Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance (29 page)

“Check the bathroom. I taped it to the mirror.”

I could hear the hissing of the espresso machine, and soon Rosa was carrying a tray with two small cups of deep brown espresso and a plate of biscotti that she had made herself. “Sit. Sit,” she said, nodding toward a table in the center of the kitchen. It was the same one as in the tape.

Rosa spoke to me a little in Italian and when I answered her in Italian, she seemed pleased that I knew her language. I told her that my Nonna’s family was from Naples.

“Ah, then do you know how to make the
brodetto
, the fish soup?”

“Yes. But we call it
zuppa di pesce
.”

“And you add toasted bread, no?”

“That’s right. And, of course, our fish are different. We use ocean fish, and most of those are a lot bigger than the Adriatic fish you use.”

Rosa put down her coffee, went to the refrigerator, and pulled out several packages wrapped in newspaper. She opened them one by one. Each held a different species of fish, and all looked as though they had been swimming in the sea a few minutes ago. “Look how beautiful they are,” she said as she unwrapped each package. Seeing all those whole fish made me realize how much prep there was. We had to get enough of that fish trimmed and ready for a completed fish soup and three backups.

“They are
incredibile
,” I said, then stood up. “I think we’d better get started and clean and trim them.”

“Not this fish. This is for show. Come, I’ll show you what I’ve done.” She led me to the walk-in, where several trays marked
uno, due, tre
and so on were lined up on shelves. She had the entire setup all ready to go, complete with backups.

“That’s amazing,” I said. “It’s perfect.”

“
Grazie
. Now, shall we make
piadine
for lunch?”

“Absolutely. I’d love to see how they are made.”

“
Buon
. We start with the dough.” She took a large crockery bowl off the shelf and put some yeast, warm water, and a couple of tablespoons of flour into it. She stirred it around and said, “Now you let that sit until it is foamy, about five minutes. Do you make pizza dough?”

“Yes.”

“This is the same thing. Very easy.” When the yeast was foamy, she added flour, olive oil, and salt and handed me a large wooden spoon. “Now you stir it hard until it comes together. Then we knead.” She floured the counter and I stirred
until the ingredients came together and then turned the dough mass out onto the flour. Rosa divided it in half and we each kneaded a piece until it was smooth. We shaped them into balls, and Rosa covered them with a kitchen towel. “Now we prepare the fillings,” she said.

She went into a large pantry and returned with a basket filled with Italian salamis, ham, cheeses, red bell peppers, broccoli rabe, and fresh arugula. Just as Sally had said on the promotion show, “Casey Costello was cooking right in the kitchen with a real Italian,” but it was no different from cooking with Mom or Nonna. The ingredients were the same, and Rosa, like my mother and grandmother, used no recipes. She knew her way around her ingredients and seemed pleased that I did as well. I realized that more than the country, more than the language, the food connected me to my heritage. I oiled the peppers and put them in a hot oven to roast. When they were charred, I removed the stems and seeds and cut them into thin strips. I laid them on a dish and put a little olive oil, salt, and vinegar on them. She peeled the stems of the broccoli rabe then cut it into two-inch pieces before blanching if for a minute and then sautéing it with olive oil, garlic, and hot pepper. I washed the arugula, removed the tough stems, and dried it. We put the fillings on platters. The colors were dynamite.

“Now we make the
piadine
.” She lifted the towel and exposed the yeast-inflated balls. She punched them down and gave me one. “Tear it into six pieces,” she said as she divided the other one. She handed me a rolling pin. “Now roll, as big as this.” She made about an eight-inch circle with her hands. “It should be thin, like this.” She picked up an edge of the dough she had just rolled to show me that it was about a quarter of an inch thick. When all the dough was rolled out, she put two griddles on the stove, saying that they must be very hot
before we put in the dough. “Now you watch me and do what I do.” No problem. I’d been raised on the “watch me and do what I do” method of teaching cooking. She dipped her hand in a small bowl of water and flicked it at the griddle. I did the same. The water immediately sizzled and fizzled into air. “The pan is hot enough,” she said.

She pricked one of the dough circles with the tines of a fork and put it on the hot griddle, and then I did what she did. After a few minutes she turned it over, cooked it a few more minutes, then removed it and brushed it with olive oil. I removed and brushed mine with oil. “Now you put the filling you want on top and fold it over, like this,” she instructed, putting some salami and cheese on hers and folding it. I put broccoli rabe on mine, folded it, and bit into heaven.

“Save a bite for me, will you?”

I looked up and saw Danny. He was smiling, and I figured that people don’t smile if the world is coming to an end. Maybe I had overreacted to everything. I introduced him to Rosa and he sat at the table and ate two
piadine
before telling Rosa he needed to talk to me. We went outside and walked as he told me what his uncle knew. “He’s heard of Boris Davinsky. He was a small player, an outsider really, in the Russian Mafia, but supposedly he was the one who made the contact with an American who was willing to sell nuclear secrets. He didn’t know the American’s name, but I guess it could be Sally’s husband.” Danny made the American’s identity seem uncertain, probably because he had witnessed how upsetting it had been for me to tell him about Peter on the CD. “Boris was just a go-between, and when the American disappeared, Boris lost his only contact and his value to the Mafia. The Mafia thinks he turned Vladimir Chomsky in to the authorities and then agreed to be a witness against him and the mob. Then he disappeared.
He probably panicked. The government is looking for him so he can testify at the trial. The Mafia is looking hard for him to make sure he doesn’t. I’m guessing that he’s bleeding Sally to get enough money to go into long, permanent hiding.”

“What about George?”

“My uncle never heard of him. He said that Boris didn’t have a son. He has a daughter, but she lives somewhere in the U.S. George could be related, but I don’t know how.”

“Do you think the Mafia knows about George?”

Danny stopped walking for a minute and looked at me. “I know what you’re thinking, Casey. If the Mafia knows about George, and uses him to find Boris, are they going to stumble on Sally as well?”

I shook my head yes. “Is Sally in danger?”

He put his hands on my arms. “She could be, Casey. It would be good if you could convince her to speak to the authorities in the United States.”

“What about here? Is she in danger here?”

“We shouldn’t let her be alone.”

“Is that what your uncle said?”

“Yes.”

“I have to tell Sally right away, and then I’ll tie her up and carry her to the authorities if she won’t listen to me.”

“I’ll help, but don’t do anything until you finish this afternoon’s shoot.”

“No, you’re right. I’ll wait.”

Waiting was not easy on my nerves. When the crew arrived, we fed them
piadine
. I watched Sally carefully for any signs that she might have had to fight off a mad mob of Russian thugs, but she seemed to be in good spirits. I did notice that she ate only half a
piadina;
a waning appetite is never a good sign.

If anything was bothering her, the camera would never see
it. Sally and Rosa were delightful together. From the first
buona sera
, they were like young girls sharing confidences. The cameras captured two good friends chatting, enjoying each other’s company, and making
brodetto
. When we cut to swap a finished soup for the one they had assembled, they continued to talk to each other as though they were in the room alone. The cameras rolled again and Rosa ladled some of the soup into a bowl. She picked up two spoons, handed Sally one, and told her to
mangia
. They each ate a spoonful and then looked at each other, pressed their index fingers into their cheeks, and said, “
Squisito
!”

When John said, “That’s a wrap,” it hit me that it was a total wrap. We were finished, and after spending all this time together, it was hard to think of saying good-bye. Rosa invited us to stay for a while and enjoy the view from the terrace. It was dusk and she put on the tiny vine lights and opened several bottles of prosecco. We stayed long enough to eat the
brodetto
and see the moon come up and for me finally to teach everyone to dance the tarantella.

It was late when Danny and I drove Sally back to the hotel. “Don’t discuss it tonight,” he said while we were walking alone to get the car. “Wait until morning, when you can sit down with her fresh. Tell her you want to have breakfast with her in her room first thing in the morning, but don’t alarm her now.” I agreed, but when we walked Sally to her room, I couldn’t help but tell her to be sure and lock her door, and I waited to hear the safety catch fall into place.

As soon as Danny opened the door to our room, I headed into the shower and scrubbed away the smell of fish, wishing I could scrub away the smell of George Davis as easily. Ten minutes later, dressed only in a few dabs of Santa Novella mimosa
eau de cologne, I slipped into bed next to Danny. He wasn’t even wearing the mimosa.

“Mmm. You smell so good,” he said tickling my neck with his nose and then moving his head lower to see where else I was mimosa-dabbed. He found the spot between my breasts, kissed it, and asked, “Are you too tired? It’s been quite a day.”

I ran my hand through his hair. “Not at all,” I said and fell asleep.

I stepped from eggshells to pins and needles, from burning
coals to shards of glass. —
Nathan Moore

I
arrived at Sally’s room at seven the next morning. She already had a room-service breakfast for two set up and was sitting at the table studying a packet of papers that appeared to have come out of an open express-mail envelope that was on the floor.

“What’s that, Sally?”

She grimaced. “These are the new publishing and television contracts.” She looked up at me apologetically. “It’s the new network. I had no choice.”

I put my hand on top of them. “
Don’t
sign them,” I said.

She pushed my hand away. “Casey, I don’t like this any more than you do. I’m doing what I have to do.”

I raised my voice. “Sally. Shut up and listen to me.”

She must have noted the determined look on my face and sound in my voice, because she opened her mouth and then closed it again. When she closed it, I sat down across from her and took a deep breath. “Please just hear me out. The man in the tape, Boris Davinsky, is a Russian mafioso. He ratted out a Mafia bigwig by the name of Vladimir Chomsky, who is in
jail waiting to go to trial. Then Boris disappeared. The Mafia is looking everywhere for him, and my guess would be that they don’t plan to chat with him when they find him. The Russian government is looking for him because he is supposed to testify at Vladimir’s trial.”

“My God,” she said in a small voice. “I never thought about anything dangerous like the Mafia.”

“That’s only half the danger, Sally.” I sighed the next word. “George. His name is not Davis; it’s Davinsky, as in Boris Davinsky.” She gasped. “If I could find that out, so can the Mafia; so can the Russians, and they’ll go through George to find Boris—and they could find you in the middle. If the Mafia finds you, they won’t ask any questions to see if you are just an innocent bystander. They won’t care. If the Russian government finds you, it’s probably Siberia.”

I saw an expression in her eyes that I had never seen there before—raw fear. “How do you know all this?” she asked.

“Danny.”

“You told Danny?”

“Actually, he told me.” I told her about the incident in the car rental place and about Danny and his uncle in Russia. “I didn’t say anything to Danny at first, but when I tried to warn you, you had gone off with George. I knew you were in over your head, and I was in a panic.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand. “You must have been. You did the right thing. What else did Danny say? Should we get him in here to talk about this?”

I’d been hoping she’d want to talk to him, and I quickly called the room and asked him to come in. The first thing he did was put his arms around Sally and tell her not to fret about what she’d done, that innocent people in Russia often got caught up in this type of mess. Then he sat down and said that
we needed to discuss the immediate situation and how to deal with it.

“I called my uncle this morning, and so far there is no word about Davinsky being murdered or picked up, so that means everyone is still looking for him. Tell me, did George cross the border with you to see Boris?”

“No. He took me to the border and I went alone to a seedy hotel nearby and met Boris. I crossed back over early the next morning and met up again with George.”

“That’s good. George probably knew that his name would send up red flags if he crossed the border. That’s why Boris wouldn’t leave Yugoslavia. Neither of them probably dared even to try to get false passports with so many people looking for Boris.”

“So that means no one would know that Sally was with Boris?” It was more a prayer than a question.

“Most likely not,” Danny said. I frowned, because I didn’t want a “most likely.” I was looking for a “definitely not.” Then something else crossed my mind, and I turned to Sally. “Did you see the tapes?” I asked.

She first looked at Danny, as though apologizing for Peter. “Yes. And it seemed clear that nothing had changed hands and I agreed to pay money and sign the contracts.”

“I’m afraid you’re dealing with someone bigger than you bargained for, Sally,” Danny said. “You’re going to have to go to the authorities.”