Tipping the Valet

by K. K. Beck

  Chapter Four

  INSIDE ALBA, IN THE BANQUET ROOM off the regular dining room, Flavia Torcelli was mingling with the specially invited guests from the food convention. “I think,” she was saying carefully to a woman in a muumuu and a necklace that seemed to be made of beach rocks, “that although Piedmont may be a very traditional area, it is important to realize that today, in such a global environment, we can also build on these traditions in a progressive, um, innovative way.” The woman brandished a notebook and pencil and wore a convention bag with a crossed-knife-and-fork logo that said PRESS on it.

  Flavia led her companion toward a long table, where foodies with small plates and glasses of Barolo and Barbaresco were hovering. Some were sampling in consultation with others. Moving food around in their mouths, their eyes unfocused, they described the textures and flavors of what they were eating in turn. Others were working solo, aggressively replenishing their plates, their hands scuttling eagerly over the table’s offerings like fleshy crabs.

  “Come and see what we’ve done with traditional elements such as asparagus and hazelnuts, and of course truffle oil. But in a new way, with the addition of quinoa. I will be so interested in your opinion,” said Flavia.

  “So,” said the other woman, as they approached the table, “I heard a rumor Scott Duckworth will be here. I had no idea he was a foodie!”

  Flavia tilted her head to one side. “He is a man of many interests,” she said with a mysterious smile.

  “Does he eat here? I heard he was a total recluse.”

  “I can’t discuss anything about Mr. Duckworth,” said Flavia. “Other than to say we will be very happy to have him here tonight if he can come.” She looked a little nervously at the door, where a waiter was now signaling. “Excuse me,” she said. “I must go.” Smoothing down some strands from her chignon, she tripped toward the door, her lips parted in an eager expression.

  “He’s on his way,” the waiter said.

  Flavia Torcelli put one well-manicured hand on her heart and smiled broadly.

  ———

  TO Tyler’s horror, a familiar bottle green PT Cruiser pulled up to the valet booth. Tyler couldn’t believe it. Roger was at the wheel in one of his tropical Margaritaville shirts. This one had sailboats and big palm fronds all over it.

  Tyler wrenched open the driver’s door. His dad smiled at him in a lopsided way, swiveled awkwardly in his seat, and managed to get his feet down on the ground. Tyler was horrified to note he was wearing the Australian sheepskin bedroom slippers Mom had given him for Christmas. He’d left the house in his slippers! Thank God he wasn’t also wearing his bathrobe!

  With a determined look, Roger now grabbed the sides of the door opening and prepared to haul himself out of the car. Tyler placed his knee in his father’s chest and pushed him back into the car. Now that his face was within a few inches of his dad’s, Tyler smelled the wine. His hair looked all messed up and there were two bright red spots on his cheeks. It was bad enough he was here trying to crash the reception. And on Tyler’s first shift at Alba! But the idea of him staggering around hammered in his bedroom slippers was even more frightening.

  Vic was nearby but was now preoccupied with a stretch limo that was disgorging a whole bunch of portly people with convention badges on. No valet money in that operation, but Vic was greeting them all as they emerged in clown-car fashion.

  Tyler felt a big push to his chest, and realized Roger was once again preparing to eject himself from the car.

  “Dad, you are really drunk,” said Tyler. He managed to open the rear door, then pull his father out from behind the wheel and throw him in the backseat, slamming the door after him. Then Tyler jumped into the driver’s seat, threw the car in reverse, went back a few feet, and then jammed into drive and made a wide loop around the limo. In no time at all, he was on the street, frantically calling his mother.

  She answered on the first ring. “Mom, you have to come get Dad. He’s really drunk!”

  “Maybe, but he’s here in his office,” she said.

  “Listen, Mom,” said Tyler. “Drive to the valet stand at the Harborview Hotel.”

  “It’s okay,” said his dad from the backseat, sounding as if the whole episode were no big deal. “I can get a cab. Don’t bother Mom.”

  Tyler drove the three blocks to the hotel, and got his mother’s solemn promise to collect Dad and his car. His sister, Samantha, would drive Mom’s car back. At the valet stand another guy in a black windbreaker with the pink ELITE logo named Kyle was standing there.

  “Hey,” Kyle said. “I heard you guys might have some overflow from that event at Alba.”

  “Not really,” said Tyler. “Listen, I got a guy in here and he’s drunk. His wife is coming to get him.” He reached into his tip pocket and peeled off thirty bucks’ worth of fives and ones. “Family wants us to park him up on top. Making it worth our while. They don’t want him to wander off.”

  “No problem,” said Kyle, deftly pocketing the roll. “Take him up to the roof. We can even lock off the elevator.” He peered in at Tyler’s dad. “The old guy looks easy enough to handle,” he commented.

  ———

  WHEN Volodya Zelenko had noted that the incoming call was from Sergei, he thought it might be a good idea to carry the phone out of Donna’s bar for privacy, considering the delicate errand Sergei was on. He was now standing outside across from the Elite Valet booth where a pale, goofy-looking valet kid seemed to be scribbling in a notebook and paying no attention to Volodya.

  “What do you mean gone?” demanded Volodya.

  “The car was not where you said it would be,” said Sergei. “Do you know where it is?”

  “But the guy should still be in there eating dinner,” said Volodya.

  “Maybe he didn’t like the food,” said Sergei.

  “Go ask Veek or Cheep where the gray Audi is,” suggested Volodya.

  Just then, Volodya was startled to see an unfamiliar car pull up with Sergei in person at the wheel. Sergei leaned out the window. “I didn’t stick around,” he said. And in Russian, he added, “I don’t think it’s so smart to ask someone if they happened to know where your dead body went.”

  Volodya stared at the phone in his own left hand and ended the call, then looked down at the vodka-rocks in his right hand and knocked it back. “Goddamn Veek and Cheep,” he said. “Are they fucking with me on purpose?”

  ———

  WHEN Tyler arrived back at Alba, panting from his run from the Harborview Hotel, a silver Mercedes fitting the description of Scott Duckworth’s car had just pulled up. The windows were tinted. There was no one else around, so Tyler began to reach for the handle of the front passenger door. Two large men in dark suits burst out of the car, one from the front and one from the backseat. One of them, a short, red-haired man with a pug nose, wrestled the front passenger door away from Tyler.

  “Welcome to Ristorante Alba,” Tyler said as he was being shoved out of the way by the other guy, who looked like a retired halfback gone to seed. The two men scanned their surroundings with grim expressions.

  Now, the seedy halfback opened the rear driver’s-side door and a third man, presumably Scott Duckworth, emerged—tubby, fiftyish, with a mild expression, a gray beard, and thinning hair. He wore a pair of rumpled khakis and a plaid shirt.

  The halfback and the red-haired man hustled Duckworth toward the restaurant like the Secret Service shoving a bemused president around, and Tyler, feeling slightly dazed, went over to the driver’s side.

  He tried to open the door but it was locked. The unsmiling driver, a heavily muscled Asian man with a shaved head, lowered the window and stared at Tyler.

  “I can park this in a special lot we have just behind the restaurant,” Tyler said. “I think it’s better for security.”

  “No one but me drives Mr. Duckworth’s car,” said the driver. “Hop in and tell me where to park it.” Tyler heard the doors unlock.

  Tyler looked over the guy�
�s shoulder and checked out the car’s interior. There was a custom computer screen in the dash and some other electronic items Tyler had never seen before. A female voice said, “You have arrived at your destination,” and then repeated it, which seemed to rattle the driver, who looked at the dashboard gadgetry in a panicky way.

  “If you turn off the engine, she’ll stop talking,” said Tyler.

  The guy gave him a dirty look, and then Chip appeared, coming around the corner of the restaurant.

  Chip rushed to where Tyler was still standing at the driver’s open door. “Welcome to Ristorante Alba, sir,” Chip said to the driver. The female voice said, “The door is open.”

  Tyler, relieved that Chip would handle all this, stepped back and turned away to look at the entrance of the restaurant.

  Duckworth, flanked by his two minders, had waddled up to Flavia Torcelli, who was just coming out of the entrance. She was standing there looking up at the rumpled billionaire with a dazzling smile, one leg stretched out sideways in a kind of fashion model pose. Tyler had no doubt at all that she knew she had great legs and had choreographed that stance to show them off.

  Now she greeted Scott Duckworth, and extended her hand for him to shake. She was turning on all the charm she hadn’t bothered to use on the help when he’d met her earlier. Duckworth was beaming at her, and his two bodyguards hovered behind him.

  Everyone in Seattle knew that Scott Duckworth, Dad’s old boss, had never gotten around to finding a Mrs. Duckworth. Flavia Torcelli seemed to be auditioning for the part.

  “Get in,” said the man in the Mercedes to Chip. “Show me where to park it. I’ll stay with the car until he’s ready to go home.”

  “I know,” said Chip. “He’s been here before. I know the process.”

  Tyler glanced back over at the tableau by the entrance. The pug-nosed guy, whose red hair Tyler now saw was arranged in a bad comb-over, and who seemed to be in charge, put his hand on Duckworth’s shoulder as if to guide him into the restaurant, but Duckworth just stood there, staring into the eyes of the hostess, and holding her hand in what had ceased to be a handshake.

  Suddenly, a black Camaro came full-speed at the valet booth, as if the driver had had a heart attack and collapsed with a leaden foot on the gas.

  And then, Tyler heard the popping noises, like tiny firecrackers.

  At the entrance to the restaurant, the two minders pushed Duckworth toward the restaurant doors and seemed to be clambering on top of him. He tumbled onto the hostess. Tyler heard a muffled female scream.

  The Camaro had now maneuvered away from the booth and it stopped alongside Scott Duckworth’s Mercedes with a huge lurch. From the window, Tyler saw the outline of an arm with a gun at the end of it and heard more popping sounds.

  He ducked down in front of the Mercedes, facing the headlights, and heard the ping of what he suddenly decided was a bullet hitting the car.

  Should he get under Scott Duckworth’s car? But what if the car took off and ran him over? Maybe the best thing to do would be to lie flat on the ground and centered between the tires, so if the car took off it wouldn’t run over him. He heard another pop and decided crouching beside the passenger side behind the engine block was definitely the way to go. There was more mass there to stop a bullet.

  But before he had a chance to make his move, the Mercedes moved forward and he found himself clambering onto the car’s hood, grabbing the Mercedes three-pointed-star ornament to pull himself up and staring at the startled bald Asian guy through the windshield. The car kept moving and Tyler tried to roll off to the side before it picked up speed. But before he could execute this maneuver, he fell off all by himself. Now he was flat on the ground on his stomach on the passenger side

  There were more pops and another strange ping came from the Mercedes. He tried flattening himself even further, and smashed his face against the asphalt.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, then he heard the sound a valet never wants to hear, the crunch of car hitting car. “You are experiencing a collision,” the disembodied female voice said. “Airbags will deploy.”

  After that he was aware of the sound of a car taking off very fast and hurtling away, and he was afraid it was the Mercedes, which would leave him exposed. But when he turned his head to look to his side, he saw the Mercedes was still there. Presumably, the airbag had given the driver of the Mercedes pause. So it must have been the Camaro that sped off.

  He peered beneath the undercarriage of the Mercedes and the Camaro didn’t seem to be there anymore. But Chip was lying on the ground, facing away from Tyler. Chip was very still and there was a pool of blood forming around his head.

  Chapter Five

  TYLER PULLED HIS CELL PHONE out of his pocket and punched in 9-1-1. Why hadn’t he done that before? But he guessed it had only been seconds.

  “There’s been a shooting,” he yelled into the phone. “At Alba. A restaurant. I don’t know the address. Down on Second Avenue. Near Marion. There’s a guy bleeding. There were tons of shots.”

  “We’re on the way,” said the dispatcher in a voice not unlike the voice coming out of Scott Duckworth’s dashboard. “Are shots still being fired?”

  “No,” said Tyler, although it took him some time to realize this. “No. The car that did it is gone. I gotta see if the guy’s okay.”

  “Don’t do that, sir. Remain safe,” said the dispatcher. “Can you describe the vehicle?”

  “A black Camaro. It’s gone now.”

  Tyler got up, jammed the phone back into his pocket, and went over to take a look at Chip who was lying prone with his head to one side.

  The guy in the Mercedes was batting away at the marshmallow of white vinyl airbag. “It’s okay, they’re gone,” yelled Tyler to the driver, and knelt down next to Chip.

  Chip’s eyes were wide open. His mouth was open, too, and there was a trickle of blood at the corner. The pool of blood around his head seemed to be growing.

  ———

  IN the restaurant’s kitchen, Flavia Torcelli gave one of Scott Duckworth’s bodyguards, the one Tyler had thought looked like a halfback, and who was now blocking the door from the kitchen to her office, a frantic little push to his chest. “You have to let me out of here,” she said. “I need to make sure everything is all right in the restaurant.”

  “It’s for your safety,” he said. “No one leaves until Mr. Ott gets back. He’s securing the area.”

  Nearby, the kitchen staff and the chef in starched uniform and toque, a man in his early thirties, watched her efforts with a sad expression. She turned to him and let out a stream of Italian, and he shrugged. Then she turned back to the man blocking the door. “Securing the area? It’s my area, and I didn’t ask him to secure it. I want to make sure the customers and the staff are all right.” She turned to Scott Duckworth. “He works for you, right? Tell him to let me out of my kitchen!”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea? I don’t know if it’s safe.” Duckworth blinked a few times, and looked pained. He addressed the man blocking the door. “Can we go, Doug?”

  “No!” The man named Doug turned to Flavia. “Ma’am,” he said, “Red, uh, Mr. Ott, is Mr. Duckworth’s chief security operative. He’s calling the shots here.”

  Just then the door Flavia had been trying to reach began to open and hit Doug in the back. He whirled around and held the door shut.

  “Let me in, it’s me, Red,” said an angry voice from the other side of the door.

  Doug stood back and Red Ott, the pug-nosed man with the reddish comb-over, burst into the room. Flavia darted out behind him and through the door.

  “We’re getting Scott back home,” said Ott. “Right away.” He flapped open an old-fashioned phone and jabbed at it. “Kimo! You’re okay! Great. Come around to the back and we’ll load him into the car from the kitchen exit.” He paused, listening.

  “Damn,” said Ott. Addressing Doug, he said, “The assailant is gone. Kimo’s talking to the cops.” He walked over to a si
nk and glanced up at the sign above it that said WASH YOUR HANDS in English and Spanish.

  Flavia burst back into the kitchen and had another spirited discussion in Italian with the chef, then turned to Scott Duckworth. “You can come out now. The police are here. Let me show you to the private dining room. All the food people are there.” She glanced over at Ott, who now seemed to be doing what the sign told him to and was washing his hands with the disinfectant soap from the dispenser. “We’ll be safe there.”

  Ott turned around, still lathering, and said, “Scott, you’re leaving. Period. Someone tried to kill you.”

  “People are shooting guns in America all the time, right?” said Flavia with a nervous laugh. She turned to Scott. “At least you can stay for some appetizers and a glass of wine.” She smiled at him and took his arm. “It will calm you down. The police will want to talk to everyone. No reason you should be stuck in the kitchen. Come with me.” Duckworth turned pale pink and beamed down at her. “Okay, Flavia,” he said.

  “Doug, you go with them,” said Ott, now drying his hands on a paper towel. “I’m checking out the rear exit so we can get Kimo to pull up behind here when he’s finished being interviewed.”

  Ott went outside onto the loading dock, opened his jacket, removed a gun from an armpit holster, wiped it off with the paper towel he had just used, and tossed it into a garbage can. Then he covered the gun with some coffee grounds and wilted lettuce.

  ———

  IN front of the restaurant, Tyler watched the medics strap Chip onto a gurney, load him into their ambulance, and peel away with screaming sirens. He guessed that Chip wasn’t dead because they didn’t put him in a body bag or anything. But he’d also heard that medics always put dead people into ambulances, and rushed off with their sirens on so they didn’t have to deal with upset people or look like they weren’t trying.