by Peter King
“What is it, Lennie?” she asked impatiently.
He wasn’t going to be dismissed that easily. His gaze held mine. He looked at the samovar and the tray of cookies.
“I’m Lennie Rifkin,” he said. “Are you selling something?”
“No,” I said and let it go at that.
He was about to address me again but he turned abruptly to Ayesha. “Haven’t the figs arrived yet?”
“Not yet,” she said without looking at him and as if they were of no importance.
“You did order them?” he said accusingly.
“Of course.”
He hesitated, then turned to walk away. As he did so, he tossed a parting comment over his shoulder. “My wife often forgets.” He exited through the same curtain with a flourish.
Ayesha resumed her conversation with me as if there had been no interruption.
“We would have been one of the many restaurants that wanted some Ko Feng.”
A thought struck me. “Had you contracted to buy any?”
“No. I don’t know that any contracts were issued although many people knew of it. I presume you are trying to get the Ko Feng back—after all, you are a detective.”
“Actually, I’m not—a detective, that is.” I explained but she didn’t look convinced. “I am trying to recover the Ko Feng, though, “I added, anxious to maintain my status in her eyes. I wasn’t sure if I did that or not.
“You might want to talk to some of the other restaurant owners in the city. Several of them are here.”
“That would be very helpful. Who do you suggest?”
She ticked them off on brilliant fingernails. “Selim Osman is here—he has the Topkapi Castle; Abe Kefalik is in the next pavilion with his Himalaya restaurant; then there’s Louis Alacourt of the Duke of Gascony; Jim Keillor of the Hunters’ Lodge—oh, and you might see Mike Earhart, he’s planning on reopening Tony Pastor’s. Others who aren’t here at the fair are sure to be wanting some Ko Feng—Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Grill; Mandarin Court; ‘21’; Lutèce; even Lespinasse and La Caravelle …” She waved a hand in a glittering arc. “What chef would not want to have the Celestial Spice!”
“That’s a lot of competition.”
She shrugged, disdainful as Nefertiti on hearing that another pyramid had collapsed.
“This is New York. Competition is what makes this city. But we are not like all the others. Topkapi Castle is Turkish, Himalaya offers food from all those countries surrounding the mountain range—my intention at Phoenicia is not only to serve the foods of the ancient world but also to cook them in the ancient style—to be authentic in every way.”
She gave me a long look from those beautiful eyes. “You must come and taste for yourself. We are limited here, as you can see.”
“I will,” I promised.
A couple drifted in and sat down. A family with strong Southern accents came in, staring at the cooking pots.
“I’d better go,” I said.
“Yes. Go and find the Ko Feng. It is very important.” Her voice was earnest, almost pleading.
I was almost outside when she called to me.
“Ex-wife.”
Out in the madding crowds, it was becoming harder and harder to move around. Most of the stands and booths were doing a good business. Barbara’s Breakfasts were obviously popular and I paused to eye in amazement the enormous amounts of food being consumed. It all looked good too—thick buttermilk flapjacks, creamy scrambled eggs, fat brown sausages, slabs of succulent ham, crusted hash-brown potatoes, red-golden tomatoes, plump mushrooms, crispy bacon …
The fast food stands were lining customers up already—hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, tacos, burritos, Orange Julius, Coke, beer, root beer … Chicken in a dozen ways sizzled and smoked—fried, Southern fried, baked, roasted, broasted, grilled, char-grilled plus every state’s variation from Kentucky Fried to Rhode Island Roasted.
I found the Himalaya first. An artist’s depiction of the majestic sweep of the world’s mightiest mountain range was a mural that was really eye-catching. A few people were already seated and appetizing aromas were drifting among the tables.
Abraham Kefalik, the owner, was easy to find. A huge, barrel-chested man with a bushy black beard and a deep, booming voice that came from the very bottom of that barrel, he was arguing with an unfortunate fellow delivering a crate of rolls. The disagreement ended in Kefalik’s victory—an outcome that was never in doubt. He looked at me quizzically from under beetling black brows.
I told him who I was and gave him a card. I added that I had just come from Phoenicia.
His reaction was cool. “What do you want?”
“To talk to you for a few minutes.”
“I’m very busy here, as you can see.”
He didn’t look that busy.
“Ayesha said I should come and talk to you.”
His face split into a big grin. “Ayesha! Ah, what a magnificent woman! Why didn’t you say so? I thought that miserable, no-good Lebanese bandit sent you!”
“Lennie Rifkin? No. I saw him for a few seconds but he had other things to do than talk to me. He’s a very lucky man to have such a wife.”
“They are divorced,” Kefalik said with a booming laugh. “Good thing, too—for her, anyway.”
“But they work together in the restaurant, don’t they?”
“She does all the work.”
“What’s he—head chef?”
“Poof! He is nothing. An entrepreneur before he met her. What she saw in him, nobody knows.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Women! They are wonderful, are they not? But sometimes, they do crazy things—” He stopped and gave me a questioning look. “You said you wanted to talk to me—what about?”
“About Ko Feng.”
His demeanor changed sharply. “You had better come in.” He dropped the bread crate he had been holding and bellowed for a kitchen helper to come and take it. He led the way to a corner table.
The Himalayan motif had been carried throughout and a snow-capped peak met the eye wherever you looked, either singular or in ranges. On the walls were a multistringed lyre, a farm yoke with leather strapping, a long curved sword with a bronze handle and a lot of other items that looked either useful, deadly or just strange.
A few tables were occupied. People were drinking thick black coffee and eating gooey buns dripping honey. Kefalik sent his voice booming in the direction of the kitchen and a young girl with doelike eyes and a voluminous dress scurried away to return quickly with a silver pot and china cups. She poured coffee like congealing tar and smiled shyly.
“Is good coffee, is it not?” Kefalik asked. He was watching me drink. He chuckled and it sounded like a boiler overheating. “You drink this before, I can tell.”
“In my business, I eat and drink a lot of things from a lot of countries. I like this coffee. Is it Kenyan?”
“From Ethiopia—the home of coffee, many say. It is hard to get now.” He looked at my card again. “So you tasted the Ko Feng—was it wonderful?”
“Word gets around fast in the restaurant trade.”
Kefalik laughed. “Faster even than the hairdressing business.”
“Yes, it was wonderful. Hard to describe, too. Hints of other spices yet not really like any of them.”
“And then you lost it.”
“Yes,” I said ruefully.
“And now you are trying to get it back.”
“Yes. Well, not just me, “I added hastily. I didn’t want Lieutenant Gaines to hear that I was doing some investigating. “The police are working on it. I was just here at this food fair and was talking to Ayesha—”
He squinted at my card once more. “But you are a detective …”
Perhaps I should get some different cards. “Not exactly.” I explained what I did and he nodded.
“Like I said, you want to get it back.”
“Were you planning on buying some?” I asked him.
“Every chef in New York would want some
. The romance of it alone—imagine! lost for centuries, then it is found! And it is probably the most famed of all the old spices. Even more than silphium—you know about silphium?”
“I know something about it.”
“It was not only a spice but a valued drug—it was bought with silver. Did you know that?”
“Yes, I knew it.” Was he avoiding my question? I tried again.
“Were you offered any Ko Feng?”
He poured more coffee.
“Before Alexander Marvell decided to buy it, you think he let news of it slip out? No, someone else would have stepped in.” He laughed his booming laugh once more, alarming a couple in shorts and Hawaiian shirts. “We are good fellows in this business,” he said earnestly. “Most of us—no, nearly all of us. But there are one or two—maybe a few more than that—who would do anything.”
“Such as steal the Ko Feng?”
“Including that.”
“And then what would they do with it?”
He nodded slowly. “I see what you are saying. It is so special that it is worth nothing unless it is known for what it is. To sell it announces that the seller is the one who stole it.”
“Something like that.”
He grinned. “You have a problem, my friend.” He stood up and held out a hand. “Good luck with it—and please, come and dine at the Himalaya. You like grilled yak?”
“I’ve eaten a lot of different foods but I don’t recall ever eating yak,” I said cautiously.
“Call me a couple of days ahead. It needs marinating.”
I didn’t doubt it. Scampering up and down the Himalayas would develop a lot of muscle that would need tenderizing.
Farther down the aisle was the Armenian stand. Armenia no longer exists as a separate country but its traditions and customs endure and its food is still eaten with enthusiasm by millions in the region. Many of these foods were on sale—Armenian sausages, which are not quite like any other sausage; lavish—thin bread like crackers; lehmejun—the small meat pieces that are sold on every corner stand in the Middle East; plus many items not readily found but common in Armenian cooking, such as pine nuts and mahleb, a fennel-like flavoring.
Half a dozen spits rotated, kebabs oozing fat as sharp-bladed knives sliced off thin strips. Kufia, small meatballs, sizzled on a grill wafting scents of mint, basil and cinnamon. Huge bowls of rice were in profusion—the indispensable accompaniment to any Middle Eastern dish.
My glands were salivating as I reached the Topkapi Castle, “where all the jewels are food” according to the board outside. The restaurant in the Murray Hill district of Manhattan was the home of this exhibit and the smells promised well to anyone liking the cuisines of Istanbul and the Anatolian provinces.
The Turks haughtily assimilated any good cooking they encountered in their wars, making Turkish cooking today a fascinating mixture of Greek, Jewish, Central Asian and Arab influences. The decor was pleasant but not gaudy—often a good sign that the emphasis is on the food. Tables were in sunken areas and a long mezzanine stretched along one wall. Ceramic, glass and copper utensils hung on the walls and the waiters were all dressed impeccably in white.
Selim Osman was of medium height, with thinning hair, slick and black. He had piercing black eyes and a trim little black mustache. Energetic and resplendent in a white suit, he received me politely but with a reserve that hinted I wasn’t going to learn very much.
“I know about the Ko Feng, of course,” he told me. “In our business, it’s today’s topic of conversation.” He shrugged. “Tomorrow, who knows?”
“Do you see any place for it in your cooking?”
“I suppose any chef would want to try it. It is not just a spice—it is history.”
“Have you been offered any?”
He pondered the question for a minute. Early diners were already in place. A dish of pan-fried squid, golden and with a bowl of garlic dipping sauce, went by on a waiter’s arm. Sword-fish kebabs with rice dotted with currants and flecks of spinach swished past. Bottles of Turkish beer clanked on another tray.
“I wouldn’t say ‘offered.’”
“What would you say?” I countered and he smiled suavely.
“A commodity like a spice that has been lost for centuries requires a different marketing approach from a trailer load of potatoes. Anyone possessing it might not even know precisely how he intended to market it—but how could any man decline such an opportunity?”
His speech was carefully metered. The thoughts behind the words were, I felt, significant. He was telling me something. His English was flawless and wherever he had learned it, I would bet it was a tough environment. I thought he could handle a frontal assault.
“Who do you think stole the Ko Feng?”
He didn’t bat an eyelid. He said nothing for a few seconds but I wasn’t hopeful that he was going to reel off a list of suspects.
“I don’t know.”
“Care to make a guess?”
He smiled. “Slander can be expensive. We are sue-happy in New York and we have spread the habit all over the country. I wouldn’t want to risk a lawsuit.”
“So you might suggest a name if you weren’t afraid of legal action?”
“We must talk again.” He was being politely dismissive. “You should come and eat at the Topkapi Castle.”
“I’d like that. Here’s my card. Call me if you hear anything that might help me get the Ko Feng back.”
He took it. I added quickly, “After you’ve told the police, naturally.”
He nodded and watched me leave.
I was some distance away when I heard a call from behind.
I turned to see a man approaching me at a brisk pace and waving an imperious hand. He was a military-looking character with a small mustache and an erect bearing, and he was wearing a Nehru-type jacket that I hadn’t seen since the Margaret Thatcher era.
“Caught a little of your conversation back there,” he said in a voice that must have served well on a parade ground. “Name’s Nelson Keyhoe—I’m Keyhoe Chemicals, we’re in the Fortune 500.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “That’s a nice place to be.”
“Been there for the past five years and one way we stay there is by keeping up with trends and developments.”
“What sort of chemicals?” I asked.
“Our current product list has about eight thousand of them on it—so we’re in a great many markets,” he said proudly.
“And what’s your connection with food?”
“We make additives, coloring agents, sugar substitutes …”
“Flavor enhancers?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes, we make those too.”
I pondered my next question for a split second, then I decided that, what the heck, I hadn’t been getting very far anyway—so what if I upset somebody?
“It must have been a relief to you when the Ko Feng was stolen,” I said in a chatty tone.
He frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“It would take away a lot of your business, wouldn’t it? Ko Feng is probably many times more effective than any of the flavor enhancers that you produce.”
“We’re accustomed to competition from all directions,” he said. His face suggested that if he’d had me in his battalion, I’d have been locked up by now and with no likelihood of release.
“On the other hand, you might welcome Ko Feng—if you could get hold of any, that is. If it’s such a powerful flavor enhancer, then it could be much more valuable than any your lab makes.”
His expression changed to what in someone else might have been almost a smile.
“Well, now, if we could get hold of some of this Ko Feng, our laboratory boys could make a comparison and see if that’s really true.”
“When it’s recovered, you may have a chance to do just that.”
“Getting close, is it? That recovery?”
“The police are confident,” I told him. “Good luck with the comparison.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I WASN’T SURE IF Selim Osman knew anything or if he suspected someone. Even the thumbscrews and the racks of his ancestors wouldn’t get any information out of him so I didn’t expect to. Still, it was a lead—even if I didn’t know what to do with it. The question wasn’t only what he knew but how he knew it. He might be unwilling to divulge the former but the latter might be easier to uncover.
Not that I had any intention of investigating the theft, of course—that was strictly the affair of the police as Lieutenant Gaines had pointed out. Still, I was involved. I knew I had been brought here only to authenticate the Ko Feng but I felt that my professional integrity had been sullied when the spice had been taken from under my very nose.
I went outside to cross to the next pavilion. I was assailed by powerful aromas that I would have been able to grab by the handful if they had been only a fraction stronger. SAY CHEESE was the name of the stand, and they were all there—from Arrigny to Vendôme, from soft to hard, from mild to extra sharp, from aperitif to dessert, and in every color—blue, yellow, red, green, white. There were slabs and slices, bars and hunks, wheels that would barely fit through a doorway.
It was an aggressive stand and it didn’t require any signs pointing in its direction. A board inside carried the thought that “Cheese is milk striving toward immortality.” The most valuable item mentioned in the will of François Villon, the French vagabond poet, had been the contents of his cheese cellar and the throngs at this stand indicated that cheese had lost none of its pull.
I passed through Kosher Canyon where the most amusing sign said JEWISH TEX-MEX. Ingenuity and humor abounded in the entire exhibition, and I walked on past NOTHING BUT THE WURST where the perspiring staff was having a hard time handling the flow of sausages of all styles and sizes. Mustard was being supplied by the bucketful, a German band oompahed in brassy bursts, and girls in Bavarian dress hurried between tables with trays of foaming steins.
It was a problem to know where to eat.
I finally decided on a Magyar cafe in the Hungarian quarter and ordered the smoked tongue, a dish I had not eaten in a long time. The way it is cooked in its home country is to boil the whole tongue until it is tender, dredge it in eggs and flour and then pan-fry and slice it. A few dumplings and a piece of black pumpernickel spread with Liptauer, a cheese flavored with paprika and caraway, made a very satisfying lunch. A glass of Hungarian Riesling was my choice of a wine. The famous Bull’s Blood was not easy to resist but it is a little heavy for midday drinking. A popular Hungarian dessert, crepes with chocolate syrup, got a second glance but only out of professional interest.
