His reasoning was sound but one of his premises was flawed, although I didn’t realize it at the time.
“I’m surprised Duran was able to get a warrant,” he noted.
“But he did, and now I’m in jail.”
He finally opened his eyes. “Don’t be melodramatic, Hubert. You are not in jail. You are merely at the police station, and you will not be here much longer. I called Judge Aragon before coming down here.”
And right on cue, one of his beautiful young paralegals came in with a signed motion to quash the warrant.
45
I had forgotten we still lacked a third Austrian/Southwestern entrée.
Being arrested for murder will do that.
So when Layton dropped me off in Old Town, I walked over to Miss Gladys’ Gift Shop and found her sitting behind her counter crocheting something.
Or maybe she was knitting. She was doing the one that requires a hook, whichever that is. She usually brings me her casseroles, so she was pleased I actually came seeking a recipe.
I explained that we needed something like tafelspitz, beef tips cooked in broth and usually served with sour cream and potatoes.
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, that would be Melba Mason’s Tender Tips Supreme. Her husband was pastor of the Holiness Temple. She served her Tender Tips every summer at the revival and never even knew all the men were washing it down with whiskey they kept hidden in the porta-potties behind the tent. She just figured they were going out back so often because of her sweet tea.”
She listed the ingredients as sirloin tips coated in flour and browned, chopped green onions, frozen hash browns, canned mushroom soup, canned beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup and the ingredient that told me we had to try this – ginger ale.
After convincing her I didn’t want her to cook some for me, I went directly to Dos Hermanas and told Susannah she had been right.
“About what?” she asked, looking at me over the saltless rim of her otherwise perfect margarita.
“About everything. You said I would become a suspect, and today I was arrested. You said Barry Stiles was injected with poison, and he was.” I shook my head in amazement. “I’m surprised you didn’t also figure out the poison was one of my glazing chemicals.”
“I didn’t know glazing chemicals are poison.”
“Neither did I. There’s a fume hood in my workshop, but they have those in the restaurant, too. I figured the city required me to have it merely because any fumes are bad for your lungs. I never guessed I was working with poisons.”
“What poison is it?”
“Barium carbonate.”
“Oh, rat poison.”
“What? You’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah, we use it on the ranch.”
“O.K. you seem to know everything about this whole situation, so who killed Barry Stiles?”
“Wallace Voile.”
“Really?” I felt like I had just stepped through the looking glass. “Why?”
“First, there’s her name.”
“You said it was romantic.” Maybe Rafael thinks so, too, I thought to myself.
“It’s romantic when the last name is Simpson. But no one names girls Wallace, so Voile is using an alias, and people who do that usually have something to hide.”
“That seems a little weak.”
“You haven’t heard it all. Second, she worked at Café Alsace, so she has a previous connection with Barry.”
“So do Arliss and Rafael.”
“Why do you always call him Rafael?”
I turned up a palm. “I like the name, I guess.”
“Anyway, from the way you described Arliss, I can’t see him as a murderer, and I know Ice didn’t do it.”
I ate some salsa on a chip and washed it down with a margarita properly attired with a salty rim. Then I just sat there.
“O.K.,” she said, “I didn’t think hmm zuu was a murderer either, and I was wrong. But this time I’m not.”
“Hmm zuu?”
“I promised myself not to mention his name any more.”
“Oh, him.” I hoped she was right. “What else?” I asked.
“In addition to using an alias and having a past connection with the victim, Voile is the perfect villain because she is so unlikely. The beautiful woman who seems to have it all. She doesn’t kill men – they kill for her.”
“That may be the way it works in fiction, but in real life the murderer is usually the most obvious suspect. Although I admit I could see her sneaking up behind Barry and clocking him with a hammer. Then jabbing a needle full of poison into him. She seems coldblooded enough to do that. But why?”
“Jeez,” she said jokingly, “I already figured out who did it. The least you could do is supply the motive.”
46
“Our second Grand Opening in a month,” I said to Jürgen and Alain.
Jürgen contradicted me. “It is not the second because it is a re-opening,”
Alain wagged a finger. “Non. It is a Grand Opening. We are no longer Schnitzel. We are Chile Schnitzel.”
“Doesn’t roll trippingly off the tongue, does it?” said Jürgen.
Alain shrugged. “We will see what the public thinks.”
I handed them each a copy of what I had labeled Tafelspitz Sangre de Cristo. The green onions had been replaced with chiles, the hash browns with fresh potatoes, and the ketchup had given way to enchilada sauce. The dish was topped with crema Mexicana mixed with horseradish.
Alain looked up from the paper. “What is ginger ale?”
“The key ingredient,” I said.
He took a sip from a cold can I had brought with me. “Ah. It is like the strange ginger beer the English drink, but the American one is weaker.” He shuddered. “And sweeter.”
“Ginger beer would work better with the beef,” said Jürgen.
“The recipe is yours,” I said to them. “Do with it as you please.”
“I will go to buy Ginger Beer and tafelspitz,” said Jürgen.
I was confused. “I thought we would make the tafelspitz, not buy it.”
“Tafelspitz is a cut of meat from the tritip.”
“If you can’t find tritip, you can use sirloin,” I said. “That’s what the original recipe calls for.”
Jürgen dismissed my suggestion with a raised hand. “In Austria they use many substitutes such as hueferscherzl, hueferschwanzl, wadlstutzen, gschnatter, schwarzes scherzl, weisses scherzl, duennes kuegerl, and schalblattel.”
“All excellent choices,” I said with a straight face.
Alain looked at me, perplexed. I pulled him aside after Jürgen departed. “Have you given any thought to what will happen when the customers tonight pay with a credit card?”
“They must pay with cash.”
“Americans don’t carry cash. When they see we insist on cash, most of them will leave.”
“But if they pay with the card,” he said, “the money will go to an account controlled by Molinero. He relented to our plan, but he has not been here since the Sunday meeting. I do not like to say this, but I am not certain we can trust him.”
“My nephew came with me this morning. He can reprogram the machine to a different account.”
“This is legal?”
I shrugged. I had asked myself that question and given myself the same answer.
Alain thought about it briefly. “We are not stealing the money. We will use it to keep the restaurant alive.”
“Yes, but we don’t have time to set up a new bank account. We must use an existing one. My nephew set up the system that allows me to accept cards at my shop. We can use my account if you trust me.”
“But of course,” he responded. Then he thought for a moment. “Perhaps we should not tell the others.”
I agreed, and Tristan went to work on the computer that served as a cash register and credit card processor. He had my account number and my bank’s routing number, and in less than five minutes, the change had been made. I
stood guard during the process, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The back-of-the-house staff were all in the kitchen, and the front-of-the-house staff had not yet arrived.
The usual pre-opening chaos set in around noon. I became the garçon again, this time joined by Tristan who demonstrated a knack for setting tables.
At ten minutes to six, I left the building through the loading dock and walked down the alley until I could see the entrance. Forty or fifty people were milling around. We were going to have a busy night.
What is it, I wondered, about Santa Fe? Are they really such avid restaurant goers that any opening draws a crowd? Are they just curious about the odd concept of Austrian/Southwestern fusion? Do they have more money than sense?
Or are they just hungry?
When Wallace opened the doors at precisely six, her three assistants managed to be attentive and welcoming to each party they seated while at the same time doing so quickly enough that no one had a long wait. All twenty tables were occupied by six fifteen. As we saw them fill, Tristan and I rushed to the private dining area and dressed the four tables there. The last napkin had scarcely been inserted into its ring when Wallace showed a party of four to the back table.
“A special table for special people,” she said, her voice as smooth and cold as Jell-O, but they loved it.
The seatings were smooth and the service speedy. Because of the prix fixe menu, most things were precooked. An order of schnitzel con tres chiles required merely placing the schnitzel on a warm plate, dousing it with the jalapeno sauce and spooning a portion of habañero relish on one side and poblanos spätzle on the other. When the kitchen staff saw how many orders were being placed, they started plating them up before the orders came in. There had been some concern that we had more staff than required, but the crowd was so large and the turnover so fast that Alain quickly grasped that enough had not been prepared. He ordered a third of the staff to plate, a third to deliver, and the other third to start preparing more of everything. Tristan joined the wait staff and I tended bar, which, thankfully, consisted mostly of opening beer bottles and pouring wine for those who ordered it by the glass.
At one point, someone ordered a Rob Roy. I told the waitress who brought the order to tell the customer we were out of gin. She said a Rob Roy isn’t made with gin, so I told her to change the excuse to we don’t serve cocktails named after bandits. She gave me a funny look and left. I’m confident she had the good sense to make up a better excuse than the one I suggested, but I had neither the time nor the inclination to learn how to make a Rob Roy. Nor did I attempt to fill the orders for a Sex on the Beach or an Alabama Slammer. Someone also ordered an Orgasm (presumably the name of a drink). I wondered if it was the same person who wanted sex on the beach.
I did manage scotch on the rocks, bourbon and coke, and a martini. The latter was ordered very dry and delivered even drier because I couldn’t find the vermouth.
Despite the best efforts of the kitchen crew, demand eventually overwhelmed supply. The wait staff explained that the smoked trout appetizer was sold out. Soon the schnitzel con tres chiles was no longer available. The Linzer torte was crossed off the dessert menu. The smoked duck breast was sold out, followed by – to my surprise – the tafelspitz Sangre de Cristo.
By the time we closed the doors at shortly after ten, we had served 297 diners and taken in $10,325.56 in charges and tips, almost all of which was now residing in my bank account, a fact that was roiling my stomach.
Alain gathered everyone in the dining room, dragging Scruggs and his assistants out of the scullery against their protests that the pots should be scrubbed before having any meeting.
“When I told Molinero we had become a compagnie, it was mostly just blowing the air. I wanted him to know we are determined. Tonight, you saved me from making the false boast.”
Idle boast, I thought to myself.
“We had a full house, and the customers liked the food. But we should remember how soon they disappeared after our opening as Schnitzel. Hubert Schuze is serving as the manager. He has an announcement for you.”
“We are not in a position to pay anyone a salary. But Alain and I have decided the staff should be paid half of the gross revenue each night. The other half will go for supplies. This is a temporary plan, subject to change as we see how things go. Half of tonight’s take is approximately five thousand dollars. There were twenty five people working tonight, so that is exactly two hundred dollars per person. Of course it is normal for a chef to make more than a waiter, a waiter to make more than a pot scrubber, etc. I am not taking any pay, but I would like my expenses to be reimbursed at some point. Alain and I want you to agree on a plan for splitting the money. We will wait in the bar. After you decide, you need to do the usual cleaning. We will pay you at eleven in the morning. We will need all day to get ready if we have another night like tonight.”
“How will you pay us?” asked Wallace Voile.
“In cash,” I replied.
“But almost all the customers used credit cards. The money will not be available until the charges have cleared.”
“I have made special arrangements for that,” I said.
“Special arrangements?”
“Yes. Are there any other questions?”
Although she was glaring at me for ignoring her implied question of what the special arrangements were, she did so from a composed face.
Arliss Mansfield said, “I don’t have a question, but I do have a request.”
“Yes?”
He stood and turned to face the others. “I think we should give Alain and Hubie a round of applause.”
They made it a robust round. Alain and I thanked them and retreated to the bar with Tristan. I opened a bottle of Gruet. I was certain it was better than the ginger ale I had brought.
Tristan opened a beer, Alain filled two coupes, and we toasted the evening. I usually drink Gruet from a flute, but the coupe was fun because the bubbles tickled my nose.
“Did you taste the food?” I asked.
“Of course. Nothing leaves my kitchen untasted.”
“And?”
“The ‘meat with crust’, as Jürgen names it, is not to my taste. The sauce, however, is fresh and light. The beef dish is too complicated, but the ginger from the soda gives it a certain Je ne sais quoi. The mole deserves a star from Michelin. But it should not be pushed inside a potato dumpling.”
“So these dishes will not be on the menu of your American food restaurant in France?”
“I am thinking the mole will be served over cous-cous.”
We had closed the French doors but we could hear voices from the dining room, occasionally raised. Wallace Voile left two minutes into the meeting. Helen Mure stomped out after another ten. Shortly after that, the meeting broke up and the cleaning commenced.
Arliss Mansfield had been delegated to convey the plan they had agreed to.
“I speak on behalf of the proletariat,” he said with a smile. “We have voted for the first few days at least to give every worker an equal share.”
Alain left. I suppose as de facto chef de cuisine, he wouldn’t be expected to help clean. Tristan said he might as well pitch in, and I saw him enter the scullery. I sat at the bar with my Gruet in order not to be in the way of those doing the cleaning.
As I was finishing my second coupe, Maria Salazar brought me some toasted crusty bread slices spread with piñon and apricot pesto. The pesto had outlasted the trout. We shared the toast and champagne, the first food either of us had had for twelve hours.
We talked about the evening, speculating on what the future held for Chile Schnitzel. We talked about the food, about how the staff had rallied together, about their surprising decision to share the wealth.
“Power to the people,” I said, and we made a mock toast.
“Well, most of them. Helen Mure walked out when it was clear we were going to vote equal shares,” she said.
“I saw Wallace leave, too.”
; “That was odd,” she said. “She left before we even got to the topic of pay. She didn’t say a word. She just waited until the first person started talking and then quietly slipped away.”
Maria had also been quietly slipping, but in my direction rather than away, scooting her stool closer to mine each time she reached for a piece of toast or lifted her coupe to sip the bubbly. We were now shoulder to shoulder at the bar. Like communist comrades.
But I wondered whether camaraderie was all she had in mind.
“Maybe Wallace wanted to celebrate our success with someone special,” she suggested. “How about you, Hubie? Would you like to celebrate with me?”
“Uh…”
“I have some cold Gruet at my place.”
What to do? At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I said, “I’m in a relationship.”
She laughed. “You are so cute. Are you trying to tell me you’re ‘going steady’?”
“Well, uh…”
“You aren’t married, are you?”
“No.”
“Engaged?”
“No.”
“Living with a woman?”
“No.”
She stuck her hands on her hip. In a playful schoolmarmish voice, she said, “In a relationship with a man?”
I couldn’t help laughing. “No.”
“Well, in that case, I think it’s probably safe for you to have a glass of champagne at my apartment.”
She smiled at me. I smiled back.
I realized I didn’t have to decide whether to accept or decline her offer. “I have to take Tristan home,” I said.
47
I fortified myself with strong black coffee before approaching the reviews the next morning, jumping into the deep end by starting with Dagmar Mortensen. The headline was noncommittal – “Herr Today, Gone Tomorrow?”
Readers of this column who believe my recent negative review of Schnitzel led to its closing give me too much credit. The food was bad enough to do that without my help.
We were not surprised that Schnitzel closed. We are surprised that it reopened and astonished that it now claims to be Austrian/ Southwestern fusion, a claim so outrageous as to require a second visit.
The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier Page 15
