Minda Webber - Bustin'

"I won't." She hugged Myles, loving him for being his usual goofy but caring self. He had been a fixture in her life for as long as she could remember, and in spite of his living out every 1940s Bogart movie, she wouldn't have it any other way. Family was family. And if they didn't love her, who would?

Sam had gotten an early start on her trip to Prince Varinski's castle, dubbed Mandelay. After a three-hour drive, she found herself headed up the winding gravel path to the castle. Staring out her window she took in the beauty of the place: dark green lawns with huge flowering rhododendrons, large shaggy bushes sculpting themselves against the gray-black rocks of the coastal cliff, and gnarled trees twisted by the sea's high-saline winds lined the background.

Ahead of her the massive castle, four stories tall, was isolated on a tall cliff overlooking the ocean. The gray stone was covered with ivy that wrapped its tenacious tentacles onto the stone like a lover's embrace. Built back in the 1880s, this was a standing monument to the wealth of the Gilded Age.

"Nice homey little place. If home happens to have twenty kids and twenty sets of grandparents," she muttered to herself. Still, Sam had to admit that she was a little surprised, as she had been expecting something more along the lines of Frankenstein's castle.

When the butler opened the door, her impression of the place was again one of vastness and wealth. The floor was white marble with deep blue veins. The walls were also stone, with magnificent tapestries in place and an odd can of chicken soup splashed here and there. She didn't have to be a genius to know that Evil Andy the Spook had been hard at work.

The butler was a retiring man in his sixties. He had a spare frame and was dressed to the nines in a dark suit with a white shirt and a very starched collar. He looked very nifty, Sam observed.

"I'm Mr. Belvedere," he informed her.

After a lot of lying and false smiles, the butler seemed to accept her explanation that she was the Prince's latest squeeze. In fact, the butler seemed delighted to finally meet someone connected so intimately with the Prince. It seemed he had yet to meet his new employer.

Sam was shown to a spacious bedroom on the second floor of the castle with a lovely ocean view of rocky coastline and foamy white waves. Taking in the view, she allowed a big grin to cover her face as she congratulated herself on her deception. Just wait until Nicolas "client-stealer" Strakhov found out that she had scooped him on this phantom pest parade! She'd bet the sneaky Slav would be green with envy, and she couldn't help but wish to be a fly on the wall or an invisible woman when he discovered her deceit.

Leaving her room, Sam discovered more signs of the brush-wielding bogey. It seemed Andy had been a busy little ghost. Not that it took much detecting skill. Huge cans of soup were painted haphazardly all around the castle. Sam shook her head. Andy wasn't much of an artist.

Familiarizing herself with the grand old residence, she finally found herself in the castle kitchen, where the cook Mrs. McCutcheon was busy creating a masterpiece of a cake with chocolate cream frosting. Sam smiled. Anything with chocolate was a masterpiece to her way of thinking.

Within minutes she and the cook—"Rebecca"—were good friends, and Sam sat down to tea. She also got a piece of that marvelous cake. After savoring the first few bites, Sam got down to business: "I hear you've been having a few problems with an apparition named Jules."

Rebecca McCutcheon groaned. "That ghost is a monster! He's also a cocky, crabby chauvinist chef," the cook added bitterly. "He believes that a man's place is in the kitchen and a woman's place is to peel his potatoes. He's also jealous of my pastry-making."

Sam had to agree. This lady had a way with desserts. "So, give me the scoop. What does Jules do and when does he show up?" She could tell that this was just more than a cook and wine steward's sour grapes and cooking envy.

"He throws food, curses in French, guzzles the wine, makes the pots and pans fly," Rebecca explained angrily. "He is an evil ghost. An evil ghost, banging his pots and pans and making my sauces boil over, while he flies around the room swigging sauvignons. And I make a much better quiche," she added smugly.

"Horrible. The fiend." Sam didn't really see a major tragedy, but if the cook wanted to bellyache, Sam would let her. After all, everything was relative in life. What was one cook's demon could be another's devil food cake.

"That fraudulent foreign chef makes the milk go sour in the cream for my pastries. It's tragic. Tragic ," the woman complained tersely, her pretty round face red with indignation.

Sam nodded politely. She had seen other ghosts do much worse things than throwing temper fits with food and pans or getting soused on good wine, but then again this wasn't her kitchen and Sam hated it herself when milk went sour. There was always that first bitter, surprised gulp, followed quickly by a curse and milk spewing everywhere. Still, there was no use crying over the stuff.

"That idiot thinks he's so special, since he studied in France. Like a Frenchman's taste buds are better than my own hardy Irish stock. He's always bon appétit-ing me. As if I'm too stupid to know what that snooty spectral is doing when he ruins my food or what he's saying in the meanwhile."

Suddenly, the cook began speaking in French. Sam watched in fascinated amusement as the woman got her Irish up, but she couldn't tell what the cook was spouting since she didn't speak any foreign language except goblin. She also didn't know if the cook was repeating the ghostly chauvinist chef's curses or simply showing off her knowledge of a foreign language.

"English, please," she suggested.

"Sorry. Sometimes I forget myself. But I am so angry. That madman of a spook won't leave my utensils alone. Sometimes I see him with a bottle of wine and a ladling spoon. Sometimes I see him with his faux chef's cap. Sometimes I find pastry cooling on the cabinet shelves—pastry I didn't prepare. The ghost is a fiend. Imagine, leaving his pastry to cool on my shelves? His favorite is chocolate-covered éclairs, but he uses too much cinnamon," the cook confided.

Sam's mouth had begun watering. Perhaps she could entice Chef Jules to spend a few months at the old Hammett home. Her brother was a decent cook, but he still didn't do desserts.

Helping herself to another small slice of cake, she quickly took another bite, closing her eyes in ecstasy as she tasted the sensual softness of the creamy frosting. Eating chocolate was her favorite activity, even more than making love or riding dragons.

"I don't know what I'll do when the Prince arrives. What will he think when the kitchen is covered in potatoes au gratin and cream puffs with green slime? That temperamental menace even throws grapes!"

"Ah, the grapes of wraiths. Unfortunately I've seen that before." The image wasn't a pretty one, not Sam's ideal decorations. "Perhaps I might talk with Jules. I have some experience in ghostly manifestations," she bragged slightly.

"You do?" Rebecca McCutcheon's voice was full of admiration and awe. Her assistant, Beverly, a girl in her early twenties, with a lush figure, quickly joined the adoration society.

Sam explained briefly a few of the things she could do to handle the temperamental chef. When she was done, she checked up on the other situations. She left with an earful from the cook's assistant about Rasputin. Of all the ghosts he was the worst, which wasn't a big surprise to Sam. In life Rasputin had been evil; she doubted death had sweetened his disposition.