Cook's Night Out

by Joanne Pence

  Paavo seethed. “Yes, sir.”

  “I trust you, Smith, but not everyone knows you like I do. I’m sticking my neck out on this. So get busy.”

  Reverend Hodge was standing beside Mary Ellen Hitchcock when Angie entered his office. “You’re sure it’s authentic?” Hodge asked, studying a card encased in clear Plexiglas.

  “Absolutely. These certificates prove it.”

  Angie stepped closer. The card showed a man in a baseball uniform…Babe Ruth. Even a sports illiterate like her knew that card was worth a small fortune.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Hodge said. “Thank you, Mary Ellen.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to trouble you with these valuables—the Picasso, the diamond necklace, now this.”

  “No trouble.” He put it in his desk drawer. “It makes me feel like I’m doing my part. And you do yours.”

  She spun around and noticed Angie. “We’ve received a wonderful donation.” Her eyes sparkled. “I’m simply ecstatic.” She practically waltzed out of the room.

  “Now, Miss Amalfi.” Hodge adjusted his glasses, then smiled. “Just the person I’ve been waiting to see. Tell me how you’re going to feed us at the auction. And what the centerpiece will be.”

  “Well, I haven’t exactly settled on the centerpiece yet—”

  His smile disappeared. “Oh?”

  “—but the menu will be simply wonderful,” she said quickly.

  “It will?” His beetle-shaped eyebrows popped up high.

  “Perfection personified,” she said with a confidence she didn’t completely feel.

  He sat down again and gestured toward the guest chair. “Out with it.”

  “Okay.” She also sat. “For hors d’oeuvres we’ll have mushroom and squash timbales; tarte flambée made with cheese, bacon, and onion; grilled sea scallops with wild mushrooms; focaccia with a variety of toppings; smoked salmon with white caviar sauce; citrus gratin with zabaglione topping; and of course all the regulars—a variety of cheeses, cold meats, and salads for the less adventurous eaters.”

  “Uh, right.” Reverend Hodge’s brow wrinkled as she spoke.

  “I haven’t completely settled yet on the dessert table, but right now I’m leaning toward a nice chocolate tarragon mousse, lemon tuiles, and prune croustade. I’m not sure what else.”

  “Prunes?”

  “These are delicious,” she assured him with a smile.

  He nodded skeptically. “Well, I’m sure if I knew what all that was, you’d be making my mouth water.”

  “Everyone will love it,” Angie said. “The happier and more satisfied the people are, the more generous they’ll be.”

  “Generally, that’s right,” he muttered, frowning. “I just hope they’ll want to eat all that stuff they won’t even know how to pronounce.”

  She felt her blood pressure rising.

  “I mean,” he continued, “some people are pretty fussy, and all this talk about prunes and zabaglione and—”

  “There you are, you low-down crook. Start sayin’ your prayers for real this time!”

  The reverend looked up, then did a swan dive under his desk.

  Angie spun around in her chair, and the sight caused her to hurl herself back against the wall. A scarecrowlike man with grizzled hair, missing a few front teeth and wearing stained and dirty overalls and a flannel shirt, was pointing a handgun in their direction.

  “Come out of there, you two-bit polecat, or I’ll blast right through your fancy-Dan desk!”

  “Brother Tweeler.” Hodge, on his knees, popped his head over the desktop. “You seem upset. Can we talk?”

  “Ain’t got nothin’ to say, ‘ceptin’ I want my money, an’ I want it now.”

  Hodge glanced at Angie, beads of perspiration on his brow, then back to Tweeler. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Brother. Why don’t you put the gun down, and we can discuss this more calmly?”

  “I hate to say a man of the cloth is lyin’, Reverend, but what you’re sayin’ ain’t worth shit. My numbers done come up, and I want my five hunnert bucks.”

  Angie inched toward the door. “Excuse me while I—”

  “Stay put!”

  She flattened herself against the wall.

  “I assure you, Brother Tweeler,” Hodge said, on the verge of tears, “I know nothing about any money you’re owed. But if it’ll make you happy to borrow five hundred dollars from this mission, I’ll give it to you. There’s no need for violence here.”

  “Who said borrow? I didn’t hear nobody say borrow.” He glanced at Angie. “Did you hear somebody say borrow, miss?”

  She shook her head emphatically.

  “It’s my money, Hodge!” Tweeler raised the gun again and Hodge ducked.

  “Yes, well…I’ll give it to you,” Hodge called from under the desk. “I mean, Miss Amalfi is here. We can’t endanger the lady, right?”

  Tweeler glanced at Angie. “She ain’t the one in danger, Rev. Get your butt out in the open like a man!”

  Hodge peeked over the desktop once more. “You want me to moon someone?”

  “I want my money. Now!” Tweeler thundered.

  “Reverend Hodge, please!” Angie cried.

  “Okay, okay.” Still on his knees, Hodge opened a desk drawer and lifted out his money box, then cautiously stood up.

  Tweeler frowned. “If those guys who work for you would have paid up like they was s’posed to,” he said, “none of this would have happened.”

  “You’ve got something wrong.” Hodge’s hands shook so much he could scarcely open the box. “No one works for me. We’re all volunteers in the army of the Lord. Our mission is to give, not to receive.”

  “Stuff it, Hodge.”

  Hodge counted out five hundred-dollar bills. “This money was supposed to buy food for the women and children, the old men, the disabled veterans who come to the mission. The sick, the weak, the—”

  “Buy food, my ass! It’s all over the street that this place is filled with goddamned numbers runners. And crooked ones at that! They changed my number, and now they say I ain’t a winner. But me an’ Charlie Junior”—he held up his gun—“know I’m a winner.”

  “You heard it on the street?” Hodge asked innocently as he stood up.

  “Course I did! Where the hell else would I hear such a thing?” Tweeler grabbed the money from Hodge’s hands and began counting it himself.

  “The street?” Hodge asked again. “But I never go on the street. It’s dangerous out there. Drug dealers, hookers, guns. How could they know me or anything about me? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I hate to tell you, but the way you talked about them folks on the street, they sound just like the ones in this here mission to me.” Tweeler looked as if he was trying to remember what came after two hundred.

  “But it’s not true! We aren’t like that!”

  “Then how’d I up and win this money?” Tweeler said, two hundred dollars in one hand, three hundred in the other, and the gun still too close to him on the table.

  “I don’t know. All I know is I’ve got some partners and others who’ll be plenty upset that I gave you all that,” Hodge cried, his hands against his cheeks. He looked as if he was going to give the Macaulay Culkin scream from Home Alone.

  “My heart bleeds. Three hunnert.” A hundred-dollar bill shifted hands.

  “But Brother Tweeler,” Hodge said, cautiously tiptoeing around the desk toward the man, “we’re trying to do good here. If you take that…it’s stealing.”

  Tweeler struggled until all the bills were in one hand, then he put them in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. Sharp eyes peered at Hodge, but then he said, not so sharply, “Huh?”

  “Stealing’s wrong, especially from a rescue mission. A religious rescue mission. You’ll pay for it later…somehow…sometime when you least expect it. Zap!”

  Tweeler’s eyes widened. “Zap?”

  “That’s right. You’ve got to do good things in t
he eyes of the Lord, Brother Tweeler.”

  “I do good things!”

  “Taking this money?”

  “Well…”

  “Brother, if you do good, good things will come to you. This is a mere five hundred dollars. But if you’re a truly good man, you’ll get far more than this. You’ll have more riches than you can count.”

  “I don’t need more. I had trouble countin’ to five hunnert.”

  “Don’t ruin your life, Brother. Within you live dreams and hopes and a blessed assurance of your own rightness. Don’t let these few shackles prevent you from finding the real you.”

  He gently took hold of Tweeler’s arm and maneuvered him so that he faced a blank wall, and then he passed his hand along the line of the wall, as if creating a broad mural. “You could travel, Charlie. Just imagine taking a plane—or a train, if you’re afraid to fly, like I am—to someplace far away. Someplace warm and friendly.” His hand was like a giant paintbrush. Angie found herself staring at the blank wall as though at passing scenery. “You could buy a new suit there if you wanted one—not that there’s anything wrong with your overalls, of course. You could buy a hat—a ten-gallon one, even. On your pinky finger there’d be a gold ring with a big square diamond. And when you pulled out your roll of money, that ring would flash and simply dazzle everybody! You’d go strutting down the street dressed to the nines, and the women—the women, Charlie—they’d notice you. They’d surround you, hanging on your every word. They’d do it first because of the money. But you know what, Charlie? You know what?”

  Tweeler shook his head, staring at the wall, trying hard to see the paradise Hodge was describing.

  “After a while,” the reverend said softly, soothingly, “they’d hear nothing but your words. They’d look into your heart, and they’d be after you for yourself. For you. Rich ones, poor ones, all wanting you. You’d choose a rich one, of course, and spend your life in a soft bed, with all the sex and the Johnnie Walker Red Label you could ever hope for.”

  “You think so?” Tweeler whispered.

  “Have faith, Charlie. Have faith that your will—and the power you have to change your life—are going to make a difference. You could become whoever you were always meant to be.”

  “Yeah,” Tweeler whispered, smiling hard at the wall, looking as if the vision painted there was so real he could all but taste it. “Oh, yeah!”

  Hodge plucked the five hundred dollars from Charlie’s breast pocket. “God be with you, Brother.” He whisked Tweeler out of his office and locked the door.

  He turned around, took a wobbly step toward his desk, then fell over in a dead faint.

  “Do you feel better now, Reverend Hodge?” The reverend sat on the floor, his back to the wall, feet straight out before him. Against his head he held a cloth Angie had found in the kitchen and dampened with cold water.

  He moaned, then whispered mournfully, “Thank you.”

  Angie knelt down beside him. “Who was that horrible man?”

  “He’s a very troubled soul,” Hodge replied. “A compulsive gambler who’s lost everything. He thinks everyone is stealing from him. Now he’s even blaming the mission.”

  “He was talking about the numbers racket,” Angie said. “Paavo’s been talking about numbers, too. Maybe Tweeler is right that something is going on somewhere near here.”

  “Maybe so, but certainly not at the mission. Anyway, last week, he was complaining about poker. The week before that, craps.”

  “But numbers—”

  “He lies, Miss Amalfi, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Oh. I thought we were on to something,” she murmured, disappointed that the potential lead had fizzled so quickly. “But you handled him wonderfully. I had no idea you were so clever. Your talk turned him around completely,” Angie said, still a little dazzled by the way the reverend had dealt with the situation. Until he passed out, at least.

  “We must take the good with the bad in this kind of work,” Hodge said.

  An image of the many troubled and sad cases the reverend must see in this line of work came to her. “Why do you do it?” she asked suddenly.

  He seemed surprised by the question. “It’s…it’s the angel on my bookshelf.”

  She looked at the small carved wooden angel. “It looks very old and very special.”

  “It is. It was given to me many years ago by a holy man as I sat by the shore at Galilee.”

  “My goodness, really?” She was impressed and a little awed.

  “He said to keep it with me as a reminder to do good works. So here I am.” He caught her eye, then grinned. “Running a rescue mission, I can give people a serving of hope along with meat and vegetables when they come here.”

  “That’s very kind,” she said.

  He nodded. “Cheap, too.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Serefina Teresa Maria Giuseppina Amalfi entered Angie’s apartment as if she owned it, which in fact she did, since she and Angie’s father owned the building that housed the apartment. Angie paid them a fair market rent. Almost.

  “Angelina, una tassa di caffè, per piacere. I’ve had such a terrible night. I couldn’t sleep. Now my head hurts. Dio, aiuto!”

  “I’ll get some,” Angie said, hurrying into the kitchen for some Italian roast. “Would you like to eat anything?” she shouted. “I’ve got lots of chocolate candy—dark chocolate truffles, white chocolate truffles, Grand Marnier truffles, ripple divinity, chocolate almond fudge—”

  “Stop, please. No more chocolate! Do you have any more of Gina’s biscotti I gave you the other day?”

  Angie was getting really sick of hearing about Gina’s wonderful biscotti. “I’ll find some. They might be a little stale.”

  “Non importante.”

  “Now, tell me what’s wrong, Mamma,” Angie said, carrying a tray with biscotti and coffee out to the living room.

  “I finally found out what was bothering your father.” She sighed. “I knew that Frankie meant trouble. Those Tagliaros, nothing but trouble. Both start with T. What do you expect?”

  Serefina picked up the coffee cup, took a sip, sighed again, then dunked the biscotti into her cup and watched the cookie grow soggy. She quickly lifted it to her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and then heaved yet another big sigh.

  “Mamma, I’ve never seen you like this.” Angie, getting over her irritation about Gina, now was worried.

  “I don’t want to trouble you,” Serefina said woefully.

  “It’s no trouble.”

  Serefina folded her hands. “Well…maybe you can help.”

  That was a switch. “Me? Why, I’d love to help you if I can.”

  “You’re right. Not you.”

  I should have known, Angie thought.

  “Paavo,” her mother said.

  That was even more surprising. “Paavo? You’re kidding.”

  “It’s your father who needs help.” Serefina pulled her lace handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed her eyes.

  “Papa?” Now Angie was even more confused. “But Papa doesn’t even like Paavo.”

  “What can I say?” Serefina fluttered her handkerchief. “Anyway, Frankie Tagliaro owns a restaurant, the Isle of Capri, out in the Richmond district.”

  “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never eaten there.”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s not much of a place. At one time he even used a Chinese cook. The food was good as long as you didn’t care that your ravioli tasted like wontons.”

  “That happens.”

  “Sì. Anyway, this Frankie, he asked your father for money. Eighteen thousand dollars! He owes the money to some men, and if he doesn’t pay them, he’s got troubles.” Serefina lowered her voice and bent close to Angie. “I could tell, the more he talked, the kind of men he was talking about.”

  Angie’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean…Mafia?”

  “You watch too many movies. These are crooks.”

  “Oh,” Angie said. Translation: these were
WASP bad guys.

  “He told your father he can’t get any more money out of his business,” Serefina continued, her hand against her breast. “The restaurant isn’t making it—maybe because he serves lousy food, who knows? But if he doesn’t pay…” She drew her forefinger across her throat.

  “This is crazy. It’s not Papa’s problem. And I got the impression Tagliaro hadn’t talked to Papa for years.”

  “True, but your father said Frankie sounded scared. Now he’s worried.” Serefina shut her eyes a moment, pressing her hand to her forehead, and Angie could see the dark shadows under her eyes, the lines of strain around her mouth. Despite all Serefina’s blustering, she was truly worried. “Your father can’t let an old acquaintance who came to him for help be killed,” she said softly. “Even if he never liked the guy. It’s a question of honor.”

  “Honor? What’s the honor in giving money away for no reason? I’ll go meet this Frankie Tagliaro myself,” she said, “and order him to leave my father alone!”

  “It’s too late,” Serefina protested. “He got on his knees, begging for the money. He even cried. Your poor father, how bad he felt! Eighteen thousand dollars! To a stranger! I cried, too, when I heard that. Dio! What are we going to do?” Serefina flung out her arms, and the biscotti flew from her fingers across the room.

  Angie scrambled for the biscotti. “We could shoot him.”

  “Angelina, you’ve been with your friend the cop too long.” Serefina drank more of her coffee. “But I know what we could do. Let’s get Paavo to throw him in jail!”

  “What?”

  “Yes! If Frankie’s in jail, then the crooks can’t get him, and your father doesn’t have to give him the money. It’s a good idea, Angelina. Paavo can do it. He’s smart.”

  “He’s in Homicide. He doesn’t go around throwing restaurant owners in jail.”

  “Maybe it’s time for him to start.”

  “Nothing like a little evidence to brighten one’s day,” Yosh said cheerfully as he drove himself and Paavo out to Peewee Clayton’s house. The “little evidence” was an annotation in Dennis O’Leary’s numbers tally sheets that said simply “Peewee.” True, there might be more than one Peewee in the city. But O’Leary’s patrons had identified this Peewee as being a regular.