Death of a Chef (Capucine Culinary Mystery) (25 page)

CHAPTER 41

T
he following Saturday morning found Capucine and Alexandre in their kitchen, sipping café au lait from the Pasquini and nibbling at croissants while plowing through the three-inch pile of Saturday papers. Capucine had been up for hours; had had a wake-up café au lait; had slipped on jeans and a quilted jacket from Hermès; had gone for a long, fast walk through her neck of the Marais, which she despaired of ever having enough time to explore properly; had bought a large white paper bag of
pur beurre
croissants at a bakery two streets away, relishing the oily butter slicks that appeared in the paper almost instantly; had stopped off at the corner newsstand to buy the thick, magazine-laden Saturday editions of the press, throwing in a copy of
Le Monde Diplomatique
for good measure; had returned home laden, hoping the day would be sufficiently unencumbered to allow her to luxuriate in the bounty of her foraging.

By ten thirty Alexandre was up, regal in a crimson raw-silk kimono he had acquired on his last trip to Tokyo, grunting in irritation at an ebullient review in the
International Herald Tribune
of a restaurant he had detested.

The phone rang.

“Allô, Commissaire? It’s Delphine Duclos. Am I disturbing you?”

“Not at all. I’m just sitting in the kitchen, reading the papers with my husband.”

“Monsieur de Huguelet?”

“He’s the only one I have.”

Delphine laughed dutifully. She seemed uncharacteristically ill at ease.

“I’ve just had an argument with Prosper, well, more of a fight, and . . . actually . . . really . . . I was calling to see if Monsieur de Huguelet could . . . I don’t know what.” She ground to a halt and then blurted out, “Give Prosper some advice, because he won’t listen to me at all.”

The thought of Alexandre pouring oil on troubled conjugal waters opened the stopcock of a fit of giggles. Capucine could imagine him advising Ouvrard with the severity of a high-court judge that a shopping expedition to La Perla to buy sexy lingerie was the panacea to any marital problem. Capucine bit her lip to choke back her laughter. The silence intensified Delphine’s lack of confidence. Alexandre looked up from his paper and frowned.

“You see, Prosper’s had an offer—well, not an offer exactly, but almost—from Chef Labrousse in New York, and we had a fight about it, and I don’t want him to do it, so I thought he could chat a little with Monsieur de Huguelet so Monsieur de Huguelet could talk some sense into him, so could we stop by this afternoon for just a moment or two if that isn’t too inconvenient?”

“By all means. Why don’t you come around five? We have to go out later, but there’ll still be plenty of time for a chat.”

When she hung up, Alexandre cocked an eyebrow at Capucine.

“What was all that about?”

“Prosper Ouvrard is coming at five so you can explain to him how he should deal with his girlfriend.”

“You should have handed me the phone. I could have told him straight off. A good spanking usually does the trick.”

Capucine threw half a croissant at him.

“So in your dotage you’ve decided to come up with new diversions, have you? And who do you think is going to be spanking whom in our relationship?” She twisted Alexandre’s ear until he howled. When she let go, he gave her be-jeaned left buttock a playful slap. Capucine teetered on the edge between irritation and adoration. She sat on Alexandre’s lap and muttered something inaudible into his neck.

Much later they realized it was far too late to go out for a proper lunch, and walked arm in arm around the corner to the Alsatian bistro for
baeckeofe,
which, despite its high-sounding name, was no more than a simple stew of pork, lamb, and beef topped with potatoes and served in a folksy faïence terrine hand painted with gamboling ducks.

Delphine and Ouvrard arrived punctually at five and sat stiffly on the sofa as if they were schoolchildren waiting for a dressing-down by the lycée principal. In honor of his guest, Alexandre produced a bottle of Taittinger Comtes de Champagne, Blanc de Blancs, 1999, rather than his standard Deutz. By the second glass the mood had eased.

“So you’ve been talking to my good friend Jean-Basile Labrousse?” Alexandre asked Ouvrard.

Ouvrard stood up and hovered. Capucine seized the moment and took his place next to Delphine on the sofa.

“Yes, I have. I understand you know him quite well.”

“Are you familiar with Japanese single malts?” Alexandre asked, standing up to face Ouvrard.

Ouvrard shook his head, taken aback by the abrupt change in tack of the conversation.

“Then you have a treat in store. Let me give you a taste of something that you may find life changing.” Alexandre led Ouvrard down the hall to his study.

Capucine hesitated. The flic in her burned to discover whatever it was that was problematic enough to have prompted Ouvrard to solicit an interview with Alexandre; the feminist in her was loath to play the role of the subjugated woman obliged to sit on the sidelines, speculating on men’s private conversations behind closed doors; but the diplomat she had been trained to be at Sciences Po won out.

“Are you sad to be leaving France?”

“No. Not at all, now that everything’s been sold off. Did I tell you that I found buyers for the hotel? It’s a sweet retired couple. I hope they know what they’re getting themselves into.”

“And I understood that the sale of the faïence went very well.”

“Yes, I have more than enough to buy a small apartment in New York. But I understand everyone in New York lives in impossibly small apartments.” She laughed happily at the prospect of starting a new life. Then, like a dark cloud covering the sun, her mood changed. “You know the commissaire-priseur decided that four of Jean-Louis’s pieces were fakes and removed them from the sale?”

“What did you do with them?”

“I gave them to Jean-Louis’s father. Actually, that solved a problem for me. I had wanted to give him a memento of his son. At first I thought I’d give him the best pieces—the baron used to be a collector—but then I decided that would be cruel.”

“Cruel?”

“Because he’s so broke. It’s really awful. Jean-Louis took me to visit him two or three times. Jean-Lu would stuff the trunk of the car full of food. The baron’s refrigerator was always filled with horrible-smelling scraps wrapped in greasy butcher’s paper. Way worse than what you’d find in the Dumpster behind the restaurant. Jean-Lu would throw it all out. I knew if I gave his father important pieces of faïence, the idea of selling them would torture him. He would want the money, but then he’d feel he couldn’t, because it was his legacy from his son. The fakes are worthless, so he won’t have that anguish, but he’ll still have a memento.” She paused, her eyes damp. “It’s a good time for me to leave France. I have nothing left here. Nothing at all.”

Capucine gently nudged the conversation around to the subject of life in New York, a city she knew relatively well. Even though she found it exhilarating but exhausting to the point of debilitation, the picture she presented to Delphine was of a utopian town where all the cars were yellow taxis, people always ran rather than walked, and food was so important to the populace that even the hot dog vendors on the street offered gourmet delights.

An hour later Alexandre and Ouvrard emerged from the study. Ouvrard looked as abashed as only the voice of reason can abash.

Flowers of French politeness were strewn, and Delphine and Ouvrard took their leave.

“So?”

“So, not so very much. I did my good friend Jean-Basile Labrousse a minor disservice and the worthy Prosper a major service, hopefully reducing my sentence in purgatory by at least a thousand years. And a good thing, too, since I have it on good authority the victuals there are now supplied by McDonald’s.”

Capucine recognized one of her husband’s hobbyhorses arriving at a brisk trot and bridled it before it had the chance to take off at a full gallop.

“What was Labrousse’s offer?”

“A rather appealing one, actually. Apparently, Jean-Basile has decided to open a restaurant in New Orleans. He’s becoming the quintessential American. They all do, sooner or later, don’t they? It’s the American virus of ambition. Anyway, he wants to help revitalize the city. It’s not a bad idea. Louisiana is virtually French, after all. His cuisine would fit right in, and he’d definitely get the right kind of press on the project. He wants Ouvrard to be the
chef de cuisine.
”

“So you told him to take the job?”

“Good Lord, no. Quelle idée!”

“I’m confused.”

“Ouvrard is a very talented chef. But, naturally, he was beaten into submission by Brault. His job was to imitate Brault’s cooking to such a degree of perfection, no one could tell Brault wasn’t in the kitchen. That’s what sous-chefs do. Labrousse is ten times more authoritarian than Brault ever was. This is going to be his restaurant where he won’t be there all day long, hovering and making damn sure everything is done exactly the way he wants it. He’s going to be over a thousand miles away in New York. Can you imagine the pressure he’d put on Ouvrard? His life would be hell. And on top of that, Labrousse would lap up all the glory. The bushel basket would be back over Ouvrard’s nascent little flame, but this time it would be a heavy load, one he might never get out from under.”

“But you didn’t convince him, did you?”

“Nope. But I planted enough seeds of doubt for him to turn it down in the end. In his heart he knows it’s not for him, but it’s still going to be a difficult decision. You know how it is with children. They’re so easily attracted by glitter.” Alexandre’s smile collapsed into a pout. “Why on earth did you accept Jacques’s invitation to go to the so-called brand-new Chez La Mère Denis? You know how much I hate going to restaurants on Saturday night.”

“He called this morning and insisted we have dinner tonight. I suggested he come here, but he absolutely wanted to take us out someplace. Chez La Mère Denis was my idea. I wanted to see what it’s become, and I thought you might be curious, too, since you’re always telling me what a talent Aiko Kikuchi is.”

It turned out to be a disappointing choice. The transformation of the restaurant had not been a happy one. The restaurant had been rebaptized Chez la Mère Kikuchi in an attempt at wry sophistication entirely inappropriate to a quiet country lane. The elaborately carved oak paneling—a key prop in Brault’s quest to graft himself onto the Troisgros-Bocuse lineage—had been amateurishly whitewashed and decorated with oversized papier-mâché Kabuki masks. Clearly intended to be kicky, the look came across as cheap and tacky.

A long aperture had been cut into the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, and a counter set up for three sushi chefs, who maniacally assembled rolls of fish and rice in an almost frightening frenzy. Beyond, the kitchen, with its long racks of copper pots and three enormous piano stoves, was apparently unchanged. Svelte and shapeless as a preteen boy, Aiko could be seen bending over the stainless-steel counter, her black hair hanging in damp strands, concentrating on arranging a dish with her tiny fingers. She looked up, caught sight of Alexandre, blew a lock out of her eyes, and smiled weakly.

Jacques was perched on a stool at the bar, teasing a bartender who looked young enough to pass for Aiko’s niece. The girl giggled, covering her mouth with the flat of her hand and lowering her eyes modestly.

“This is Minako,” Jacques said. “She’s a mine of information on Japanese single malts.” Jacques winked theatrically at Alexandre. “Minako, give this thirsty gentleman some of the nectar you’ve been plying me with.”

The bartender giggled shyly behind her hand but managed to pour a shot glass full of dark brown liquid and place it in front of Alexandre as delicately as if it were a cherry blossom.

“K’m’m’g’gay,” she said, rapidly enough to make it sound like a discreet belch.

“Minako is telling you she’s giving you Komagatake,” Jacques said. “It’s a twelve-year-old single malt that is not quite a Yamazaki of that age but is very impressive, nonetheless.”

Minako descended into well-screened giggles. Capucine resisted the impulse to check her ID to see if she was old enough to serve alcoholic beverages.

During this dialogue the maître d’hôtel hovered in a suit two sizes too large, oozing passive aggressiveness thinly disguised as exaggerated deference. The instant Alexandre turned to look at him, he brightened like an electric lamp abruptly turned on.

“Table?” he asked hopefully and, almost skipping, led them off to a corner of the dining room. When they sat down, the maître d’ shook out their napkins and placed them on their laps.

With a toothy grin Jacques said, “Touch me there again and you’ll have to marry me.”

Not understanding, the maître d’ grinned sycophantically, nodding like an automaton. Two waiters arrived at a trot in high-necked, ill-fitting pajama-like uniforms, one with a tray of house cocktails, a sticky-smelling concoction of sake and mango juice heavily laced with nutmeg, the other with menus. The simultaneous reflex of Capucine, Alexandre, and Jacques was to push their drinks, untasted, to the center of the table.