The Accidental Joe, page 23
“I should ask my producer.”
But Ilona was already on her way to the kitchen. “Napsugár wait.” Nova bolted between her and the door.
“This is my home.”
Cammie’s wheels were turning but gaining no traction. Before things flew off the rails and she went into that kitchen, I jumped in. “Napsugár, we will absolutely serve your dessert. But I have a plan. I want you to take your place as hostess of honor at the table and allow me to serve you.” God damn, the woman’s eyes widened. “And for me, personally, making the presentation to you would be the crowning glory of this episode.”
Cammie added, “It’s probably our promo clip.”
Picturing that image, Ilona Tábori’s face broke into a wide grin. “Ah, there it is. Now I see why your nickname is Sunbeam. Cameron, why don’t you and Latrell go set a mark back at the table with our hostess of honor while I work my magic in the kitchen. Is that a good plan?”
With some hesitation, Nova escorted Ilona back to the veranda.
I didn’t know what I expected to see, but I didn’t think I’d find the kitchen empty again. I found a stack of dessert plates and quickly set three of them out on a tray, then added a fourth, better to maintain the illusion that Glinka hadn’t done a disappearing act. I was fast learning that the trick to living fiction was to act like it was true.
The croquembouche. The damned tower was too big for me to manhandle myself. Nova wanted to keep people out of the kitchen, so I didn’t want to call Hoss in to help. Screw it.
Using my bare hands, I plucked choux balls off the side of the pastry tower Napsugár had messed up in the demo and arranged them on the plates. I garnished the pastry with mint, a flower blossom, and the strawberries Ludik had prepped. I didn’t want to take too much time, but if these babies were going on camera, pride made me want to hit them with a dusting of powdered sugar. There was none in the canisters on the counter. Only granulated.
Maybe in the pantry.
I opened the pantry door and froze.
The cable TV guy was standing in there with his back to me. And he was strangling Arkady Glinka from behind.
thirty-six
The attacker pulled hard on the coax cable looped around Glinka’s throat. Pulled so hard it lifted the stubby man up off his heels, leaving him to claw desperately at the fleshy folds of his neck. I couldn’t see the Russian’s face from behind, but his head was crimson on its way to plum.
I lunged. That shocked the cable guy. The garrote slipped. Glinka inhaled a beastly wheeze. But this brute was immovable as a piling. Without letting go of the cord, he twisted and booted me across the pantry. I smashed into a shelf of canned goods and landed on the deck.
The assassin yanked the black cable again. Harder this time, twisting it with his massive hands to cut deeper into his victim’s throat. Glinka’s rasps cut off. His gurgles stopped.
I threw a can of tomatoes. It bonked the side of the strangler’s head. He cursed in French and shook it off. I rushed him, this time shoulder down for a tackle. He saw it coming, scissored up a knee to deflect, and sent me sprawling.
The cable man worked to finish the job on Glinka. The Russian threw desperate flails of his feet, bucking for his life. One of his shoes flew off and landed on a shelf.
Outmatched hand to hand, I scanned high and low for a weapon. A real one, not a can. I bolted out to the kitchen. The knife block was way across the room, but right there on the cutting board where Ludik had left it lay my own Murray Carter Apprentice. I snatched it. Creeping up behind the thug, I wondered—slash his throat or stab his back? The paring knife’s blade wasn’t long enough for a stab to work, but I remembered what Harrison told me on training day about the carotid. I crept forward, ready to make the cut.
A hand gripped my elbow. Cammie Nova put a forefinger to her lips, then used it to point where to stand, in view, but out of the man’s reach. Her face bore a waxen cast. A benumbed look, some icy version of herself. I did as she ordered.
My move drew the attention of the assailant.
SSO Nova slipped close on his blind side. One hand pushed down on his head while the other seized his chin and torqued up hard. Once, in Oslo, I stepped on broken glass in the snow. That’s the wet crackle I heard when the vertebra separated from the attacker’s spinal cord. His legs gave. His arms fell. He collapsed on the floor, a puppet with its strings cut.
Nova didn’t bother to check him. She rushed to Glinka, now face down. I stared at the cable guy’s vacant eyes and wet pants. Pissaladière singed my throat, but I held it down. “Is he…?”
“If not, soon.” Without turning, she said, “Want to close that?”
By the time I shut the pantry door, she’d unwound the cable. “Slow deep breaths. Deep breaths, that’s it.” The Russian made nasty sounds. Tubercular coughs, whistling gasps, ragged hawks. The stocked shelves absorbed the racket, sure as the inside of a tomb. “Help me sit him up.”
When I stepped around her to help, I stopped, stunned. “Holy shit…”
Glinka wasn’t Glinka. The red-faced wheezer on the floor was Chuck Ludik.
It wasn’t a penny that dropped. The bean machine in my head released a cascade of ball bearings. By the dozens they fell, bouncing over pegs on their way down, sorting out all my whys. Why Nova hired such an incompetent culinary producer. Why she refused to fire him. Why the Food Sarge had changed clothes. Why Chuck had a goatee.
Why? Because Chuck Ludik looked enough like Arkady Glinka to pass as a decoy. Enough to fool his entourage. Also, enough to fool the cable guy into trying to kill him.
“You called him your plan B.”
“Yeah, but this wasn’t part of it. Hurry. Let’s get him on his feet.”
Chuck was shaky but breathing. I snagged him a bottle of Evian off the shelf. While Ludik drank, I dared to look at the dead man and figured out what nagged me about him. “I’ve seen this guy. If I’m right, he was at Ringstad’s crib in Marseille while I was getting zapped. Which means Ringstad knows Glinka is here.”
Instead of responding, Nova closed her eyes and chewed her lip. I imagined hearing her internal GPS: “Recalculating…” Her eyes sprung open. That quick, she’d arrived at something. “Change of plan.”
Chuck tossed the empty. “No shit.”
“Instead of driving off in Glinka’s car, you’re leaving in the cable repair van.” She squared her face to his. “Chuck, are you getting this?”
“Uh, yuh. The cable van.” He plucked his loafer off the shelf near the Nutella and held it up. “Ha. Check it out.”
She moved to the dead man. “We need to get him in his van. He’s going with you.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the new plan. Are you OK enough to grab hold?” He slid his shoe on and went to the body. I joined them, but she waved me off.
“You need to go back and keep everyone out of the kitchen—this whole area—until I give the all clear.”
“How do I do that?”
“Figure it out.”
I had my hand on the knob when Chuck’s curse stopped me. “Fuck a duck.” Ludik pointed to a cabinet door that was ajar in the back corner. Slumped on the bottom shelf was the body of Unibrow. The FSO agent had been folded, knees to nose, and shoved inside. Two ends of coax dangled from his neck.
Nova crouched to test for vitals, then stood. “Leave him. This may help us.”
I studied her. “How?”
“Are you still here?”
I hurried to the door and stopped. “By the way, where’s Glinka?”
“Pike.”
“Going.”
thirty-seven
Ineeded to use my back to open the swinging door from the kitchen because both hands were trying to keep the tray of dessert plates from rattling from my anxiety. All eyes in Video Village found me. Latrell said, “What’s it going to be, Chef?”
“A little thing I like to call ‘roll-speed.’ Marisol, you go handheld to carry me in. Leading shot until I pass you, then break off to hose cutaways of the dessert and reax shots of Ilona. Declan, would you do the honors?” The audio tech mic’d me up. Marisol popped her C300 off the sticks and signaled ready. I paused at the entry to the veranda to await confirmation they were recording. But actually to get my shit together. My nervous shakes had toppled a chou ball off one of the mini-pyramids I’d built on each plate.
To wipe the blackboard clean of the two dead men in the pantry and the minefield ahead, I rolled a mental slo-mo of Astrid in Hemingway’s booth mugging at Les Deux Magots on the wall above her. Paris. Our made-to-order moveable feast, a forever banquet table stretching out to the lives ahead of us. For Astrid, I flatlined my jitters. For Astrid, I numbed myself. Same as I’d seen Nova do it, I opened the tap and ran the ice water. For Astrid. For closure.
Leading with my celebrity chef grin again, I breezed out, presenting the tray. There I was, the host-provocateur who beat the drum of authenticity, hiding like a coward behind the skirts of TV host artifice, a masquerade to see me through. “Qu’est-ce que c’est pour dessert? Is it pâte à choux? Non, mes amis. It is more special than that.” I waited for Marisol to settle her shot on Ilona, who had her hands clenched to her chest in unabashed glee. “It’s none other than…pâte par Napsugár.”
“Oh, Chef Pike, you honor me so.”
“What better way to celebrate today’s collaboration? I’m delighted that you’re pleased.”
“And yet.”
“…Yet?”
“I was hoping we could present the tower. I had envisioned the entire croquembouche.” She windmilled both arms to indicate grandness.
A flare of panic hit me. Deflect, deflect. I took it to her husband. “Ur Tábori, may I make a peace offering to you, sir?” I set a dessert before him. The oligarch brushed the dish aside and concentrated on his texting. Not even a glance up to acknowledge.
“I really want my choux tower. Wouldn’t that be stunning? Chef Pike, are you listening?”
Ignaz Tábori finally looked up. “Why are you such an asshole? Give her what she wants.”
“I’m guessing from your question that my whole peace offering thing didn’t wash.”
Ilona clanged her fork down. “Why can’t you bring it out?”
“I don’t think it would be good optics. Visually. Which is what optics are, aren’t they? Ha. What I’m saying is it’s not so celebratory when your husband looks like I just ran over his dog.” I checked Video Village, hoping for Nova and the all clear. No Nova. Not yet.
Stretch. Stall. Improvise.
I drew my chair close to Tábori. “I regret this landed on a sour note. Can we talk it through?”
He quit texting and lobbed his phone onto the tablecloth. “You want to talk? Allow me to share a quaint aphorism we have in my country. Ready? ‘Bolond lyukból bolond szél fúj.’ You like that? It means ‘foolish wind blows out of a foolish hole.’ In case you are not smart enough to figure this out, you are the hole.”
“I kinda got that.”
“Che-efff…” Napsugár, calling me and craning toward the kitchen, amping my nerves. Where the hell was Nova? How long does it take to carry out one body?
“A moment, Ilona.” I smiled at the seething oligarch. “Don’t you think it would be good PR to repair things and have a moment of coming together on camera?” I heard Ilona slide her chair back. “Napsugár, we need to hold places. For the editing, you see.” She stood.
“I will say nothing. Not without my translator here.” But Tábori couldn’t restrain himself. He spoke low, jabbing me with a finger on one of my Taser burns. “Sebastian Pike, I thought I would like you. Your contrarian manner on television seemed charming. But only on the television, I now see. You offer fake hospitality—erudite conversation, playful ways, gourmet lunch, sweet dessert—and you ambush, pow, asking the rude things.”
“It’s what I do. And how are any of my questions new to you? It’s all over the internet.”
“Fuck the internet. And fuck your show. And fuck me for agreeing to be on it.”
Ilona started to wander. “Don’t worry, Chef. I’ll go get it myself. I can handle it.”
“No, Ilona, stay here, please. We need you here for the show.”
Lordy, she was headed for the kitchen. “I’ll be back with the real dessert,” she said. My stall was falling apart. What could I do? I turned back to Tábori, speaking loudly to make sure his wife would hear. “You’re sorry you did this show? Fine. Tell you what, Ur Tábori. Say the word, and it never goes on the air.”
Ilona Tábori hit the brakes. “What is this talk?”
The oligarch snorted. “This is more foolish wind from your hole.”
I raised a hand and took an oath. “Swear to Emeril.”
“You are serious about this.”
“Say the word and the whole episode goes straight to the vault.”
My ploy had not only arrested Ilona from going to the kitchen, it reeled her back. “Ignaz, you will not dare.” Sandals clicked up behind my chair. Ilona bulled between us to assail her husband. “You cannot agree to this. Cannot.”
“Ily, please. This is not your affair.”
I juggled my hands like scales. “Mm, yes and no.” I didn’t know where I got the inspiration to pit her ego against the oligarch’s fears, but after seeing what I’d started, I fanned the flames. “Napsugár and I did do an exceptional kitchen segment.”
“Which is my moment on Hangry Globe. It will be the promo.”
“There are greater concerns than your silly dessert moment.”
“My moment, baking with the great Chef Pike, that is not silly to me. What will I tell my friends? My mother.”
“You will tell your friends and, and kedves anyád, that there are other factors to consider. Greater concerns.”
Still no sign of Nova. I applied more heat. “So that is your decision, then? We kill it?”
“Wait. Is not his decision.”
“Oh, no? You enjoy this good life I give you, with the shopping and the face treatments and the frivolous indulgences—”
“Te szar.”
“Yes, I am that. I am a son of a bitch because why? Because you are too selfish to be aware of the grave pressures on me.” And because he couldn’t leave it there, he tagged it with, “Te kurva.”
“You dare call me bitch?” She picked up the dessert plate to throw at him. But set it down and punched him in the nose. Blood streamed onto Tábori’s slim-tailored shirt. He wadded his napkin against his face. She balled a fist to strike again, but the Russian security agent Glinka had signaled to stay put enveloped her in a hold from behind.
While he wrestled Napsugár away, Cammie Nova appeared in Video Village, paused to let them by, then continued onto the veranda. “Chef, if you want to call cut, I think that’s a wrap.”
I studied her. “Are we good?”
Offhand, with a hint of a smile, she said, “We are good.”
“Then cut.” I handed my napkin to Tábori to replace his bloody one, then turned to the crew. “Attention, ladies and gentlemen, that is a—” An engine roared. Then tires squealed like a jailbreak from Hell.
thirty-eight
Heads whipped toward the low garden wall overlooking the driveway. A distant voice shouted, “Arrêtez! Stop!” Then more of the same in Russian. The FSO agent discarded Mrs. T. and scrambled over the tabletop, sending plates, glassware, and silver flying. He skidded off feetfirst and yanked Ignaz Tábori out of his chair, shoving him to the ground, squatting over him with his gun hand inside his coat. But all the action was outside.
The approaching vehicle growled. The veranda sat atop a knoll, so only the stepladder lashed to the roof of the Connexion Côte van was visible over the hedge as it vroomed by at highway speed. Hard soles in foot pursuit stopped below the veranda. Another warning shout to stop. “Ostanavlivat’sya!” A pistol shot. A tinkling of glass.
The man covering Tábori drew his piece.
The feet outside resumed the chase.
The motor noise dimmed as the Opel veered down the slope toward the main gate.
The bang of metal colliding with metal echoed up the rock cove.
The screech of radials said the van broke through the gate.
The racing engine grew faint until it got bleached out by the silence of privileged real estate.
The breathing resumed on the veranda.
We all tasted scorched rubber and gun smoke.
My instinct, aside from wanting to get my folks out of there, was to study Nova. Was that sequence the execution of an exfiltration plan or the sound of one falling apart? Her face gave nothing away.
Bangs and Beard, Glinka’s lead FSO posse, raced in from the guesthouse. No pistols for these two. Each gripped compact Vityaz submachine guns in don’t-fuck-with-me black. Bangs called out in Russian, then in English. “Where is he? Where is Glinka?” His demand came wrapped in panic. This was a major screwup. The dread of lost careers and hard labor flashed in their eyes.
Ignaz Tábori got back on his feet. Answering in Russian, he held his bloody napkin to his ear, miming a cell phone, and pointed to where Putin’s accountant had gone. The FSO pair started in that direction but were met at the edge of Video Village by a breathless member of their FSO team racing in from outside. “That cable repairman. He took off. Noskov is dead.”
“Where?” said Bangs.
“His body, it is outside. Behind where the cable van was parked.”
