearing into the dining room.

  “I say we completely start over today in the kitchen—­clean slate,” suggested Rob. “Let’s toss everything in the fridge. Most of the suppliers aren’t open today, but I can call in a few favors and also hit some of the upscale markets. Then tomorrow, Monday, we’ll be able to completely restock.”

  “Let’s do it,” Channing agreed. He gave us a rueful version of his usual charming grin. “I’m thinking between Slavica on Yelp and Gianni’s opening, we’re not going to be all that busy tonight. We won’t need to buy all that much.”

  “The air-­conditioning’s broken!” Jessica said, bursting through the doors from the dining room, a note of panic in her voice. “I turned it on and off three times, but it’s not starting up.” She temporarily buried her face in her hands in a very un-­Jessica-­like display of emotion.

  We all understood the reason Jessica was overwrought. Bad fish was bad news, but no air-­conditioning was the kiss of death in South Florida.

  CHANNING AND ROB checked the thermostats, then went outside to look at the cooling unit near the trash bins. They came back three minutes later, their faces grim.

  “Someone vandalized the unit,” Rob told us. “Smashed in the coils and cut the line.”

  “I know you didn’t want bad PR for the restaurant, but I really think you need to report all of this—­including the fact that you guys almost got run over in the alley,” I told Channing and Holly. “And the bad fish delivery—­if that’s what it was—­sounds like something that the police should know about, too.”

  WHILE THEY WAITED for the police to come and Holly reassured Channing that she and Sophie could both use the tax write-­off of a losing restaurant, I discreetly ogled Channing. I couldn’t help noticing that even when he was depressed, the guy looked absolutely gorgeous, like the male models in Gucci ads who are pouting so much that you wonder, If you’re in a Gucci ad, how bad can your life really be? I refocused, putting away thoughts of cologne ads and trying not to stare at Channing’s muscular arms and chiseled cheekbones.

  Actually, now that I looked a little closer at the gorgeous chef, I realized that stress had taken the tiniest, most infinitesimal toll on the movie-­star-­ish Channing. He looked slightly thinner and perhaps a shade paler than a ­couple of days before. Inwardly, I gasped, aghast at this crime against nature’s eye candy. I determined not to say anything, but the thought seized me: Channing couldn’t lose his looks! Sure, Vicino’s food was absolutely delicious (at least to my unrefined palate), but the stunning pair of Jessica and Channing were at least half of the restaurant’s attraction.

  Something was different about Jessica, too, I realized. Her long blond hair was as glossy as ever, and she’d always been bone-­thin, so that hadn’t changed. Her outfit was casual, but obviously as expensive and chic as ever. I’d have to think this over and sneakily assess Jessica when she reemerged from the office. There was just something a little bit off. Normally, I don’t notice, or look for, flaws in my friends. With these two, though, perfection had always been the baseline. The fact was that the pair that Bootsie and I sometimes (after a few cocktails) referred to as “Janning” or “Chessica” were so gorgeous that the slightest variation in their appearance was noticeable.

  Sophie wasn’t quite as subtle in her assessment, though, when
she arrived.

  “Channing, ya look like crap!” Sophie said thirty minutes later, having completed her Versace run.

  The police had left after looking around, making some notes, and advising the handsome chef to have a talk with all employees about new policies for deliveries and safety procedures. They’d also send a detective out to do some additional investigation, they told us. Channing was out front, informing the bartenders and waitstaff there’d be a mandatory staff meeting at 11:00 a.m. Sophie had taken one look at the chef and began to loudly voice exactly what I’d noticed earlier.

  “First of all, you look like you’ve been skipping workouts, and maybe not eating enough protein,” Sophie told the stressed-­out Channing.

  She plopped down on a bar stool and examined Channing with the critical eye of a housewife eyeing a bone-­in rib roast at the meat counter.

  “You gotta get a little sun,” Sophie told him. “This is Florida, hon. Or go for a spray tan. You don’t want to be as pale as this one”—­here, she indicated me—­“which obviously doesn’t look good, and start eating more! Make yourself some grilled chicken and sautéed kale, pronto!” The years with Gerda lecturing her about eating healthy must have rubbed off on Sophie. She sounded ready to join the Today Show as a fitness correspondent/nutrition expert.

  She reached up and fondled one of Channing’s still bulging, but slightly less impressive, biceps. “Don’t forget, these ladies who come in here want to see a cute, hot, tanned chef! These, and, well, your tush and your abs, and your whole package—­show what your momma gave you, Chan! Shake your moneymaker!”

  Channing and Bootsie both cracked up at this, and even though I’d just been insulted, I burst into laughter, too. Even Holly, who’s not one for hilarity most of the time, especially when she’s mid-­Howard-­meltdown, smiled a little.

  “It’s a restaurant, Sophie,” Bootsie told her. “Not Magic Mike.”

  “When you look like this one,” Sophie indicated Channing here with a tiny hand adorned with three giant cocktail rings, “everything is Magic Mike. Ya think I’m investing here cause he cooks so great? Sorry, Chan, I mean you do cook great, but I put my money in this place because with your skill and your looks, you’re the whole package.” She giggled. “There’s that word again—­I can’t stop mentioning your package!”

  “We should uh, leave and let Channing get back to work,” I told Sophie, embarrassed.

  “That’s okay,” Channing said, still laughing. “I know what you mean, Sophie.”

  “Good, cause I’m staying for the staff meeting,” Sophie informed him. Just then, Jessica appeared, a tiny frown creasing her pretty face.

  “I’m calling security firms, but we can’t get cameras installed until the end of the week at the earliest,” she told us. “I called seven places, including four companies in Miami. Apparently, crime is so nuts in Miami that there’s like, round-­the-­clock installations going on down there.”

  “Let me make a few calls, too,” Holly said, plucking her iPhone out of her Lanvin bag. “My parents come to Magnolia Beach a lot. Maybe they know someone.”

  Meanwhile Sophie was staring at Jessica, seemingly unconcerned about the security measures being discussed by Channing’s girlfriend/business partner.

  “Am I the only one who’s got working eyeballs around here?” Sophie demanded. “What the heck is happening with Jessica wearing flats. Ya look horrible in flats! Jessica, where are your Louboutins?”

  That was what I’d noticed earlier, I realized, when I’d thought Jessica looked different. Vicino’s manager was wearing a little pair of ballet flats rather than her ever-­present teetering four-­inch heels. She and Channing were truly off their game.

  JUST THEN, A tall, broad-­shouldered guy in a blazer and khakis showed up, explaining that he was a detective from the Magnolia Beach Police Department. Sophie took one look at him, shrieked, and ran over to give him a huge hug and kiss.

  “Zack Safina!” shrieked Sophie. “What are you doing in Florida?”

  “Sophie!” said the guy, hugging her back.

  “This guy and I—­we dated for most of high school,” Sophie told us, giving Zack a wink that seemed to convey some hot-­and-­heavy memories from their youthful romance. “He was the biggest football star and played lead guitar in a band! I mean, he was the coolest guy and the prom king!”

  Zack Safina modestly waved away Sophie’s compliments, though he looked pleased. “You were the beautiful cheerleader, Sophie,” he pointed out. “And you were always such a sweetheart. Still are!”

  “So, are you married?” Sophie asked. “How’s your brother doing, the one who dated my cousin Angela?”

  While Zack told Sophie that no, he wasn’t married but had almost gotten engaged a ­couple of years ago until the girl had moved to Fort Myers and left him for an attorney, I noticed Joe listening miserably, looking like he’d like to go drown himself in the ocean.

  Since I’ve often felt the same anytime I catch sight of Lilly Merriwether, the gorgeous ex-­wife of my veterinarian boyfriend, I felt awful for Joe. Zach Safina was pretty good-­looking, resembling a hot TV detective. Plus, the guy seemed nice.

  After detailing her long and contentious split from her ex, Sophie suddenly remembered that she had a boyfriend, and that he was standing right next to her.

  “This is my Honey Bunny, Joe,” she said to the detective, who shook Joe’s hand with his own brawny grip.

  “Great to meet you!” Detective Safina told Joe. “You’re one lucky guy!”

  “Thanks,” Joe said. “Well, I better get going. Work to do.”

  “Yeah?” said Zack Safina. “What line of work are you in?”

  “I renovate houses,” Joe replied. This was true, even if Joe isn’t usually jackhammering up old tile or anything like that. I had to agree that this was a better way to present his line of work to Sophie’s hot-­detective ex-­boyfriend.

  “He also knows a ton about paint colors!” Sophie told Zack proudly, but Holly, also sensing that Sophie might be about to go on a long description of how Joe could get really picky about fabrics, interrupted her.

  “You know, Detective Safina,” Holly said, giving him her full almond-­shaped, blue-­eyed gaze, and coming over to put a thin, tanned hand on his forearm, “I’d love to show you where I almost got run over the other day. First, this red car came whipping around the corner . . .” With that, she steered him toward the kitchen and the back door, the detective looking predictably pleased at having a willowy blond girl hanging on his arm.

  Safina followed Holly out to the alley, while Joe turned and made for the front door, looking pissy and muttering that he was heading to Adelia’s.

  At Sophie’s insistence, we stayed for the staff meeting. Calmly and professionally, Channing explained that while Vicino was fine, and business was good, there were new procedures to be followed. A list of approved vendors was posted by the back door. Only the vendors on the list were to be allowed inside with deliveries. And either Channing himself, Rob, or Jessica would be on-­site all day to accept, check, and log in every lettuce leaf, grain of rice, sprig of rosemary, and most definitely any fish or meat that came through the doors.

  The staff was exchanging worried glances. They knew that with a few more bad clam incidents, Vicino would be circling the drain.

  Meanwhile, Jessica was answering the phones, and reservations were being canceled at the rate of two or three every ten minutes. “Slavica’s still working overtime on this,” she whispered to us as we left. “I just went on Yelp, and she even detailed the gory details of her twenty-­two grisly minutes inside our restroom. She described every clam as it came back up, down to the color and texture as it flew from her mouth into the toilet!”

  Holly raised her hand to her mouth as if to stave off an episode of nausea herself, and I felt my own stomach do a flip-­flop.

  “
It was mostly yellow and green,” Bootsie told us helpfully. “I could see most of what she was puking up, and obviously the texture was really slimy.”

  “I’m calling Yelp now,” Jessica said, “to get Slavica’s review pulled down. I don’t like to lie, but this could kill Vicino, so I’m going to tell them a disgruntled employee wrote it.” She punched at her phone, then looked up as we headed out the front door.

  “Gianni has to be behind all of this,” Jessica whispered desperately. “He never lets go of a grudge.”

  “YA KNOW, THE air-­conditioning and the bad clams could also be Barclay,” Sophie said ten minutes later at Adelia’s house, where Sophie had insisted we go check on Joe, who, she’d noticed, “seemed a little mad.”

  She looked over at Joe. “What do you think, Honey Bunny? You think Barclay would try to put Vicino out of business?”

  “Don’t talk to me,” Joe told Sophie.

  This was not the Joe Delafield who conducted business over crab salads with ladies in St. John Knit suits and took his clients on fun field trips to Sotheby’s auctions. Gone were the crisp white Thomas Pink shirt and tropical-­weight J. Crew blazer, complete with yellow silk pocket square I’d seen him charming Adelia in for the past ­couple of days.

  Joe had changed into torn khakis and a white Hanes T-­shirt, and was lying on his back in Adelia’s pool house, chisel in hand. Up on a ladder near Joe was Frank, a painter who wore jeans and a Budweiser T-­shirt and was taking down loose crown molding around the ceiling.

  “I’m not in a good mood,” Joe announced. “Frank here needs help ripping out the rotten woodwork, and his assistant Gus is on a fishing trip in Islamorada, which he claims he couldn’t postpone. Even though I offered Gus ninety bucks an hour.”

  “It’s Gus’s fifteenth wedding anniversary,” Frank told us from his prone position as he easily pried free a flimsy section of floorboard. “He’s had the reservations on the boat for five months, and he prepaid for the hotel. His wife threatened to divorce him if he canceled.”