Клео Коул - French Pressed

This book is dedicated to Roy Snyder

For his encouragement, thoughtfulness, unfailing good humor, and most of all for his sage financial advice—a fundamental asset for any writer who’s crazy enough to believe that “a room of one’s own” is achievable in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.

Cheers to you, Roy, for keeping the dream in play.

While it is widely recognized that New York City is crowded, costly, competitive, and occasionally downright dangerous, New York is also a foodie mecca. It’s the kind of town where you can attend an open-to-the-public culinary talk and find yourself sitting next to a young Cordon Bleu graduate while listening to legendary chef Jacques Pepin speak extemporaneously about such things as butchering a chicken. The aforementioned 92nd Street Y restaurant panel along with my two decades of speaking with restaurant professionals while dining out in New York were among the many experiences that contributed to the backdrop of this novel.

I would also like to acknowledge the gracious help of Douglas Snyder, general manager of Bin Fifty-Four Steak and Cellar. Doug is a consummate professional who chivalrously answered countless questions about running an upscale restaurant, while also giving me one of the finest dining experiences I’ve ever had.

A succulent shout-out additionally goes to Bin Fifty-Four’s executive chef, Andrew Bales, for giving me an after-hours tour of his efficiently run domain, a professional kitchen that consistently produces the most delicious fire-grilled steaks being served in America today.

Dear reader, if you ever find yourself in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, do not miss the dining experience at Bin Fifty-Four. And please be assured that the characters, situations, and murders in this book are completely fictitious figments of my imagination. Although Bin Fifty-Four is the scene for fabulous food and wine, it has never been ruled a crime scene!

Joe the Art of Coffee and Murray’s Cheese Shop, both located in Greenwich Village, New York, have also been great sources of information. My sincerest thanks go out to them, as well. If you are ever in New York’s West Village, these first-rate establishments are a genuine delight to visit—you might even see me there.

My special thanks also go out to editor Katie Day, executive editor Wendy McCurdy, and literary agent John Talbot for making my job so much easier.

Last but in no way least, I’d like to thank the roasters at Counter Culture Coffee in Durham, North Carolina, for their inspiration, as well as their superior beans. If anyone knows and loves coffee, it’s the intrepid coffee hunter Peter Giuliano, coffee director of Counter Culture. To learn more about the coffees mentioned in this book and the art of making them, drop by my virtual Village Blend coffeehouse at:

www.CoffeehouseMystery.com

Where coffee and crime are always brewing.

Stabbing flesh was no big deal. That was the way to think about it. The boy was just another piece of meat…

From across the dark avenue, the killer stood, expression grim. There were three stories in the redbrick building, six apartments, a roofless porch. The boy was alone on the highest floor. Through bright windows, the killer watched him pacing. He looked like an animal, like panicked game.

This wasn’t something the killer wanted, but the decision had been made. Now time was a slow freeze and the waiting was unbearable on this dank, noisy street. Pub crawlers stumbled along littered sidewalks, Latino teens clustered amid grimy subway girders, and cop cars patrolled too visibly beneath the Number 7 line’s elevated tracks.

The killer hugged shadows, tried to stay hidden, maneuver some shelter from the pitiless wind. Glacial gusts continued to whip down Roosevelt, straight off the East River a mile away. Manhattan had been warmer, the killer thought. Queens was an ice cave, its buildings too low to dull the lash.

Finally, on the street, an opportunity came: a take-out delivery for someone inside. The brown-skinned man in the bright green jacket buzzed the intercom. Behind three pizzas and a liter of soda, the killer slipped in.

Laughter exploded behind a thin door. Some kind of party. A game on TV.

Noise, thought the killer, noise was good.

There were thirty-nine steps to the third floor, thirteen to each landing. The door to the boy’s apartment was cheap, nothing more than flimsy wood. The killer loitered quietly in front of it, one minute, two…

The breathing must be even, the killer reasoned. The hand must be steady.

The killer knocked lightly, like a neighbor, like a friend. The boy answered fast, expecting someone else. Confusion set in. There’d been no buzzer. No request for entry. His brown eyes went wide. Anxiety. Dread.

“What do you want?”

“To explain,” the killer said. The smile seemed to help. “You might have gotten the wrong idea…about what you heard last night. Let me come in and talk to you.”

The killer’s right pocket was a holster now. Resting inside was the hard silver handle of the ten-inch blade, which poked through the lining. The coat was long enough to conceal the threat, old enough to be discarded after.

“I can quit my internship,” the boy pleaded. “I don’t have to go back to the restaurant. Not ever. How about that?”

“Did you tell anyone, Vinny? What you heard last night?”

“No! No one!”

“Then let’s sit down and discuss it. You don’t have to quit. I’ll just explain everything, and you won’t have to worry anymore.”

“Well…” the boy said, glancing into the empty hall. “Okay…I guess you can come in.”

“Thanks, Vinny.”

Gloved fingers slipped inside the coat pocket, grasped the silver handle. The French blade was steel, high carbon and stainless, sharp as a surgical instrument, manufactured for the utmost precision.

Precise, the killer thought, I must be precise. No flinching. No hesitation. Thrust down fast. Plunge hard and true…

Vinny turned his back, and the knife went in smoothly, past skin, through muscle, avoiding bone. The flailing was minimal, the noise a weak howl. It was done now—over. And so was Vincent Buccelli. The boy was just another piece of meat.

“Ugh,” I murmured. “This coffee’s absolute poison…”

No, the lukewarm ebony liquid sloshing around my bone china cup wasn’t actually lethal, just bitter, old, and lifeless—the kind of adjectives I would have been mortified to hear uttered about my coffee, God forbid my person.

“It can’t be that bad,” Madame said. “Let me give it a try.”

Sitting across from me at one of Solange’s linen-shrouded tables for two, my ex-mother-in-law lifted her cup and sipped. “Oh, my…” With a frown, she brought a napkin to her gently wrinkled face, closed her eyes, and discreetly spat out the offending liquid—a routine gesture for an industry cupping, not for one of New York’s finest French restaurants.

Up to now, the meal had been astounding. My appetizer of oysters had been poached in champagne, lovingly sauced, and placed back in their shells with a flavor and texture that defined delicate. My entrée of butter-browned lobster—artfully arranged around a flan of porcini mushrooms and earthy foie gras—had danced across my taste buds with savory succulence. And for desert, a modern execution of a traditional tarte Tatin, with spicy-sweet cardamom-laced apples and a drizzle of ginger-caramel coulis, had been presented in a pastry so tender it melted on my tongue like newly spun cotton candy.