Monster's Chef (20 page)

Authors: Jervey Tervalon

BOOK: Monster's Chef

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“You can talk, Thug, but he didn't steal your baby,” Rita said, anger erupting in her voice.

Thug smiled easily.

“Please, Rita. Don't act like you the innocent victim. Your ass signed on with Monster just like everybody else. You wanted to get paid and you got paid. You a rich woman and you'll be a rich woman all your life because of Monster. You just wanted it all, just like all you white people; you want it all, not just your fair share. You want it all.”

Thug turned and started up the stairs with Monster.

“Where are you going with him?” I asked.

“Away. Monster isn't gonna be judged by these fools. Maybe the Congo. He likes the monkeys and elephants. Yeah, maybe the Congo or Poland. They love him in Poland. Plenty of blonds in Poland.”

Thug gave one last disarming smile and with a shrug disappeared into the smoke and haze of the burning world.

FLOURLESS GLUTEN-FREE CHOCOLATE TORTE

Â Â Â
SUGAR TOPPING

Â Â Â
Confectioners' sugar, as needed

Â Â Â
Instant coffee powder, as needed

Â Â Â
CAKE

Â Â Â
6 egg yolks

Â Â Â
1 egg

Â Â Â
¹/
₃cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

Â Â Â
1 cup butter

Â Â Â
2 cups dark chocolate morsels

Â Â Â
13 egg whites

Make the topping:
Use equal parts of confectioners' sugar and instant coffee powder, enough to dust the finished torte. Blend the sugar and coffee in a food processor or spice grinder until well combined. Set aside.

Make the cake:
Prepare molds or a cake pan by spraying with Pam, lining with parchment paper, and then spraying again with Pam. Preheat the oven to 325Â°F.

In a mixer bowl fitted with the wire attachment, whip the egg yolks, egg, and 2 tablespoons sugar for 7 minutes; pour into another bowl and set aside. Melt the butter and chocolate morsels in the microwave or over a double boiler; set aside, keeping warm. Clean the mixer bowl and the wire attachment. Put the egg whites and 1/3 cup sugar in the mixer bowl and, using the wire attachment, whip to make a meringue with medium-stiff peaks. Do not overwhip.

Whisk the warm chocolate mixture into the egg-yolk mixture. Do not allow the chocolate to set. Quickly but gently, fold in the meringue. Pour into the prepared molds or pan. Bake at 325Â°F for 12 to 15 minutes. The torte should be slightly gooey in the center but not liquid. Cool it in the refrigerator to set it before turning it out of the pan.

Put the coffee sugar in a sieve and dust it over the chilled torte.

CHAPTER TEN

LAST I HEARD RITA HAD BECOME ONE OF
the richest women in Santa Barbara County; even after all the lawsuits she was worth easily a hundred million. She lived in even more seclusion than she had before with Monster, but she was as discreet as Monster was outrageous, living behind high walls in the cottage near the ocean that Monster had used as a day care center for the boy. She never had Monster's Lair rebuilt. Instead, she sold the land to another Ã¼ber-entertainer who fancied herself queen of the world.

I visited Rita once, at her request, to have her sign papers in person for our business venture before I returned east.

I didn't know what to expect because I'd heard the press and the lawyers representing those boys, the blond automatons, had descended on her, ready to tear her to shreds as the inheritor of Monster's fortune. Supposedly, Monster died in the great Santa Ynez fire, and all those allegations of child endangerment, murder, and uncategorizable perversity vanished with him. As Thug would have said, it was all good. Far as the world knew, Monster's sins had been burned away, cleansed by his horrible death, and fans returned to his catalog with renewed passion.

Bullshit as that was, it wasn't up to me to get the record straight that Monster had not died but had escaped with his freedom and much of his fortune.

Anyway, Rita handled the aftermath expertly. She settled with everyone who had a claim and wanted to settle; and those who didn't she sicced the dogs on, producing documentation, proof that the parents were pimping their kids to Monster.

It was always about the money.

Rita knew the score, so she walled herself away with the same rings of concentric security that Monster had. Her Security crew didn't look like Mormons in jumpsuits but like locals: jeans and cowboy boots, Lakers caps and cell phones pressed against their ears.

Her little boy played in the idyllic English cottage garden, chasing butterflies. Rita came out of the house with a glass of lemonade for me and kissed my cheek. Now that the troubles of Monster were over for her, she wore her hair long and had gained some weight, and looked the better for it: a beautiful, relaxed woman who had everything she needed in this world and the next.

“You look wonderful, as beautiful as the first time I saw you, when you pretended that you couldn't speak.”

She laughed.

“I probably couldn't. I was too depressed to say anything to anyone.”

“You don't have to do this,” I said to her as I opened my briefcase and brought out the numerous papers that needed her signature.

“Yes, I want to. You helped me get my boy back.”

I watched as Rita, my silent partner, signed the paperwork for the lease on a restaurant on the Lower East Side that would mark my return to the restaurant world.

“You know, I heard something about Monster.”

“You should call the police,” I said, alarmed.

“No, there's no need. He's changed.”

“How's that?”

“I guess it's not that big of a change. He's no longer a man, if he ever was. He's a woman now. And he runs a children's theater in Poland.”

“Jesus! He must make one ugly-looking woman. Have you seen a picture?”

“No. I'm not that interested.”

“So, it all worked out. Monster has his freedom and the youth of Poland to work with, and you have what you need, and I have a restaurant to run,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied. “How is it with your wife?”

“It's good and she's pregnant.”

“You're a lucky man to have something to go home to.”

“Yes, I do feel lucky. Everything worked out the way it should have. We're lucky people.”

I didn't mention my struggle to control my drug addiction. I guess all the trouble with Monster started all that up again, though it was always there, right below the surface. Elena recognized that now and helped me stay sober, keeping an eye on me as if at any moment I might fly away like a wayward pigeon finding his way back to the cocaine roost. But I wouldn't let that happen. I would hold on to this life, this good life, never turning it loose. Elena was with me; I could hold on to her at night, feel her swelling belly, and I'd rather die than lose what I had with her.

“Yeah, we've been very lucky, fortunate or whatever you want to call it.”

“Isn't it lovely to think so?” Rita said as she looked out at the beautiful world Monster had made possible for her, as the baby cried forlornly, snatching at butterflies too far from his grasp.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'D LIKE TO THANK MY MOM, LOLITA
Teresa Villavaso, who's given me much love and material to write about, and my dad, Hillary Louis Tervalon, who took me to the beach or the park or anywhere else I ever wanted to go when I was an indulged boy. I want to thank my lovely, brilliant daughters, Giselle and Elise, who like to eat my cooking and never wash a dish; and Sammy, my stepson, the little naked boy from Shanghai. I want to thank his mom too, for bringing all that happiness with her, and it's hard to thank Mary Blodgett and Carlton Calvin enough for hosting our wonderful wedding reception, and for their perpetual kindness. I need to thank my buddy JGold from way, way back, back beyond thatâgetting handcuffed with you on Beverly Boulevard was a laugh because LAPD didn't shoot usâand Tracy Sherrod, my Goddess Editor, so glad to be back with you. My thanks to Jon Gray, Malcolm Livingston, and Lester Walker, with respect and admiration for what you do and what you all bring to the table.

And I need to thank my crew of misanthropes and disreputable types: Mr. Eric Chow, Mr. Tim Stiles, Mr. J. Michael Walker, Mr. Bernard Ng, Mr. Ed Webb, Mr. Andrew Ramirez, and my friends from back in the CCS days, Bob Blaisdell, Max and Elaine Schott, Caroline Allen, and Elizabeth Wong from the Disney Screenwriting days. Robin Tiffneyâthanks for the advice and cookies. And lastly, Biscuit, for helping me get in shape and for the pleasure of picking up his droppings each and every day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JERVEY TERVALON
is the author of five books, including the bestselling
Dead Above Ground
and
Understand This
, for which he won the New Voices Award from the Quality Paperback Book Club. He edited the anthology
The Cocaine Chronicles
. He was a Remsen Bird writer in residence at Occidental College and a Disney screenwriting fellow. He is the director of the
Literature for Life
project, an online literary magazine and salon, and the literary director of LitFest Pasadena. Born in New Orleans, he now lives in California and teaches at the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara.

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www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

ABOUT THE CHEFS

CHEF LESTER WALKER
hails from Co-Op City in the North Bronx. While at the School of Food and Finance, he became inspired to feed his culinary passion and won a C-CAP cooking competition, which awarded him with a scholarship to Johnson & Wales University. His skills place him among the best chefs in the country, as evidenced by his Food Network
Chopped
win. You can catch Chef Lester melting faces as one of the founding chefs of Ghetto Gastro.

CHEF MALCOLM LIVINGSTON II
is a Bronx native. After graduating from the former Culinary Art Institute of New York City, he became the youngest kitchen staff member at Sirio Maccioni's Le Cirque. After making his rounds among New York City's elite dining institutions, Malcolm landed a post at wd~50, where he continues to lead innovation as the pastry chef. He is listed among
Dessert Professional
's 2013 Top Ten and a 2014 James Beard Rising Star Chef nominee. Chef Malcolm is a founding member of the Ghetto Gastro culinary collective.

ALSO BY JERVEY TERVALON

FICTION

UNDERSTAND THIS

DEAD ABOVE GROUND

ALL THE TROUBLE YOU NEED

LITA

LIVING FOR THE CITY

NONFICTION

THE COCAINE CHRONICLES (COEDITOR WITH GARY PHILLIPS)

GEOGRAPHY OF RAGE: REMEMBERING THE LOS ANGELES RIOTS OF 1992 (EDITOR)

T
his is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

MONSTER'S CHEF
. Copyright Â© 2014 by Jervey Tervalon. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Recipes courtesy of Lester Walker and Malcolm Livington II

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-231620-2
EPub Edition May 2014 ISBN 9780062316226

14 15 16 17 18
OV/RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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