A Taste Of The Nightlife Part 17

"How come?" they chorused.

"I've got an appointment." As an excuse, this might have worked, except I said it too fast and I was halfway to the kitchen before I had the sentence finished. "Who wants coffee?"

"Appointment?" repeated Trish, layering on a full measure of lawyerly skepticism. "And you let Jess paint your toenails?"

"I did not let her paint my toenails. She caught me at a vulnerable moment."

"A vulnerable moment named Brendan," said Jessie. "She says he's cute."

I turned on her, brandis.h.i.+ng the coffee grinder. "One more word, and I swear I will be using your party bags as grill fuel."

"You heard that, right?" said Jess to Trish.

"Don't worry. I know a good personal injury attorney." Trish strode over to the kitchen doorway. I got the beans out of the fridge and dumped a full measure into the grinder and did not look at her.

"So you've got a date," Trish said as I started the grinder and pretended not to hear. "What's the big deal? Bring him along."

"Trish, I swear, it's not a date." I dumped the ground coffee into the filter basket. "It really is an appointment. With a vampire."

"Who? This Sevarin guy?"

"He'll be there." I poured filtered water from the pitcher into the coffeemaker and shoved the carafe into place.

Trish was still looking at me and, incidentally, blocking the only exit. I opened the fridge again and tried to focus on whether I should offer to make pancakes or French toast for breakfast. We were all awake; we might as well eat. I had some really good raspberry preserves that whispered "French toast" to me. I reached for the eggs.

"Tell me this is about Nightlife opening again," said Trish very quietly and very seriously. "Tell me you are not trying to pull a Jessica Fletcher on me."

"This is about Nightlife opening again," I said, pulling my bread knife off the magnetic bar mounted on the backsplash. "I am not trying to pull a Jessica Fletcher on you."

Proving that sometimes the universe does show mercy, my phone started ringing. "That should be Detective O'Grady now." I pushed past her, s.n.a.t.c.hed up my phone and checked the number. "Yep. 'Scuse me."

I hit the TALK b.u.t.ton as soon as I had the door to my room shut behind me. "Good morning, Detective." Thank you for the rescue.

"Good morning, Chef Caine. I thought you'd want to know as soon as possible. Our team is finished and you are free to enter your restaurant again."

"That's terrific!"

There was a pause on the other end. "You already knew."

Remind me never, ever to try to play poker for stakes any higher than M&M's. "Yeah. A friend of a friend of my brother's."

"Name?" O'Grady inquired, and somehow I just knew that little notebk was out again.

"Sorry. I don't know."

"If you find out, I'd appreciate you letting me know."

"I'll do my best, Detective."

"Thank you. Good luck, Chef Caine. I hope your reopening goes well."

"Thank you, Detective. You're welcome at Nightlife anytime."

We said a couple more polite nothings and thank-yous and finally hung up. It seemed pretty clear that Detective O'Grady did not expect to be talking with me again, and I sincerely wanted to believe he was right.

I beat Jess into the bathroom by a hairsbreadth, washed up and dressed in my black pants and kitchen whites. I made French toast with warm raspberry preserves spiked with ginger and lemon zest, and topped by a dollop of sweet-and-sour cream. I also spent a good half hour ducking Trish's questions before I was finally able to make my escape down to the station and the E train.

I had the block almost to myself as I rounded the corner and stopped in front of Nightlife. It had been only a few days, but the front windows were already dull and dust-streaked. Trash and autumn leaves had drifted into the corners of the entranceway and the CLOSED sign was badly askew. Three new graffiti tags decorated the west wall.

From the front, Nightlife didn't look closed. It looked dead.

I remembered the night we'd first turned on the sign. It had sputtered for a few heart-wrenching seconds before it lit up the sidewalk in a wash of clean red and orange. I'd high-fived Chet with both hands, and he'd grabbed me up and swung me around in a big circle, just like he had when he came in the kitchen to tell me Anatole Sevarin was in the dining room.

I made myself take a good long look at my dark and silent restaurant. I needed to do more than see. I needed to let the sight take root. Because this was what I faced. This was why I really needed to find out what was going on instead of just letting it all go like everybody from my brother to Detective O'Grady wanted. This was not about any abstract principle. If I didn't find out what had happened to Dylan Maddox, the people who had killed him could take all my work away again.

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly before I crossed the street and let myself in the front door. The dim dining room wrapped around me and a tension deep inside eased, the way it does when you've come home. I tossed my purse onto the bar and put thoughts of my upcoming "appointment" in my back pocket. I would get my sous chefs, Zoe and Reese, on the phone, followed by Marie-Our-Pastry-Chef. They could make the calls to the kitchen personnel and get us a head count of who was staying and who had already found new jobs. If we'd lost too many people, we'd have to get with one of the staffing agencies and bring in a new crew. That would mean training. Robert and Suchai could handle any new front-of-the-house staff, if needed. Reese was a former drill sergeant and could take on a whole new hot line if he absolutely had to. Zoe and I could huddle over the menu. It had to change, top to bottom, before next month, and we had to have at least six new dishes in place for Sat.u.r.day. Chet was right. If we hauled a.s.s we could open Sat.u.r.day night. We had to start calling suppliers, see who was still willing to give us credit and- A sharp rap sounded on the gla.s.s behind me. Brendan, I thought automatically as I turned around, trying to decide whether I should be annoyed or pleased that he'd come to check up on me this early.

Except it wasn't Brendon Maddox. It was Margot.

Margot Maddox had changed her red leather coat for a basic black trench that fit her well enough to be designer. She'd also swapped her high-heeled lace-up boots for patent-leather pumps. She'd changed her demeanor too. The cat-cool woman was gone, replaced by someone who clutched her slender purse strap and looked over her shoulder twice in the short amount of time it took me to cross the dining room again and snap back the dead bolt.

"Ms. Maddox," I said, summoning my best greet-the-skeptical-client manners. "Can I help you?"

"I hope so, Chef Caine." Margot started to look over her shoulder again, but stopped herself. "May I come in?"

"Certainly." I stood back and let her in. "Although I'm afraid I don't have much time. We're cleared to reopen and we have a lot of work to do."

This was a hint, but Margot didn't even stop to acknowledge it. She walked straight past me, her eyes searching all the shadows in the dim dining room. I remembered Brendan doing much the same thing.

She must have been satisfied, because she turned around. "I'll be brief." She straightened her shoulders, very visibly pulling herself together. "I'd like to buy you out."

Sorry? What? HUH? These and a dozen other exclamations stampeded toward the front of my brain. Fortunately, what got there first was, "Excuse me?"

Margot's fingers clenched around her purse strap. Her knuckles had to be stark white underneath those black gloves. "I will pay you not to reopen this establishment. It will be a substantial sum, for you and your . . . brother both, if you want. Enough so that you can go from here to create any other kind of restaurant your heart desires."

I didn't collapse into a chair this time. I pulled one out slowly and concentrated on sitting down in a controlled fas.h.i.+on. I was glad I'd worn my chef's coat and had taken the time to put my hair up this morning. It reminded me who I was, and that I was on my home turf. Executive chefs do not slump in their chairs with their jaws flapping open, no matter what kind of offer has just been dangled in front of them. I gestured for Margot Maddox to take a seat. She did, but she did not do anything to get comfortable, like remove her gloves or slip her purse off her shoulder. She didn't even let go of the strap.

"What does Brendan think about this idea? Or Ian?" I asked.

"They don't know."

Uh-huh. "And the money would come with conditions?"

"Only one. That whatever establishment you open after this does not serve blood of any kind."

So there it was. Margot and her side of the family wanted to shut us down as part of the Maddox family antivampire campaign. "Listen, Ms. Maddox . . ."

"One million dollars."

The whole of my angry speech died, turned to dust and blew away. "Excuse me?" I said again.

"One. Million. Dollars," repeated Margot. "Cas.h.i.+er's check."

"You have that kind of money?"

She sighed. "I have a trust fund separate from the family money. I also have a very good lawyer of my own and he broke the trust before I came down here. I t aa feeling I might need to pay off Pamela and I didn't want to have to get Grandfather's permission to do it. My grandfather, by the way, is very unhappy with me," she added, and this time she did look over her shoulder.

"That'd be Mr. Lloyd 'Stake 'Em All' Maddox?" I peered through the front door, but I saw only the usual range of morning suits, construction workers and women in black going past. "Is your grandfather with you?"

"No. Ian's in the car and-" Margot cut herself off, but I understood. I wouldn't have trusted Ian and his chin tuft to stay where I put them either. "Which is neither here nor there," she went on. "I'm offering you one million dollars, Chef Caine. Today. Your lawyer can draw up papers if you like. I will sign, and I have only the one condition, which you've already heard."

A million dollars. A million, cash. With that as a stake, I could get credit from . . . anywhere. It would mean the ability to open a topflight place and a chance to compete in the big game. It would be the freedom to take my craft as far as I was able to.

Unfortunately, it also left one huge question burning brightly enough to set the sprinklers off all over again.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why do you think?" Margot screwed up her face tighter than I would have thought possible. I had her down for a Botox baby. "My family is being torn apart. I don't care about Pamela," she went on quickly, as I leaned forward again. "At least, I wouldn't if she was just going to h.e.l.l in her own handbasket. But she's pulling the rest of the family in with her."

"You've talked to her?"

"I wish." Margot exchanged her stranglehold on her purse strap for a similar grip on the table's edge. "At this point it doesn't really matter whether we find her or not. Look what's already happened because of her. Dylan's dead. Brendan's heading into real trouble. . . ." She faltered, and I remembered Margot was Brendan's sister. I met her eyes and saw that in this one way we understood each other very well. We both knew how far we'd already gone to protect our brothers, and we knew we would go further if we had to.

But although I understood that desire, I couldn't see any way it had led to this conversation. "How is keeping Nightlife closed going to help your family?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? Someone wants to use Nightlife for . . . something. I don't know who and I don't care. If I close it off, maybe they'll look elsewhere and maybe that will buy O'Grady and his people enough time to actually do something."

"You're willing to spend a million dollars on a couple maybes?"

"Only because that's all I've got right now."

Wow, I thought. The rich really are different from you and me. Or this particular rich woman knew way more than she was telling me. As soon as I'd kicked over that mental rock, another nasty thought crawled out.

"If you haven't been talking to Cousin Pamela, have you been talking to Brendan?" Had Brendan told her about the blood? No, not possible. If he had, she'd have been on the phone to O'Grady, not here offering me the bribe of a lifetime.

Margot drew her shoulders back and for a moment the cold sophisticate was back in front of me. "Despite what you and my brother may think, I don't need to run to him with every little queiv width="n. I have resources of my own."

I could easily believe that. The Maddox family was connected to wealth, privilege and politics. Margot surely knew how to work all three when the situation called for it.

I folded my arms and drummed my fingers on my sleeve. There were too many angles here for me to work out at once. I had to delay her, give myself time to settle down. Get the words one million dollars to stop flas.h.i.+ng around the margins of my brain.

"If I'm going to agree to think about your offer, I have a condition of my own."

"What's that?"

"I need an answer. What is Nightlife being used for?"

For a minute, I thought she was going to try to tell me she didn't know. I sat back and waited. Now this was a game I could play. It didn't require a poker face, just patience. At various times, I'd had to wait across the table from employees who were stealing the tip money from their fellows, sneaking their illegal relatives in to sleep in the stockroom, and dealing marijuana out the back door.

At last Margot Maddox made her decision. She ran her palm across the tabletop as if checking for wrinkles in the veneer. "Blood running," she said.

"Bulls.h.i.+t," I replied calmly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The black market in human blood is an urban legend." I elbowed the image of that d.a.m.n blood bucket back where it belonged. "Warm from the vein works much better. Besides, n.o.body needs to buy human blood. The live volunteers are lining up." It's what Post Mortem and its seedier cousins made their payroll on. "Check Craigslist if you don't believe me."

Margot c.o.c.ked her head, and the look she had on her face was one of pure pity. "But there's no guarantee those volunteers are clean, or that they're not FBI stings or vigilantes with stakes. Besides, the kind of person who advertises on Craigslist is looking to be turned, or might be addicted to the thrill or the drain. They turn stalker. Much easier for the civilized vampire"-she spat the words-"to buy a few bags of what they want. Much easier, except, of course, that it's illegal to buy or sell human blood for consumption."

It made sense. It made so much sense my heart was banging against my ribs and my stomach was clenched as tightly as my fists. "Didn't your family have something to do with getting that legislation pa.s.sed?"

I had the satisfaction of seeing Margot wince. "If I'd been old enough I would have spoken against it. This kind of prohibition never works."

"So you think Pamela's a blood runner?" Or you know she is. . . .

"Actually, I think your brother is a blood runner," she shot back. "I think he and his partners have roped Pam in to work security for them."

I thought about the overfluffed fang tease in the see-through white dress and blue eye shadow. "Pam could work security?"

"Oh, yes. It's a family specialty. In fact, Brendan was training her before she ran out on us."

Which, if true, was something he had entirely failed to mention. I really didn't want to think about the implications of that. Fortunately, Margot had given me a deluxe set of other things to think about, complete with Special Offers Not Available Elsewhere.

"You think Chet's in charge of this . . . operation? If there is one?"

"If you don't, Chef Caine, it's because you're deluding yourself."

Why wasn't I getting angry? This smug little rich b.i.t.c.h was sitting here accusing Chet of robbing the Red Cross and selling the stolen blood out the back of my restaurant. And she was trying to buy me off.

The problem was, there was still the bucket in my walk-in. There was Marcus bringing Cousin Pam in the front door, maybe to meet Chet. There was how Chet got Taylor Watts a job, and how Taylor was hanging around Village bars to make mixologists nervous. These could easily be the actions of someone checking on things for the boss-things like territory and payment and purchase quotas.

"It doesn't mean Chet's in charge," I said through clenched teeth. "It could just as easily be Bert Shelby at Post Mortem." Or the Nebbish. Don't forget about the Nebbish. It could even be Pam herself, and Margot here is trying to orchestrate the cover-up.

Margot smiled, calm and collected for the first time this morning. She rose to her feet. "Think about my offer, Chef Caine. I'll be waiting to hear from you." She pulled a card out of her tidy little purse and pushed it across the table to me. I put it in my pocket without looking at it.

"Tomorrow," I said. She nodded, and left, sashaying across the dining room like she was the one who owned the place.

I couldn't do anything but sit there and think how tomorrow was going to be the first day of the rest of my life.

s.h.i.+t.

17.