Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (6 page)

An hour later, I was even less sure. Doug gave us an on-camera tour of the place. The bamboo floors were in and a large bar had been constructed at the side of the restaurant, but the walls needed painting, and there was no sense of what the finished product would be. Doug talked a lot about high-end fabrics and expensive finishings, but so far it was just big, nearly empty, and full of dust.

“This will be ready in three months?” I asked.

“Six weeks,” Doug corrected me.

“But Ralph Johnson at the Business Channel said three months.”

“That was our original plan, but we’ve decided to move up the opening. We want the place to start making money for us, and we think it will be ready.”

I looked around. “There isn’t anyone here working. No carpenters, electricians, plumbers. How are you going to be ready if you don’t have construction going on?”

Doug glanced toward the ground and then back at me, a smile widening his dull face. “We called off the crew for today so as not to interrupt your work.”

“That’s very nice of you, but you don’t need to do that. A big part of why we’re here is to get footage of the construction. We want to see men working. We want to see progress. So next time—”

He waved me off. “Absolutely. We’ll do whatever you need.”

I pulled out a stack of forms I kept in my tote bag and handed them out to the investors. “That’s great, because I do need something. Everyone needs to sign one of these. It’s a release form allowing us to show you on camera.”

Everyone signed quickly, except an investor named Roman Papadakis, who carefully read the document. “In all media, in perpetuity,” he read. “Sounds ominous.”

“It’s just standard, covering all bases,” I explained.

“Can I cross out some of these conditions?”

“No, it’s what the channel wants,” I said. “If I don’t have your signature I can’t use you on camera.”

Roman grunted and made a show of how he would prefer that his lawyer see the document, but when I didn’t budge, he signed. He may have muttered “bitch” under his breath, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t care.

Doug looked up. “For my address, can I write in the address of the restaurant?”

It didn’t really matter. Release forms usually went to some dark box in a dark room, never to be seen again, except of course for the one in a billion chance that there was a question about whether someone had given permission. But just in case this was that one in a billion, an unfinished restaurant was a sketchy address. “I’d prefer you give your home address,” I told him.

Doug nodded and complied without another word. I watched as Vera slipped her hand into Doug’s. He looked around at the others, seemed to blush a little, but he didn’t move away. In fact, the two started whispering to each other, smiling brightly with each exchange. It was sickening, but I was a little envious too. She seemed to stumble into happiness wherever she went.

After the tour, the investors gathered together with coffee and croissants to discuss their vision for the restaurant. Since the whole thing was being faked for our camera, the conversation was stilted and forced. After the fourth or fifth time someone mentioned how the restaurant would be the “it” place for “hip” Chicagoans, I started to tune them out. Just like with my prison interviews, I was trying to cast this group. Reluctantly, I decided Vera would be the sweet one, but that was only because the others were all in the running for the villain. At least it didn’t look like I’d have to wait long to get the bitchy, self-involved sound bites that make for good TV.

Ilena Papadakis, Roman’s wife, positioned herself so that she was directly in front of the camera. “The important thing,” she said, for at least the third time, “is that we’re not the place for people from the suburbs celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary. We’re for people who expect, who
get
the finest every day. That’s who we are.” She said the final sentence slowly, for emphasis.

I
could see Victor rolling his eyes as he held the boom mic inches above her head, and I agreed with the sentiment entirely. But it seemed to me that we were in the minority. Only Vera looked embarrassed. There were three other investors—Doug, Roman, and Erik Price, the restaurant’s manager—and they all nodded their heads at Ilena’s statement.

Ilena continued her one-woman crusade to separate the “elite” from the rest of us. She was attractive, in a Botoxy kind of way. She was maybe fortysomething, pencil thin, with expensive-looking rings on three of her fingers and a pair of drop diamond earrings so large I wondered if they would tear her ears. Her husband was a perfect fit for her. Big in every way, older, tall, fat, larger-than-life personality, Roman interrupted her frequently with statements about how much everything would cost, how no expense would be spared.

“I’ve been to the top places in the world,” he said at one point, running his hand over his bald head. “Rome, London, Tokyo, Sydney…I’ve seen the best. I want this place to top them all.”

Once again the others nodded. Vera, though, kept glancing toward me as if I might disappear. She seemed to have figured out that, on a good day, I had a limited tolerance for rich people flaunting their wealth. And this wasn’t shaping up to be a good day.

“The thing we have to keep in mind,” Roman continued, “is that we have to
be
the image we want to project. When our customers see anyone connected with this restaurant, they have to see the embodiment of sophistication.”

“Absolutely,” his wife chimed in.

I looked at my watch. Two hours until lunch.

“Twenty-five percent over my rate,” I muttered to myself, but even as I said it I decided Andres was wrong. I’d rather spend time with anyone, even killers, than this crowd.

I
n the afternoon, I sat next to Andres’s camera while the restaurant manager was telling me about his years in New York and Paris, working in kitchens of restaurants I’d never heard of but clearly was supposed to be impressed by. “But you aren’t a chef anymore,” I said.

“I was never a chef,” he said. “I was a line cook and for a small window of time, a sous chef. I realized my talents were front of house. I look better in Armani than in kitchen whites.” He laughed, indicating it was meant to be a self-depreciating joke, but he lightly brushed the lapel of what I guessed was an Armani suit, dark gray.

Erik Price was, by my guess, about thirty-five, slightly thinning on top, with hair cut almost military short. He had a day’s growth of beard, an affectation to suggest he worked too hard to care about his appearance, except he was meticulous in all other aspects of his grooming, down to his perfectly manicured nails.

When he saw me looking at his hands, he pointed to his watch. “You like the Rolex?”

“It’s nice.”

“Would you like one? I have a friend who sells only the finest pieces. You can use my name to get a discount.”

“A little out of my price range, even with a discount,” I said. “And I don’t wear a watch anymore. I use my cell phone for the time.”

He smiled. “You should allow yourself the finest things available, Kate. What else is life for?”

“People.”

“True,” he said. “And some of them deserve a watch like this one.”

“Only some of them? You don’t think everyone should have a few luxuries?”

He laughed. “That word has been watered down so much. Luxury used to be for kings and the royal court. Now you can get so-called
luxury goods with designer labels at discount malls. It’s unfortunate. Really, it is. I think that people who are, for lack of a better word,
superior
ought to have an exclusive access to the best.”

“What makes you superior?” I asked. “Were you born to the royal court?”

He laughed. “I was born…” he hesitated. “I was born with vision and ambition, and I earned a place at the table.”

“And the rest of the world?”

“There’s always a need for waiters and coat check girls.”

I smiled. It’s so wonderful when people make asses of themselves on videotape. “So, tell me about this restaurant you’re opening,” I said. “What are you calling it?”

Erik paused, then made a sweeping gesture toward the construction site that would soon be a high-end eatery. “Club Car.”

“Like in a train?”

He rolled his eyes. “Like in the elegant trains of yesteryear, when people dressed for dinner. Do you know who Lucy Rutherford was?”

“Franklin Roosevelt’s mistress,” I said. I’d like to say I knew it from my extensive personal reading, but as with everything else I know, I’d learned that fact from a show I’d worked on—a bio on the Roosevelts’ marriage I’d done a few years before.

Nonetheless, he was impressed. “She said in a letter to a friend that when her stepson returned from World War Two, he came down for dinner in a shirt and casual slacks. She asked him to put on a tuxedo, because that’s how they always dressed for dinner before the war. He told her the world had changed, and people no longer cared about such things.” Erik shifted in his chair. “Well, I care about such things. I care about doing things properly. I want Chicago to care.”

“How will you make them care?”

“We’re not just going to serve food here. We’re going to transport people to the nineteen thirties, to the Stork Club, or Chez Paree. More than a restaurant, a nightspot where elegance is the key,” he said. “If we give people a stylish place to dine, to listen to music, to dance, I think they will care about bringing back some of the sophistication we’ve lost as a city, and as a country.”

“
We have elegant restaurants in Chicago,” I pointed out. “We have world-class restaurants.”

“Yes, we have great food here. I won’t quibble with you about that. At best we can hope to compete with Charlie Trotter’s and Tru in terms of the food, but what I’m talking about is something else entirely. Somewhere along the way it got very difficult to tell the adults from the kids. We all wear blue jeans and baseball caps. We all listen to our iPods and update our status on Facebook. Sixteen or sixty, we all sort of seem the same.”

“And you don’t like it?”

“Do you?”

“I haven’t really thought about it.”

He took a breath, closing in on the final sentences of an impassioned speech I sensed he’d made dozens of times. “I want a place that separates the everyday from a world of excitement and romance. Where everyone in the room is
somebody
, even if outside this restaurant they’re just accountants, and lawyers, and…TV producers. At Club Car, everyone will be special, because they’ll be part of something special.”

“I’m sold,” I admitted. At least that part of his vision sounded appetizing. “If you can create that—”

“I
am
creating that, Kate. I’ve been envisioning this for years and I know Chicago is ready for it.”

“So it’s your vision, but not your money?”

He leaned back. “That’s not really how the business works. We’re doing a restaurant that will cost more than two million to construct, and have operating costs in the hundreds of thousands a year. It requires the resources of a group of people who share the same goals, and have the patience to wait for a profit.”

“Which takes how long?”

“Months…years…maybe never.” He laughed. “That’s why you have to love it.”

Two hours later, the day was finally, thankfully, over. As we packed up the equipment, I spotted Erik in the corner chatting with Ilena,
moving his mouth just inches from her lips. She giggled and swept her hair away from her neck. Clearly he found time for more than the restaurant. Not that Roman seemed to care. He’d cornered Doug and Vera and was talking loudly about money.

I waited until the last of the lighting equipment was loaded into Andres’s van before heading to my car. It was almost a clean getaway, except just as I was opening my car door, Vera broke away from Roman and came to me.

“Come to my house for dinner tomorrow,” she said. “Seven.”

“I have plans.”

“No you don’t. Victor said you’ve been spending all your time alone.”

“How would he know that?”

“He knows you. He’s worried. So is Andres.”

“And you’re the cure?”

“I’m a friend, Kate,” she said. “And I have to talk to you about something very important. I need your advice.”