Crimson Shore

11

Walt Adderly, proprietor of the Captain Hull Inn, stepped out of his office and into the narrow passageway that led to the Chart Room restaurant. He peered into the dim confines. It was one thirty PM, and while most of the lunchtime diners had left — people ate their meals early in Exmouth — Adderly knew from checking the receipts that they’d had a decent crowd.

His eye stopped when it reached the figure sitting alone at table 8. It was that fellow who was looking into the wine theft for Lake. Percival had told Adderly the man was an FBI agent, which of course Adderly didn’t believe: Lake liked his little jokes. The sculptor had also told him that the man — Pendergast, Adderly recalled from the hotel ledger — was rather eccentric. This, at least, was believable: the guy was dressed in a suit of unrelieved black, like someone in mourning, and even in the dimness of the restaurant his pale face stood out like a harvest moon.

As Adderly watched from the shelter of the passageway, Margie, the senior waitress, bustled up with the man’s order. “Here you go,” she said. “Fried catfish. Enjoy!”

“Indeed,” Adderly heard Pendergast murmur in reply. He eyed the plate for a moment. He picked up a fork, poked here and there at the fish, took a tentative bite. Then he put his fork down again. He glanced around the restaurant — it was now empty except for old Willard Stevens, finishing up his third and last cup of coffee — and motioned the waitress over.

“Yes?” asked Margie as she came back.

“May I inquire as to who prepared this?”

“Who?” Margie blinked at this unexpected question. “Our cook, Reggie.”

“Is he your regular cook?”

“These days, yes.”

“I see.” And with this, the man picked up his plate, stood, and walked past the other tables, around the bar, and through the double doors that led into the kitchen.

This was so unusual that Adderly stood where he was for a moment, perplexed. He’d had people so pleased with their meals that they’d asked the cook to come out and be complimented. He’d also had a few send their meals back for various reasons. But he’d never seen a patron just get up and walk into the kitchen before, carrying his lunch with him.

It occurred to him that he’d better go see what was up.

He stepped out of the passage into the restaurant proper, then into the kitchen. Usually a bustle of activity, the place was now almost still. The dishwasher, the two waitresses, the line cook, and Reggie all stood in a huddle, watching the man named Pendergast as he wandered around the food preparation area, opening drawers, picking up various utensils and examining them before replacing them. Then he turned his attention to Reggie.

“You are the cook, I presume?” Pendergast asked.

Reggie nodded.

“And what, pray tell, are your qualifications?”

Reggie looked as surprised as the rest. “Four years as a mess specialist in the Navy.”

“Of course. Well, perhaps we are not completely without hope.” Pendergast lifted his lunch plate and handed it to Reggie. “To begin with, one simply cannot get good catfish this far north. And I assume this was frozen to begin with — right?”

Reggie’s expression began growing defensive. “So?”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, man, we’re on the ocean! Surely you have access to fresh fish — lingcod, pollack, flounder, rockfish?”

“There’s the catch Wait hauled in last night,” Reggie said after a long pause.

This was too much. Adderly stepped forward to intervene. He didn’t want to lose his best cook. “Mr. Pendergast,” he said, “is there a problem?”

“I am going to cook myself lunch. Reggie, here, is welcome to act as sous-chef.”

Adderly wondered if this Pendergast was not just eccentric, but perhaps a little crazy. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but we can’t have customers in the kitchen, disturbing the peace—”

“The only peace that has been disturbed is that of my gastrointestinal tract. But if this will reassure you...” And the man reached into the pocket of his suit, pulled out a shield of gold and blue, and showed it to Adderly. It read FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION.

So Lake hadn’t been kidding, after all. Adderly took a step back and Pendergast continued. “Tell me about this catch of Wait’s?”

Reggie exchanged glances with Adderly. The innkeeper nodded. Just play along, he mouthed. Reggie nodded back, stepped over to the walk-in fridge, opened the door, then stopped abruptly.

“What is it?” asked Pendergast.

“I could’ve sworn I bought a dozen whole sole from Wait. But there’s only ten.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you all about that,” Adderly said, still trying to overcome his surprise. “I’ve been noticing a regular shortfall on orders versus covers. I think we’ve got ourselves a food thief. You’d better spread the word that I’m not going to be happy about it.”

While Adderly spoke, the FBI agent had stepped into the refrigerator, briefly vanishing from sight. “Aha!” He emerged a moment later, a large, gutted sole in his hands. “Not Dover sole, of course, but it will do. Now, may I have a skillet, please? Cast-iron, well-seasoned?”

Reggie produced one.

“Excellent. Ah, Reggie, what is your last name?”

“Sheraton.”

“Thank you. Mr. Sheraton, how would you go about cooking this?”

“I’d fillet it first.”

“Be my guest.” He laid the fish down on the butcher block and watched with approval as Reggie expertly filleted it.

“Beautifully done,” Pendergast said. “This fills me with hope. Now tell me: How would you cook it?”

“In lard, of course.”

Pendergast shuddered. “Not clarified butter?”

“Clarified?”

There was a moment of silence. “Very well. We will confine ourselves to the simplest of preparations. Would you mind placing that skillet on a high flame?”

Reggie walked over to the commercial stove, turned up one burner, and placed the skillet on it.

“Now add some butter, please. Not too much, just enough to coat the bottom of the pan... Wait, wait, that’s more than sufficient!”

Reggie stepped back from what looked like an impossibly small tab of butter. The rest of the kitchen continued looking on in silent surprise.

Pendergast stood there, holding the fish. “Now, Mr. Sheraton, if you wouldn’t mind assembling the rest of the mise en place — mushrooms, garlic, white wine, flour, salt, pepper, parsley, half a lemon, and cream?”

As Reggie moved around the kitchen, gathering the ingredients in increasingly resentful silence, Pendergast kept an eye on the heating pan. Adderly watched the cooking lesson with increasing amusement and curiosity.

Pendergast salted the fish on both sides and set it aside. “Chef’s knife?”

Stu, the line cook, handed him one.

Pendergast examined it. “This isn’t sharp enough! Don’t you know a dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one? Where’s your steel?”

A sharpening steel was produced, and Pendergast whetted the knife against it with a few expert strokes. Then he turned to the mushrooms, quartering one of them in a quick, deft motion. He handed the knife to Reggie, who cut up the other mushrooms and minced a clove of garlic and some parsley as Pendergast looked on.

“You have decent knife skills,” he said. “That’s reassuring. Now, let’s pay attention to the fish. If we are going to prepare this sole à la minute, the pan must be very hot, and the fish must cook quickly. It is now at just the right heat.”

He plucked up the fish and slid it into the hot pan with a searing sound. He waited, as if counting seconds, and then said: “Now, you see? It can be turned already. And a subtle fond is developing.” He slid a fish spatula beneath the sole and gently turned it, to a fresh sizzle.

“But in the Navy—” Reggie began.

“You are no longer deep-frying fish sticks for several hundred men. You are cooking for a single, discriminating customer. There — it’s done!” And Pendergast slid the fish onto a clean plate. “Note that I am serving it presentation side up. Now watch, Mr. Sheraton, if you will.” The FBI agent added a splash of white wine to the skillet, and as a plume of steam arose he added flour and a little more butter, deglazing the pan and whisking the ingredients together quickly. “I’m making a rudimentary beurre manié from which to build the sauce,” he explained. A minute later, in went the mushrooms, then the garlic. Holding the handle of the skillet with a chef’s towel, Pendergast quickly sautéed the ingredients, then added a generous dash of cream, standing directly over the stovetop and whisking constantly. After another minute he turned off the heat, picked up a spoon, tasted the sauce, corrected the seasonings, dipped the spoon again, then showed it to Reggie. “Note, Mr. Sheraton, how the sauce lightly coats the spoon. The French call that nappe. In future, I would ask that you make sure your sauce has been reduced to just such a consistency before serving it to me.” He spooned a liberal amount of sauce over the fish, garnished it with parsley, spritzed a trace of lemon juice over it.

“Filets de Poisson Bercy aux Champignons,” he declared with a small flourish. “Or, more correctly, Filets de Sole Pendergast, since under the circumstances I was forced to take several shortcuts in both ingredients and technique. Now, Mr. Sheraton: Do you think you could reproduce this preparation with the greatest exactitude, for my future dinners in this establishment?”

“It’s simple enough,” Reggie said shortly.

“That’s the beauty of it.”

“But... for every dinner?”

“For my every dinner.” Pendergast reached into his pocket, extracted a hundred-dollar bill, and handed it to the cook. “This is for your trouble today.”

Reggie stared at it, the look of resentment changing to surprise.

“Do you regularly work lunches as well as dinners?” Pendergast asked in a hopeful tone.

“Only twice a week,” Reggie replied.

“Ah, well. Let us then content ourselves with dinner, for the time being. Filets de Sole Pendergast for the foreseeable future, if you please. You have my thanks.” And with that, Pendergast scooped up the plate, turned, and left the kitchen.

Adderly turned to Reggie, laughing, and slapped him on the back. “Well, well, Reggie, it looks like we have a new item on our menu. What do you think?”

“I guess so.”

“I’ll add it to the chalkboard.” And Adderly exited the kitchen, chuckling to himself, leaving Reggie and the rest of the staff staring at each other in openmouthed surprise long after the double doors to the restaurant had stopped flapping.