French Pressed

Fourteen

“You what?!”

“Calm down, Matt.”

“What did I tell you, Clare? Did I not tell you to stay out of the man’s cheese cave?!”

“I know you did. I know. But it was my one chance to speak with Keitel privately…”

I was on my cell phone with Matt, pacing Solange’s back alley. There’d been no more talking with Tommy after we returned to Solange’s kitchen. The second he hit the back door, he went into extreme chef mode, shooting orders to cooks, tasting sauces, checking and rechecking ovens, and taking call after call on his cell phone—from vendors, colleagues, and the occasional VIP.

I hung around for another hour, waiting for Joy to return. I’d tried her cell phone and home phone, and got her voice mail on both. So I waited some more. Then I could tell I was in the way, and I ducked into the alley to make the call that I was dreading—to my ex-husband.

“I never meant for Joy to see us,” I told Matt. “She wasn’t even scheduled to arrive for another hour.”

“Obviously, she got there early to talk with Tommy.”

“Well, now she’s over an hour late.” I checked my watch again. It was almost three thirty. “I’m worried about her. Are you sure you checked your cell’s messages? She hasn’t tried to call you?”

“Believe me, she hasn’t. And if she does, it’ll have to be from a pay phone. Salinas confiscated her cell phone last night, don’t you remember?”

“Of course, right…” With so much happening, I’d forgotten. “Well, if she does call you, let me know, okay? And it’s important that she report back to the restaurant. I just found out that Brigitte Rouille’s been fired so she’s no longer a threat to Joy—”

“Wait, slow down. Brigitte’s been fired? That’s good news, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I still want our daughter out of this kitchen altogether, and that can’t happen until Tommy fires her.”

“What do you mean fires her? Run that by me again…?”

I brought Matt up to speed on Tommy’s intention to break up with Joy—and not with roses and a farewell poem. It was going to be ugly. Matt swore a few times upon hearing the plan, but he calmed down when I pointed out that the result of all this was getting our girl out of Solange’s kitchen and over her infatuation with Tommy Keitel in record time.

“Tommy’s going to give her high marks for her work under him—” I closed my eyes, choking for a second on my own Freudian phrasing. “Anyway, she can finish her internship at another great New York restaurant. That’s not a bad ending.”

“No,” Matt grudgingly admitted. “It’s not.”

“You just have to help me with Joy. You have to explain to her that you and I agreed to pitch Keitel on a coffee contract with the Blend. She’ll believe you. And hopefully she’ll understand what was going on wasn’t anything more than my helping the man create a pairings menu.”

“If I were you, Clare, given what she saw, I wouldn’t put Keitel and you and pairing in the same sentence.”

Oh, God… I squeezed my eyes shut. “Please, Matt, if she comes back down to the Blend, let me know.”

“I’m not at the Blend.”

“Where are you?”

“The top of the Empire State Building.”

“Excuse me? You’re not jumping, are you? You can’t miss Breanne that much.”

“Koa Waipuna is here with his wife and kids for a shopping and sightseeing excursion,” he said flatly. “I promised to show him and his family around New York today. I mentioned it to you earlier—”

“I guess I was distracted. You can’t get out of it?”

“No, Clare. You know very well the Waipunas’ coffee farm is one of our best sources for Kona on the Big Island. Don’t you remember how well Koa’s parents treated you and me on our honeymoon—”

I gagged. “You mean back in the Paleozoic?”

“I know it’s ancient history, but I can’t bug out on them—”

“Okay, okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just upset. But please phone me if Joy contacts you.”

“Will do.”

“Ms. Cosi?”

A man had called my name. I closed my phone and turned in the alley to see a familiar face. It was René, the waiter who’d served Madame and me the previous evening. He was standing in the back door of Solange’s kitchen.

“Yes, René?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Ms. Cosi, but Monsieur Dornier would like you to pack up your French presses. We are preparing for dinner service.”

“Of course! Of course!”

I walked through the busy kitchen and into Solange’s dining room. Waiters in white aprons and black jackets were bustling around the room, shrouding tables with linen, putting down place settings, arranging fresh flowers.

I quickly packed up my presses, beans, grinder, paper cups, and electric hot-water pot into my carrying case. I was just crouching down to zip up the little Pullman when I heard Tommy Keitel coming into the dining room.

“Nappy? What is it? René said you wanted to speak with me?”

“You got another one of those notes, Tommy. I found it in our mail slot.”

Another note? I repeated to myself. I was still crouched down with my Pullman case, but I wanted to see what was happening, so I rose up just enough to peek up over the edge of the cherrywood table.

Napoleon Dornier was handing Chef Keitel a glossy black envelope at least eight by eleven inches large. Tommy examined the outside label a moment, then ripped open the end. He glanced at the single white page inside and swore.

“That son of a bitch! It’s him again. Just burn it, Nappy, like all the others.”

Keitel tossed the envelope to Dornier then strode away and slammed back through the doors to his kitchen.

What the hell was in that envelope? As I watched Dornier walk off with it, I tried to come up with a way to finagle a look at its contents or persuade Dornier to tell me what was going on. But I never got the chance to do either, because my cell phone went off.

Hoping it was Matt, I quickly flipped it open. The digital screen said the Village Blend was calling. Praying that my daughter had gone down there and was now trying to reach me, I answered.

“Hello?!”

“It’s me, boss.”

Damn. “Esther? What’s up?”

“Houston, we’ve got a problem!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Gardner’s not coming in. He’s stuck on the road between D.C. and New York.”

“Is he okay?”

“His friend’s piece of crap car broke down outside of Philly, and I can’t find anyone to take his shift. Tucker’s long gone, and Dante’s due to leave at four. I’m fine flying solo for a little while, but a very thirsty NYU Law study group just came in, half of a Dance 10 class is waiting for their lattes, and pretty soon it’s going to be a zoo here with the after-work crowd.”

Crap.

“I need backup, boss! You know what those people are like in the afternoons. Most of them haven’t had their caffeine fix since lunch. They’re animals!”

“Calm down, Esther. I’ll be down there in thirty. Just hold the fort alone for now.”

With a sigh, I snapped closed the phone. Joy hadn’t shown up yet, Napoleon Dornier and that black glossy envelope had disappeared, and one purse-lipped waiter, holding an armload of folded linen, was now giving me that look of strained politeness that clearly said: Excusez-moi, Madame. But would you mind getting the hell out of my way!

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” I mumbled. Then, yanking my little wheeled case of French presses behind me, I headed for the door.

The rest of the afternoon and evening went by in a blur. It was Friday, an electric night for the Village, and the crowds of coffee drinkers and pastry eaters just kept on ringing the little bell above our front door.

After the office and hospital workers left, the pre- and postdinner crowds flooded us: couples on dates, NYU students hanging out, older acquaintances having long talks, cold, tired tourists hoping to warm up and wake up with a hot beverage. And though Saturday and even Sunday evenings were the biggest of the week for the bridge and tunnel crowd, Friday had its fair share of business from the residents of New Jersey and the other four of New York’s five boroughs.

Esther and I worked well as a team. The faster the crowds came in, the faster we turned them over with espressos, lattes, cappuccinos, muffins, cookies, cannoli, tarts, and, bizarrely, even a few icy coffee frappes—a chilling choice on a frosty November night, but who was I to judge a paying customer’s coffee craving?

By ten o’clock, the pace at the bar finally slowed, although dozens of customers were still lounging on the shop’s first and second floors, mostly clustered around the warmth of the fireplaces. By eleven fifteen, we were getting ready to start cleaning and closing.

“Do you want me to shoo the rest of the customers out?” Esther asked, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

I shook my head, wiping my own hands on my jeans—I’d changed back into work clothes after leaving Solange. “I’ll do it myself. You did a great job today, Esther. If you’ve finished restocking, you can hit the road.”

“Thanks, boss.” Esther yawned. “I’ve got to sack out fast and recuperate before BB takes me out tomorrow. I’d hate to be wrecked for our big date.”

“You’re still interested in that rapper?” I asked, too weary to mask my skeptical tone.

“Am I still interested?” Esther gawked at me through her black-framed glasses as if I’d just asked her if the Earth was flat. “I’ll have you know that boy rocks my world. And unless a dirty bomb goes off somewhere in the tristate area mañana, he’ll be rocking it at exactly this time twenty-four hours from now.”

I sighed. Esther was about the only person I knew who’d even consider bringing a nuclear fallout reference into her anticipation for a Saturday night date.

“Then I’m happy for you, Esther,” I told her sincerely. “Have a good night.”

“Ciao, boss!”

By midnight, my Goth girl barista was long gone, and I had shooed the last of the customers out, too. I was about to twist the key on the front dead bolt when I noticed a familiar figure in a long, cinnamon-colored overcoat negotiating the traffic across Hudson Street.

The lanky, broad-shouldered detective strode right up to the Blend’s entrance and stood there, looking down at me through the beveled glass. I cracked open the heavy door.

“Hi, Mike.”

“Hi, Clare.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes…of course…”

I stepped back and let Mike Quinn step through. A bone-chilling blast of damp air swept in with him off the river just a few blocks away. I shuddered, remembering that humidified cave of Keitel’s that had led to the misunderstanding with my daughter.

I still hadn’t heard from Joy. And I’d checked in with Matt so often, he’d told me to cool it already because his cell’s battery was about to die, and he still had a long night ahead squiring Mr. and Mrs. Kona Coffee, Jr., around.

While the Waipuna kids were with a sitter at the hotel, Matt had taken their young parents to a Broadway show and a late dinner. Now they were on their way to the first in a long list of nightspots that they’d read about on the Internet and wanted to visit.

“Did you get my voice mail message?” Mike asked. His tone was flat, his face impassive. The man had all the life of an ice sculpture.

“Your message?” I repeated weakly. “You mean the ominous one that said you wanted to have ‘a talk’ with me?”

Mike nodded. “I stopped by twice earlier, but Tucker told me you were uptown on business.”

“Yeah. That was your idea, if you recall. I pitched Solange on serving coffee from the Village Blend.”

“Oh, right…How did that go?”

“They want the contract, but it was still a catastrophe…”

I had so much to tell Mike: Joy’s close friend being murdered, Joy being looked at as a suspect, my infiltration of her workplace in search of the boy’s killer, the disastrous misunderstanding when my daughter found me in the arms of her married lover. Oh, where to begin?

“So…do you want your usual latte?” I asked, turning from the door. I began walking toward the espresso bar, but Mike didn’t follow.

“I can’t stay long, Clare,” he said sharply.

I turned back around. His face was still a stark plane. And his eyes, which were always so alive when they gazed at me, were now still, blue stones. There was no sentiment in them, no playfulness, no affection, hardly a bit of life.

“You don’t have time for coffee?” I said weakly. “Not even one cup?”

“It’s Friday, and the clubs are crowded,” he said. “We’ve doubled the number of undercover officers tonight.”

“Oh, right…the May-September gang. Still no bites?”

“Nothing yet. And they struck twice last night; a man and a woman were victimized after leaving two different clubs. We missed them both.”

I could see that failure had been hard for him. Really hard. It was there in his tense jawline, his weary posture. “Well, hang in there,” I said gamely. “The biggest clubbing days are tonight, tomorrow, and even Sunday. I bet you’ll nail them before the end of the weekend.”

“Yeah…” Mike said, but he failed to buck up. Then his dead expression became downright grim. “Listen, Clare, I don’t have much time, and I didn’t want to do this over the phone.”

Oh, God. “The talk.” Oh, God…

“I’m sorry, Clare. I really am…”

I stepped back, closed my eyes. He’s really going to do this. He’s going to break us up. I could feel tears already welling up in my eyes and throat, choking me.

“Just say it, Mike.”

“Okay.” He took a breath. “I want you to kick Allegro out of your apartment.”

I opened my eyes. “What?”

“I want you to take away his key, throw out his pants and his shirts and his shoes. I want you to evict him from your living space.”

“I can’t do that, Mike. My ex-husband has a legal right to live there. His mother owns the duplex, the entire building, and she had us sign papers—”

“Then you need to leave, because I can’t go on like this. I want a relationship with you, Clare. I do. And I know you want more from me. Believe me, I’m willing to give it. But I need to know the woman I’m falling for isn’t going to make a fool of me.”

“Mike, I don’t know why you think—”

“Hear me out, Clare!”

His sharp tone floored me. Mike rarely raised his voice. And when he did, it was a holy terror—the kind of intensity that came from years of cowing defiant criminals and taking command at crime scenes.

“Okay,” I said softly. “Talk.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, some Dudley Do-Right in a uniform that I was at twenty-six when I met my wife. I won’t just stumble along in a relationship again, letting things happen to me, hoping things just work themselves out. I’ve been through too much craziness already in my marriage. So you take the time you need to think about what you want—”

“Stop, Mike. Please!”

Quinn did. And I was stunned to see the look of pure dread come over his face. I’d never seen him scared before. My God, he thinks I’m going to choose my ex-husband.

“Mike, I don’t have to think about it,” I said quickly. “I know what I want. I want you. I want us to give this relationship a chance. If I didn’t, I never would have said yes to a first date, let alone a second, third, fourth—what are we up to now?”

“We’ve been out nine times, Clare. Believe me, I’ve kept count. Nine agonizingly arousing necking sessions followed by a number of extremely long, lonely hours alone in bed.”

“Well, you won’t have to be alone much longer. And neither will I.”

“Are you sure, Clare? You’re really prepared to move out of that beautiful, convenient duplex upstairs?” He jerked his thumb towards the ceiling.

“Moving out isn’t the problem,” I said with a sigh. “It’s where do I move in? Rents are crazy steep in the West Village. Maybe I should try Alphabet City, too. It isn’t too far. How did you get your place? I never asked you about it, but it seemed like you found it pretty fast.”

“The landlord held an opening for me in the building.”

“He what? He held an opening? In Manhattan? Were you blackmailing the guy?”

Mike’s grim expression finally loosened a little. His chilly gaze began to warm. “The landlord’s a retired detective. I was his partner for a few years there. He inherited the building, and he’s been renting to divorced cops ever since.”

“Only divorced cops?”

“The rookies are usually still living at home. The married guys get houses in the boroughs. It’s the older guys whose marriages break up that need the camaraderie. We even get together once a week to hang out, shoot the breeze.”

“So you belong to a divorced men’s group?”

“We don’t think of it that way.”

“Of course you do. That’s why you never mentioned it until now.” I stifled a laugh.

Mike rolled his eyes, checked his watch. “I’ve got to get going…”

“Okay, but…can we make a date to meet? At your place? I promise I’ll move out of the duplex the first chance I get. Is that good enough for you?”

Mike smiled for the first time since he walked in my door. “Yeah,” he said, leaning in. “It’s good enough.”

His hand caressed my hair, and he pulled me close, brushed my lips with his. But the light kiss wasn’t enough for either of us, and we locked pretty tightly for a few minutes.

“How about we get together Monday afternoon?” Mike suggested softly when we finally parted. “If you can take off, I can arrange a little picnic on the floor of my one-bedroom.”

I smiled. “Let me guess; it’s a picnic because you still don’t have actual furniture yet.”

“You’re right, Cosi. I admit it. See that? And you didn’t even have to beat it out of me.” Mike’s eyes were laughing now; his voice was warm. I’d finally melted him down to the human race.

“I told you before, Lieutenant, many times. You should let me help you detect some furniture. I promise I’ll go easy on your credit cards.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll give in soon. In the meantime, you’ll be happy to know I do have a nice big bed in the bedroom. Is that good enough for now?”

“That’s more than good enough, mister. That’s I’ll be there with bells on.”

“Really…just bells, huh?” Mike’s eyebrow arched. “Kinky.”

I swatted him. He laughed. And then we heard a bell for real; the front door was opening again.

“Hello, hello!” Matt’s mother waltzed in, bundled in a floor-length fur.

“Madame?” I checked my watch. “It’s almost twelve thirty. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you in person, Clare. It’s rather important.”

Mike smiled down at me. “I have to get going.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll call you.”

I nodded. “Be safe.”

Mike winked at me, gave a polite nod to Madame, and then he was gone.

“I remember that young man,” Madame said as she waved me over to a café table. “He’s that nice detective who fixed your traffic violation last month.”

“You mean the BOLO that resulted from the police chase that ensued after you told me to run that red light in Brooklyn?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Mike’s handy that way.” We both sat down. “So what’s up? Do you want some coffee?”

“No, dear.”

I threw up my hands. “I can’t give it away tonight.”

“It’s just that I don’t have much time. My young man is picking me up here in”—she checked her watch—“fifteen minutes.”

“Your young man?”

“He’s only just turned sixty-six, quite a difference in our ages, but I couldn’t resist his charms.”

“Is this the man who was ‘eye-flirting’ with you last night at Solange?”

“The same. We’re going to a nightclub downtown. I haven’t done anything like that in years. And I’m quite looking forward to it!”

“Well, I’d love to hear more about him, but I don’t want you to keep him waiting. So what’s up? Why are you here so late?”

“It’s Joy.”

My breath caught. “You’ve heard from her?”

“I just left her, Clare. We spent the evening together. Now she’s on her way uptown.”

“Uptown? Why?”

“She’s going back to Solange, of course.”