La Coupole had been a hot spot in the roaring twenties, when Montparnasse was the center of Paris nightlife. Nowadays the restaurant was owned by a chain and catered mainly to well-heeled tourists. But the train station–sized Art Deco room had been restored to its original grandeur, and the fillet béarnaise with frites was probably as good as any in Paris.
In keeping with the police precept that it was always essential to use more troops than could possibly be needed, Capucine had stationed Isabelle at a table in a corner of the room and Momo at the bar. She and Alexandre had been shown to a table at the end of a long avenue of high-backed leather banquettes. The din in the cavernous tiled dining room was deafening. Even though Capucine and Alexandre sat side by side on the banquette, they had to yell to make themselves understood.
“The great thing about the chain that owns this place is that they don’t attempt to cook above their ability. They let the décor do the work for them,” Alexandre said loudly.
Capucine’s eyes roamed the room, but the backs of the banquettes were so high that all she could see was the forest of bright green pillars decorated in 1920s motifs and the people down their row of tables.
“Fricassee of Bresse chicken, skate in burnished butter—the great classics. Who could go wrong ordering those?” Alexandre said.
Fifty feet away, on their side of the row of banquettes, a woman leaned forward, her face visible for only a nanosecond as she peeped out from behind the screen of the man sitting next to her. Yolande Brissac-Vanté. Her body motion was a more reliable signature than the glimpse of her profile.
“Cœur de filet de bœuf au poivre. They’ll flambé the thing in cognac right at our table. I’ve never been all that fond of those crunchy peppercorns, but let’s have it, anyway. It’ll be fun, and it’s a perfect meal for a place like this. And their pommes soufflés will probably be quite decent.”
“Not really the sort of thing you want to order on a stakeout.” Capucine muttered, keeping Yolande’s table in close scrutiny out of the corner of her eye.
Grumbling, Alexandre ordered the filet béarnaise for himself and the skate for Capucine. When they arrived, both dishes were beyond satisfactory, perfectly cooked, sauces above reproach.
Halfway through their meal, a woman with the robustness of a boarding-school field hockey player strode purposefully down the aisle, her heels clicking over the hubbub. She held a bright orange Hédiard bag by its string handles, keeping it as far away from her body as possible.
With a determined smile, she held her hand out to Capucine. “Madame Le Tellier?” she asked. “I’m Sidonie de Vulpillières. We spoke this morning on the telephone.”
“Of course.” Capucine took her hand. It was dry, strong, masculine.
With obvious distaste, the woman placed the bag on the table. Diners in the immediate vicinity looked on with sympathetic interest. A gift from the famous luxury épicerie. How nice. I wonder what it’s going to be?
Without another word, the woman turned on her heel and marched back down the long lane between the banquettes. Capucine caught sight of Yolande nervously peeping out from behind the cover of her companion.
Capucine tipped the mouth of the bag toward her.
“I’m guessing this is not going to be their famous fruit squares, is it?” Alexandre said.
The bag contained a monogrammed note card tucked into the ribbons of a brown Hédiard box. Capucine removed the card, which contained four lines in a looping, round girlish hand.
I think you need to see this. It was delivered early this morning by someone who came in an Hédiard truck. They still haven’t asked for money. I’m at my wit’s end. But I’m going to stick to their rules. It’s my only hope. Please don’t try to contact me. And, whatever you do, don’t come to my table!!!!!
Capucine removed the box with her fingertips and pulled gently on one end of the bow. The knot undone, the ribbon fell away. Capucine lifted the top with her fork. Inside was a small self-sealing kitchen bag that contained what looked like a good-size mushroom cap.
Alexandre wrinkled his nose. The bag had been improperly closed and emanated a distinct whiff of charnel house. The couple at the next table frowned at them.
“It’s a Chinese delicacy,” Alexandre said with a toothy smile. “Actually, we’re a tiny bit doubtful about it ourselves.”
Capucine put the lid back on the box, returned it to the bag, stood up, and walked to the door of the restaurant. Isabelle rushed up to her. After a whispered conversation Isabelle left the restaurant in a rush with the bag.
As they waited at the cashier’s desk for Alexandre’s card to go through, Capucine whispered in Alexandre’s ear, “Was that what I think it was?”
“Absolutely. An ear. I’ve cooked too many pigs’ ears not to know one. But no animal I know has an ear that small. I’m guessing it’s a human’s.”
CHAPTER 35
Capucine stood in front of the large, black-painted steel double doors, the only relief in a forty-foot-high flat-stone wall that ran all the way up the long street. After a few seconds a buzzer sounded and a small panel inset in the doors popped ajar and was opened all the way by someone inside.
“Commissaire Le Tellier?” asked a stony-faced warder in a black uniform with an electric blue band across the chest.
Capucine nodded.
“Service weapon please, Commissaire.”
Capucine extracted her Sig from the small of her back and handed it to the warder butt first. In exchange, he gave her a white plastic tag with the number 892 in large black numerals. Behind her, another warder, as expressionless as the first, said, “Veuillez me suivre, Commissaire . Please follow me, Commissaire.”
Following her Virgil, Capucine walked down an endless corridor of steampunky iron cell doors, stacked three stories high, reachable only by narrow parapets. A net was stretched out between the parapets at each level to remove the temptation of an immediate resolution of petty differences among detainees.
Although the prison was located in the heart of the Fourteenth Arrondissement, with its open boulevards and rambling bourgeois apartments, it was a world unto itself, endless, inescapable, situated neither in place nor in time, notorious for its vermin, rats, and enslavement of the weak. Not a wonder that it had the highest suicide rate of any prison in France.
At the end of the interminable hallway they reached a wall of bars that went up to the forty-foot-high ceiling. With an earsplitting buzz the door popped open on a spring and was opened wide by a black-uniformed, blue-striped warder on the other side. She continued down another identical, endless corridor with her escort. The long hall was as still as a deserted church.
Eventually, they arrived in front of a green-painted steel door with a small judas window, riveted like the decks of a ship and held fast with an enormous bolt. Another stone-faced, black-uniformed, blue-striped warder stood in front of the door. He pulled back the bolt, pushed it wide, stepped in, pressing himself hard against the door to make room for Capucine to pass.
Inside, an affable, corpulent man sat at a distressed oak table, sipping tea from what appeared to be an authentic Limoges cup, eating pink macarons from a matching plate. Another cup had been set at the table. The warder shut the door and stood stiffly, almost at attention, in front of it.
The man—dressed in a prison uniform cut so elegantly, it could only have been made by one of Paris’s leading tailors—rose, smiled broadly, and air kissed Capucine on both cheeks.
“Please sit down, Commissaire. The macarons are from La Durée and the tea from Mariage Frères. I may have to stay here for my allotted time, but that doesn’t mean I have to starve while I do it.” He smiled warmly at her and poured her tea from a large matching teapot.
“Jean,” the man said to the warder at the door, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step outside. This may be confidential.”
Without a word, the warder opened the door a crack, slipped through, and shut it gently with a barely audible click.
“You have him well trained,” Capucine said.
“It’s hardly training. Just a case of natural symbiosis. He has a very sick child. The doctors felt his best chance was in a certain hospital in the United States. Of course, the Sécurité Sociale doesn’t pay for that. So the Unione does. It seems the boy will be cured.” This said matter-of-factly, almost sadly, without a trace of swagger.
Paulu Santoni, a capo in the Unione Corse, had been arrested by Capucine two years before. For some reason, not fully understood by either, they had struck up a friendship of sorts during the case, and it had blossomed during his incarceration. Even though the arrest had been another feather in her cap, Capucine was under no illusion that Santoni continued to be anything but as effective directing his troops from La Santé as he had been from his villa in Ajaccio.
For several minutes they chatted aimlessly as friends were wont. When Santoni lifted the teapot to serve Capucine a third cup, he noticed the tea had become lukewarm. He walked to the door, rapped twice. It was opened promptly.
“Jean, do you think we could have a fresh pot?” The tone of courteous condescension was precisely the one Capucine’s mother used with her servants.
“Commissaire, I’m sure you didn’t come all this way just to cheer up your old Corsican friend. I’ll be out in six months and was hoping you’d allow me to take you out to dinner.”
“No, Paulu, I need your advice. A man has been kidnapped, and his ear has been cut off. It relates to a case I’m working on.”
“The man’s name?”
“Thierry Brissac-Vanté.”
Santoni pursed his lips into a tulip shape, shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders. He sat back and caressed his ample stomach.
“A gambler?”
“My husband has seen him play backgammon at the Travellers Club.”
“Don’t let your husband play there. The stakes are very high, and there is a good deal of sharking. Of course, they are all gentlemen in that club, but some of them have one foot in the milieu. It’s the first step toward the illegal gambling houses run by the gangs. It’s not impossible your Brissac-Vanté found himself over his head with professional gamblers. They prey on that sort.”
“And the ear?”
“Cutting off an ear or a finger is the traditional way the milieu punishes someone who has welshed on his debts. They do it whether they’ve been paid off or not. It’s a sign to the others.” He scowled with his lips and smiled with his eyes. “I hope you didn’t think it might have been us. When the Unione knife comes out, it’s put to far better use than cutting off ears.”
Capucine laughed. “I was well aware of that. I just wanted to hear what you had to say.”
“What I have to say is that your man has been fleeced by some professionals, and there were complications settling the account. This is their trademark. They may have already been paid back, or maybe not.” He paused. “But, of course, it’s equally possible that someone is just trying to make it look like this is the work of the milieu. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. I’ll let you know if I hear anything about this man, but it’s unlikely. The Unione likes to stay away from the Paris milieu.”
Santoni stood up. Capucine was well aware that even in prison, he had a very busy day. He went to the door and rapped with authority. The warder opened it and stood politely, waiting for instructions.
“I’ll be out in April. I can’t resist spring in Paris. I’ll stay for a week or so before going home. I insist on taking you—and your husband, of course—to dinner. I always read Monsieur de Huguelet’s pieces with great pleasure, but he needs to deepen his understanding of Corsican food. I’m going to take you both to a place that will set that to rights.”
With an almost imperceptible nod of his head, he indicated to the warder that Capucine was to be shown out.
CHAPTER 36
Lucien Folon picked up the thousand-page tome of the Ali-Bab—the definitive compendium of French recipes—and let the spine rest in his palm. The book fell open to the right page.
Lièvre à la royale. Hare fit for a king. Even the name of the damn thing inspires respect and fear, Folon thought to himself. The acme of French haute cuisine. A palace chef conjures it up for Louis XVI, and the immortal Carême perfects it after pudgy Louis is separated from his head.
Folon surveyed his kitchen with pride. A perfect bijou. Everything anyone with talent needs to create perfection. He’d built it around a still-life oil he had found in the Puces. The splayed legs of a russet hare with blood dripping from its nose rested on the dead body of a broken-necked peacock, the eyes of its enormous tail staring down the viewer. In the background a large classical alabaster urn rose vertically, suggestively, decorated with Greek warriors in bas-relief chasing after pneumatic maidens to claim their reward for victory. What could be more apropos?
The still life had been propped up on a long butcher-block counter a few feet away from a four-burner induction range. A stove and a small fridge were fitted beneath the counter, next to a diminutive cabinet that held an entire set of Cristel pots, nested one into the other as elegantly as Russian matryoshka dolls. Cooking is about insight, not material acquisition. Jean-Lu taught me that when we were kids.
Folon ran his eye down the recipe. There were over thirty ingredients, and the cooking instructions took five pages. It’s going to take all day to make this, but it’s going to be worth it. In theory, it’s beyond the capabilities of an amateur cook, but I’m hardly an amateur, am I? Cooking is an art of the mind, not of the hands, another thing Jean-Lu taught me. And I understand haute cuisine better than any chef.
He double-checked the list of ingredients. I have everything, but when you get in the heat of the action, something’s always missing. Tant pis. You substitute. You improvise. That’s how you take ownership of the dish and make it your own.
He opened the door of the refrigerator and removed a rectangular glass baking dish covered tight with plastic film wrap. The hare. The one ingredient you can’t substitute. The butcher is a genius. I asked him to be on the lookout for the very animal the Ali-Bab calls for—male, beyond the stage of infancy, but still an adolescent, with the coat of a redhead, shot in the head so not a drop of blood is lost.
He slit the plastic film and peeled it off. The butcher had left the skinned, deboned body of the animal intact, head attached, red and raw as if it had been flayed to death. He contemplated the bloody head.
That’s what the front of Galinette’s head must have looked like. Two shots from a twelve-gauge wouldn’t have left much face.
Gratified, Folon got to work. He spread a piece of fatback on the bottom of an enamel-covered cast-iron casserole, decapitated the hare, added a sprinkling of mirepoix diced so fine, it was down to the molecular level, as the recipe called for, and then another layer of linen-white fatback. He smiled. That’s what Jean looked like when they laid him out in his bloody shroud. That was a sight that did my heart good.
Next came half a bottle of red wine vinegar and two bottles of Clos des Cortons-Faiveley, a premier cru Burgundy. Expensive, but so what? This is a once-in-a-lifetime dish. And they were only oh-sixes, after all. He placed the covered casserole on his induction range and tapped LOW HEAT on the keyboard. It began to simmer almost instantly.
Meticulously, he finely chopped the hare’s heart, liver, and lungs, a quarter pound of French bacon, six shallots, and a pound of pork he had cooked the night before. He sweated the shallots in butter. The problem is that I never got to see what Escartefigue looked like after. They only found him when I’d already gone back to Paris. I still wonder if he was as bloody and boneless as the hare or just crumpled and dusty. I suppose it doesn’t make any difference. He got what was coming to him, and that’s the important thing.
The shallots sweated, he put all the choppings in a large steel bowl, added torn shards of baguette he had left soaking in milk since he had woken up, poured in a healthy dose of cognac, and then he topped the mixture wit
h an egg, a good sprinkling of fleur de sel de Guérande, fifteen twists of black pepper, and some quatre-épices.
He kneaded the ingredients with his hands.
This is the best part of cooking—the feel in your hands and the aroma in your nose. As he kneaded, the milk-soggy bread and chopped offal and pork took on a new consistency: dense, soft, fragrant, yielding. Fanny’s tits. He made a ball, convinced it was the same size and consistency his sister’s breast would have been when she was seventeen. He lifted it out of the bowl, admired it, shaped a flat nipple.
I spent my entire youth thinking about Fanny’s tits, and she knew it, he thought. She wore those little rice-paper-thin dresses, low on the top, short on the bottom. Sundresses, she called them. Every chance she got, she would lean way over to hand me something, showing her boobs hanging free and luscious inside those skimpy dresses. The thing I wanted most in life was to see her nipples. Sometimes I could almost see where the pale-as-milk skin started to become dark. The vision lit up my whole day, my whole week. At night I would do it to myself, thinking about the bottom of her tits, the part I knew was there but could never—would never—see. As far away from me as the far side of the moon. But at least I knew people who had seen that far side. Two of them left.
And we’ll see about them.
He gently extracted the hare from the casserole, spreadeagled it out on a flat dish, poured the cooking liquid in a bowl. With his hands he lathered the inside of the animal with the pork and offal mince. He then unwrapped a large lobe of goose foie gras, cut it into long batonets, which he aligned in the exact middle of the hare. He made a roll of the animal, wrapped it in cooking parchment, and carefully tied it with butcher string. The resulting bundle looked like a dead sailor about to be slid into the sea. But instead of the sea, he buried the corpse in an oven set at exactly two hundred degrees, where it would remain for the next five hours.
He put those five hours to good use, polishing his latest review until his prose sparkled, then taking pains to be sharp and witty answering his voluminous e-mail, drinking two glasses of single-malt whiskey, and writing five more pages of notes for his book, an acid critique of the lamentable philistinism of modern French gastronomic criticism.
Death of a Chef (Capucine Culinary Mystery) Page 20
