The Chef Read online

  Timing it just right, I duck and spin around. I weave like a boxer to avoid the blow. Then I grab his wrists and shove him hard against the wall. The vase slips to the floor and shatters. He grunts. Whimpers. Crumples to the floor.

  “You sad, sad little man,” I say with a shake of my head.

  “Me?” he tries to protest. “You…you’re the one…messing around with my wife!”

  I take a step toward him, towering over him.

  I’ve put up with his bullshit long enough.

  “Wife? She’s your prisoner. You’ve been controlling her for years. And everyone here knows it.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he demands, scurrying back, still sitting on the entryway floor.

  But he’s just playing dumb. Between the rumors that Gordon dug up and everything I’ve learned from Vanessa—her scars, her sobriety, her distress—I’ve put all the pieces together.

  It’s time the truth came out.

  “Vanessa was a waitress in one of your restaurants the first time you met her,” I say. “Barely out of high school. Practically still a girl. You pursued her, for months. She turned you down. Again and again. But you just wouldn’t accept it. You started getting angry. Desperate. Doing a little digging. And that’s when you found out about her condition—and saw your chance.”

  His stony façade begins to shift.

  To that of a guilty suspect, realizing he’s in a corner.

  He looks ridiculous, defeated, no longer dressed in fine clothes, no longer glowing from a man-made tan. He looks flabby, out of shape, pitiful.

  “You learned your beautiful new employee had chronic cirrhosis of the liver,” I go on. “Since childhood. She needed a transplant, a lifetime of expensive medication. It would cost this poor girl a small fortune that you knew she didn’t have. So you offered to step in and cover it. Pay for everything. Even pay for a college education as your newlywed. But your actual price was even higher.”

  Behind me, I hear Vanessa stifle a sob. Lucas grows incensed.

  “I saw a woman in need,” he nearly shouts. “I gave her some help!”

  “You gave her a pre-nup, you piece of shit,” I shoot back. “That says if she leaves you, she gets nothing. Except bills she can’t pay, treatment she can’t afford. She doesn’t love you, Lucas. She’s shackled to you. A divorce would cost her her life.”

  His eyes start to well up with distress and humiliation. For once, he doesn’t have a bitter comeback. He simply hangs his head. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbles, sniffling and wiping away a tear. “I’ll set things right. I…I’m so ashamed.”

  I turn back to Vanessa, who is blotting her own eyes.

  “So?” I say softly. “Yes or no? Are you going to leave?”

  “Leave the city? Or leave…?”

  “Both,” I reply.

  I hold out my hand.

  Praying she reaches out and takes it.

  Chapter 71

  I’M WOKEN up by a faint buzz from my phone. In the pitch black of this strange bedroom, I grope for it, groggy and still half-asleep.

  I find my phone and check the screen. A text.

  10-19. ONE HOUR.

  It was sent from a blocked number.

  I sit up in bed. Rubbing my eyes. I read it again, trying to make sense of it.

  “10-19” is police radio code for “return to station.” One hour from now would be about 6 a.m.

  But what the hell does it mean?

  Is it a joke? A mistake? A trap? Who sent it to me? Why now?

  It could be an old friend inside the NOPD who wants to share a tip on his turf. Maybe even Cunningham.

  Or maybe it’s Morgan, trying to lure me out of hiding so he can arrest me for real.

  Whatever it is, I have to give the sender credit. My curiosity is piqued.

  Trap or not, I have to learn more. Today is Mardi Gras, and I can’t risk not responding.

  I slip out of bed and into the pair of jeans and wrinkled black T-shirt lying nearby on the floor. I try to be as quiet as I can. But apparently, not quiet enough.

  “Where are you going?”

  Vanessa stirs awake under the covers. Even in the bedroom’s darkness, I can see her worried face.

  “Nowhere. Won’t be gone long. Go back to sleep.”

  But she grasps my hand, pulls me down beside her.

  “Not fair,” she says. “No more secrets between us. No more lies. I thought that’s what we promised each other, didn’t we?”

  I nod. We made that vow only hours ago, on the drive from her house to this place.

  “I’m following up a possible new lead,” I say. “At police headquarters. That’s where I’m going and that’s all I know. I swear.”

  She stares at me for a moment. Then gently touches my cheek.

  “Just be careful, okay? If something happened to you, Caleb…”

  She trails off. Swallows hard.

  “I will,” I answer. “Tonight. Tomorrow. Always.”

  We share a brief kiss. Then I rise from the bed. I take my Smith & Wesson from the top of the nightstand. Tuck it into my jeans.

  “Vanessa, I can’t stand thinking of something happening to you,” I say. “Please reconsider…please leave the city. It’s not safe here.”

  “Are you staying?” she asks.

  “You know I am.”

  She burrows herself back into the sheets. “Then I know I’ll be safe, Caleb. Always.”

  And so I leave.

  The drive at this hour from this little house to the police station should only take around ten minutes. Since I’ve got about fifty more to kill, I make a pit stop into this stranger’s kitchen, and spend a few minutes doing a food-related recon. Not bad.

  This home doesn’t belong to me. It’s owned by my PI friend, Gordon Andrews. He uses it as a secret spot to meet with clients who don’t want to be seen in public or his office with him, or who need a safe place to hide out during a crisis. A call to him once I left with Vanessa led him to offering this home to me, as long as I wanted, which was probably going to be as long as the FBI was pissed at me.

  He’s as much of a foodie as I am, and though he leans to the, er, alcoholic side of “food and beverage,” he’s outdone himself with what he has in the larder.

  I fire up the stove and boil a fresh pot of savory grits. Once they’re simmering, I drown them in heavy cream, garlic butter, and aged Parmesan cheese.

  Meanwhile, I whisk a few eggs with chunks of smoked andouille sausage and diced green pepper, and make a tasty Cajun-style scramble.

  When both dishes are done, I plate them, add a parsley sprig garnish, and stick them in the warming drawer of the oven along with a scribbled Post-it to try to lighten the mood:

  Dear Vanessa, Eat me.

  I don’t have much of an appetite this morning, but I force down a couple bites of a toasted baguette smeared with creole tomato-basil jam. I chase it with some coffee with chicory. Then, at a quarter to six, I hit the road.

  The streets, as I expected, are practically deserted. Only a smattering of city sanitation workers are out, sweeping up the mounds of beads, empty cups, and other debris clogging the sidewalks and gutters. It’s the calm before the storm.

  I park on Gravier Street, alongside the granite fortress that used to be my second home. I trudge up the stone steps. I enter the glass-walled lobby.

  I look around, not sure who—or what—I’m expecting. I see a few third-shift officers ambling through. And a couple civilians in the waiting area, many in flamboyant costumes, all of them passed out drunk.

  I check my watch. It’s a few minutes before six. Now what?

  I wait. I fidget. I twiddle my thumbs. I rub my temples.

  Just as I’m starting to wonder if this whole thing was a bust, I hear a hoarse voice call to me: “Rooney. Good. You made it.”

  Chapter 72

  CUNNINGHAM SLOWLY walks along the corridor before the empty sergeant’s desk. His clothes are stained, rumpled, and his weary
eyes look like they’re about to shut from exhaustion in mid-step. A couple of cops I’ve met on the force have served in Afghanistan or Iraq prior to joining the NOPD, and they’ve mentioned the look a soldier gets after hours of threats and combat, with no relief in sight: the thousand-yard stare.

  He has that haunted look.

  “Come on back,” he says, voice weary. “We’re about to get started.”

  My former boss turns and shuffles down the building’s central corridor. I follow and wait a few seconds for some kind of explanation. It doesn’t come.

  So I ask: “Chief, what’s going on?”

  Cunningham starts to reply and then a coughing fit chokes his voice for a moment. Then he clears his throat and says, “Don’t say ‘I told ya so,’ but I really wish I’d listened to you. Wish I’d given you more resources. Wish I hadn’t caved to all the politics. Wish I’d pushed back harder when the Federal Bureau of Ignorance shoved us locals aside.”

  I take zero satisfaction in his words. I didn’t agree to help him because of pride—or out of spite. I wanted to serve my city. Do the right thing.

  “You were under a lot of pressure, Chief. I get it.”

  He shrugs.

  “Well, now the feds are trying to play nice. Probably ’cause they don’t have shit. I think they’re as scared about this whole thing as we are.”

  We reach the main bank of elevators. But we don’t stop. I assumed we were going up to his fourth-floor office. Guess not. So where are we going?

  “You’ve been doing some first-rate work, Rooney—blindfolded and hog-tied as you were,” he says. “You’ve more than earned a spot at this table. The least I can do is offer you a seat.”

  I don’t have a clue what “table” or “seat” Cunningham is talking about. I’m about to ask when we round a corner.

  I see a uniformed officer standing outside the door of the first-floor briefing room.

  The same room where the department’s Use of Force Review Board hung me out to dry on my last day as a cop.

  Seeing us approaching, the officer nods at Cunningham and opens the door.

  Inside, the mood is somber. Tense. Like a wake without a casket.

  Dozens of law enforcement officials of every stripe are milling around the spacious auditorium, making worried small talk.

  A number of them are NOPD bigwigs. Like Superintendent Robert Fontaine, the white-mustachioed head of the entire force. I also recognize a couple deputy superintendents, whose departments include the bomb squad, the K9 unit, and the NOPD’s tactical platoons—a.k.a., New Orleans SWAT.

  I see plenty of folks I don’t recognize, too. Some are in suits. Some wear black blazers with “New Orleans Fire Department” patches on the shoulder. Others are dressed in Louisiana State Police and Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office uniforms.

  I slowly begin to realize what I’ve just walked into.

  A high-level, inter-agency, emergency security briefing.

  “Is this some kind of goddamn joke?” a familiar voice cries out.

  Agent Morgan—jacket off, sleeves rolled up, tie loose—is standing on stage beside a giant map of the city. He’s glaring at me, his jaw halfway to his knees.

  “Your pathetic investigation is the goddamn joke,” I fire back.

  “Enough!” Cunningham yells. “Jesus Christ, let’s everybody cut the schoolyard shit and focus, all right?”

  I take a seat and settle in—for the most unsettling ninety minutes of my life.

  Agent Morgan glares at me one more time, and then his team proceed to walk us through, in meticulous detail, how the FBI plans to protect the roughly one million people expected to fill the streets for the day-long, city-wide extravaganza.

  Morgan is doing his best to project a sense of calm and confidence. But it’s obvious that Cunningham was right.

  The feds are clueless. And scared shitless. Just like the rest of us.

  In addition to setting up a dedicated inter-agency communication hotline, Morgan explains that seventy-five extra federal agents flew in from DC to assist. They’ll be posted up and down the parade routes, both in uniform and plain clothes.

  Infrared CCTV cameras have been temporarily installed around the French Quarter and surrounding areas. The footage will be fed, in real-time, through a state-of-the-art piece of facial recognition software developed by the NSA, known as EnVision.

  Tactical drones—civilian versions of the kind used by American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq—will also be deployed to provide additional eyes in the sky.

  Morgan’s voice has grown hoarse by the time he shares the final, and most chilling, component of the FBI’s security plan.

  Eleven highly-sensitive “particle detectors” have also been installed around the city, on loan from Homeland Security. About the size of a loaf of bread, they’re designed to detect airborne radioactive particles.

  Just in case—God help us—the terrorists are planning to set off a “dirty bomb.”

  “Agent Morgan?” I interrupt, shooting to my feet. “Hang on. You’re really telling us there could be a goddamn nuke here in New Orleans? That—that’s madness!”

  The audience grumbles in agreement. Morgan narrows his gaze at me.

  “What I’m telling you is, there’s a chance. Slim, but real. And I’d rather us be overcautious than underprepared. Any other questions before we move on?”

  I think, that’s it?

  That’s all there is?

  “Hold on,” I cry out. “That’s it? Morgan”—and I deliberately leave his title out as an insult—“you owe the folks in this room and the citizens of New Orleans the truth.”

  “Look, Rooney, there’s no time—”

  “Time? You’ve been wasting time! For Christ’s sake, what about Ibrahim Farzat, the Syrian refugee who was tortured to death? Who was with an Islamic-based charity group that’s a cover for a terrorist organization? An organization supported by a local businessman? Hell, yesterday I caught an Aryan Brotherhood member involved in the plot and practically dropped him in your useless lap!”

  Morgan looks both exhausted and infuriated, and before I can announce David Needham’s connection, Superintendent Fontaine steps up next to Morgan like a baseball manager protecting his star pitcher.

  “Rooney, that’s it,” he bellows. “You shouldn’t be here, not at all, despite what your former boss says.”

  “But I—”

  Fontaine holds up a hand, like a traffic cop trying to stop an out-of-control vehicle—me!—coming his way. “Special Agent Morgan has kept us all briefed on their investigation, including the little bits of confusion and misdirection you’ve come up with…which hasn’t been corroborated or found to have any merit. So before you slander a prominent member of our business community and waste additional time, I suggest you sit down and keep your mouth shut.”

  There’s a murmur of disapproval from my former comrades-in-arms, and I feel a savage sense of contentment that at least they’re backing me up.

  Fontaine adds, “Anything else…Rooney?”

  “More of a suggestion,” I say grimly, sitting down. “Maybe we should move this briefing to a church. It’s going to take a miracle to get us through Mardi Gras without blood in the streets.”

  Chapter 73

  “HURRY UP on those waddles! And gimme more crunchies, quacks, and meows!”

  I do my best to obey Marlene and pick up the pace. But hunched over the sizzling-hot stove, I’m already working faster than I ever have in my life.

  My knife and spatula are a blur as I whip up sautéed gator sausages, fried shrimp po’boys, seared duck breast, and our ridiculously popular blackened catfish sandwiches. I slide them across the counter conveyor belt–style, nonstop, one after the other.

  “You heard the woman, Caleb,” a fresh voice says. “Quit slacking off.”

  I feel a friendly elbow to the ribs from Killer Chef’s newest employee: an accomplished fine-dining restaurant manager with many years of experience and impeccabl
e credentials, who was looking to make a mid-career change.

  Yep, you got it right. Vanessa.

  Wearing a Killer Chef T-shirt cinched at the waist and a red bandana tied around her hair, she’s wrapping sandwiches in wax paper, bundling them with napkins, and helping hand them out to the hordes of hungry revelers swarming our truck. Her early years as a waitress are paying off: She’s managing the lunchtime madness like a pro.

  “Is that any way to talk to your new boss?” I ask her with a smile.

  “Uh-oh, is my new boss going to have to…punish me?”

  Marlene calls out, “Hey, you two, save the flirting for your own time, wouldja?”

  I put my head down and get back to work. I’m grateful to have these two amazing women by my side—even though I’d begged them both not to be here.

  I pleaded with Vanessa and Marlene to leave the city before Mardi Gras or at least stay home, safe and out of the way. I told them the risks they’d be facing, the danger they’d be putting themselves in. Vanessa just repeated what she had said earlier: if I was staying, so was she. And she showed up this morning to work the brunch shift and join our Killer Chef team.

  As for my ex-wife, Marlene just laughed in my face.

  “Let ’em blow me up,” she said. “What do I care?”

  Dark humor. Typical. But then she shook her head and grew serious.

  “No,” she said. “No goddamn way am I staying home. It takes more than a couple of crazy assholes to scare me off, especially on our busiest day of the year. Killer Chef is going to be feeding folks on Mardi Gras, Caleb, whether you like it or not.”

  God bless her. I couldn’t say no.

  I take a break from my frenzied cooking for a few seconds to wipe my brow, pop a fiery jalapeño down my throat, and steal a glance out the service window.

  We’re parked on Bienville Street, in the heart of the French Quarter, just a few blocks away from the parade route along Canal. With live jazz blaring from every direction, the scene is a mix of total debauchery and utter joy.

  Thousands of people have jammed the narrow streets wearing colorful, crazy costumes. Beads swinging from their necks, boozy beverages sloshing in their hands, they’re dancing, clapping, singing, laughing—having the time of their lives.