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| "...more fucking pigs, I just know it..." (Image Credit) |
Louis Shalako
By the time Gilles and
the constable got out of the room, the overcast and the damp air had lowered,
with the sky closing in, and with a distant mist hovering in between the spires
and the rooftops. Even now, there were a few yellowing leaves amongst the green,
on the trees along the boulevards, and yet summer still had much life left in
it.
Sooner or later, it
would almost have to rain. In the meantime, it was just as sticky, and as
usual, the place was halfway across town.
The restaurant was
known as the Hemingway Room, in the well-known Hotel Saint-Émilion.
As to whether Hemingway
had ever actually been in there, no one could say for sure, one way or
another—and it wasn’t the only place in town claiming such an association.
It was mostly just
legend, maybe even pure bullshit at this point.
Parking just down the
street, Édouard beckoned a passing gendarme, in what was a stroke of real luck
as this was a no-parking zone. All he had to do was to mention Maintenon’s name
and the officer was only too willing, not only to overlook the infraction, but
to keep his benevolent eye on the machine as well. He’d grab a table at the
adjacent sidewalk café, have a smoke-break and take a load off those aching
feet. It was just about break time anyways, or so he said.
With a word to Gilles,
they left the little vent-wing windows open and the driver’s side window down a
couple of centimetres, about all they could do in the oppressive heat to keep the
interior as cool as possible…there was a glow to the clouds in the south, and if
the sun actually did come out, it would be stifling indeed by the time they got
back.
Once inside the building, the maître d
scuttled on over, having recognized the great Maintenon without prompting. The
significance of the fact that Édouard
was in uniform, clutching a notebook even, seemed to have escaped him for the
moment.
“Inspector Maintenon! What an honour. How wonderful to
see you, alive, and well and in the flesh…sir. And what an amazing story! Truth
really is stranger than fiction, or so they say. So. How may we please you
today.” He stood there beaming, the one-eyed glance to the left slid up
and down Pelletier again, the eyes re-focused and the look slowly faded. “Oh.
Naturally, sir, I understand you are, er, working.”
In a look that was almost furtive, he glanced at
another party, five or six of them, coming in the door. This would not do, with
cops in the building and the lunch crowd hungry for fulfilment. Not to mention,
the average customer was all eyes and ears and wagging tongues. And certain
matters were best left forgotten—avoided like the plague. Touching the young
constable on the elbow, he led them off to one side.
“The kitchen doors are right there beside the bar,
Inspector. And that door over there leads to the office area. Constable.
Naturally, I am available to answer questions as well…simply ask for Monsieur
Beaudoin.”
“Thank you.”
And with that, the gentleman turned away, clasping his
hands up high, in a servile manner and with obsequiousness written all over
him. He made a little half-bow.
“…bonjour,
Mesdames et Messieurs…bienvenu dans la salle Hemingway…”
There were two pairs of doors, with small windows set
up high and swung on double-sprung hinges so that they could open in or out,
depending on the direction of traffic and bearing in mind serving staff
hurrying to and fro, with heavily-laden trays, and not too many hands free, or
the rather decorative serving carts that they saw interspersed here and there
among the tables. Even as they stepped in through the right-hand door, the
left-hand door burst open and another waiter in black trousers and
wine-coloured jacket pushed a cart out the other way.
The intervening space of two to three metres was meant
to keep the noise down, as they realized, the volume of kitchen noise going up
exponentially between one set of doors and the next…it was even worse after the
next door.
It could be described as bedlam, or perhaps merely as
a dull roar.
They stood there, hastily shuffling off to one side as
yet another cart, replete with silver-domed serving dishes and glittering
glassware was pushed along and out the first door. The load was closely
followed by a man with champagne in a bucket and dragging a wrought-iron stand
to put it in, the ice clinking in the bucket making its own statement. With the
hallway coming in on the right side of the room, everything seemed to go from
left to right in a kind of assembly-line process. There was another cart in the
process of being loaded at a station directly in front of them. There were
people slapping things down and pushing those plates along…push them along,
push them along. Behind that, across from where they stood, another hallway
led, presumably, to freezers, pantries and the back door and such. Surely there
would be a wine cellar around somewhere as well…
It wasn’t just loud in there, it was busy indeed, with
people calling back and forth, a veritable frenzy of activity and then, someone
slapped a bell, the meals having been plated, and another server stepped
forward to load all of that onto another cart. Servers were in a kind of
burgundy-red and black, kitchen staff mostly in white smocks with street
clothes underneath…chop, chop, chop,
slice, slice, slice, crockery and utensils clanging, and smoke rising, and an
ineffable smell wafting its way throughout.
Having grabbed himself another notebook, virginal in
its integrity, the younger man flipped it open to a list of names.
“Well. Let’s see if we can figure out who’s who—and
who’s what.”
A tall, slender black man, talking over some kid’s shoulder
on the grille detachment, fish or something, looked up and then looked cross.
“Hey! You two. Who in the hell are you.”
Their eyes met, and shoulders moved in a mutual shrug.
“…more fucking pigs,
I just know it…”
Throwing down a crisp white towel in disgust, he
turned and headed their way.
“Huh. All right, gentlemen.” Crooking an imperious
finger, he turned and headed for a door at the far end.
This would almost have to be Fritz himself, and if the
culinary critics and lifestyle magazines knew anything at all, he was the very
devil himself when it came to his cooking. A naturalized Swiss citizen, Cordon Bleu chef with
any number of awards and a row of little forks or was it stars in the Michelin
guide, he would be anything but shy or insecure. An orphan, and adopted as a
very small boy by missionary parents in West Africa, he’d had to overcome
something of an inferiority complex, with no looking back—at least to hear him
tell it.
As for interpersonal relationships, he wasn’t exactly
known for his tact, and that was straight out of Le Monde. He also had a wife and two kids, which took some small
stretch of the imagination.
But.
Perhaps this was what it took, not just to survive,
but to thrive in the white man’s world.
Any satisfaction he might have taken in bossing around
a bunch of white people, une bande de
foutu francais, would surely be leavened by pressure, by time, and by the
expectations of all round him. That would include whoever signed the checks
around there, and in fact there was a stack of time-sheets on one corner of the
desk—this week’s pay-packets yet to be made up, and in order to do that,
someone had to keep track of everything—literally, everything.
***
Monsieur Maissen, Fritz
to friend and foe alike, more normally preferred going by the one name, in fact;
and in time, he’d probably have his own establishment with his name on the
sign. It was almost as if he was apologizing for having the job in the first
place, or maybe it was the kind of dream that must be declared; and to all and
sundry. Anyone who would listen, probably. He seemed to have a plan, visualized
extensively in his head. All that really took, was time, money, (and lots of
it), and reputation. Of more immediate concern, and something of a relief was
the fact he had his own little cubby-hole, one with a desk, a door and a couple
of chairs for them.
Maybe he was just nervous—
As for the noise, it was somewhat less but still
something of a presence on the other side of that door.
Sitting there, with just the faintest suggestion of
cool air coming in through the overhead ventilators, Constable Pelletier was
going through his list of names, compiled from all of those other reports.
Again, quite some time had gone by, before the originating officers had sort of
tossed in the towel and handed off the case to anyone who would take it—
Gilles had noted that cool air coming in, although it
seemed to be barely working considering these were the back rooms, with grilles
and ranges and ovens all going full blast, and then there would be the heat
coming off the backs of freezers and refrigerators. The modern customer
expected better than that and up front it was quite the cool oasis from the
heat.
“Okay. It seems we have about half the people here
today, of those who were in the kitchen on the day of the, er, incident.”
Fritz nodded.
“That sounds about right.” Now that they were behind
closed doors, some of the arrogance had evaporated.
“According to the lab reports, that was real human
blood.”
“Oh, indeed.” That was it, and nothing more—
“I mean, it’s something of a mystery, don’t you
agree?”
“Yes, of course, Constable.”
The man sat there, and then, more or less patiently,
went on.
“Well.” Some worked the weekends and were consequently
off shift on this Tuesday morning.
One or two had called in sick, one had quit, and some
wouldn’t be coming in until later, working the afternoon shift. Early weekday
mornings were the slowest, and they didn’t even really open until eleven
anyways.
“We won’t keep you too long, Monsieur. If you don’t
mind, perhaps we can use your office, and call them in, one at a time, just to
go over their previous statements…a few questions perhaps. Hopefully, maybe
someone has something to add—that very often happens, and of course we would
like to keep disruption to the minimum.”
“Very well.”
“Okay, then. So, my first question is, do you do the
hiring here?”
“Ah. Well, yes and no.”
“…yes and no?”
“People put in applications and resumes. The boss has
a big stack of them in a drawer. By the time we get around to calling them,
we’re lucky if one in ten is still available. Look. If it’s just a dishwasher,
I don’t really care to know who that is or what the background is. Naturally, I
know the name of every person in my kitchen, I have to. But really, it’s only
the sous-chefs that I care about or even have much input as to the hiring. A
pastry chef, he’d damned well better know his business, if someone’s grilling
the shish-kebabs or making up the sauces, they’d damned well better be good at
it. Monsieur Faubert, my boss, doesn’t necessarily have that level of
expertise—in order to be able to judge, don’t you know.” The proof of the cook
was in the tasting, as he put it.
It might be Faubert’s restaurant, but it was Fritz’s
kitchen. His standards and his expectations were extremely high.
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| (Vista) |
“Okay. That seems logical, in that you would have the
last word on senior staff members. So, would you know if any of the staff under
you, er, have any sort of criminal record?”
“What? Oh, probably. I mean—over the years, and
sometimes they just slip through the cracks. I imagine Monsieur Faubert checks
them out fairly well, insofar as it is possible to do so. Understand,
gentlemen, someone slicing carrots or rolling pastry dough isn’t really in a
position to do much harm. As long as they’re doing their jobs, and not incidentally,
washing their hands about fifty times a day. That’s really all I care with some
of them. They’re not handling cash, they’re not in charge of the pantry or
receiving deliveries…other than a job, it’s hard to see what they might gain,
ah, if they had…any real criminal intent.” He gave them a withering smile.
“Sometimes, the only difference between a man and a derelict…is a job.”
“And what can you tell us about the alleged victims,
er, Carlo and Joachim?”
He shrugged.
“Nothing that I haven’t said already. Understand, they
had been here a while, both of them, but they were basically just doing scut
work—peeling potatoes, grating cheese, slicing mushrooms. There was no great
skill involved, and that is for sure.”
END
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