The Blind Pig (5 page)

Five

Late in the afternoon, Mulheisen sat in Sergeant Maki's cubicle discussing Mutt and Jeff. Maki was a tall, rawboned man with a dour expression. He had a reputation for being tough on suspects. He didn't say much to a suspect, but one thing that enraged him was the suspect's asking him a question. When that happened, the suspect often got a kick in the shins, or worse. Maki's third wife was divorcing him because he wouldn't talk to her, but Maki didn't care. He had Mutt and Jeff now.

Maki was “married” to Mutt and Jeff, whose supermarket armed robberies stretched back nearly three years. Most of the robberies had taken place in the 9th Precinct; in some cases Mutt and Jeff had robbed the same market on more than one occasion. The robbers were a tall, lanky black man and a short, stocky black man—hence the sobriquet, awarded to them early on by the press. The robbers wore “stingy brim” hats under which were rolled-up nylon stockings that could be quickly pulled down as masks when the proper moment arrived.

Mutt and Jeff carried automatic pistols, but they had never fired them during a robbery. Not all of the Mutt-and-Jeff
robberies had actually been committed by the “real” Mutt and Jeff. They had numerous imitators, most of whom had been caught. Some people believed that the original Mutt and Jeff had been caught as well, perhaps for an unrelated job, and were now in jail, quietly waiting to get out and dig up their buried thousands. Maki did not believe this.

Maki showed Mulheisen a graph he had drawn. “What do you think?” he asked.

Mulheisen didn't know what to think. “It's just a lot of dots and lines,” he said.

“It's a ‘Pattern of Criminal Activity Graph,’ “ Maki said. “I was reading a book by this psychologist. He says crooks act out of compulsive behavior patterns. They don't even realize they're doing things a certain way, or why. The trick for the detective is to chart as many factors as you can from a series of crimes. Then you make a graph. A pattern should appear. Sometimes you can predict when and where the criminal will hit next.”

“What factors have you noticed?” Mulheisen asked.

“One: almost every robbery is Friday night, just at closing time; two: both robbers carry large automatic pistols, probably .45s; three: nobody has ever been hurt; four: the robbers speak very little, but give explicit instructions; five: they don't swear or shout; six: every time they come to separate check-outs at about the same time, with more or less the same items in their grocery carts.”

“I didn't know that,” Mulheisen said. “What's in the carts?”

“Corn meal, dried beans, smoked ham hocks, ketchup, vinegar, Mexican hot sauce and Stroh's beer.”

“Then all you have to do is stake out the hot sauce shelf every Friday night,” Mulheisen said, “and bust every middle-aged black male wearing a stingy brim hat who picks up a jar of Salsa Brava.”

Mulheisen was saved from Maki's retort by the desk officer, who said he was wanted on the telephone. He took the call in his office. It was Jimmy Marshall.

“I found him!”

“Who?” Mulheisen asked.

“John Doe. At the Gratiot Health Spa. It's a little gym and swimming pool outfit on Gratiot, between Harper and Van Dyke. He was in here twice this past week. He worked out on the horse, ran a little, sat in the sauna, then finished off with a long swim. The proprietor never saw him before.”

“Did he give a name?”

“Yes, indeed,” Marshall said smugly. “He signed the register—Tom Brown, 23 Elm Street, Oshkosh, Wisconsin.”

“Tom Brown,” Mulheisen said. “Interesting name. Are you sure it wasn't Bill White? Or Vida Blue?”

Marshall's elation subsided audibly. “Pretty common name, hunh?”

“It's not his name,” Mulheisen said, “but if you want, you can check with the Oshkosh police. Maybe they could take a run out to Elm Street for you. Well, don't let it get you down, kid. You did good. Now, what else should you do?”

Marshall was silent, so Mulheisen went on, “Find out how he was dressed. Did he speak with an accent? Did he talk to any of the regular customers? Did he come there in a car? Is there a parking lot with an attendant? Is there a cab stand nearby? Did he get off a bus? Maybe he walked. If so, he probably didn't walk from too far. Check nearby hotels. Check nearby restaurants, especially health-food restaurants and stores.”

“Right! I'm on my way,” Marshall said. “Oh, wait a minute.” He sounded troubled.

“What's the problem?”

“I have to pick up Yvonne, my wife, at six.”

“Go pick her up, then. Jensen and Field can handle this.”

“But I could just take her home and then I could get back out here,” Marshall said.

“Fine.” Mulheisen hung up.

Detective Ayeh came into the cubicle and tossed his remaining post-mortem photographs of “Tom Brown” on Mulheisen's desk. “Nothing,” Ayeh said. “Went to the
Bridge, the Tunnel, talked to the bus company that runs the Windsor bus. Nobody knows him.”

“Oh, well,” Mulheisen said. “Lieutenant Johns was looking for you. Something about a whore that a cop hassled last night.”

Ayeh groaned. “Another one of Buchanan's paranoia patrols.”

Mulheisen went back down the hallway to Maki's cubicle. He passed a patrolman who was scolding a couple of worried-looking kids—something about broken windows. “Hang ‘em, Larry,” Mulheisen said in passing.

Maki looked up as Mulheisen entered. “The problem is to isolate the compulsive factor, or factors,” he said. “Now all these are factors, but which ones are compulsive?”

“Does this system work when you have two crooks?” Mulheisen asked.

“A complicating factor in itself,” Maki agreed.

“Do you suppose that Mutt and Jeff know that you're on their case?” Mulheisen wondered.

“Oh, they know it, all right,” Maki said. “Senkbeil of the
News
wrote me up a while back.”

“I wonder if it's as comforting to them as it is to you?” Mulheisen said. “Never mind. Let's grab some dinner at Cardinale's and hit the hockey game tonight.”

Maki thought that sounded all right. He shuffled up his papers and graphs and stuck them in the desk. Mulheisen left word at the front desk that if Marshall called he would be at Cardinale's until seven-thirty.

Mulheisen and Maki devoured the lovely lasagna and drank Cardinale's red wine out of coffee cups. Nobody called. The two of them drove out Grand River Avenue to Olympia in Mulheisen's Checker. The parking-lot attendant greeted Mulheisen as “Fang,” and cheerfully accepted a cigar as a tip.

The two detectives bought containers of Stroh's beer and stood in the ramp near the Montreal Canadiens’ bench, talking to a uniformed cop and occasionally shouting encouragement
to the beleaguered Red Wings. It was Mulheisen's favorite spot for watching hockey. The din was terrific. The skates made a sound like a knife being sharpened on a stone; the players screamed for passes and crashed headlong into the boards. Those on the bench kept up a constant barrage of insults directed toward the opposing team.

Mulheisen felt exhilarated.

Six

It would be a famous night in the history of the Town Pump. Afterwards, Pump regulars would refer to the past in terms of whether so-and-so got married, won the Irish Sweepstakes or died before or after “the night the gunmen shot up the Pump.”

The Town Pump was a fine specimen of a vanishing institution: the neighborhood bar. A bulwark of the ethnic neighborhoods, it is almost gone now.

The Town Pump in no way resembled a cocktail lounge. It was well lighted. It used to be a grocery store. In the display bays on either side of the doorway cardboard standup advertisements proclaimed the virtue of Stroh's beer.

The bar was oak and ornate, with a massive back bar, featuring a huge beveled glass mirror and fake pillars. On the back bar were stacks of clean glasses, many bottles of whiskey, and large jars of hard-boiled eggs pickled in beet juice. A sign on one of the jars said, “Boneless Chicken Dinner—l0¢.” There was also a jar of pickled kielbasa. Besides these viands, the proprietor, Dick VanLerberghe, had a grill on which he made what his customers called the world's best cheeseburger.

The mirror on the back bar was nearly obscured by comic signs that Dick and “the little woman” had collected on vacation trips in their camper.

Everybody's favorite sign was the one posted above the cash register:

SA VILLE DER DAGO

A TOUSSIN BUSSIS INARO

NOJO DEMER TRUX

SUMMIT COUSIN SUMMIT DUX

Strangers were encóuraged to decipher this cryptic message. The regulars howled with delight at attempts to read the sign phonetically, or as if it were a kind of Pan-European language. At last, for the fee of a beer, a regular would consent to translate loudly: “Say, Villy, der dey go. A t'ousand busses in a row. No, Joe, dem are trucks. Some mit cows and some mit ducks.” The recital was always followed by a good deal of cheerful chuckling, and often Dick would give the newcomer a scrap of paper and a pencil so he could copy this hilarious message.

During the week the Town Pump was a kind of social club for a dozen or more elderly men, mostly Belgian émigrés, who watched the ball game on the color TV, played euchre, and drank copious quantities of beer. On Saturday the Belgians would gather for pigeon races. They took their pigeons twenty-five miles north to Mt. Clemens, released them, then rushed back to the Town Pump to drink and wait for the judges. The judges went to each man's home mews and checked the automatic timer that stopped when the pigeon entered the cage. By the time the judges reached the Town Pump, everyone was drunk.

Tonight the television was tuned to the hockey game. Dick VanLerberghe watched the Red Wings score a goal while short-handed. “That's the way to kill penalties,” Dick said, arms folded. At one table, four regulars played euchre, commenting freely on the folly of each other's play. The most
loquacious of these players was Uncle Corny, a seventyish gentleman, originally from Rotterdam. He had a mild contempt for his companions, whom he called Buffaloes—they were from Liège and Brussels, respectively—and Polack—a skinny pensioner born in Cracow.

Two strange men entered the bar. They were about forty and looked quite a bit alike, dressed in blue overcoats and gray hats. They might have been brothers. Dick VanLerberghe took special notice of their noses. He considered that if it hadn't been for the presence of Uncle Corny, the two strangers would have had the largest noses in the bar. Their noses were formidable, Dick thought, but Uncle Corny's nose, that was a deformity: a square “bottle” nose, deeply pitted by a lifetime of daily alcohol consumption. It now resembled nothing so much as a stiff, square sponge.

The strangers looked the bar over carefully. They each ordered a shot of Jack Daniel's, with a beer chaser. Nobody ever drank Jack Daniel's in the Pump. Dick opened a dusty bottle.

The heavier man said in a high, mild voice, “You know a guy, Jerry Vanni's his name?”

“I have known Jerry since he was so high,” Dick said, “and his father before him.”

“That his jukebox?” the man asked.

Dick nodded and turned back to watch the hockey game. The two strangers stood silently at the bar. The smaller one stared at the
SAVILLE DER DAGO
sign, frowning. His lips moved soundlessly.

Uncle Corny crowed to his euchre companions, “When I see bot’ a dem bowers fall, I know I got da rest.”

The heavier stranger walked over to the jukebox. It was a big, fancy Seeburg. Dick noticed him and was annoyed. Couldn't the jerk see that the Red Wings were on? Nobody wanted to hear the jukebox.

The man fumbled in his pocket for change, then slipped a quarter into the machine. He ran his blunt forefinger down the list of titles. “Christ, all you got is polkas and Bing
Crosby,” he said in disgust. Dick shrugged. The man punched some buttons. The machine whirred and the strains of “She's Too Fat for Me” filled the room. Dick eyed the man with undisguised annoyance.

The smaller man had gone to the entrance. He stood just outside, then turned and nodded, holding the door open. There was a draft.

Dick was puzzled. Then he gawked.

The heavy drew an enormous pistol from his overcoat. With great care he took aim at the revolving record on the jukebox and then blasted it. The gun bellowed like a cannon. The jukebox slammed back against the wall, spitting glass and electrical sparks. Smoke issued from the gaping hole in the front.

Dick ducked down behind the bar. The skinny Polish euchre player leaped into the ladies’ room. Uncle Corny, beer glass in hand, slowly eased his bulk around and stared solemnly at the gunman. Everyone else sat perfectly still, their ears ringing.

The gunman shouted, “Bartender! That cigarette machine. Is that Vanni's, too?”

Dick's muffled answer came from below the bar. “Yes.”

The gunman took thoughtful aim and squeezed off four evenly spaced shots.

The cigarette machine bounced off the wall with the first shot and was knocked careening with the second. The third shot smashed it into the corner. It bounced forward and teetered precariously. The last roaring shot blasted its base out from under it, so that the machine fell forward onto its face, crashing to the floor, knocking over barstools. Quarters and dimes poured out softly and broken cigarettes were scattered about like straw.

Everyone was deafened. The smell of cordite hung in the air. The gunman strolled to the bar, swallowed the last of his beer wash with the pistol dangling from the end of his relaxed arm. Then he left, slamming the door behind him.

On the shelf over the end of the bar, the face of Detective
Sergeant Mulheisen looked into the room. He and Maki were standing at rinkside at Olympia. The camera had followed the Canadiens’ Yvan Cournoyer to the bench as the Montreal team changed lines for an icing face-off. Mulheisen looked directly into the camera and pointed something out to Maki.

Seven

“I'm stupid,” Mulheisen said.

“No shit,” Maki said. They were both hunched over the bar at the Town Pump. Mulheisen had quit filling out a long investigative report form.

“I'm just plain dumb. I call in. Not every night. Some nights I go home. But if I'm in town, say I stop for a drink or two, maybe have dinner, then I almost always call in to the precinct before I head for home. Just out of curiosity. Curiosity and stupidity.”

Mulheisen did not live in the city, which was against regulations. Like many officers he got around the regulation by maintaining an address in town, which was really just an answering service and a mail drop run by a creaky old hillbilly named Speed, on the near East Side. Speed charged each officer fifteen dollars per month, but it was worth it. If anyone called there, Speed made every effort to contact the officer, and he was good at forestalling suspicious superiors.

Maki drained off the rest of his beer and set the glass on the bar. Dick VanLerberghe filled up the glass promptly and waved away Maki's attempt to pay. He also filled Mulheisen's shot glass with Jack Daniel's. “That's what those
thugs was drinking,” Dick said to the detectives. “The first bottle of that I opened in months. And you drink it, too!”

“What does that sign say, for crying out loud?” Maki demanded irritably.

Dick looked at the sign over the cash register, then back at the two policemen. “Can't figure it out, eh? What kind of language you think that is?”

Mulheisen examined the sign for the first time. “Hmmmm. It's sort of like Latin,” he said, “but not really. French? No. I don't know. Finnish, maybe? Nah, that's not right. I give up.”

“Boy, a couple of smart detectives you are,” Dick said. Then he recited the message smugly, grinning with vast amusement.

Maki stared at VanLerberghe with undisguised hostility. The bartender's smile faded. Mulheisen said, “Did someone call Vanni?”

“Here!” Jerry Vanni walked in the door accompanied by Mandy Cecil. The two looked like candidates for “Most Handsome Couple of the Year.” Vanni wore a short fur-collared camel's-hair coat, extravagantly flared trousers and shoes with stacked wooden soles and heels that added an unnecessary two inches to his height. His white teeth gleamed and his mustache drooped stylishly. Mandy Cecil's hair was attractively windblown and her cheeks were rosy from the brisk October night. She wore a very woolly kind of fur jacket and voluminous pantaloons that stopped just below the knee where her high leather boots ended.

Maki eyed the pair sourly. “Hubba, hubba,” he said under his breath.

Vanni stood with his fists on his hips, staring at the dark and wounded jukebox. “Now, what the hell?” he said.

Mulheisen watched Mandy Cecil as she examined the ruins of the cigarette machine. She asked what had happened. Mulheisen gave her a quick reprise while Vanni listened.

When Mulheisen finished, Vanni said, “I know what
you're thinking, Sergeant. But I'll say it again, I have nothing to do with the mob.”

“What about Sonny DeCrosta?” Mulheisen asked. “Hear anything more from him?”

Vanni shook his head. “No, but it looks like they might be trying to get some kind of point across to me, doesn't it?”

Mulheisen nodded. “You might call it a form of communication,” he said.

“Well, what do I do now?” Vanni said.

“You might give DeCrosta a ring,” Mulheisen suggested. “Talk it over with him, see what he knows about this. Maybe he'd be willing to guarantee you against this kind of loss. Then you'll know where you stand.”

“I'm not going to pay off some slimy creep like that, if that's what you mean,” Vanni said hotly.

“That's not what I was suggesting,” Mulheisen said. “But it doesn't hurt to find out if DeCrosta's really involved. We might be able to work up a case against him.”

“All right,” Vanni said. “I'll call him. In the meantime, I guess I'd better clean up the mess.” He took off his coat and began to sweep up the coins and cigarettes with a broom provided by Dick. Mandy Cecil took off her jacket and sat down at a table to separate the coins into different piles. She was wearing a satiny blouse and it was obvious that she wasn't wearing a brassiere.

Mulheisen and Maki sat at the bar watching her through the mirror. They discussed quietly the problems of pinning anything on the mob. Mulheisen said he would have to talk it over with Andy Deane tomorrow, for sure, and get a thorough check on Sonny DeCrosta. And, of course, the bartender would have to go downtown to Racket Conspiracy to see if he could identify the gunmen from Andy's gallery of known mob hardcases. Dick assured them that if the police had a picture of either man, he'd be able to identify them. “I'd know them noses anywhere,” he said. “I'm a expert on noses.”

The door swung open and a man came in. He was short
and dark, with black hair and carried himself with a certain cheerful self-assurance. He wore a fleece-lined leather coat and Levis. On his feet were cowboy boots. “Whew,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “getting chilly out.”

He looked around at the mess, now almost cleaned up. “Hey, looks like you had a brawl, eh?” He hopped up onto a stool.

“Brother, you wouldn't believe it,” Dick said. “What'll it be?”

The stranger looked down the bar and noticed the bottle of Jack Daniel's. “Black Jack Ditch,” he said.

“Black Jack Ditch,” Dick repeated, “which is . . . ?”

“Jack Daniels and water,” the stranger said. He nodded to Mulheisen and Maki. “What happened here?” he asked. Maki turned away. He didn't like questions.

Mulheisen said, “Some guy came in and didn't like the jukebox, so he took a couple of shots at it.”

“No kidding?” the man said. “He must have been packing a cannon.”

Mulheisen nodded. “Probably a .44.”

“I saw something like that out in Wyoming once,” the man said, “in Sheridan.”

“You from out West?” Mulheisen asked.

The man drank off his Black Jack Ditch and called for another, tossing a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “I've spent some time out there,” he said. He seemed to lose interest in the conversation and gazed at Mandy Cecil for a while. She looked up and caught him. The stranger smiled at her. She smiled and went back to counting coins. The man drank down his whiskey again and picked up his change, leaving a couple of dollars on the bar. “Buy these fellows one,” he said to Dick and strolled out.

“You know him?” Mulheisen asked Dick.

“Never saw him in my life,” Dick said, pouring out a couple more drinks for the detectives. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, a promotional item from Hamm's Brewers that showed a continuously changing panorama of a Northern
trout stream. It was 1:30
A.M.
, bar time. “Don't look like I'm gonna get much more business. Think I'll close her up. You fellows just sit tight.” He went over to the front and turned out the tavern sign, then locked the door.

“Time to head home,” Maki said. He didn't look very enthusiastic. Mulheisen wondered where he was living, now that he had broken up with his third wife. Maki had left behind him a string of furnished apartments. “Do yourself a favor, Mul, and don't go back to the precinct tonight. The blue boys got a report on this.”

“I won't,” Mulheisen said, “but I don't feel much like driving all the way out to St. Clair Flats. Nobody home, anyway.”

“Where's your mother?” Maki asked.

“Texas.”

“Texas? What the hell is she doing in Texas?”

“She belongs to some bird-watching outfit,” Mulheisen said. “She's gone on a bird-watching tour. I think I'll cruise around town a little more tonight. Maybe I'll head over to Benny's and see what's cooking.”

Maki got up and slapped Mulheisen on the shoulder. “Don't get caught in a raid,” he said. “It'll look bad on your record.”

“Nobody raids Benny,” Mulheisen said. “See you.”

After Maki left, Mulheisen had another drink then strolled over to the table where Cecil and Vanni were both counting change from the jukebox and the cigarette machine. “I guess I'll take off,” he told them. “Let me know if DeCrosta rises to your bait. I'll let you know if anything comes up on your hit man.”

Mandy Cecil looked up from a pile of quarters. “Nothing new on him?”

“So far, all we know is that he liked to swim. Well, good night.”

Dick let him out into the cold, windy night.

•    •    •

Benny Singleton was a short black man with a thick mustache. He was handsome, with large brown eyes and a neat round head. He wore his hair clipped short. “I'm too old for that Afro stuff,” he'd once told Mulheisen. He was forty. He dressed himself in soft browns and grays, in good rich woolen cloth with quiet patterns. He wore oxford-cloth shirts with button-down collars and they looked right on him. With these he preferred silk ties and tweed jackets, silk hose and well-burnished old cordovan shoes in excellent repair. Benny moved with grace and spoke in a low, articulate voice that was audible yards away.

Benny Singleton had been a waiter most of his life. He started as a salad boy in a large downtown hotel, became a waiter, occasionally tended bar, and finally became maître d'hôtel, a position to which he seemed born. He was known, appreciated and even feared by those who dined well in Detroit. Eventually he became maître d’ at the River Inn, a distinguished restaurant on the Detroit River. In this position he served for many years and was often tipped not with vulgar cash but with quietly uttered words of stock-market wisdom. Benny heeded this advice and in due time became wealthy enough to leave service, although he was honestly plagued with concern for his old patrons, who, he feared, would never find anyone to care for them adequately.

With his small fortune, Benny entered the twilight zone of Detroit night life. He opened a blind pig. Every city has its distinctive features. San Francisco has hills and refurbished post-earthquake houses; New Orleans has Creole food and hot jazz. Detroit has barbecued ribs and blind pigs. A blind pig is a tavern that opens after the legal closing hour, which is 2
A.M.
In Detroit lots of people don't go out until the bars close.

The origin of the phrase “blind pig” is obscure. It has always meant an illegal drinking establishment. If one supposes that “pig” is a universal pejorative for policeman, and if one considers that no illegal saloon could possibly operate without at least the passive cooperation of the local constabulary,
why then, a possible etymology suggests itself. Beyond that, however, one might consider the fact that during Prohibition (the Golden Age of the blind pig) the liquor retained in these speakeasies was often a volatile, unaged substance that was potent enough to blind a pig.

Whatever the origin, blind pigs are numerous in Detroit. Detroit needs them. Despite the fact that it is the fifth largest city in the nation, it has very little in the way of legitimate night life. There are jazz clubs and barbecue joints—sometimes on the same premises—and there are blind pigs. The Fords and the Fishers and the Liebermans go to the opera once a year when the Metropolitan comes to town, and there is a fine local symphony orchestra. But, by and large, after dark in Detroit it is jazz, ribs and juice. Detroit is a working town. It works shifts. When the midnight shift gets off, the boys want to go out and play. So Detroit stays open all night.

The police don't mind the blind pigs. Why should they? For the working cop on patrol it is a source of income. For the vice squad it is a source of income and information. For the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau it is a gold mine. Detroit is the terminus of an enormous bootleg and moonshine whiskey industry. The illicit booze comes in across the largely unpatrolled Canadian border, or it is driven into the city in what amounts to a continuous convoy of specially rigged tanker automobiles from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Detroit is the marketplace for the South's cottage industry.

A blind pig has cheap booze and good booze; sometimes they come in the same bottle. It also offers prostitution, dope, gambling and what a sociologist might term an “interface” between the straight world and the criminal world. This interface is important, for the underworld has much to offer the law-abiding community. Besides whores, marijuana and a shot of whiskey at four in the morning, where else can one find a bargain on a hot car, a gun that doesn't have to be registered, or a hired killer? Even the most law-abiding citizen in Detroit seems to need a gun, and an unregistered gun
is preferred. Why advertise to the cops that you are armed? And, anyway, the unregistered gun is a stolen gun and therefore cheaper than the one sold in the stores.

There are many kinds of blind pigs in Detroit, from filthy stews to fancy establishments like the one run by Benny Singleton. This is a pleasant, two-story frame house near Pingree Park, on the East Side, several blocks north of the River and north of Indian Village. Benny has never been raided. He liked to tell Mulheisen that “If it wasn't for me, none of you fellows could send your kids to college.” Mulheisen would grimace and Benny would hasten to add, “Course, I don't mean you, Mul. You always been square with me.”

Benny's clientele was mostly white and well-off. He permitted no heroin or other heavy drugs on the premises. He allowed casual dealers to sell a baggie of marijuana or some tai sticks, but that was it. His whiskey was authentic Hudson's Bay scotch and Wild Turkey. He didn't deal with moonshiners. The prostitutes were young, expensive and free-lance. They sometimes looked like college girls, and were. Benny charged them fifty dollars a night to come into the house and they had to buy their own drinks.

“I been thinking, Mul,” he said. “I ought to open a dining room. Just a little place, room for about eight people. I'd serve one or two parties a night. I'd make it as expensive as I could imagine—maybe seventy-five to a hundred dollars a head. Then I'd get me Alois Belanger, the chef at the Old Plank House, and pay him whatever he had to have. Or maybe I'd get different chefs on a one-week rotation. I bet I'd be booked solid within a week of opening. I already have a very good wine cellar, but I'd have to expand—it'd be a good excuse to go to France for a month.”