Lucky Catch (22 page)

One side of the pit lay open, a gentle grade rising from the floor to accommodate the passage of the equipment to and from the storage shed fronting the road and protecting the casual passersby from the slight chance of runaway machinery. A conglomeration of several food trucks and a mobile reporting van from each of the major television stations pressed together, forming a perimeter on the fourth side, completing the whole stadium effect. One station had even brought the boom truck with a bucket, which now dangled out over the pit, the hapless reporter crouching inside and a cameraman looming over him, his camera pointed down.

Shielding my eyes against the low-angled sunlight from the west, I scanned the crowd looking for someone familiar . . . anyone . . . Jean-Charles. Not seeing that particular someone, nor anyone of pertinence, my mood plummeted. “Man, all we’re missing is the marching band.”

“I’m taking it something special is happening today,” Romeo remarked.

I felt no need to dignify the obvious with a response. Instead, finally spying a friend, I galvanized myself into action. Stepping to the window of the farthest food truck, I feigned interest in the menu. “Give me a number seven, extra hot.”

Without looking up from his grill, the chef began a perfunctory answer. “There’s no number . . .” He stopped and looked up, recognition lighting his face. Quick as a cat, he bolted down the steps and caught me in a bear hug. Holding tight, he rocked me back and forth until I laughed. Then he held me at arm’s length.

I let him have his look while I did the same.

As always, Beanie Savoy looked good enough to eat. Mocha skin, a wicked wide smile, short dreads, and a hard body covered in a loose Hawaiian shirt, khakis tied at the waist with a rope, and Tevas: he had a Lenny Kravitz mojo. Under that shirt, he sported some of the most perfect abs in the business—no, I will not tell you how I know that.

“Don’t you eat?” I asked. “You do know skinny chefs do not inspire confidence.”

He rewarded me with a wider grin. Letting his arms fall to his sides, he took a step back. “Where they been keepin’ you, girl? Why haven’t you come ridin’ with me? Remember that time the cops chased us damn near to the California line? Man, that was wild. Who knew those hookers . . .”

I cleared my throat, stopping him as I threw a glance over my shoulder. “This is Detective Romeo with Metro. Romeo, this is Beanie, the very best gourmet taco maker this side of Montego Bay.”

The two men shook hands.

“Tacos and Jamaica?” Romeo looked skeptical.

“Food-doo, voodoo, mon. Lucky, she gave me that name a long time ago.” With that, Beanie raised a finger, then bolted back into the truck, where he stirred and flipped and mashed the ingredients cooking on his grill. He stuck his head out the window: “You want your special?” His eyes locked onto mine.

“Extra hot.”

A moment later, he handed me a plastic bowl lined with white wax paper. Nestled inside were two of what I knew to be the most succulent, sublime, spicy pulled pork tacos. He gave a bowl to Romeo as well, but his eyes stayed on me. “Soft and tasty, just like you like it.”

Romeo took his food. “You guys are doing a great job of ruining my appetite.” But one bite, and I could see his attitude change. “Oh, man,” was all he managed through a full mouth.

Beanie and I exchanged knowing smiles.

“It’s so good to see you, girl.”

“You, too.” I took a dainty bite, anticipating the firepower inside the tiny taco. “Even better than I remember—and I remember it all.”

Beanie gave me a lopsided grin and a cock of his head as he waggled his eyebrows in silent appreciation of the memory of “it all.”

“How’d you get wrangled into this little soiree?” I asked as I blinked back the tears of appreciation for the Jamaican spice. My game had gotten rusty—I used to be able to eat Beanie’s stuff until I couldn’t feel my lips, and I was sure I’d lost at least the first couple of layers of skin from the inside of my mouth.

“Girl, all high and mighty you’ve become—lost your toughness.” Beanie handed me a paper napkin. While I was struggling, Romeo silently powered through, popping a taco at a time into his mouth and then groaning with happiness. Age, or lack thereof, sometimes created a chasm.

Beanie looked at me as if he could read my thoughts. “The word went out there was some kind of show. You know me, I never miss a party—I was the first one here. Well, except for that guy over there.” He nodded toward Brett Baker, the sushi truck guy and Jean-Charles’s second in the cook-off.

A school of painted fish in different shapes, sizes, and colors swam across the rear and the side of the food truck. The large, open mouth of a grouper encircled the order window. The words
one fish, two fish
were stenciled above the window in bright red, childlike letters—like the cover of a kid’s book. Dr. Seuss. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish . . . Two chef, one chef . . .

Chills chased down my spine. “Cute.” I tried to be flip, act like nothing had creeped me out. From the looks of Beanie and Romeo, I pulled it off, although Romeo eyed me a bit more intently. I watched Brett Baker, using his wide, white smile and easy manner to lure the passersby, mostly women. “What’s his story?”

Beanie leaned on his arms, resting his elbows on the shelf of the order window. “Don’t really know—he keeps to himself mostly. But I can tell you he showed up here out of the blue—none of us had even seen him around or nothing. He’s got serious shit though, top quality. And I heard people say he’s trained with the best in Japan, learned his sushi skills from masters.”

“Wonder why he’s driving a food truck then, if he’s so good,” Romeo added, making me fight the urge to dive out of the line of fire.

Beanie bristled. Pushing himself up off his elbows, he glared down at the detective. “You just ate my food, yet you still think we’re all glorified burger-flippers.”

Romeo shot a look of distress my way.

“Nothing like a faux pas to get a friendship off on the right foot, eh?” I teased, knowing Beanie wouldn’t take offense. “Kid, I love you, but I’m not falling on your sword.”

Putting on his most hangdog look, Romeo returned his attention to the guy he’d just stuck a knife in. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m afraid. I don’t know what I was thinking.” The kid actually looked contrite..

I’d lost that ability decades ago. “Not thinking at all, I should think,” I added just for fun.

Beanie beamed—he had that wonderful Caribbean ability to laugh insults away. “No worries, mon.”

“If you say ‘be happy’ I’ll slap you,” I added, stopping him before he could trot out that overused lyric—one of his favorites. “He showed up with good shit, you say? I sure would like to know more.”

Beanie gave me a sage nod. “I’ll ask around.” Inclining his head, he directed my attention behind me. The line had been growing while we chatted.

I stepped to the side, motioning the man behind me to the front. “Sorry.”

Beanie gave me another full-wattage grin. “Been doing some interesting things with exotic fish lately that’s been going over pretty good. Great to see you, girl. Don’t stay away so long next time. Like I said, my ceviche tacos are killer.”

* * *

Romeo and I wandered through the crowd. The show, whatever it was, had drawn quite a crowd, one that was still arriving. In a space designed to hold far fewer, the swelling throng pressed tightly together, making movement difficult. A cool breeze wafted through carrying smoke and tantalizing smells from the gathered food trucks, making the crush bearable and my mouth water.

We ambled a bit, absorbing the atmosphere. Romeo dogged my heels chivalrously, allowing me to cut a path as I turned back toward the food trucks.

“Care to go for Round Two?” I asked him as we ambled, angling my head toward Brett Baker’s truck, which held the primo spot closest to the action. Personally, I thought Romeo was way too thin, but I’d already commented on that and I didn’t think I needed to hit it again.. “Want some sushi?”

“Can’t stomach the stuff.” He tossed off the line like the true burger man I knew him to be. “So, what did you get from your friend? Whatever it was, I missed it, but I can see your wheels grinding.”

“Nothing concrete, just a hunch.” I kept my eyes scanning over the crowd as I talked. “One of the frustrating things about a tourist town like Vegas is, the local restaurants often can’t get the quality products they’d like. All the top-end stuff is reserved by the big-name chefs and the hotels.”

Romeo caught on quickly. “That must make it doubly hard for these truck guys.”

“And Brett Baker breezes into town with ‘good shit,’ taking the street food world by storm.”

“And?”

“Wonder where he gets his good shit.”

A second person poked her head out of Brett Baker’s food truck window. Chitza DeStefano.

Romeo and I glanced at each other. “Interesting,” we both said.

Chitza caught me looking at her. She held my gaze for a moment. She didn’t smile. Breaking eye contact, she ducked back inside the truck, out of sight.

On my second pass over the crowd, my eyes hit on another familiar face. “Wonder what Chef Gregor is doing here.”

Apparently unaware he was being watched, the chef pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and mopped his face. He stepped back into the cover of a shadow.

Romeo followed my gaze. “Gregor looks pretty hot around the collar, especially on such a cool day.”

As we watched, another man joined him, smaller, bald, twitchy. Chef Gregor bent down to hear what the man was saying—the chef didn’t look happy.

I narrowed my eyes. The shorter guy looked familiar—something in the way he moved, his mannerisms. It took me a moment, but I finally placed him—Mr. Livermore, without the bad toupee.

“You know that guy?”

“He came snooping around the office. He wasn’t who he said he was.” Romeo started to speak, but I raised a hand, stopping him. “Let’s give him some rope just yet—I’ve got my people working on it.”

Romeo didn’t argue—he was well aware that sometimes my network worked much more efficiently than the rusty cogs of the ponderous Metro bureaucracy.

Both men stayed in the shadow.

“Guess the crowd is big enough to draw the paramedics.” Romeo nodded toward an ambulance that had backed to the festivities, its rear doors folded back. One of the EMTs sat on the bumper. “Isn’t that . . . ?” Romeo trailed off as if he’d forgotten the paramedic’s name.

This was a weak ploy to draw me out, so I cut him off at the pass. “Nick. His name is Nick, and yes, he’s cute. Yes, he asked me out. Yes, it’s none of your business.”

Romeo seemed happy with that. “Are you going to tell me what this circus is about, or am I supposed to be surprised?”

“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I care, although with all the interesting people gathered in the crowd, I am curious. But, right now, my goal is to find Dr. Phelps, he’s running this show.” Shielding my eyes, I scanned the crowd. On my third scan across the crowd, I spied another one of our chefs. “Look over there.” I pointed for Romeo’s benefit. Christian Wexler seemed to be angling toward Chef Gregor and Livermore, still arguing in the shadows. Time to see what they were up to. “Follow me.”

Wexler paused in front of Gregor, stepping into the larger man’s face. He spat some words, punctuating them with pokes to the chest. Gregor looked incensed, his face an angry red. I moved faster, trying to get closer but losing sight of the three of them as the crowd moved and surged around me.

By the time we reached the spot where the men had been standing, the little party had broken up. “Damn.” I scanned the crowd anew.

“There!” Romeo’s hand appeared over my shoulder, pointing in front of me.

I followed the line of sight and spied Dr. Phelps climbing up a thin metal ladder that shook with each rung he took. At the top, he stepped off to the side and onto the platform over the cinder-block wall. Grabbing a wireless mike, he tapped it with his finger. The thing was on, the volume up. He held it pressed close to his lips at a ninety-degree angle—he’d done this before. “Hello, I’d like to thank you all for coming to see our little demonstration. Frankly, I’m a bit amazed there are so many of you interested in the obscure construct of RFID technology.”

The crowd, including me, waited in rapt attention. When the crane engine cranked to life, belching black smoke, I think we jumped collectively. Once the engine had settled into a smooth thrum, Dr. Phelps continued. “Refining and miniaturizing existing technology, my team at Cal has added some economically viable, industry-needed features that are quite impressive.”

He raised his shirt, showing the world his washboard abs—a geek god. A black band encircled his chest. He raised his hand and shook a white tag dangling on a chain. “This chip contains our new technology. It will monitor my heart rate, my temperature, and my position via GPS. The power source is supplied through the radio beam of the reader, and all of this for less than a penny a tag, readable using readily available RFID readers.”

Dr. Phelps gave a cue to the technician working the soundboard. He flipped a few switches, and the rhythmic sound of Dr. Phelps’s slightly elevated heartbeat reverberated through the speakers placed around the pit.