The Chef Read online

  I slip in among the throngs of people all waiting to get a glimpse of the approaching procession. This one is sponsored by the famous Krewe of King Arthur and Merlin. Within a few minutes, before I see the actual parade, I hear it. The buzzy blare of trumpets and trombones. The rat-a-tat-tat of a drum corps. All around me, kids and their parents are brimming with excitement.

  Deep inside I know I’m wasting time, that I should be out and doing something, but that something has yet to come to mind.

  Finally, a high school marching band comes into view around the corner. They’re wearing vibrant purple and orange uniforms and playing a funky brass-band rendition of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love.” They’re followed by the lead float. Decorated like a tropical island, it’s carrying women dressed as mermaids and men as pirates, all of whom are tossing beads down at the cheering crowds.

  The scene is noisy and wild and jubilant. The joy is practically infectious.

  But I’m not here to have fun.

  I’ve come to this parade to do recon.

  With no leads, no clues, and no suspects, I’ve decided to start my off-the-books investigation by trying to get inside the bad guys’ heads. I ask myself: If I were a smart and resourceful terrorist, hell-bent on causing the most chaos and carnage possible, what would I do? If I can figure out how these bastards plan to wreak havoc on Mardi Gras, it might help me figure out who they are—and how to stop them.

  It sounds like a stretch, I know. But for now, it’s the only thing I’ve got.

  First, I glance around at all the spectators. I’m trying to spot the most obvious security holes that could be exploited the most readily.

  But I quickly realize there are too damn many to count.

  The crowd numbers well into the thousands, and almost everybody’s carrying an unscreened backpack or purse that could easily be hiding explosives.

  And if something were detonated, good luck trying to flee. We’re all penned in by metal barricades. And most of the side streets—possible escape routes—are blocked off, too. I do see a handful of uniformed cops stationed here and there, but after long days of working double shifts, they look bored and exhausted. Seeing them doesn’t inspire much confidence.

  Next I turn my attention to the parade itself, and beyond.

  Which is even worse.

  Hundreds of performers are wearing billowy costumes. Any one of them could be concealing a suicide vest with C-4 plastic explosive and ball bearings, ready to scythe through the families laughing and clapping nearby.

  There are dozens of giant floats. Any could be hiding a massive car bomb, with chunks of metal, screws, and nails, all designed to shred flesh and break bone.

  And stuffed into any marching band member’s hollow instrument could be an atomized chemical or biological agent, drifting out in an invisible yet deadly cloud, ready to start killing hundreds within minutes.

  On any rooftop, a trained sniper could be crouching, ready to fire into the crowd.

  A sniper wouldn’t even have to be trained! Any fool with a few minutes of experience with a military-style assault rifle with piles of cartridge-filled magazines up on top of one of those roofs could kill hundreds just aiming down and pulling the trigger, over and over again, just firing into the screaming crowd.

  Hell, the dusted sugar on any plate of beignets could be anthrax!

  God almighty. I shiver at the endless, chilling possibilities. With the right equipment, the proper planning, and enough dedication, a determined band of evil men could cause enormous casualties at an event like this in seconds.

  And like Cunningham observed earlier, hard-core terrorists are always thinking ahead, looking to use common, everyday objects and turn them into weapons of killing and destruction. Like plastic explosives in shoes, to be detonated aboard an aircraft, right above the fuel tanks!

  What could these bastards be planning that no one’s ever thought of before?

  I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. What the hell was I thinking coming to this parade in the first place? What did I really think I’d learn? All it’s done is show me how vulnerable Mardi Gras really is. And make me even more worried.

  Then it hits me.

  Literally.

  I feel something strike the top of my head and skitter to the ground. I open my eyes—and realize it was just a necklace of plastic beads. It was tossed at me by a man wearing a colorful court jester costume in a passing float, doing a silly little jig.

  “Be merry, good sir!” he calls in an awful English accent. “Here cometh the king!”

  He’s pointing behind him to an approaching float: the biggest and most elaborate of all, decorated to look like a giant castle. On a “throne” toward the rear is a matronly looking woman wearing a large white robe, a dazzling gold crown, and giant reflective sunglasses. She’s “King Arthur,” the parade’s star—even though that “real” legendary monarch probably wasn’t a middle-aged lady in aviator sunglasses.

  But that’s part of the fun of Mardi Gras, I think, as I politely push my way back through the crowds to leave. Anybody can be anyone. Nothing is as it seems.

  And unless I do something to stop it, anything horrific can happen.

  Chapter 19

  I PARK on Freret Street and cut the engine. Used to be, this was a strip of shuttered storefronts and abandoned buildings. You didn’t dare come near here after sundown—unless you were in the market for a new wallet and phone with few questions asked.

  But today it’s an up-and-coming dining hot spot. That’s thanks largely to Beatrice St. Ville, a local chef who opened Bea’s Café on this block a few years ago, jump-starting the area’s revival. I don’t know Beatrice personally, but she has a reputation for being extremely liberal—with her Cajun seasoning and her politics. The food at her new joint was plenty good. But what really put it on the map was her policy of hiring cooks, servers, and other staff exclusively from disadvantaged backgrounds. Like undocumented immigrants. Recovering addicts. Even ex-cons.

  Which is all well and good with me.

  Except when one of them might be a terrorist.

  Ibrahim Farzat, a thirty-year-old Syrian refugee, moved to New Orleans with his wife about a year ago and got a job at Bea’s as a dishwasher. I remember him showing up on the NOPD’s radar last summer when he was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. After he was booked, detectives took a gander at his online activity. A conservative Muslim, Farzat posted frequently about his religious devotion, and he followed some pro-Islam accounts that looked edgy.

  But there were no immediate terrorist red flags, and the charges against him were eventually dropped. Still, we passed the info on to Homeland Security, just to be safe. They got back to us quick. The Farzats, we were told, had been thoroughly vetted and weren’t considered a terrorist threat.

  Looking back, maybe Homeland got back to us a little too quick.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the feds, they like to take their sweet time. DC isn’t a swamp; it’s an ocean full of quicksand. Why was DHS so lightning-fast to dismiss our concerns that time? What didn’t they want the NOPD to know?

  I swung by Farzat’s last known address earlier this afternoon to try to find out. But his rented home in Dixon was dark and empty. Neighbors told me they hadn’t seen him or his wife around in weeks. One gave me Farzat’s cell number, but when I called, a cheery recorded voice told me it was no longer in service.

  It’s not a crime to move houses or change numbers or follow people on Twitter. And maybe I’m going down a dead end here. But given what I know about Farzat, I just want to find the guy, ask him a few questions, and rule him out.

  I exit my car and unlock the trunk. Bea’s Café doesn’t open for another hour, and since I don’t have a badge to flash anymore, I probably won’t get anybody to talk to me much about Farzat. Especially not this close to dinner service.

  So I have another idea.

  I remove a freshly washed, white chef’s apron
and slip it on. Then I head into the alley behind the restaurant. When I reach the café’s rear service entrance, I see it’s propped open with an empty wooden vegetable crate, and so I head inside.

  Like most professional kitchens, this one is a swirl of heat, noise, and chaos. Prep cooks and sous chefs in a rainbow of skin tones are chopping and dicing—and sweating buckets in the process. I wend my way through, keeping my head down and acting like I belong there, hoping I can spot the fellow I’ve come to see—if he even still works there, that is.

  But after reaching the end of the kitchen, I don’t. So it’s time to open my mouth.

  “You’re trimming those pork chops real nice,” I say to one of the prep cooks nearest me. He’s African American, looks about twenty-five, and wears a red, black, and green bandana over his thick mane of dreadlocks.

  He makes a quizzical expression and grunts, “Thanks.”

  “Hey, lemme ask you, does a guy named Ibrahim Farzat still work here? Mid-thirties, black hair, beard, accent. He washed dishes. Maybe he—”

  “Naw, man. And I got work to do.”

  I can’t tell if this guy really doesn’t know Farzat, if he’s too busy to talk to a stranger, or if he’s hiding something. I decide to try someone else.

  “’Scuse me,” I say to a tough-looking Hispanic fellow in his forties, julienning a pile of carrots. “Do you know a dishwasher who works here named Ibrahim Farzat?”

  Without stopping cutting, he flashes me a suspicious look.

  “You a cop or something?”

  “More like a private eye.”

  “Is Abe in some kinda trouble?”

  “No, nothing like that. But I really have to speak to him. It’s a family emergency.”

  The man shrugs, ignoring me.

  “Look, I don’t want any trouble,” I say. “I just want to talk to him. When’s the last time you saw him here? Does anybody have an address, or a number I can—”

  “You don’t want any trouble, huh?” the cook says, his voice thickening with menace. He finally stops his chopping, but tightens his grip on his knife. “You come in here in your little chef costume, start bothering people, asking questions. Get out.”

  I glance around the kitchen. A few other sous chefs nearby have stopped their work, too, to watch this brewing confrontation. They also seem to be readying their blades. It’s been decades since I worked in a brick-and-mortar restaurant like this and I forgot how strong the brotherly bonds among kitchen staff can be.

  “You’re making a mistake here,” I insist. “The man you used to know might be—”

  “Luis said get out,” says another sous chef on my left. He takes a step toward me, holding his cleaver just above waist level. I see it’s damp with fresh cow’s blood.

  This whole thing is going south fast.

  I really wish I had my sidearm right now, and I think of grabbing one of the knives or cleavers and beating a hasty yet armed retreat.

  But I don’t want to make a scene, I don’t want any violence, and most of all, at this point and as a fellow chef, I don’t want to screw up the prep work for Bea’s hardworking and loyal crew.

  So I hold my hands out and say, “Sorry to disturb you guys. Have a great night, okay?”

  Then I get the hell out of there.

  Back to my car, I’m pissed I didn’t get any info on Farzat, but then again, maybe there was no info to get from that crew of cooks and sous chefs.

  At this point, I just don’t know.

  I strip off my chef’s apron in disgust, open up the trunk of the car, and toss it in with a well-earned swear word.

  My first attempt at getting a lead on this threatened terrorist attack on my hometown has just failed. I’m glad Cunningham wasn’t around to witness it.

  I slam the trunk.

  But I’ll be damned if I’m giving up.

  I speak into the darkness.

  “I don’t know who you are or where you are,” I say. “But I’m coming after you.”

  Chapter 20

  THE NEXT morning I slide into work with the muscle-memory of hundreds of cooking shifts, but my mind is elsewhere after last night’s failed attempt to get information out of Bea’s cooking staff. As I cut, chop, and prep, I run through last night’s events, wondering if I should have tried something else, like talking to Bea herself instead of the suspicious kitchen staff.

  Marlene speaks to me twice and on the third time, she kicks me in the shin.

  “Hey!” I yell out.

  “Hey, yourself,” she says, wiping her hands on a cloth. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing, I’m working here. What’s going on with you?”

  “I tried to tell you twice…and you just grunted back at me. So what’s up? Still thinking about that married blonde?”

  “No,” I say. “Just trying to get the prep work done. Sorry. What were you saying?”

  She slaps me on my butt. “Fool. Just told you that don’t forget, we’re doing brunch…so don’t prep so many veggies, okay?”

  I go back to work.

  And at some point, I notice the obnoxious growl of a passing sports car. All morning it’s been vrooming up and down Loyola Avenue, the six-lane boulevard where we parked the truck today. This is the fourth time in the last hour. The first three times, I just ignored it. But I can’t any longer. It takes a special kind of asshole to rev his V10 engine like that again and again, to ruin an otherwise lovely day for no reason.

  But then I start to wonder: Does it have something to do with me?

  A Franklin Avenue gangbanger could never afford wheels like that—unless they were lifted. Maybe the driver is trying to send me a message. A warning. Just like the other night with those three gangbangers standing quietly and deadly in line.

  I crane my head to look through the service window as the vehicle tears past. I get just a glimpse of it, a shiny blue Lamborghini Huracán—not the best name of a car to be driving through New Orleans, if you ask me. It’s a convertible with the top down, but I can’t make out the driver.

  What can be done?

  Nothing.

  A line starts to form outside, and I go back to work.

  Once my shift ends and our last customer is fed, I start wiping down the stove and scouring my pans and utensils as fast as I can. I’m anxious to get back out on the streets, and I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have come to work today. These hours of chopping, frying, and sautéing are hours I should have been out on the streets, helping out Cunningham and the NOPD as quietly as I can.

  But how could I have done that without tipping off Marlene that something’s up?

  “Hey,” I say to her as I take off my apron. “I’ve got a couple of errands to run, Mar, so the rest of the day is yours.”

  “Really?” she shoots back. “Will your pants be coming off during any of these errands?”

  I ignore her and get ready to leave when she says, “Wow, talk about coincidences, hot stuff. Looks like your quote, errand, unquote, is already here.”

  I look out the window.

  It’s Vanessa.

  She’s dressed casually in dark jeans and a red blouse, and gives me a friendly wave. Once again, her presence is a total surprise. A pleasant one, but still…

  I step out of the truck. “Hey,” I say. “You sure have a knack for timing.”

  “Is now not good?”

  “I just wish you’d shown up ten minutes earlier. We’re closed again. And I can’t really stick around right now.”

  Her cheery expression fades a bit, like she’s used to being disappointed by the men in her life. “Oh. Sorry. I understand.”

  “But what’s up?”

  “I guess I should have called first, but, I was hoping…”

  She trails off, hesitant and a little uneasy. She absently twirls the fringe of her crimson blouse. Despite what I need to do right now, I’m curious.

  “You were hoping what?”

  “I was hoping…we could take a little walk.” />
  Shit.

  I check my watch. Two minutes. I’ll give her two minutes.

  “Okay, let’s go for a walk.”

  Soon we’re strolling down Loyola Avenue. It’s a busy commercial strip, and we pass throngs of people. Most are office workers dressed in suits and ties, but plenty are tourists and Carnival revelers wearing costumes and masquerade masks.

  But how safe will they be in just a few days?

  “You grew up here, right?” she asks. “So this is all…normal to you?”

  “Born and raised, so yeah, somewhat normal,” I answer. “You a transplant?”

  “I’ve lived here for a couple years so I’m still getting used to it,” she says. “I’m originally from a little town on Long Island, Glen Cove.”

  “Really?” I ask. “Then how come you don’t have one of those funny ‘Lonk I-land’ accents?”

  “A New Orleanian making fun of an accent?” She smiles and shakes her head. “But wear me out—when I get tired you’ll start to hear it.”

  “Oh, sure. Your husband would love it if I did that.”

  I meant it as a flirty joke, of course. But her smile fades fast.

  “You didn’t see him today, did you?”

  “Lucas? No. Why?”

  Her eyes flicker down to her wedding ring. Its massive diamond glitters in the midday sun like a disco ball. For some reason—unlike the night we first met—she’s wearing it.

  “We…had a stupid fight this morning,” she says. “I told him how I’d stopped by your truck the other night. How you made me that amazing sandwich. Well, Lucas blew a gasket. He started yelling, calling me names. Told me I could never eat at Killer Chef again.”

  “Gosh,” I say, with fake innocence. “I guess that means I don’t need to call him back and officially say no to his offer.”

  That makes her laugh, but just for a moment. I want to say more but I bite my tongue. I’d love to see her leave that son of a bitch, but their marriage isn’t any of my business.