Liquor

  “You mean—”

  “I mean exactly what you think I mean. Probably more, too. I hope you don’t have a problem with that, but if you do, it’s not gonna keep us up nights.”

  “No, jeez, of course not,” said Anthony, rubbing his hand over the thinning hair on top of his head as he always did when something made him uncomfortable. “I like you guys. It’s none of my damn business.”

  “You got that right,” said G-man, climbing into the Satellite.

  Anthony went back in the bar and sat watching a game show on TV, but his mind was elsewhere. How could he have known Rickey and G-man for years and not realized such a thing? Maybe his ex-wife was right; maybe he really was a dumb bunny. When he could no longer help himself, he got up and peeked into the kitchen. Rickey looked just the same as ever. He felt Anthony’s eyes on him and turned around. “What?”

  “Nothing,” said Anthony, retreating.

  When he finished his cheese straws, Rickey felt a little better. He decided to make a dinner special of pecan-crusted catfish with rum butter, knocking out the prep just as A.J. came in. Word had gotten out that Rickey and G-man would only be cooking at the Apostle for a couple more nights, and the place was packed with people wanting their favorite dishes one last time. Rickey was glad to be busy; it took his mind off the upcoming conversation with the newspaperman.

  Lenny called at eleven. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, but I didn’t want to bug you in the middle of the dinner rush. We had a fire over here during lunch.”

  “A fire!”

  “Nothing too serious. It’s my own fault, really, for not having the air conditioning ducts cleaned a long time ago. One of my waiters was making bananas Foster at the table, and he got a little too enthusiastic with the rum. Flames shot all the way up to the ceiling and ignited a bunch of crap in the ducts.”

  “Damn.”

  “It’s not too bad. I’ll have to get the carpet cleaned and replace a few tables. What really sucked was that we had to evacuate the restaurant. About thirty parties got their lunch for free—whatever they had time to eat, anyway.”

  “It’s been a great day all over,” said Rickey, and related what the newspaper writer had told him.

  “Shit,” said Lenny. “Right there in the kitchen?”

  “In the walk-in.”

  “I thought a dollar a square foot was pretty cheap for that property. Well, listen. I’ll be happy to help if you want, but I really think you guys should handle this one yourselves. You don’t want people knowing I’m a partner in this restaurant, then you better get used to dealing with the press. It’s your place. When stuff like this comes up, you need to decide how you want to deal with it.”

  “I already have,” said Rickey. “I was upset before. Now I’m kinda philosophical about the whole thing.”

  “That attitude will get you far, my friend.”

  At 11:45, Rickey left A.J. to handle the kitchen. He sat at a table sipping a double shot of Wild Turkey. G-man showed up and ordered the same thing for himself, and together they formulated a plan. When Sid Schwanz came in a few minutes after midnight, they were ready for him.

  “Gentlemen?” he said, approaching their table. He was an amiable-looking guy in his midforties, with whiskey blossoms in his cheeks (a good sign as far as Rickey was concerned) and a pronounced limp.

  “Probably you noticed I’m kinda gimpy,” he said when they had all introduced themselves. “See, I spend a little too much time at the Fair Grounds, and I tend to gravitate to the stables. Horse stepped on my foot in the backstretch. Broke every damn bone in it.”

  “All of them?” said G-man. “I thought there were, like, two hundred bones in the foot.”

  “It was a big horse. Broke every damn one of ’em. Hurt like hell, a’course, and all my toenails turned black and fell off.”

  “You want something to eat?” said Rickey. “I got a nice dinner special. Catfish pecan.”

  “Yeah, I don’t mind if I do.”

  Rickey went back in the kitchen and fixed the plate himself. When he came back with it, G-man had gotten Schwanz a drink. Pretty soon Schwanz was halfway through the piece of fish and looking happy. “So you’re local boys,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Rickey. “G’s so skinny, people sometimes think he’s a tourist until he opens his mouth, but we were born and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward.”

  “No kidding? I grew up down that way, in Holy Cross. Where you went to school?”

  In New Orleans, this always meant high school. “Frederick Douglass,” said Rickey.

  “Whoo! Pretty rough school. My daddy went there when it was still Nicholls. Me, I went to Holy Redeemer.”

  “Looks like you need another drink, Sid,” said G-man. “What was it again?”

  “A Horse’s Neck. Little something I drink at the Fair Grounds. Maker’s Mark and ginger ale with lemon.”

  “So,” said Rickey when G-man had come back with a fresh round of drinks, “I guess you probably know we’d rather you didn’t write about the Red Gravy Murder.”

  “I wouldn’t worry if I was you,” Schwanz said. “People remember the case, and if they don’t, they gonna find out sooner or later. Just look at it as a little advance publicity.”

  “Well, that’s not really the kinda publicity we want before we even get up and running. We’d like to have a chance to build a customer base before people start associating our place with a gangland killing.”

  Schwanz shrugged. “Whatcha gonna do? I’m not in the restaurant business. I’m in the news business, and I see a story here.”

  “We understand that,” said Rickey. “That’s why we’re willing to make you an offer.” He took out two copies of a document they’d prepared before Sid Schwanz’s arrival and handed one to the newspaperman.

  “‘Drunkard’s Agreement,’” Schwanz read aloud. “‘This document entitles the bearer, Sid Schwanz, to one year’s worth of free drinks at the restaurant of John Rickey and Gary Stubbs, provided that Mr. Schwanz publishes no stories about the Red Gravy Murder during said year. This agreement is nontransferable and does not include meals or gratuities.’”

  “You gotta tip our bartenders,” said G-man. “Otherwise they’ll take it out on us.”

  “Chiefs,” said Schwanz, “you drive a hard bargain. But not that hard. I accept.”

  A few minutes after Sid Schwanz limped out of the Apostle, Lenny came in. There were black smudges of ash on the cuffs of his check pants and across the front of his white jacket. At first Rickey couldn’t figure out what looked strange about him. Then he realized he’d never actually seen Lenny in chefs clothes before, except on TV.

  “Never in my life have I needed a drink this badly,” said Lenny. Almost before he had finished speaking, Anthony appeared at the table with a large vodka tonic. Lenny took the glass, drained it, and put it back in Anthony’s hand. Anthony returned to the bar and got him another one, then joined them at the table.

  “I thought the fire wasn’t too bad,” Rickey said.

  “It wasn’t. But remember I told you we had to evacuate the place? Well, it turned out not everybody left. Looks like one of my crackhead dishwashers took the opportunity to stay in the building and go through the employee lockers.”

  “You catch him?”

  “No, but he skipped out before his shift was over, and a bunch of people found their money missing. I gave them a hundred bucks apiece. Most of them didn’t lose that much, but they all helped clean up the mess from the fire. I figured they had it coming.” He leaned back in his chair and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyesockets. “What the hell do you want to open a restaurant for, anyway?”

  “I don’t really know,” said Rickey. He found himself liking Lenny better than he ever had before; Lenny seemed smaller and more human than usual. “Just crazy, I guess.”

  “I guess. How’d it go with the guy from the paper?”

  Rickey told him about the Drunkard’s Agreement, and Lenny started lau
ghing so hard he almost choked on his drink. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day. How’d you think of that?”

  “We just tried to figure out the common ground between cooks and newspaper reporters. Something we could appeal to. The only thing we could think of was liquor.”

  “Think he’ll stick by it?” said Anthony.

  Rickey shrugged. “Not much we can do about it if he doesn’t. It’s not legally binding. But if he wants his free drinks, he will.”

  “He’ll stick by it,” said Lenny. “I’ve known some journalists in my day. There’s nothing they like better than free drinks. You’re a genius, Rickey.”

  “It was G’s idea too. He was the one who told me to try and think of the common ground.”

  “Our diplomat,” said Lenny, patting G-man on the back.

  “You’re in a pretty good mood,” G-man told him, “considering how your day went.”

  “Perspective, guys. It’s all in the perspective. My building’s still standing. Nobody’s dead. One of my pastry chefs just got engaged, and she told me she almost left her ring in her locker but decided not to at the last minute. So at least I don’t have a brokenhearted pastry chef, and I don’t have to replace a diamond. I’m looking on the bright side of life. You’ll learn all about it soon enough.”

  “I can’t wait,” said Rickey. “It sounds like a fucking picnic.”

  chapter 16

  In the time it took to renovate the building at North Broad and Toulouse, a veritable alphabet soup of restaurants opened and closed in New Orleans.

  There was African Bounty, whose menu seemed a cruel vegetarian parody of East African food. Instead of rice or cornmeal porridge, either of which would have been reasonably authentic, most of the dishes were served over whole wheat pasta. The building had no air conditioning, only one portable fan directed at the kitchen door. When diners in imminent danger of heatstroke attempted to direct the fan’s weak current toward their tables, the waitresses would rebuke them as if they had attempted to walk out without paying the bill.

  There was China Bayou, an attempt to mesh the cuisines of Louisiana and Canton. Alligator-and-cream-cheese wontons were the least of the horrors. The dish generally thought to have heralded the restaurant’s downfall was the chef’s specialty, kung pao crawfish. Nothing was inherently wrong with this dish, but there had recently been a big media flap about Louisiana restaurants buying cheap Chinese crawfish instead of local ones. Everyone seemed to assume China Bayou’s crawfish were card-carrying Communists, and nobody wanted to be a pinko.

  There was Durum, a multi-culti pasta place reviewed by Chase Haricot, who found a ladybug in his house salad. He called this to the attention of the waiter, who blithely told him, “Oh, that happens a lot. Good thing you didn’t come in the winter—we find earwigs then!” The exchange was repeated verbatim in Haricot’s review.

  There was Eau, a French Quarter café backed by and decorated with pictures of three supermodels. The menu, heavily loaded with salads, was dull but not actively offensive. Bulimia jokes were believed to have rung the death knell for this one.

  There was Iko Iko, a tiny, musty space decorated like the living room of a thrift-shopping addict, which enjoyed a brief spell of trendiness before repeat diners finally noticed that the “famous” fried chicken had approximately the same effect on their digestive tracts as those fat-free potato chips that had been all the rage a few years back.

  There was Iafrate’s, a Creole-Italian place that seemed like a sure bet until an outbreak of salmonella swept through its customers. When tested, the undercooked lasagna contained enough organisms to kill the entire crowd at a New Orleans Brass hockey game.

  There was the Krazy Kajun, a Bourbon Street tourist mill whose Liquid Smoke-flavored red beans and rice, scorched etouffee, and eraserlike fried alligator nuggets proved too vile even for tourists with a few of those colorful yard-long daiquiris inside them.

  There was Lhasa, a Tibetan restaurant whose owner took great pleasure in entertaining diners by playing his violin and singing medieval ballads. Sadly for him, the diners did not share his pleasure, and the charbroiled mutton and butter tea failed to keep them coming in.

  There was Maman’s, a po-boy place that frightened people away by hanging big, inexplicable photographs of the Stealth bomber in the dining area.

  There was Riesling, a would-be Alsatian restaurant that offered no mustard with its limp choucroute garnie. If mustard was requested, the chef would send out a squeeze bottle of the same Zatarain’s Creole you could buy at the grocery store.

  There was the Rue de Difference, a breakfast-and-burger joint owned by a pair of old queens who were a bit too fond of slot machines and video poker.

  There was Sauvage, a New Louisiana Eatery whose chef blew all his local credibility by putting fresh basil in the maque choux. Its harsh herbal bite rendered the classic corn-and-okra combo sickly-sweet and pallid. Most culinary pundits concurred that the owners had already doomed the place by using the word “eatery.”

  There was Vaca Felíz, a Mexican cantina with terrible frozen margaritas. In a city of drinkers spoiled rotten by the drive-thru daiquiri, frozen margaritas could make or break a Mexican restaurant.

  There was Yancey’s, where the chef showed off his nouvelle training by serving an appetizer called Deconstruction of Gumbo: one boiled shrimp, one piece of stewed okra, and a small heap of toasted flour on a plate whose edges were dotted with filé powder and Tabasco sauce. By the time the chef was fired, the damage to the customer base had already been done.

  And there was Zen, a pan-Asian bistro with European influences. Unfortunately, the European influences included a plate of French fries with four mayonnaises: sate, five-spice, cilantro-lime, and the especially loathsome coconut. This plate of fries cost 7. Nothing so vulgar as a dollar sign sullied the menu; the price was simply 7. A small foie gras appetizer was 12.5, and entrées ranged from 18 to 32.

  Rickey kept a list of all these restaurants (and a few other, less disastrous ones that opened during this time) in a purple spiral-bound notebook. As the places closed, he crossed them off the list. He kept waiting for one that would worry him, but none ever did.

  chapter 17

  With the help of Lenny’s contractor, Rickey and G-man took a long, critical look at their future restaurant and decided where to knock out walls, raise the floor, put in restrooms, and such. They also started thinking about how to decorate, but the finer details would come after the heavy work was done.

  They called a bunch of night porters who were eager to pick up some day work and spent a week hauling trash out of the building. Their more fearsome finds included crack vials, a piece of yellow crime scene tape, and an old mattress covered with scorch marks and worse.

  Lenny was not present for the trash-hauling, but he did find them a test kitchen so they could start trying out recipes on a larger scale than they were able to do on Marengo Street. Rickey wanted to use Lenny’s home kitchen, but Lenny nixed the idea. “That kitchen is my baby,” he said. “No restaurant cooking allowed.” Instead, he rented them a vacant, fully equipped kitchen deep in the bowels of the casino at the foot of Canal Street. Gambling hadn’t gone over as well as expected in New Orleans, and the casino’s restaurants were faring even worse than its games. Lenny got the space cheap.

  Rickey and G-man stocked the test kitchen and started making food. Lenny sometimes brought people by to eat, but mostly they fed themselves and their friends. Terrance came by one day and asked for a version of fettucine Alfredo. They made two, one with white rum and one with Advocaat, a sweet Dutch egg liqueur. They did not judge either version to be a success, but Terrance ate big plates of both. “I was a lot skinnier before I found out about fettucine Alfredo,” he told them. “Damn, I love this stuff.”

  “It’s a waste of calories if you ask me,” said Rickey. “I’m gonna eat all that cream and butter, I’d rather have dessert or maybe some nice barbecued shrimp.”

  “Well, see, you
just don’t appreciate the dish.”

  “How’s Escargot’s?” Rickey asked. “How’s Mike?”

  “How you think Mike is? Sweaty, coked-up, and mean. One of the dessert ladies chased him through the dining room with a knife last week.”

  “Cool! Why?”

  “Aw, he was riding their asses for not working hard enough, and she smart-mouthed him a little. She said ‘You think we’re your kitchen niggers?’ and Mike said yeah.”

  “No way!”

  “You know he did.”

  “Yeah, I believe it. This happened during service?”

  “Course. Mike’s gonna fuck up real bad, he always makes sure to do it during service.”

  “Terrance, you gotta get out of there. You need to move up in the world. You ever worked the grill before?”

  “No, not really.”

  “I’ll train you. Can you hold out for a couple more months?”

  “I been holding out four years with old Mike. I guess I can stand him a little longer.”

  Another day, Rickey called Tanker and invited him to cook with them. He and Mo were leaving for Colorado the following week, but he came downtown anyway—mostly, Rickey thought, out of curiosity. “I don’t even know if we’re coming back to New Orleans,” he said. “We might just stay out there.”

  “Sure you’re coming back,” said Rickey. “All they eat in Colorado is elk and venison. You’ll be crying for a piece of fresh Gulf fish within a month, and you’ll call us up going, ‘Rickey, if only I’d listened when y’ all made me that nice offer …”

  “You guys are so full of shit,” said Tanker good-naturedly. Without even seeming to pay attention to what he was doing, he had just made the most beautiful salad Rickey had ever seen. Perfectly torn pieces of redleaf and butter lettuce were mounded on a big white plate. The lettuce was topped with a small heap of sweet potato hay, and three pastel shades of creamy vinaigrette—purple, green, and gold—decorated the edges of the plate.

  “You like making salads?” G-man asked Tanker. From his tone, he might have been asking, “You like drinking that gray scum that forms in the gutters on Mardi Gras?”