Cook's Night Out

by Joanne Pence

  “Not at all,” Angie said, looking at Lili in a whole new light.

  “Axel thinks I’m mental, but I tell him that’s way harsh. Then he says, what do I know?”

  “I think you’d be an asset to the mission,” Angie told her.

  “Thanks, Ang. I’d like to show Axel and his investors what I can do.”

  Talk of the investors brought Angie back to wondering what Klaw was up to. “If Klaw had investors in Las Vegas,” Angie asked, “why didn’t he just stay there? I would have thought he wouldn’t want to leave.”

  “You are so totally in the dark. Nobody cares about health clubs in the desert. It’s way hot. If you don’t, like, spend all your time sitting around and drinking, you’d wither up and die. That’s why it’s got a major jogger drought.”

  Back to jogging. Angie’s head was spinning. “But you don’t need a health club to jog.”

  “Hey, that’s truly sublime.” Lili stared off into space awhile. “I never thought of that.”

  Give me strength, Angie thought. “Does Axel jog?”

  “Get outta town! No way! Actually, he sends me to meet the joggers. They’re all, like, giving me stuff for him all the time.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Angie probed.

  “Don’t ask me. He’d go ballistic if I touched it. Anyway, I’ve got to haul ass. I’m stopping at a palm reader’s.”

  “A palm reader’s?” Angie would have assumed Lili was joking, but something told her Lili didn’t joke. Did Axel have something to do with palm readers, too?

  “I found a cute little shop. I was freaking. You know what she said?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Angie murmured, realizing this had nothing to do with Axel, but was pure Lili.

  “It’s so fab. I’m going to meet a handsome man and get rich.”

  “Really? How exciting for you.”

  “I can’t tell Axel, though—I mean, Alex. I mean, he’s cute, but even he don’t think he’s handsome. Anyway, sometimes I just don’t think this relationship is a major forever-after.”

  “I’ve had days like that,” Angie admitted.

  “Well, so long, Ang.” Lili stood up to leave.

  “Don’t tell Axel we talked, okay?” Angie asked. “He might not like to hear you were delayed going shopping.”

  Lili smiled. “That’s cool. Bye.” With that, she left.

  Lili might not care what her visits to Axel’s friends were all about, but Angie was eager to find out. Health clubs? Joggers? She didn’t think so.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Paavo made a quick about-face as he approached room 450 of the Hall of Justice the next morning. A reporter from the San Francisco Examiner, the city’s afternoon paper, was pacing the hallway. The woman’s beat was city government, and she was having a field day investigating rumors of a top homicide inspector’s alleged involvement in deaths resulting from numbers racketeering.

  Instead of battling his way to his desk, Paavo went down to the Police Administration offices. He still smarted every time he remembered Angie’s calling him obsessed with Klaw. It wasn’t obsession. But maybe he had jumped to the correct conclusion overly soon.

  In the files area he looked up the records of Richmond station officers Mike Kellogg and Eric Rosenberg. Both records were so clean they sparkled. Not the slightest hint of notoriety lingered over either one of them, and they’d been among the highest scorers at the police academy.

  So why were they under his feet with every step he took? Why were they watching him so closely?

  He was pondering those questions when Rebecca Mayfield burst into the files room. “Paavo, I was hoping I’d find you here.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sutter and I are the on-call team this week. Last night we got a summons to go to a restaurant—the Isle of Capri. The owner, Frankie Tagliaro, had been murdered. One bullet, back of the head. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Ah, Angie, I’m so glad you’re here,” Reverend Hodge said, bursting into Auction Central. Angie sat at a desk going over the donations list. “We’ve got to cut back on the food bill. It’s too much. Whoever heard of pâté de canard en croûte at an auction? Whoever heard of pâté de canard en croûte at anything? I don’t even know what it is. All I know is, it’s too damned expensive for us.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “It’s boned, stuffed duck in a pastry crust—beautiful, elegant, and worth every penny. No one will eat much, but they’ll be impressed nonetheless. You must remember, Reverend Hodge, penny-pinching is not a noble trait.”

  “Who’s penny-pinching? I just don’t want to end up in the poorhouse.”

  “You’ve got all those fine donations.” Angie had been over this with him time and again. “You don’t have to worry.”

  “But every time I turn around, the bill for the caterer goes higher.”

  “You told me you wanted to impress the patrons with fine food, didn’t you?” she cried.

  “Impressing them is one thing. Stuffing them to the gills with all this expensive food is another!”

  She rubbed her forehead. “It’ll be worth it. Trust me.”

  He pulled at his hair. “Right now, it’s all I can do to get people to spend two hundred lousy dollars for a ticket! I spend all my time publicizing the damn—oops!—I mean, darn thing. Maybe this was all just a bad idea! Maybe I should forget the whole thing!”

  “You’re right,” she said, her voice clipped.

  He dropped his hands. “What?”

  “I said you’re right.” She stood. “I quit. I’ll call the caterer and tell him to forget it. You can refund all the ticket money. Mary Ellen tells me you’re keeping it in some special account, so giving it back should be easy.”

  “Now wait, Angie.” He darted to her side and got down on one knee. “Don’t be hasty. I mean, you shouldn’t jump off the train before it reaches the station. Give it a chance.”

  She slowly lifted one eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

  He sighed, and his look told her he realized what she’d done. He stood and dusted off his knee. “I’m sure. So tell me, how’s the centerpiece coming?”

  She sat down again. “Well…I haven’t quite settled on one thing.”

  “That’s understandable. What are you thinking about?”

  She wasn’t sure how to break this to him. “Well…I haven’t quite thought of anything yet, either.”

  “I see.” The Adam’s apple on his skinny neck bobbed up and down a couple of times. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something soon. Something meaningful.”

  She blanched. “You wanted attractive…now you want meaningful, too? We’ve got only six days left. That might not be enough time to be too meaningful.”

  “Don’t worry. God will guide you.”

  “You’ve got that right.” She folded her arms and slouched down in the chair, knowing more hours would be spent racking her brain. “Whatever the centerpiece is, God only knows.”

  HOMICIDE INSPECTOR QUIZZED ON

  GAMBLING TIES

  by Doris Grant

  Examiner Staff Writer

  Homicide inspector Paavo Smith came under increased scrutiny today as the investigation into his alleged gambling activities broadened. Charges of payoffs and kickbacks have been made based on finding Smith’s name on the tally sheets of two murdered numbers racketeers, Patrick Devlin and Dennis O’Leary. Also, last night’s murder of Frankie Tagliaro, a restaurant owner with ties to the numbers racket, became connected to the case when word got out that Smith was found at Tagliaro’s restaurant during a raid a few days ago by the vice squad. Vice inspectors allegedly allowed Smith to leave the scene.

  In an action bound to stir controversy even more, Smith remains the lead investigator of Dennis O’Leary’s murder. The investigation is said to be stalled. Chief of Police Lawrence Creighton says the matter is being looked into. Smith had no comment.

  Paavo was dialing Angie’s number when he was summoned to Lieutenant Hollins’s o
ffice. He had wanted to tell Angie about Tagliaro’s murder so that she could explain it to her father in a way that would leave him feeling no responsibility for the man’s death.

  He got her answering machine and hung up. She was probably at the mission. He’d call there as soon as he finished with Hollins.

  When he walked into Hollins’s office, he was surprised to find Assistant District Attorney Judd there waiting for him.

  “Have a seat, Smith,” Hollins said.

  “Well,” he said, taking the chair indicated, “I guess the two of you are here to give me the same rousing endorsement as the chief of police did in this afternoon’s paper. I can’t tell you how touched I was by his support.”

  Hollins gave Paavo a look that was filled with compassion. “We’ve worked together a lot of years, Paavo,” Hollins said. “I know you, I know all my men, almost as well as I do my wife. And probably a hell of a lot better than I know either one of my kids. I trust all of you. I’d trust you with my life, and I want you to know that.”

  Paavo leaned back in the chair. Why was it that talk about trust made one instinctively wary? “I feel a whole lot better now.”

  Hollins ignored the sarcasm. “With that statement in the paper about your being at Tagliaro’s restaurant when it was raided, everything’s hit the fan. The DA’s ordered an investigation. Already he’s got a call from someone, a woman—she didn’t identify herself—but she said he should look at the deposits made to your savings account at the Bank of America. Judd’s been told to do it.”

  Paavo could scarcely look at Judd, whom he’d once considered a friend. Yosh had filled him in on their talk, on the way Judd had asked Yosh to do what he could to prove Paavo’s innocence. Paavo might have felt differently if Judd had talked to him first instead of talking to his partner, and now his boss. He turned to Judd and said only, “Did you?”

  Judd squirmed uncomfortably under the intense scrutiny. “No. We’ll let you do that. Have the statement faxed to me from the bank.”

  “So there’s no danger of my tampering with the results, is that it?” He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t speak with any emotion, and that seemed to make his words, his unspoken accusation, even more chilling.

  “So there’ll be no question in anyone else’s mind,” Hollins said emphatically. “I know there’s nothing to any of this nonsense. The thing is, I want to find out what’s going on and who’s hassling you.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Paavo said. He stood, his gaze piercing first one and then the other. “Any more accusations I should know about?”

  Hollins pulled out a cigar and chewed it for a while. “We understand you were good friends with Frankie Tagliaro.”

  “Friends? Good Christ, who’s feeding you these lies? I never saw the guy before Angie and I went to dinner there the other night.”

  “Why’d you pick that place?”

  “Why?” Should he go into the whole story about numbers and Angie’s father with these two? Would that make him sound less guilty, or more so? “We eat out at a lot of different spots.” Even to his ears, the excuse sounded lame. “It was on the way to my place.”

  Hollins and Judd’s eyes met. “Get that bank statement so we can straighten all this out,” Hollins said. “In the meantime, I’m giving Yosh your cases. You’re not suspended. You can come to work, ride with Yosh if you want, but don’t handle anything on your own. Is that clear?”

  His frustration beyond the breaking point, Paavo left without another word.

  Angie needed to give serious thought to the centerpiece the reverend wanted, and decided that an iced mocha decaf latte made with nonfat milk—generally known as a Why Bother—would be the way to do it. She was walking from the mission to the Senseless Beauty Café when her eye caught a page-one story in the Examiner: “Restaurant Owner Murdered.”

  Her blood froze. Not long ago there had been a rash of murders that left the restaurateurs of the city reeling, many of whom were her friends. Dropping a quarter into the machine, she pulled out a newspaper.

  Frankie Tagliaro was the dead man. Poor Frankie. He had gotten involved in something way over his head and had paid the ultimate price for it.

  She wondered why Paavo hadn’t called and told her about this. He must have known. A call from him so that she could tell her parents before news of the murder came out in the paper would have been helpful. The thought of her father’s reaction to the news worried her.

  She turned back to the mission to call home, but then realized that if there was any connection between Tagliaro and Klaw, she didn’t want Klaw and his cronies to overhear her conversation. She went to her car and used her cellular phone.

  Serefina answered.

  “Mamma, did you hear about Frankie Tagliaro?” she asked.

  “Sì. It was on the radio. Your father is upset.”

  “Tell him the murder had nothing to do with the money Frankie wanted to borrow from him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. Paavo knows all about it.”

  “Dio, grazie, I was so worried. So, why was he killed?”

  Good question. “The police aren’t saying, Mamma.”

  “Then how do you know it wasn’t because of the money he owed?”

  Oops. “He was killed…because…he got Don Corleone angry with him.”

  “Corleone? I don’t know any Corleones in San Francisco,” Serefina said.

  “Be grateful, Mamma,” Angie whispered confidentially.

  “Don’t worry, Angelina. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Next time, tell the truth.” Serefina abruptly hung up.

  The Bank of America branch near Paavo’s house in the Richmond district was one of those small neighborhood banks where, years ago, the tellers knew all their customers and probably knew more about them and how they lived than any of those customers cared to consider. Now, though, Paavo didn’t recognize a soul in the bank. His salary went into his checking account by direct deposit, and between checks, credit cards, and ATMs, he managed to spend it without any banker’s face-to-face intervention.

  He asked for a printout of his deposits into savings for the past three months. He expected the list to be a simple one, since he hadn’t made any deposits in that time. Everything he earned went into checking, and between money for property taxes and money to fix a busted water pump and put a new clutch in his car, he hadn’t had enough left over to bother moving into savings.

  The bank teller keyed in his account number and waited a moment, then hit a button. The printer began to clatter and in a short while produced a five-by-eight sheet of paper. He took it from her and stared, unbelieving. One transaction was listed. It was dated the day after he and Angie went to Frankie Tagliaro’s for dinner. The amount was five thousand dollars.

  “How was this deposit made?” he asked.

  “How?” she repeated absently.

  He was out of patience. “ATM? Wired from another bank? How?”

  She looked at the codes, then excused herself and went to speak to her manager. When she returned she said, “As best we can determine, you made it.”

  Would this madness never end? It made him wonder if someone was running around impersonating him. “Why do you think that?” he asked, trying his best to sound patient and reasonable.

  “The codes. They tell us that you came to the bank and personally deposited this into your account.”

  “Do you know for sure I was the depositor?”

  “Well…we don’t require a signature or ID to put money into an account, especially when the transaction is cash. It’s your account, someone made a cash deposit, so naturally we assumed…”

  “And if it wasn’t me, can you tell who did make the deposit?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. The bank doesn’t require—”

  “I know. Forget it. I need this statement faxed.” He handed her Hanover Judd’s fax number.

  “There’ll
be a charge for this service, sir,” the teller said.

  It took every ounce of his control for him to thank her for her help and tell her to deduct the charge from his account.

  Angie sat in the mission’s dining hall. Although the reverend had big plans for it in the future, right now only the volunteers used it. She was busily going through catalogues and books on wedding receptions in hopes of coming up with some innovative ideas on centerpieces. Oh, yes—meaningful ideas as well.

  “Excuse me, please, miss.”

  She looked up. Her mouth dropped open, and she knew she was sitting there looking exceedingly dumb.

  “I want to donate this. I heard about the auction and thought this might bring in some money. I don’t imagine I’ll ever need to use it again.” He smiled at her—big round cheeks, dimples, blue eyes.

  She still stared, speechless.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t mine. It was a prop. The wig I used in Mrs. Doubtfire. Do you want it?”

  She nodded, still unable to shut her mouth or talk.

  “Okay. Enjoy!”

  Robin Williams turned and walked out of the mission. She looked down at the wig, then at her donation pad. She picked it up and ran after him, wondering how she could possibly explain and apologize for being dumbstruck. Or rather, starstruck.

  She screeched to a halt when she saw Axel Klaw shaking the actor’s hand. Klaw looked from her to her donation pad. “Ah, here’s Miss Amalfi now with the paperwork you’ll need for the IRS. We can’t forget the government, you know.” He took the pad and scribbled on it. “Let’s see—five thousand? Who knows what it’ll bring? If it goes for more, we’ll send you a new receipt.”

  “Thanks,” Williams said, then looked at Angie and waved before he turned and walked away.

  “Miss Amalfi,” Klaw said with a chuckle as he took her arm and escorted her back into the mission, “you really should close your mouth. There are flies around.”