Клео Коул - Latte Trouble

“I thought Gardner was here,” I cried over the noise.

Matteo looked up, face sour. “He had a dentist appointment. Left a half hour ago. I had to take over for him.”

It was obviously not something my ex wanted to do.

“Nice of you to pitch in,” I said without a trace of sarcasm (for once). Then I slipped behind the counter, donned an apron, washed up, and replaced Moira at the espresso machine.

“What’s with the mob scene?” I asked. “Is there some event going on? A new tourist attraction?”

Matteo stared at me as if I’d cluelessly suggested we start serving instant coffee crystals. “Don’t you get it? We’re the attraction, Clare.”

I blinked. Still clueless.

“Just look around, take a look at the customers…especially the ones who’ve just been served their drinks.”

I watched a young man collect two take-out cups, slip one to a young woman hovering over an occupied table. The man opened the top of his cup, sipped his first taste, then he grimaced and made a face as if he were in his death throes. The woman slapped his arm playfully.

“I see,” I muttered.

Matteo shrugged. “I suppose it’s better than being shunned.”

Realization dawned. “That reporter…out on the sidewalk…”

“She’s from New York One,” said Esther Best, bringing more cups in from the pantry.

“Yeah, I ran the camera crew out of here a half hour ago,” Matteo said, fuming. “I can’t believe they’re still stalking our customers.”

“Have you heard anything about Tucker?” I asked.

Matt glanced at the Breitling on his wrist. “We should hear something in the next two hours. Breanne promised she’d call as soon as she spoke with her lawyer about the case.”

“So Breanne hears everything first.”

Matteo ignored me as he finished pulling another espresso, dumped the caked grounds, and reached for the coffee bin only to find it empty. “Hey, we’re out of our house espresso blend,” he complained.

“I haven’t had time to prepare any this week,” I told him. “ You took over the roasting room, remember?”

Matt grunted. Which I still didn’t consider a reasonable explanation. When he’d first arrived back home from Ethiopia, he’d hardly said two words to me before vanishing into the Blend’s basement roasting room for hours. Holed up with three fifty-pound canvas bags of green coffee beans delivered from Kennedy International Airport customs, he interrupted the store’s roasting schedule in order to roast those beans. When he was finished, he divided up the entire batch into twenty-five pound, vacuum-sealed bags, carried all the bags up to his room, and locked them inside—singularly odd behavior, even by Matteo’s diminished standards. I’d pressed him for an explanation but he’d refused to answer.

“Use the French roast Mocha Java,” I advised him.

For the next two hours the flow of customers was practically nonstop. Then, around four thirty, a semblance of calm descended. We still had a big crowd—bigger than normal—but it was manageable. Matteo was taking a caffeine break himself when the cell phone in his pocket rang.

He checked the display, then, turning on the charm in his voice, said “Hello, Breanne.” I figured the call was about Tucker, and intended to stay close and eavesdrop, but their conversation seemed to steer dangerously toward the intimate and Matteo turned his back to me and crossed the room to an empty table a discrete distance away.

They talked awhile, and it was clear from his smiles that Tucker’s fate wasn’t the only topic of conversation. Finally, about the moment when I was ready to scream with impatience, Matteo closed the phone and caught my eye. I hurried to his side with Esther at mine.

“Tucker’s lawyer postponed the arraignment another twenty-four hours,” Matt announced.

“Why?” I asked, outraged. “Detective Hutawa told me Tucker can’t be bailed out until he’s arraigned.”

Matteo frowned. “Clare, you better wake up and smell the java. The judge isn’t going to set bail on a case like this.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because it’s poisoning, and we don’t exactly keep cyanide in a canister next to the sugar, so it wasn’t in any way an accident, which means it was premeditated, which means Tucker is a danger to the public and will be kept off the street until his trial.”

“But that could be months!”

“The lawyer’s doing his best. He got the case postponed as a procedural tactic. He told the judge he’d just joined the case and didn’t have adequate time to interview his client. He actually asked for a seven-day adjournment, but the judge refused.” He sighed. “At least Tucker’s name hasn’t been leaked to the press—not yet, anyway.”

I shot Esther a not-so-subtle look. She got the message and obediently returned to her duties. I sat down across from Matteo at the coral-colored, marble-topped café table.

“This is so terrible,” I sighed.

“Bad for Tucker. Fortunately not bad for the Blend, which seems to be more popular than ever.”

“And what’s that about?” I cried, rather too loudly. Matt raised an eyebrow and I lowered my voice considerably. “Someone was poisoned here. We’re lucky the health department hasn’t shut us down. Instead we have more customers than ever before. I know this city drives people crazy on a daily basis—but have they completely lost their minds?”

Matteo shrugged. “I suspect it’s the fugu effect.”

“The what effect?”

“Fugu. Japanese blowfish. It contains deadly poison in its organs, a tiny, near-microscopic sliver can be fatal if ingested. Preparing it is so dangerous the chefs have to have a special license to serve fugu in Japan. Yet despite the risk, fugu dishes—especially blowfish soup—are considered great delicacies.”

“Are you feeling all right? We’re talking about coffee here.”

“No, we’re talking about human nature. The sudden appeal of our coffee has nothing to do with the coffee. With fugu, it isn’t the taste, either. It’s so delicate it borders on nonexistent—yet it cost over two hundred dollars for a single dish the last time I was in Shimonoseki, which is the fugu capital of Japan.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

Matteo shook his head. “All those years you were married to me and you still don’t understand, do you Clare?”

“Do tell. What don’t I understand?” I was in no mood for one of Matteo’s “my wife never understood me” lectures—that act might get him a night of casual sex from some impressionable bimbo, but it made me want to run screaming from the room (which, given the past twenty-four hours, was highly likely at this juncture).

“There’s an expression in Japan that translates, ‘I want to eat fugu but I don’t want to die.’ We don’t have that exact sentiment in America, but think of that saying as a combination of our ‘wanting our cake and eating it too,’ and ‘you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.’”

“Are you speaking Japanese?” I was so tired from my lack of sleep and the events of the last twenty-four hours that nothing was making sense to me anymore.

“Clare, the attraction of fugu doesn’t have anything to do with eating the stuff. True connoisseurs will tell you it’s surviving the meal that gives you the thrill. What could be more intense? You and your companions sit down to a perfectly prepared meal that tastes delicious and just might result in a slow and agonizing doom…It’s aesthetics and death combined like, bungee jumping or mountain climbing—”

“Or casual sex with strangers? Maybe a cocaine overdose? Are you talking about anyone I know?” I’d had enough of Matteo’s condescending tone.