Death of an Italian Chef

by Lee Hollis

  Romeo got in a good kick to Chuckie’s shin, causing him to lose his balance, which he seemed to regain by wrapping his giant mitts around Romeo’s neck to steady himself and squeezing as hard as he could.

  Vic stood back, watching the brawl with a self-satisfied smile slapped on his face.

  Hayley yanked out her phone and thrust it in the air. “I’m only going to say this once! Don’t make me call 911!” She poised her index finger over the phone screen, prepared for action.

  That seemed to finally get their attention.

  None of the three men were eager to get tossed in the slammer, and so the rumble came to an end as quickly as it had begun.

  “This isn’t over by a long shot,” Vic spat out, turning on his heel and stalking out.

  Chuckie, chest heaving, out of breath, wiped his nose with his hand, then slowly limped away after his boss.

  Hayley finally lowered her phone.

  Chef Romeo brushed himself off, and then with a wink, cracked, “You sure you don’t want to come work here? I can promise you it will never be dull!”

  Chapter 4

  After devouring the rest of Hayley’s spaghetti carbonara, Chef Romeo was still on a tear about his unwanted visitors, Vic Spencer and his flunky Chuckie, and the shabby, unacceptable job they had done on his kitchen.

  “How does he think he can get away with something like this? It’s a small town, word gets around, and believe me, I have the biggest mouth for miles!” Romeo roared.

  Hayley thought better of nodding in agreement.

  Romeo began opening cupboards. “Just look at these flimsy shelves. The nails are already loose—this whole thing could collapse at any moment and hurt one of my employees! It’s ridiculous! And he actually thinks I am going to pay him more money? What an imbecile! That guy doesn’t even deserve to have a license to do business! He’s a menace to the community!”

  Hayley observed Romeo’s face turning beet red as he worked himself up into a wild frenzy. “Romeo, you should calm down . . .”

  “I am calm! Do I not look calm?” Romeo shouted.

  “What would you say calm looks like? Because right now what you’re doing doesn’t look calm to me,” Hayley said softly.

  “Can you believe he had the nerve to threaten to sue me? Who does that idiot think he is? I’ll tell you one thing: I’m a Brooklyn boy, born and raised. We’re tough as nails, a lot tougher than the ones he used to hammer that cupboard into place, and we don’t take guff from nobody!”

  Suddenly Romeo stopped screaming and clutched his chest, sweat pouring down his face, mouth agape, bottom lip quivering.

  Hayley took a step forward. “Romeo, are you all right?”

  She noticed his hand at his side trembling.

  “I’m fine!” Romeo insisted.

  “Do you feel a tightness in your chest? Is there a pain shooting down your arm?”

  Romeo waved her off. “It’s nothing to worry about. Just a little indigestion. I promise not to blame your carbonara.”

  Hayley had been around long enough to recognize the signs of a heart attack. “Do you have shortness of breath?”

  Romeo firmly shook his head no, but it was obvious he was having some trouble breathing.

  “Are you dizzy or light-headed?”

  “Stop pestering me, Hayley! I am not having a heart attack! This happens all the time when I get upset. I just need to sit down and let it pass,” Romeo said, pulling up a chair and plopping down his large frame.

  “This is nothing to mess around with,” Hayley warned. “If you’re having chest pains of any kind, we should get you to the emergency room as soon as possible.”

  “Forget it! I hate hospitals!” Romeo barked. “Trust me, there is nothing to worry about here, this is just me being Italian, screaming and yelling and getting worked up is just part of our nature! My whole family acts like this!”

  Hayley eyed him warily, not quite believing his state of health was no cause for concern.

  He sat slumped over in the chair, taking long, deep breaths until his blood pressure seemed to come down a bit, and whatever pain he refused to acknowledge had subsided. He finally glanced up at Hayley and flashed her a grin. “See, I’m feeling better already.”

  If Romeo was going to ignore whatever it was that just happened, the least she could do was try to get his mind off Vic Spencer, and she had the perfect way to do that. She brought something up on her phone screen and then handed it to Romeo.

  “What is this?”

  “A sneak peek of my column that will be in tomorrow’s paper,” Hayley said, smiling.

  Romeo read the review on her phone, his lips moving along, and then an elated smile began to creep across his face. “Five stars?”

  “I would’ve given six if there was such a thing,” Hayley said with a wink.

  Romeo leaped to his feet and grabbed her in a bear hug. “Thank you, Hayley! I could kiss you!”

  “Well, since I’m married, that might not be appropriate—”

  He ignored her by pursing his lips and going in strong. Hayley managed to duck her head to the side so his lips landed on her cheek instead, then she gently wiggled out of his tight grasp.

  “Let’s celebrate with some vino!” Romeo roared, hurtling off toward his wine rack.

  “It’s getting late, and I promised to stop by my brother Randy’s bar to say hello. He’s feeling lonely lately since his husband—”

  “That’s too bad,” Romeo said, totally uninterested. He uncorked the bottle of Chianti and poured two glasses, handing one to Hayley. They toasted before taking a sip. Hayley hung out with the chef for another forty minutes, mostly to make certain he did not suffer another suspected heart episode. The two bonded over their mutual love of food. Hayley knew she had made a friend for life after her rave review of Romeo’s restaurant.

  “So you really thought my cannoli was the best you’ve ever tasted, even when you vacationed in Italy?”

  Hayley nodded. “I wouldn’t have written it if I didn’t believe it.”

  “What can I say, the lady has impeccable taste!”

  “I don’t know about that. I just know what I like,” she demurred.

  Romeo downed the rest of his wine and then laser-focused on Hayley, a dead serious look on his face. “You really should not be wasting your time writing about food.”

  Hayley arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Romeo slammed his wineglass down. “No. You should be sharing your talents with the world! You live in a tourist town. Acadia National Park is one of the most popular vacation spots in the whole country! We get millions of visitors a year! And they all have to eat! If you won’t come work in my restaurant, you should open up your own!”

  Hayley chuckled. “That’s very sweet of you to say, but I’m not sure I’m really cut out to run my own restaurant.”

  “Why not? You’re a smart cookie. You could figure it out. Just don’t open an Italian place. That’s my territory. You can do anything else, just not Italian!”

  “Okay, no Italian,” Hayley said, humoring him and sipping more wine.

  “I see you with a seafood joint, maybe putting a spin on your spaghetti carbonara by adding lobster or shrimp. I got a million ideas. I’d be happy to help you if you ever decide to go for it!” Romeo bellowed. “Let’s do a couple of sambuca shots!”

  “No, I really shouldn’t—”

  But Romeo was already on his feet, heading toward his junky cupboards. He stopped suddenly, his back to Hayley. She could see his shoulders moving up and down as if he was having trouble trying to breathe again.

  “Romeo?”

  He raised a hand. “All good.”

  But he swayed to the side and had to grab the counter to steady himself.

  Hayley sighed. “I really think you should at least go see a doctor.”

  “He always tells me the same thing. ‘You need to lose weight and exercise more!’ Forget it! If I did that, it would destroy my image! No one wants to see a scraw
ny, starving Italian chef! Who would come eat my food if it was clear I wasn’t eating it myself? No way! Ain’t gonna happen! I love my work too much!”

  He wiped the sweat beads off his brow defiantly and threw open the cupboard to retrieve his bottle of sambuca. When he slammed the door shut, the entire row of shelves collapsed, crashing to the floor, dishes and glassware shattering everywhere.

  Chef Romeo exploded again and Hayley clutched her phone at her side, fully prepared to call an ambulance if need be. But happily, after another shot of sambuca, Chef Romeo appeared to be back to normal and ranting about the despicable, lowlife Vic Spencer and the multiple ways Romeo planned to exact his revenge, all signs of his ill health dissipated.

  Chapter 5

  Hayley sat on the stool at the bar of her brother’s local watering hole Drinks Like A Fish, sipping a Diet Coke and staring off into space as Randy emerged from the kitchen with a large plate of fried clams and set it down in front of a scrawny, scraggly gray-bearded fisherman in a Red Sox cap seated at the other end of the bar.

  “Enjoy, Cappy. Let me know if you need more tartar sauce,” Randy said, wiping his hands with a dishrag. The fisherman grunted a nonsensical reply and started devouring the clams as Randy ambled down to the opposite side of the bar where Hayley was currently lost in her thoughts.

  “You sure I can’t get you something to eat? Kitchen’s open for another thirty minutes,” Randy said.

  Hayley raised her head, eyes blinking. “I’m sorry—what?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No, thanks, I’m fine. I ate quite a bit of spaghetti carbonara earlier at Chef Romeo’s place,” Hayley said.

  “What about something a little stronger?” Randy asked, pointing to her glass of soda.

  “Not after two shots of sambuca,” Hayley said. She guzzled the rest of her Diet Coke and handed the empty glass to Randy. “I should be getting home.”

  “Why? There’s no one there waiting for you.”

  “Tell that to Leroy. I’m sure he would take great offense.”

  “Leroy’s got a doggy door if he needs to get out into the yard and I’m sure a full bowl of Kibbles ’n Bits. Stay. Keep me company. Cappy over there is about four clams away from passing out, so he does me no good, and Michelle is busy in the office counting receipts. I have no one else.”

  “You lonely at home without Sergio?”

  Randy nodded. “When he was leaving, I pretended to be happy for the break. I told him all the projects around the house I was going to get done while he was away. But instead, I stay here late every night because I dread the thought of going home to a big old empty house and staring at the walls with no one to talk to. I’ve caught myself talking back to people on television. I’ve actually gotten quite close with Anderson Cooper.”

  Hayley chuckled. “I know what you mean. I have convinced myself that Leroy is perfectly capable of understanding every word I’m saying to him. This morning I was in the middle of talking about what I was going to make myself for dinner on Wednesday—that’s two nights from now—and he literally turned his back on me and walked out of the room. I’m boring my own dog! It’s come to that!”

  “I honestly thought we would both do a lot better being by ourselves, but it hasn’t worked out that way, has it?” Randy laughed.

  Hayley slid off the barstool and waved at Cappy, who was droopy-eyed and had some fried crumbs from the clams stuck in his beard. “Good night, Cappy!”

  He acknowledged her with a shaky wave of his hand and then slumped over, his eyes shut.

  “Wait, don’t go,” Randy pleaded. “Let’s do something fun.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Mondays are always so slow here. I don’t expect to get many more customers and Cappy’s about to take a nap. Michelle can cover for me.” Randy grabbed a copy of the Island Times from underneath the bar and rifled through to the entertainment section.

  He suddenly gasped.

  Hayley leaned forward, curious. “What?”

  “Tonight is camp-tastic movies night at the Criterion Theatre,” he blathered, eyes wide with glee.

  “Camp-what?”

  “It’s always dead at the Criterion on Monday nights, so they’ve been looking for new ways to draw people in. Last month they started camp-tastic movies, which essentially are Hollywood movies so hilariously bad they’re really fun to watch and comment on. I missed the first one they did, Valley of the Dolls, much to my chagrin, but tonight they’re featuring the ultimate camp classic, Mommie Dearest!”

  “I didn’t realize that was a bad movie. I remember watching it as a little kid on TV and thinking it was really good.”

  “Of course. To a seven-year-old, it’s high-class drama! There are so many deliciously awful scenes, and I can recite most of them word-for-word! We have to go!”

  Hayley hesitated. “When does it start?”

  Randy checked the ad. “Eight o’clock.”

  “But it’s already five minutes past.”

  “The theatre is right across the street. They usually show fifteen minutes of previews, and I hear they have somebody introduce the movie. We have plenty of time . . . I will buy all the popcorn and candy you want!”

  That was all Hayley needed to hear. Although she was still full from carbonara, she was incapable of refusing buttered movie popcorn and peanut M&M’s. She turned and headed to the door as Randy bounded back to the office to let Michelle know he was running out for a couple of hours.

  After buying tickets at the booth outside, Hayley and Randy loaded up on concessions, each selecting a bucketful of popcorn, four different types of candy, and two big-gulp–size sodas. They strolled down the aisle to the fourth row from the screen, Randy’s preferred choice of theatre seating. There was a smattering of people in the orchestra, but the balcony upstairs was closed off and empty. Hayley counted about six others besides themselves.

  A coming attraction of next month’s camp-tastic classic Xanadu, starring Olivia Newton-John post-Grease, a silly, bewildering musical with roller skates and legendary dancer Gene Kelly from the early 1980s. Randy excitedly leaned in and whispered into Hayley’s ear, “We have to come back next month for that!”

  Hayley nodded, but was wary about sitting through what looked like a disaster of a film.

  A short, pudgy high school kid in a red vest huffed down to the front of the stage and spoke into a wireless microphone, spouting a few tidbits about the film that he seemed to be reading off a napkin, how Anne Bancroft was originally slated to star before Faye Dunaway ultimately took the role, how the film’s subject, Joan Crawford, had been a fan of the woman portraying her, how Dunaway called Frank Sinatra for help when she lost her voice screaming “No more wire hangers!”

  Hayley was almost through half her bucket of popcorn by the time the kid finally wrapped up, the chandelier lights went down, and the movie began unspooling on the giant screen.

  Hayley instantly got into the spirit of the so-bad-it’s-good nature of the picture as Joan Crawford scrubbed her arms and face with soap and boiling water and then plunged her entire head into a bowl of witch hazel and ice cubes to close the pores. Hayley leaned in to Randy. “I do this every morning before I leave for work at the Island Times.”

  Randy cracked a half smile but didn’t respond. He shifted in his seat as if he was feeling unsettled. Hayley went back to watching the movie, and after a few more minutes, she noticed Randy continuing to squirm in his seat, trying to get himself in a more comfortable position.

  “Are you okay?” Hayley whispered.

  Randy gave her a half-nod, his eyes still fixed on the big screen. Finally, by the time Joan was throwing her recently adopted daughter Christina a lavish birthday celebration with ponies and carousels at her sprawling Beverly Hills estate, forcing her daughter to choose one gift while the rest would be donated to charity, Randy suddenly put his popcorn bucket down on the floor and hurried up the aisle and out the exit door.

  Hayley
assumed he was heading to the men’s room, and so she stayed where she was, shoveled a fistful of popcorn in her mouth, and kept watching the movie. By the time Louis B. Mayer canceled Joan’s contract at MGM after theatre owners labeled her “box office poison” and Joan devolved into a jaw-dropping epic meltdown by hacking down her prized rose garden with a pair of grossly oversized gardening shears and an ax, Hayley was really starting to worry about Randy. He had been gone quite a long time. She set her own popcorn bucket down on the floor, and walked up the aisle and out of the theatre to the concession stand, which was manned by the same pudgy kid who had read the film facts off a napkin prior to the show.

  “Excuse me, did you happen to see my brother come out? I was sitting with him down front when you were introducing the movie,” Hayley asked.

  “Nope,” the kid said impassively as he wiped down the glass counter with some Windex and a paper towel. “But I just came back from my break.”

  Hayley frowned, then marched down a hallway to the men’s room. She rapped on the door. “Randy, are you in there? Are you okay?”

  There was no answer.

  Concerned, Hayley pushed open the door a crack and peered inside. “Randy?”

  She heard a soft moan.

  Hayley flung open the door all the way to see Randy writhing on the tiled floor next to the sink, his face a ghostly white, in agonizing pain. She raced in and knelt down beside him, gently placing a hand on his sweaty back. “Randy, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  He couldn’t speak. He just winced and sweated, his arms folded over his torso, in obvious distress.

  Hayley popped back up to her feet and flew out of the men’s room, screaming at the kid behind the concession stand. “Call 911! Hurry!”

  “W—what?” he sputtered, thoroughly befuddled.

  “Just do it!” Hayley commanded, fearing on a gut level that the situation was critical and time was of the essence as the startled kid scrambled for his phone.

  Island Food & Spirits

  BY HAYLEY POWELL

  I have always loved pasta from as far back as I remember. I can easily crack open an old photo album and find baby pictures of me at two years old sitting in my high chair covered from head to toe with marinara sauce while shoving fistfuls of spaghetti noodles in my mouth.