Кристофер Банч - The Return of the Emperor

"Sr. Pattipong?"

"You police?"

"No. I want a job."

"You cook?"

"Yes."

"No. Not cook. Maybe cook where people not use knife if order wrong. Too pretty be cook down here."

Raschid did not answer.

"Where you cook last?"

Raschid muttered something inaudible.

Pattipong nodded once. "Maybe you cook. Cook never say where last. Too many wives… alks… children… police. Come. We see."

Pattipong led Raschid through the door into the kitchen, watching his expression closely. Pattipong nodded when that gawp of surprise came.

"Yes. Not good. I build station for gooood cook. Cnidarians. Stay two, almost three years. Then… go. Leave me with bathtub for cook station."

The cnidarians were intelligent aquatic corallike polyps that grew together as they matured… into mutual hatred. They… it must have been very, very good. Because Pattipong had specially built the kitchen. It was a now-drained tub, with all the necessary appliances and counters built circularly around it.

"Not good. Take gooood cook know how to use."

Raschid climbed into the pool.

"Couple eyes. Over easy," Pattipong ordered.

Raschid turned the heat on and put a pan on the fire. He brushed clarified butter from a nearby bowl on it, picked up—one-handed—two eggs from another bowl, and in a single motion cracked them both into the pan and disposed of the shells. Pattipong nodded involuntarily. Raschid chopped the heat down and waited as the eggs sizzled in the pan. Pattipong was watching his wrist closely. At just the right moment, Raschid flipped the eggs. They slid smoothly onto their blind sides.

Pattipong smiled. "You cook. No one else do that right."

"You want anything with your eggs?"

"No. Not want eggs. Hate eggs. Eggs make me…" Pattipong waved his hand across his buttocks. "Every-body else like eggs. I serve eggs. You have job. You cook now."

Raschid looked around the rather filthy kitchen. "Cook later. Lunch is an hour away. Clean now." Pattipong's speech patterns seemed habit-forming.

Pattipong considered, then bobbed his head. "Clean now. Cook later. I help."

And so began the Legend of the Eggs of Pattipong.

Pattipong described them on the menu as Imperial Eggs Benedict. For some reason, the name bothered Raschid. He argued—mildly. Pattipong told him to get back to the kitchen. "Imperial good name. Thailand… best elephants Royal Elephants. Or so I hear."

It started from boredom. The lunch crowd had been nearly nonexistent, and it was hours until dinner. Raschid wasn't sleepy enough to walk back to the tiny room he rented for a nap, didn't feel like drinking, and had no desire for a walk. It started with baking. Raschid felt about baking, mostly at least, the same way Pattipong did about eggs. It was too damned unpredictable, and he never understood exactly what ingredients should be changed to match the temperature, the humidity, the barometer, or whatever made his loaves look suddenly unleavened. But there were exceptions and this was one of them.

He had made sourdough starter a week or so before-warm water, equal amount of flour, a bit of sugar, and yeast. Cover in a nonmetallic dish and leave until it stinks.

He used that as a base for what were still called English muffins. They were equally easy to make. For about eight muffins, he brought a cup of milk to a boil, then took it off the stove and dumped in a little salt, a teaspoon of sugar, and two cupfuls of premixed biscuit flour. After he beat it all up, he let it rise until double size; then he beat in another cup of flour and let the dough rise once more.

The open-ended cylinders were half filled with the dough. Raschid did not mention that the short cylinders had been pet food containers with both ends cut off. Even in this district, somebody might get squeamish.

He brushed butter on his medium-hot grill and put the cylinders down. Once the open end had browned for a few seconds, he flipped the cylinder, browned the other side, and lifted the cylinder away, burning fingers in the process.

He added more butter and let the muffins get nearly black before putting them on a rack to cool. For use—within no more than four hours—he would split them with a fork and toast them.

He next found the best smoked ham he—or rather Pattipong—could afford. It was thin-sliced and browned in a wine-butter-cumin mixture.

"Best, it should be Earth ham. From Virginia. Or Kerry."

Pattipong goggled. "I didn't know you had ever been to Earth!" Raschid looked perplexed. "I—haven't. I think."

Then it was Raschid's turn to goggle. "Dingiswayo—the way you just talked."

"Normally, you mean? I slipped. Normal too much trouble. Talk too much trouble. Like eggs. Just hot air. Besides… talk short, people think you not understand. They more careful in asking what they want. Not careful in saying what they think you not understand.

"And around here," Pattipong said, lapsing into a full speech pattern, "you need all the edge you can get."

That was true. The spaceport's traffic may have been light, but there were still stevedores, sailors, whores, and everyday villains looking for amusement—which was often defined as laying odds on how long it would take someone to bleed to death in a gutter. Pattipong kept a long, unsheathed knife hidden under the pay counter.

Raschid went back to his recipe. The browned ham was put in a warming oven. He had femon juice, red pepper, a touch of salt, and three egg yolks waiting in a blender. He melted butter in a small pan. Then his mental timer went on. Muffins toasted… eggs went into boiling water to poach… the muffins were ready… ham went on top of the muffins… two and a half minutes exactly, and the eggs were plopped on top of the ham.

He flipped the blender on and poured molten butter into the mixture. After the count of twenty, he turned the blender off and poured the hollandaise sauce over the eggs.

"Voila, Sr. Pattipong."

Pattipong gingerly sampled.

"Not bad," he said grudgingly. "But eggs."

Raschid tried them on a customer, a sailor drunk enough to be experimental. The man sampled, looked surprised, and inhaled the plate, then ordered a second plate. He swore it sobered him up—now he was ready to start all over again.

"Like sobriety pill? Maybe great invention. Cure diseases. Sell through mail."

"Clot off," Raschid snorted.

The sailor came back the next day—with six friends.

The port police started dropping by around lunchtime. For some reason, Raschid felt uncomfortable—with no idea why. They ate, of course, on the cuff. Lunch was no longer slow.

Raschid came up with other dishes: something he called chili, and something he called "nuked hen." He convinced Pattipong that the customers wanted something more than the bland, airport/diner standard dishes Pattipong had previously featured on the menu.

"You talk. I listen. I do. Make curry. Curry like mother made. Customers try—I laugh. Get revenge for all yata-yata-yata talk all time." '

Pattipong's curry may not have been quite that lethal—but it was nominated.

"Know why I listen to you?" Pattipong asked.

He waved an arm out of the serving window. Raschid looked out at the dining area. It was packed. Pattipong had even put tables and chairs out on the sidewalk. Raschid knew that they had been getting busier, but he really hadn't realized just how much. The crowd was different. There were still the bruisers and brawlers, but Raschid saw suits and some uniformed port authorities, as well. There were even two orange-robed members of the Cult of the Eternal Emperor. For some reason, they made him just as uncomfortable as the policemen did—also for equally unknown reasons.

"Last Blast now hot place to go. Walk wild side… eat good. It last for while. Then they find new place. Happen before. Happen again. Hard thing to remember. Not expand. Not drive old customers away.