Basil Instinct (7 page)

Joe Beck glowered at me.

I swirled my coffee and looked steadily at him over the plastic rim. Marine shoulders. Michelangelo hips. Twelve cents, baby, twelve cents. Have I caught his interest? I wondered, breathless. “And they make you get a tattoo!” I blurted, like it was worse, even, than killing off their own members here and there.
“On your wrist! A
B
for Belfiere!”

I watched it all sink in. It was like watching the moment when a four-beer buzz leaves, and what’s left is called sobriety. Finally, Joe Beck sucked in air while he studied the ceiling, and he pushed himself out of his chair and came around to my side of the desk. “This is worrisome, Eve,” he said softly, setting a hand on my shoulder. It needed to be lower for any real pleasure, but I murmured anyway, which I hoped he didn’t hear. “I’ll put Milo on it.”

Then I told Joe Beck about my first class of Basic Cooking Skills at the Quaker Hills Career Center. His eyes were wide. Like listening to his dad tell him when he was eleven about the birds and the bees. Thrusting out my lips, I concluded the tale of matches, knives, and Death Eaters with, “Apprentice felons. Believe me, no squirrel is safe around these guys.”

Joe Beck nodded. And nodded again. Leaning against the door to his office, Joe Beck suddenly switched subjects. His beautiful blue eyes were closed. “About Belfiere,” he said, “since there’s no known crime—yet—my advice is for you to stand back and let your grandmother make her own decisions.”

I bristled. “Well, that’s crummy advice.”

“What do you want for a buck?”

“A buck and a sandwich,” I protested, getting
to my feet.

“I stand corrected.” He moved toward me.

For some crazy reason, it sounded sexual, but maybe it was me.

At the same time, we both blurted, “I need more info.”

He whirled and went to the outer office, apparently to put Milo on the case. I’m pretty sure there were snorts.

When he was gone, I pushed my thick auburn hair from my face and stalked around my lawyer’s office. All in all, for a business lunch, I think it went pretty well. I think maybe he disliked me a little less. I think maybe Joe Beck and Eve Angelotta could be—

And then, with a little swagger, I stopped in front of his open calendar.

The entry for July 5 read:
National Trial Lawyers Association Dinner Dance. Philly Ritz Carlton. 8 p.m.

Not in itself bad.

And then my eyes settled on the line below:
Kayla. 7 p.m.

At which I went weak in the knees and I’m sorry to say it had nothing to do with any granting of wishes that cost me all of twelve cents.

4

So Wednesday June 18th was shaping up to be the Eve Angelotta contribution to Miracolo’s Grief Week. What with the body blows from the miscreants in my Basic Cooking Skills class and the discovery that Joe Beck was taking the odious Kayla Angelotta to a swank dinner dance, I found myself wondering what framed photo of myself I could add to the Grief Week shrine on the bar.
Eve Angelotta: Run Over by the Lying Underhandedness and Crappy Romantic Choices of Others.

Wretched didn’t quite cover what I was feeling by the time I left the offices of Carson and Beck, Attorneys at Law. As I passed him, where he was talking to Milo, I just couldn’t bring myself to call him out on dating my cousin—dating her and not coming clean about it—so I thanked him for his
time, said I’d see him around, and got out of there as quickly as I could. He looked kind of quizzical at my speedy exit, but maybe he could apply Milo to that problem as well . . .

The only bright spot about Joe and Kayla’s upcoming date was my knowledge that Flaky Farmer Girl couldn’t dance. Let’s put it this way: two left feet would have been a considerable improvement.

I drove slowly to the restaurant, stopping home briefly for my work clothes. And when I parked down the street from Miracolo, it looked like we were besieged with vendors, what with their vans double-parked outside. I liked Arne the table linens delivery guy, but creepy Sandor the carpet delivery guy was also on hand, waiting for me to make an entrance so he could make his Sandor versions of erotic remarks with an attitude that implied the only thing standing in our way was the rest of the staff. The good news was that the Kale and Kayla Organics van was also there, so maybe Sandor would find an easy Eve substitute. And I do mean easy. Kayla’s van gave new meaning to the term hot wheels.

Slipping inside the restaurant, I was barraged with four times the usual energy level for an average Wednesday. I figured Choo Choo was around somewhere since
The Best of the Rolling Stones
was slinging itself around the dining room on the
sound system. Giancarlo Crespi was inventorying the liquor; Sandor was spreading clean floor mats and ogling Vera Tyndall. Paulette was arguing with a delivery guy I had never seen who was trying to get her to accept—a day earlier than arranged— an order of scallops for Maria Pia’s scallop fritter appetizer on Friday night. She was poking his chest and yelling something like
You think we’re going to serve two-day-old
scallops, hey?

The Stones were rocking out to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” which, as I made my way through the throng of busy staff, I thought maybe I’d take on as my personal theme song. At a back table was Nonna, poring over her recipe books and acting surprisingly in control. I thought she must have had a couple of mojitos with her eggs over easy that morning.

“Nonna!” I yelled over Mick’s insisting that sometimes you just might find you get what you need. Maria Pia looked up at me, pulling her red reading glasses off her nose. “The new help’s coming at three p.m. today.” I kept walking, but not so fast I didn’t hear her
“Bene!”
sailing after me.

In the kitchen, the lean and lovely Jonathan was showing Landon the signs he had just brought from CopyMax. He was wearing jeans and a pale blue fitted shirt and as I angled in close for a good look at the handiwork, I got
a heady whiff of CK Man, which should most definitely be charged with incitement to riot. Landon flashed me a wry, longing look:
I know, I know.
CK Man was his chief inhibition killer. I noticed he was actually sitting on his hands on Li Wei’s stool.

Jonathan smiled and held up the first sign. It was a nice little workmanlike eleven-by-seventeen-inch piece of red cardboard with bold black lettering—pretty much your basic bordello colors—and although the font wasn’t as appealing as Nonna’s tattoo, it was plain and legible.
Miracolo Will Be Closed Friday, June 20, for a Private Party. We Regret Causing Any Inconvience a
nd Look Forward to Serving You the Finest in Food and Drink on Saturday. Mille Abrazzi, The Staff.

I nodded encouragingly. Should I mention “inconvenience” was missing an entire syllable? Jonathan might know his wines, but he was not so great with the spelling. In a split second I decided the message was still plain—we’re closed—and he had brought two Angelottas such pleasure already today with his CK Man, which was more important than correct spelling. I didn’t mind being inconvienced in the least.

The second sign was a twin to the first and simply read,
Closed for a Private Party
. “This one will go up on Friday,” said Jonathan, very sensibly.
Landon beamed as if his crush had just found a brand-new planet in a distant solar system.

“Good work,” I said, clapping Jonathan on the back, which sent up an invisible little scent-cloud of the hypnotic cologne. Everyone was happy. Jonathan headed through the double doors to post the first sign on the front door.

My fingers sorted out some of the waves in his brown hair as I told Landon about the new help. “Dish,” was all he said as he happily closed his eyes. I covered Corabeth Potts—which was more than I could say about her shorts—in a couple of sentences. The skeleton rubber bands, the scene from Harry Potter (sounds like
Order of the Phoenix
, Landon opined), the anxiety sweat, the natural grace. He didn’t need to know too much about her since she’d be on Paulette’s team out front. But I had hired Georgia Payne for Landon, so I went into some detail.

Georgia Payne looked to me to be in her late thirties—forty, tops—and was back in school, from what I could tell, as kind of a refresher course, having been out of the food industry for a while. No wedding band, no mention of kids. A petite blonde with dark roots. Conservative but stylish dresser what with her long sleeves and below-the-knee skirt on a summer day. A quiet personality. “She’s here for Nonna’s big Belfiere thing to make your life easier, Lan, okay?”

He liked the idea of personal help. “Understood.” Then, taking in a big breath, he gave me a probing look. “As long as you can stand by her kitchen skills, dollink, because I don’t want to have to teach.”

I studied the ceiling. “Let’s put it this way,” I said judiciously, “when I announced we were going to be making polenta next time, Georgia Payne wanted to know where we keep the flat whisk.” Only the initiated would know that a flat whisk keeps the cooking polenta off the sides of the pan, where it likes to hang out.

Landon gave me his flat, broad smile, contented. “She’ll do,” he said, tipping his chin at me. “Oh,” he suddenly remembered, “
Numquam Nimis Multi Cultri?”

I nodded. “The Belfiere motto?”

“I went online to the Latin Forum and posted it, asking for a translation.”

I was interested. “And?”

“And,” he preened, “I got a hit.”

“So what is it? ‘Protect Your Nonnas’?”

Landon gingerly slid off the stool, curling a forearm around my neck. In a low voice, he told me, “ ‘Never Too Many Knives.’ ” We gave each other that look in the old movie when the snowbound weekend guests realize they’re locked in with the killer.

At that moment Kayla shouldered her way through the back door, toting a yellow bin of produce from the back of her van. I crossed my arms, and, despite my best efforts, my nostrils flared. Someday I’d really have to learn a proper
malocchio
at my nonna’s knee. Just as an insurance policy against the maddening worst of Kayla. Today she was wearing light denim shorts overalls and a pink floral tank top. Her tanned legs ended in steel-toed boots. It was, admittedly, kind of a cute look if what you were going for was Farmer Chic. A matching floral stretch headband was controlling her gobs of curly hair.

I found myself wondering what she was wearing to the dinner dance.

At the Philly Ritz Carlton.

As Joe Beck’s date.

“You can just set the order down on the far counter, Kayla,” I told her with a grim smile. I couldn’t manage anything better than grim. She lifted an eyebrow and I swear she was trying to communicate that she was not communicating something. Did she really think she was putting one over on me about kicking up her steel-toed heels with Joe Beck? Two can play at that game, missy. “Things good in Kayla Land, cuz?”

She boosted the load with an assist from her hip, and once she had set it on the counter, she
turned to me, with a hand on one hip. “Busy,” she said with the kind of smile that made da Vinci slap oils on canvas.

Busy!

Busy!

I didn’t need to post anything on an online forum to know that “busy” translates into
Poor little Eve, your lawyer and I are doing the electric slide, and, honey, it has nothing to do with a dance floor.

“You?” she challenged.

I looked demure. “Also,” was all I said, with a quick look at my fingernails.

“Ah.” She grinned, heading for the back door for the rest of the order. She actually wrinkled her generous nose at me and said like a confiding girlfriend, “Sandor?” With a bleat, she dashed out.

So many things started happening at once that I didn’t have time to contemplate a witty comeback. Sandor himself actually leered and toothlessly grinned his way through the laying of the carpet (better the carpet than me) at the back door, making some kind of gesture that I believe was meant to put me in mind of bedsheets. The depressed and Austrian Arne was stacking table linens in the store room and muttering to himself that no good could come of it. I figured he was referring either to Belfiere or to the Phillies/Yankees series starting that night.

Maria Pia started dashing in and out of the of
fice, her skirts all in a swirl, proclaiming something about pantry pests and new shipments of semolina flour for the saltimbocca—throughout the raving, her hands had tugged her thick salt-and-pepper hair into the stratosphere.

At the fateful moment I spotted Choo Choo out in the dining room, the only voice I was hearing that made sense was Mick Jagger’s going on about Jumping Jack Flash, which should tell you something. “Choo Choo!” I yelled, cursing myself for not remembering to put on my tennis shoes.

At that moment he was leaning on the podium—as maître d’, his center of operations—chatting up James Beck, Joe’s florist brother, who used to make my sore heart break out into four-part harmony until, well, he didn’t anymore. James was the taller Beck brother, the married Beck brother, the Beck brother you want to turn to in an orchid emergency, and the one who leaves a trail of swooning males and females, if what you like is obvious good looks and you don’t mind the total absence of dimples.

“Choo Choo!” I yelled again, unmindful of the swarming vendors with all their various produce and products. My big cousin, who had dropped another two pounds, looked at me blandly like he was tuning in to some distant sound that was only infinitesimally interesting.

Too bad the object of his affection, Vera Tyndall, was smiling at me and smoothing out the linen cloth across table 8. Shame to see the big guy scamper like a bunny. I headed toward him, my jaw working. This was the man who had talked me into babysitting the CRIBS crew, who were on the lookout for their first felony the way normal people scouted out prom dates.

“Hi, Eve,” he said, turning back to working out an order with James Beck.

Apparently I wasn’t transmitting my displeasure sufficiently.

He stood his ground.

Was my voice alone not fearsome enough?