Red Beans and Vice

by Lou Jane Temple

  “I think it will take much more New Orleans knowledge than I have to even identify all the suspects,” Heaven said.

  When Heaven and Truely rounded the corner into Truely’s office they were surprised by a man sitting in Truely’s chair. He was a big man, no, a mountain of a man, like a former professional football player at age forty. The guy wasn’t fat but he wasn’t all muscle either. Tall, too. He startled both of them, Truely more than Heaven. “Where you been?” the big man demanded.

  “Showing my friend from out of town around,” Truely said cautiously, not introducing Heaven and the unexpected visitor.

  “I thought we had an appointment yesterday?” the big man said, ignoring Heaven completely.

  “Yes, I guess we did,” Truely admitted.

  “I guess we’ll have it right now,” the big man said, looking at Heaven dismissively.

  Heaven got the hint. There was no way to pretend the guy wasn’t emasculating Truely. He was sitting in Truely’s chair behind Truely’s desk and he didn’t bother to get up when Truely came in. That was fairly insulting. “I’ve got to go anyway. I’m meeting your best friend at K-Paul’s.”

  Truely’s eyes looked sad that Heaven had been exposed to this big lug, but he still smiled politely and gave Heaven a hug. “Watch that boy. He’s a pistol. We’ll see you next month.” With that he almost pushed Heaven out in the hall and closed the door. Heaven walked slowly away from the office, hoping to catch a piece of conversation, but no yelling erupted that she could hear. Maybe it was just rudeness on the part of the other man, nothing more.

  But here in New Orleans, where superficial manners were an art form, rudeness jarred Heaven. This guy wasn’t one of the rival coffee people who had confronted Truely at the hotel bar. He was someone else who wasn’t happy. Heaven shivered. Something was wrong.

  “I don’t remember it being so upscale,” Heaven said as she and Will were seated.

  “Just another way the world is going to hell in a handbasket. K-Paul’s has gone and cleaned up,” Will said as he rubbed his hands together gleefully. “The food is still good, though.”

  “I sure had fun last night,” Heaven said before she thought. “The four of us, I mean,” she quickly added.

  “Me, too. How come I haven’t met you before? You’re sure the best one of Mary Beth’s Northerner friends.”

  Heaven couldn’t resist. The scene at Truely’s was just too fresh in her mind. She switched the conversation. “Speaking of friends, yours says for me to watch out for you, says you’re a pistol.”

  Will looked like he had just been called a captain of industry. But before he could reply an older man in a linen suit stopped by the table. “Tom Tibbetts, don’t get up. Just call my office this afternoon. We may be able to do something with that Chef Mentuer property.” He walked on.

  Heaven looked quizzically across the table.

  “I told you only my friends called me Will. I can’t be the only one at this table with several names. You can’t tell me your momma named you Heaven.”

  “Katherine O’Malley,” she said, wanting to turn the conversation back to Truely. “Will, can I ask you something that isn’t any of my business?”

  “I’ve been married twice, well, three times if you count that month in my senior year of high school.”

  “I’ve got you beat by two, if you count that month in your senior year of high school. But that’s not what I want to ask you. Is Truely’s business all right?”

  The waiter arrived and they ordered; gumbo and a miniature eggplant version of a pirogue, the flat-bottomed boats of the bayou, filled with spicy crayfish for Heaven, and some oysters and blackened snapper for Will.

  “And we’ll have a bottle of that good Sancerre, the Pascal Jolivet,” Will said as he handed in their menus. “Why do you ask about Truely’s business?” He didn’t say she was barking up the wrong tree, she noticed. Answering a question with a question was old but it still worked.

  “Well, today I went over to the warehouse, to see how a coffee operation functions, and when we went back into Truely’s office, there was a great big man sitting in Truely’s chair behind his desk, which I found to be the highest form of insult.”

  Will started the spin control for his friend. “If someone sat in Truely’s chair and he didn’t give them hell, they must be a good friend. How old?”

  “Forty, maybe. He looked like someone who had played for the Saints about ten years ago.”

  “Heaven, you’ve been living in Kansas City too long, where those Italians were into everything in the food world and were always dropping by to get their cut.”

  “Duh, New Orleans can keep up in the organized crime department,” Heaven said haughtily, thinking of her Italian/American/Vietnamese neighborhood back home.

  “Truely Whitten is not mobbed up, Heaven, no way. Is that what you’re trying to say? Did this guy look Italian?”

  “No, he looked like a big bohunk from the University of Nebraska, twenty years removed.”

  “What happened?”

  “The guy said Truely had missed an appointment and then they kicked me out. Truely didn’t even introduce me and, for such a Southern gentleman, that spoke volumes.”

  “Oh, it did, huh? Heaven, I think this trouble at the convent has got your imagination going on overtime.”

  Heaven refused to be waylaid. “And there’s more. The other day we met Truely at the Monteleone and these two guys were with him and one of them left looking real mad and the other one said, ‘It’s not a joke,’ and they were from the rival coffee importer.”

  Will gave her that grin. “Boy, you are Nancy Drew, aren’t you? Sounds like Leon Davis to me. He’s full of bull. I doubt he could buy Truely out if Pan-Am were for sale, which it isn’t. Heaven, honey. Relax.”

  Their first courses arrived and Heaven bit her tongue for a minute, then slipped in one more try. “So, everything’s fine with Truely?”

  “Let’s talk about us, instead. Are you involved with anyone in Kansas City?”

  “Yes,” Heaven said hurriedly, with a follow-up smile that she knew was flirtatious. Sometimes she couldn’t help herself. She felt guilty about that. She loved Hank. “And you?”

  Will shrugged. “This and that. When you’re as handsome as me, you have to fight ‘em off with a stick.”

  Heaven got ready to give him a stinging reply, and he winked. “Just kidding. I know you have a sense of humor, ‘cause I saw it last night. I’ve only been divorced this last time for a year. I’m not ready to get hooked up again, just yet. So, what about us having a mad affair when you come back next month?”

  “Said with about as much passion as you had when you were talking about your real estate business last night. I get the feeling you don’t take much seriously, Will.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Any affair planned a month in advance like a dentist’s appointment wouldn’t be worth having,” Heaven said.

  “Touché. Then let me show you my place after lunch. It’s right over on Governor Nicholls. It’s on the historical register. That bad boy Clay Shaw lived there once.”

  Heaven thought back. She was sure Will and his Porsche had been coming out of a courtyard on Ursulines, not Governor Nicholls. But before she made a fool of herself about French Quarter geography, she’d check it out when she returned next month. Will must know where he lived, after all. And he could have been visiting a friend. “How about splitting a piece of sweet potato pecan pie instead?” she said sweetly.

  Fish in Parchment

  For six servings:

  6 6-oz. fillets of sole or pompano or other flat-bodied fish. (Have the butcher save the bones and heads if possible.)

  Parchment paper is cut in large rounds or a heart shape, one for each serving.

  1 onion, peeled and diced

  1 shallot, peeled and diced

  2 cloves garlic, diced

  6 T. butter

  1 cup white wine

  1 cup
fish stock or chicken stock

  1 T. thyme

  1 T. tarragon

  1 T. white vinegar red or yellow baby tomatoes, three for each serving

  1 cup crabmeat

  1 cup diced cooked shrimp

  2 shelled oysters per serving (optional)

  kosher salt

  white pepper

  If possible make some fish stock with your fish bones, a stalk of celery, an onion quartered, a carrot, and some parsley in a large sauté pan or wide mouth saucepan. Cover the bones with cold water, bring to a boil and simmer, skimming the top of the pan. Add 1/2 cup white wine and reduce to a quart.

  The fish:

  Melt 3 T. of the butter in a large, heavy sauté pan. Add the onion, shallot, garlic and sauté to soften. Add the liquids, the herbs, and reduce 10 minutes. Add the vinegar, tomatoes, and seafood (except the fish and seasonings). Reduce again 5 minutes. With a fork, beat in the remaining butter. Remove from heat and cool.

  Oil the inside of the parchment paper. Place a fish fillet in the middle of each piece and sprinkle with kosher salt and white pepper. Place a scoop of the vegetable and seafood mixture on the top of each fillet. Close and crimp the paper to seal.

  Roast at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Rip into the paper, take a big sniff of the wonderful aroma and dig in. This is a much lighter version of the classic New Orleans dish, which has a thickened sauce. You can add some cayenne if you want a little heat, or sometimes I sprinkle a touch of ground cinnamon in the package.

  Four

  And that’s why I’m so glad to be home,” Heaven said with a big sigh at the end of a sparkling recitation of all the problems that had occurred in New Orleans.

  Sal and Murray and Mona were speechless for a minute. “You left Tuesday morning and got back Thursday night and that much happened?” Murray asked, in awe. “You could write a whole novel just from those three days.”

  “It’s really more like two days. You have to take time off for flying there and back,” Heaven said smugly.

  “Heaven, what in the world will happen when there’s food involved?” Mona asked. “Troublemakers love it when there’s food involved.”

  “That worries me too. But no one even mentioned canceling the event. Ninety-nine percent of the people of New Orleans seem to really love the sisters and what they mean to the city.”

  “What happened to the cross?” Sal said, leaving the obvious comment that it only takes one percent to screw everything up left unsaid.

  “I thought about that on the way home. It has great historical value, of course, but I don’t know what someone in another city would pay for an eighteenth-century iron cross from France and I don’t think anyone in New Orleans could display it in their home if they bought it on the black market. So I don’t think it was stolen for that. It could have been thrown in the river by someone who just wanted to destroy the outward trappings of the sisterhood.”

  “Like that Amelia Hart,” Mona threw in.

  “Of course, they could use it to commit a crime. That would irritate the sisters. I don’t know if it’s heavy enough to break the window of a bank or anything. And I don’t know if the point on top is sharp enough to impale anyone,” Heaven said, speculating.

  “Heaven, stop,” Mona ordered like an old maid schoolteacher.

  “Well, whoever stole the cross isn’t likely to have it polished and return it, you know,” she said defensively.

  “People are just no damn good,” Sal said as two high school students entered the shop for trims of their military-style haircuts, so popular with the kids at the moment. He looked at Heaven as if to say, no more crime stories.

  “I better get to work. How are the reservations for tonight, Murray?”

  Murray looked at Heaven intensely. “Busy. Let’s go over and look at the reservation book. There are a couple of problem areas, like right around seven o’clock.”

  “Seven is always a problem on Friday night,” Heaven said. “Bye, Sal.”

  Sal’s unlit cigar moved from one side of his mouth to the other, a gesture they all took for good-bye.

  Heaven and Mona and Murray got up and walked out the door. “I’ll talk to you two later,” Mona said as they walked across 39th Street.

  “You better tell Mona about the letters pretty soon,” Murray said in a low voice. “She’ll be pissed….”

  “You mean if she finds out some other way, like in the newspaper?” Heaven hissed under her breath as they walked into the cafe. “Has something else happened?”

  Murray looked down and nodded. “Sal’s connection at city hall says the health department got the same letter you did sometime this week. Just like the newspaper, they don’t follow up on unsigned accusations because they’ve been used for some personal vendettas. I guess an ex-wife pissed off at her ex-husband, who owned a little cafe out on Wornall, made a big stink last year, saying he had rats, roaches. She sent the letters unsigned but got antsy they weren’t closing him down fast enough and called up. Health department has caller ID. They went out and interviewed her and saw she was trying to cause trouble for her ex.”

  “I get the picture, Murray. The health department doesn’t like to be used in personal vendettas. But the idea gets planted.”

  “Just like the newspaper. It gets them thinking that maybe they should have a policy about people working in the food industry with HIV. I guess all the honchos are meeting with the docs, trying to see what’s what.”

  “They already have rules about what you’re supposed to do if anyone has hepatitis. Everyone takes a gamma globulin shot,” Heaven said, knowing that had nothing to do with the current problem. “Damn.”

  “I’m going, I’ll see you tonight. Heaven, I don’t like the sound of things in New Orleans. Whoever is doing this is working up to the big benefit dinner. You know that.”

  “But what can I do? We’ve got some nut up here trying to destroy my business. The sisters are on their own for a while.” Heaven stalked into the kitchen with a heavy heart.

  Heaven, get out of here. You must be exhausted, after the trip to New Orleans and all.” Sara Baxter, the lead line cook—she refused to be called the sous-chef-was trying to spare the kitchen the grief of having Heaven around while they cleaned up. It took twice as long to clean when Heaven was there because she was always finding nooks and crannies that she wanted them to pull everything out of and wipe down with bleach water. Not that it wasn’t a good idea, just not tonight. They’d gotten their butts whipped tonight.

  Heaven wouldn’t hear of it. “I wonder how many orders of those fish in parchment we did? I should have thought when I decided to do it as a special it would come from my station. What a night. I do ache, I must admit. But I’ll stay and help,” she said cheerfully. Heaven wanted more physical labor. Sometimes, when you can’t figure out a problem, getting slammed on the saute station on a busy Friday night and then organizing the walk-in cooler was the next best thing. But before she could protest further, Murray stuck his head into the kitchen via the pass-through window. He had a big grin on his face, which pissed her off. He shouldn’t be smiling after the night they’d just experienced. “Guess who just walked in the door?”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Murray,” Heaven said shortly.

  “Trust me. This will make you happy. Just come out here,” Murray said, insisting.

  Sara took the dirty kitchen rag from Heaven’s hand and untied her apron. “Bye,” Sara said firmly.

  Heaven went over to the tiny kitchen bathroom and did her sixty-second beauty routine. She took off her chef’s jacket. She splashed water on her face to get any large chunks of food loosened and rinsed off, then applied bright pink lipstick. She mussed her red hair with wet fingers, giving it a little life. Then she stepped back out into the kitchen and slipped on a 1950s men’s sharkskin sports jacket that she always had hanging there, to give her tee shirt and tights a little boost. She didn’t bother to change from her kitchen clogs to high heels. “Thanks for working so hard. Lucky u
s. We get to do it again tomorrow night,” she said to the kitchen crew and stepped out in the dark of the dining room.

  Every time Heaven entered the dining room it gave her a buzz. If the kitchen was backstage, the dining room was front and center. Hitting that swinging door, having your eyes adjust to the dim light, your skin be caressed with the coolness, your ears with the sound of Ella Fitzgerald and snippets of conversation from guests having a good time, it was a real high for Heaven. In those first few seconds of being in the dining room, the chaos of the kitchen, the sales tax due in a few days, the broken bar sink that would have to be fixed tomorrow, Saturday, at overtime rates, even the anonymous hate mail seemed like a small price to pay for standing there in the dining room in a world you’d created.

  Heaven looked over at the bar and saw why Murray had insisted she come out. Jack was back.

  Jumpin’ Jack, as he liked to be called, was a neighborhood fixture. For years, he wore only army camo gear and insisted he had served in Vietnam. Actually, he was raised a rich kid in Mission Hills, had never been in the armed services, and was ten years too young to have gone to Vietnam even if he’d been well enough to be in the military. His family didn’t want to deal with him and his neuroses. They gave him money to stay away. Jack had helped Heaven out of some jams and in those cases his military delusions had come in handy, as he could could pick a lock and do surveillance with aplomb. But Jack had become confused and agitated more than a year before, and Heaven had insisted that his parents help him. Menninger’s was just sixty miles away in Topeka, Kansas, and couldn’t be beat for an expensive shrinking. This was the first time Jack had been seen since he went there to be fixed.

  “Hey, stranger, long time, no see,” Heaven said and gave Jack a big kiss on the cheek. The camo gear was gone, replaced by jeans, a black Gap tee shirt and a tweedy sports jacket. His old beard was also gone and, clean shaven, Jack looked almost like a college professor. Heaven thought he was puffy though, probably from his medication. A few months ago, Murray had found out they were having trouble finding the right combination of chemicals to soothe Jack’s demons. Now, his eyes looked clear and friendly.