Nasty Bits Part 8

He was going to lose the house, Marvin just knew, the certain knowledge sitting like an indigestible, malignant lum~ halfway down his esophagus. When the house went, his wife would go too. He hadn't let on how deeply in trouble he really was. Things were bad enough, he'd thought, without having to hear about it at home too. She'd divorce hima"go for full custody, of coursea"and the no-doubt wildly expensive lawyer she'd hire off the society pages would get it for her too. Easily. (On the basis of the regrettable "hostess incident" a while back.) She'd get half of what was left, after everybody else piled on. After the banks, the vendors, the credit card companies, the lawyers, accountants, the IRS, state, city, and marshals had finished stripping away what a.s.sets they could. And what about Christmas? It was torture coming to work every morning. The decorations, the lights, the Santas on Fifth Avenue were an affront, a reminder of obligations and impossibilities. His kids for instance. Melissa, the eldest, had been agitating for a pony. James, his son, wanted a wide-screen plasma TV and an Xbox. The bottle of Cutty and the gift box of promo goodies from the meat company definitely were not going to be enough for the wife.

And where was Rob?

Things hadn't turned out too badly for Rob, Marvin thought. He'd parlayed his 60-percent food cost and 40-percent labor cost into that most desirable state of affairs (for a working-cla.s.s kid from Revere, Ma.s.s., anyway): He was now, truly and certifiably, a "celebrity chef." Rob Holland: The name was never mentioned anymore without being preceded by the two other words, celebrity and chef. Two words that, as far as Marvin was concerned, should never go together. Young Rob, always in the news now, on the covers of the trade mags, in the glossy foodie journals, and, increasingly, in the lifestyle-fashion rags. He had a pose, a way he always held his head for the photographers, that Marvin was coming to hate. It was that look with cheeks sucked in, chin tilted slightly, head shading to the left, that was starting to drive Marvin crazy. Of course, behind the pancake makeup Rob wasn't looking so hot either. His various business ventures weren't going so well. The places in Boston and Philly (with other partners) weren't working out with the locals and Marvin had just heard that the partners were suing him. The airport deals had been a disaster. I mean, who wants a ca.s.soulet of f.u.c.king monkfish before they get on a shuttle to f.u.c.king Washington? Marvin had further heard that Rob's wifea"his seconda"was leaving him. No surprise there. Rob's social life needed a flow chart to fully comprehend it. Marvin had seen Rob's cookbook on the remainder pile at Barnes &c n.o.ble on sale for nine ninety-five right next to a mountain of poor-me memoirs, inspirationals from disgraced CEOs, and picture books of Gus the polar bear. And as badly as he seemed to want it, as hard as he tried, they still wouldn't let Rob on television. Not with his own show, anyway.

The thing was, the restaurant business was very forgiving of chefs who walk away from a high-profile failure but not so forgiving of owners. A chef's place goes under and he can just walk across the street and there will be a whole gaggle of knuckleheads waiting to give him more money. As a chef, Marvin was beginning to suspect, it was not only possible to fail upward, but maybe even desirable. No doubt, in a year's time the same companies who now refused to ship to Saint Germain would be cheerfully extending Rob thirty-day credita" bygones be bygonesa"while banks and lawyers and government agencies would still be bending Marvin over a sawhorse an probing rudely for a.s.sets.

In a terrible moment of paranoia, Marvin wondered if thi was what Rob had planned all along. A big, expensive flop. ^ loss leader for Rob Holland Incorporated? All those cooks, th 60-percent food cost; maybe the p.r.i.c.k had never had an intention of making the nut at Saint Germain. Maybe the whole enterprise, Marvin's investment, his house, his fortune, ha all been an offering to the restaurant G.o.ds, a springboard t bigger and better things. Maybe the whole idea had been fo Saint Germain to fail slowly, a glorious failurea"but a failurea" while Rob rose in the world, stepping adroitly over Marvin's eviscerated corpse on the way to greater glory. That woul explain a lot.

While Marvin was in the front of the house nursing his drink, back in the kitchen at Saint Germain, the mood was even uglier Paul Kelly, Rob's chef de cuisine, had just broken the bad new: to the crew, all of whom sat on the cutting boards of their work stations, looking very unhappy.

"What the f.u.c.k you meana"no Christmas bonuses?! That's bulls.h.i.t, man! That's totally f.u.c.ked up!" said Kevin, the saucier. He pounded his fist against the stainless-steel worktable and shook his head back and forth.

"No way" insisted Thierry, the highly paid patissier who Ro had lured away from an uptown four-star. "Zees is boolsheet!

Mich.e.l.le didn't say anything. She just hopped off her board and began wiping down her station. That really worried Paul as he suspected that Mich.e.l.le, being not only the best of the cooks but also the smartest, knew that any wailing and whining was useless and that there was truly nothing to be done. He tried to make eye contact, read her expression. They were close, after all. They'd even slept together once, and stayed friends afterward. But Mich.e.l.le avoided his gaze. The cat was on the roof, Paul decided. She'd already made up her mind. A week, two weeks from now and she'd be giving notice. You can't bulls.h.i.t her. She knew about this business.

Manuel, Juan, Omar, Jaime, and Rigobertoa"the Puebla Possea"said nothing. They weren't going anywhere. They'd been with Rob since the beginning, were well paid and well appreciated, and, most importantly, had been f.u.c.ked over so many other times at so many other places they were used to it, and probably saw it all as inevitable. G.o.d love them, thought Paul. When I die, I want to come back as a Mexican, a Poblano, a f.u.c.king grown-up. As the familiar smell of Terminal Restaurant Syndrome gathered about the room, who better deserved to go home to their families with fat bonus checks than these guys? Paul hated himself for the dishonesty of the situation. He would have loved to have just said, "Okay, vatos! El restaurante esta finite. Grab a stove! Grab a freezer! Manuel? You get the Pacojeta"let's sell this s.h.i.t off before the consultants and the marshals get here! Vamanos! I recommend the crystal. Don't waste your time on the pinchay camarones!" But he couldn't do that. Once again the skipper of a sinking ship, he had to keep the crew at their stations.

So he gave the standard inspirational "don't worry, things will turn around" speech, complete with general hints and expressions of future goodwill. He did the best he could to look like he believed it, then slunk off to Rob's office to sulk with a c.o.c.ktail.

"Chef de Cuisine: Paul Kelly" was what it said on the bottom of every menua"right below the words "Executive Chef: Rob Holland." Rob, he knew, had put that there as a way of acknowledging that it was Paul who did all the work, that it was Paul who was likely to be there should a customer ask to see the chef, Paul who did the ordering, the expediting, the scheduling, the setting of specials, and, increasingly, the dirty work of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g people over when circ.u.mstances required. He lied to purveyors, telling them that the check was on its way; lied to customers who asked if Rob was around, replying "He just stepped out a few minutes ago" when, of course, he hadn't seen Rob in days. He lied to the food mags and VIPs, loyally insisting that "the chef designs every facet of the menu" and that he "supervises every detail"; and, increasingly, he lied to the cooks. He lied every time he told them that things were okay, that they were "just having a few slow weeks." This was what a chef de cuisine did, after all, wasn't it?

When he found himself bridling at the prospect of committing some new outrage on behalf of Rob Holland Incorporated, Paul liked to picture himself as loyal underboss, with Rob as capo. You did what you had to do. Once in, never out. Semper fi, Cosa Nostra forever. Someday, he'd have his own chef de cuisine and would leave the scrounging, the hustling, the lying, the bloodletting, and the bulk of the cooking, to him. That was the way it was. That was the way it would always be.

He didn't mind toiling in obscurity. That wasn't the hard part. He didn't need his name on the d.a.m.n menu. When he and Rob had started out at Red House, a thirty-five-seat storefront with no liquor license on the Lower East Side, it had been just the two of them and a dishwasher. Rob had worked saute, Paul was at the grill. When things got jammed, the dishwasher would step in and help plate the veggies. The kitchen had been cramped, swelteringly hot, and caked with ancient dirt. Roaches had streamed through every crack in the grease-browned walls and the floor behind the ranges, and the dishwasher hadn't been cleaned in thirty years. But Paul had never felt so pure.

Merry Motherf.u.c.king Christmas, thought Paul, squeezing his temples between thumb and forefinger. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, he thought. Poor me. Poor Rob, even. Rob, who only wanted to be loved. Paul didn'ta"just couldn'ta"hold Rob's rather meteoric rise against him. Okay, maybe he wasn't the greatest chef in the world. But he was a good cook. And to Paul, that was what mattered. As silly and as sad as all Rob's social climbing, star-f.u.c.king, and a.s.s-crawling might be: the TV Boot Camp where Rob had a.s.siduously studied the fine art of simultaneously cooking and being telegenically charming, the dermabrasion to remove the evidence of an adolescent bout with acne, the ever-changing hair styles, one day straight, one day spiky, and suspiciously fuller these days at the crown (Jesus! Was he getting plugs?), the voice coach, the elocution lessons, the personal trainer, the constant sucking up to those miserable f.u.c.king shakedown artists at the Inst.i.tute for Fine Food. Where were they now?

Paul winced, thinking of all the whoring they'd done together, all the times Rob had put on his smile and floated and sucked up to Mortimer Hitchc.o.c.k, the egotistical reviewer-slash-professional extortionist who published the ubiquitous. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k Guide to Restaurants. More free food. More command performances at ridiculous charity events designed to do nothing more charitable than pump more gaseous air into Hitchc.o.c.k's already bloated ego. An eight-cylinder hoodlum in the guise of an erudite diner, his face absolutely wriggling with corruptiona"he could probably teach the Genovese crime family something about coercion. Taste of Tribeca. Taste of Times Square. Taste of Gramercy Park. The ludicrous and thankfully short-lived "Res-taurantgoer's Manifesto," an attempt by the loathsome author publisher to elevate his status to more Jeffersonian heights. And Food Week! More bite-size portions of free food, more freebies. Chefs all around the city had to dumb down their menus, discount chicken or salmon for a bunch of cheap, useless shut-ins in cat-hair-covered skirts and basketball sneakers who'd just as soon be sucking down the early-bird special. What was that line in Taxi Driver} "Someday a big red tide is gonna come and wash them all away"? Paul hoped so.

Jesus it was hard. It was probably hard being Rob Holland, who'd had to figuratively (or literally) French kiss all of them. Paul, though he'd been working without a day off, sixteen or seventeen hours a day, for three months while Rob worked the room, took day trips to the Hamptons and Aspen and Paris, wouldn't have traded places with him for any amount of money or fame. He just couldn't summon any animosity. Because Rob could cook. Because even now there was something of a little boy in Rob, so desperate for affection and respect, a yearning, Paul thought, for the day when the kid from Revere could look at himself in the mirror and be happy and proud of what he saw there.

He did, however, resent that it had been left to him to break the news about the bonus situation. It made him feel even more complicit in all the madness and stupidity. And Christmas. It had to be Christmas. He sat there, holding his head, feeling like a Vichy French shopkeepera"in bed with the enemy. Where was Rob? He wished he were here now to rea.s.sure the crew, to inspire the troops at this particularly desperate moment, to send them home proud, still eager to return tomorrow. Rob could make them feel that they were doing G.o.d's work, that things would turn out okay. Rob could have talked to them all and it would have been better somehow.

Where was Rob? Right now? Where was America's s.e.xiest chef?

In the filthy, fetid locker room where the cooks and waiters changed at the end of their shifts, the kitchen crew lingered uncharacteristically long. Usually they performed what minimal ablutions they thought necessary before rejoining the civilian population: a quick washing of hands, a perfunctory scrubbing of armpits, a heavy application of deodorant or patchouli, a little foot powder into the socks, maybe some gel in the haira"then away with the food-encrusted clogs and the knife rolls and the pilfered stacks of side towels stuffed into the bin with the checked pants, ap.r.o.ns, chef coats, and they were gone. They did not drink at the Saint Germain bar. No employees at the bar was the rule, even on days off. As Rob had pointed out many times and in typical style, "Who wants a bunch of smelly cooks talking loudly and indiscreetly a few stools down from them? Who among even the most foodie of foodies really wants to rub shoulders with the people who actually cook their f.u.c.king meal? n.o.body. That would destroy the illusion! Motherf.u.c.kers wanna picture a bunch of smiling industrious movie Frenchmen back there. Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, Charles Freaking Boyer in a motherf.u.c.kin' ap.r.o.n. They want to think that I, the chef, am back there laying hands on every d.a.m.n meal, personallya"every d.a.m.n side of veg. Believe me, they do not want to see your debauched, b.u.t.t-ugly, cholo, white-trash faces a.s.sociated in even the most subliminal way with anything they put in their mouths. It's like the bathroom, right? I'm an owner. I could p.i.s.s in the dining room if I wanted to, roll right up on table twelve and take a nice long leak right into the potted plant there, but you notice? I sit in that hotbox downstairs and do my business under the petrified s...o...b..a.l.l.s and the graffiti just like you. Why? It's not some kind of democratic solidarity s.h.i.t or anything, me demonstrating I'm still like some kind of man of the people. It's because the very last thing the customer wants to see is the chef coming out of the John. In the customer's mind, I never take a dump. That's the way they want it, brothers and sisters. Don't matter I come out of that door with my hands glowing pink and dripping from a vigorous washing, they do not want to think about that. They see me and they see a bathroom? The illusion is destroyed. Reality intrudes. First rule? Cooks don't exist except in the mind. Rule two? The chef may be an a.s.sholea"but he does not own one." That was Cla.s.sic Rob.

Tonight, the cooks were not running out the door like they were escaping from a burning building as they usually did. Tonight, most remained. The Poblanos left at their usual pace, wry smiles and knowing looks for those staying as they disappeared off to Queens en ma.s.se. They'd been through this before. Let the silly gabachos fret over the inevitable. Shift was over. Not another minute to be wasted here. Let the foolish norteamericano youths spend their hard-earned money on overpriced drinks, while surrounded by unlistenable music, talking all the while about trabajo, putas, the bosses, los pilotes. Time was precious and they'd spent absolutely enough of it already in the Saint Germain kitchen thank you very much.

Mich.e.l.le, in sweat-stained sports bra and checked work pants, recognized the look the Poblanos gave them as they pa.s.sed through in single file as nothing less than pity.

"Zees is an abomination," complained Thierrya"for about the tenth time in ten minutes.

"How long you been with the company, Thierry?" asked Mich.e.l.le, annoyed. "Four f.u.c.king months? Only a communist cheese monkey like you would expect full bennies after four months. What? They're not paying you enough? Are your checks bouncing or something? Suck it up, b.i.t.c.h. You got no rights."

"Eet is not right," muttered Thierry, who was already planning on calling his mother in France from the kitchen phone to complain about this latest injustice, this latest outrage from the detestable Americans. "I don" care what you say. In Francea""

Mich.e.l.le cut him off, "In France, you'd be working a split shift at some s.h.i.thole patisserie in some s.h.i.thole little village in the f.u.c.king mountains, making lopsided motherf.u.c.king tarte au pomme and sweeping the floor after your mom, okay? Suck my d.i.c.k with that 'een France' s.h.i.t."

"Man's correct for a change. It's not right," said Kevin. He'd worked at Saint Germain from the beginning, wrestling ranges and equipment in the front door, struggling through the near disaster of the "soft" opening, working loyally, tirelessly at the saute end, his attention to every tiny brunoise of carrot or leek the same as if he'd been defusing a live nuke, and this, this was the thanks he got. The previous year the standard bonus had been a week's pay. He had counted on the same this year. He had bills to pay. The overpriced apartment in Dumbo, the money he owed to his X dealer, the cable TV, the high-speed Internet connection, credit card payments for the presents he'd bought for his little brother back in Cleveland, his girlfriend, his mom and dad. He'd overspent, counting on that bonus, wanting to impress, and now he was in the s.h.i.t. It was f.u.c.king Christmas, man! What was he supposed to do now? "This blows," was all he could muster. He sat there shirtless and forlorn, tugging on the fuzzy little soul patch on his chin and chewing nervously on the filbert-size silver tongue stud that deformed his speech slightly, then finally added, "f.u.c.ked up. Tha.s.s all I gotta say. This is fuuucked up."

Billy, the commis-saucier, said nothing. His situation was somewhat more desperate than that of his colleagues, he guessed, as he was already two months behind on his rent and the Christian-rock band he shared a Hoboken apartment with had been making some very un-Christian noises of late, labeling their containers of yogurt in the refrigerator and even suggesting they might throw him out on the street if he didn't come up with rent, and soon. He looked around the room, trying to discern who might be most sympathetic to his plight. Who might be inclined to lend him money, maybe let him crash on their couch for a while. Thierry? Forgetabout it. He was French. Kevin? Maybe, though he didn't look too sympathetic now, tossing a spinning boning knife into the air again and again and catching it by the handle. Mich.e.l.le? She'd turn him down cold. He .was out of his league there and he knew it. He barely felt equal to the task of talking to her. Jimbo the garde-manger was a possibility, but Billy suspected he was gay. (There was no other explanationa"in Billy's minda"for the music he liked to listen to in the kitchen. No, no way. He'd rather move back to Minneapolis than have to wake up to that music.) "We got a pretty desperate situation here, carnales" said Leon, the pastry a.s.sistant. He liked to think he spoke Spanish, though the Mexicans nearly p.i.s.sed themselves laughing every time he tried. "This puppy is closing, man. Finita la f.u.c.king musica. Stick in a fork, papi chulo, turn us over 'cause we are done. This place is going down."

"What do you think?" asked Kevin quietly, turning to Mich.e.l.le. "How long do you think we have? I mean, we're on COD already. The dining room is f.u.c.king dead. How long till the checks start bouncing? How long till I gotta find a new job?"

All Mich.e.l.le said was, "you do what you gotta do," then she kicked off her pants and struggled into her jeans. She'd been faxing out resumes for a month already, and with January coming up fast, when every cook in New York who'd been burned out by the holiday season or become p.i.s.sed at the size of their Christmas bonus or other perceived slight would be looking for work at the same time and at the same places, most of which would already be laying off seasonal help. Situation not good. Closing imminent. The only places that had responded to her fax either wouldn't come up with the kind of money she wanted or, on further examination, were themselves already fast-approaching death. There was no point jumping from one sinking ship to another. She looked over at Leon and wondered if he could be trusted to keep the engine of a getaway car running long enough to get in and out with the take at a mom-and-pop liquor store, something she'd done briefly with some success with her old boyfriend back in her junkie days (she still had the jerk's chrome-plated Airweight .38 in her underwear drawer). She quickly banished such idle foolishness from her shrinking list of possibilities. The old boyfriend was in an upstate prison for exactly that kind of nonsense and Leon, sweet kid that he was, was too dumb to get out of his own way much less partic.i.p.ate in an armed robbery.

Kevin finished dressing, sprayed himself in a cloud of musk, and headed for the door, muttering, as he pa.s.sed Mich.e.l.le, "G.o.d bless usa"every f.u.c.king one."

Where was Rob} Mich.e.l.le wondered if he had a Plan B. There had to be a Plan B, right? He wouldn't, couldn't just be taking this lying down. Rob was an ambitious young man and a smart one, smarter, she thought, than his abjectly needy, neurotic behavior would lead one to believe. She'd gone home with him once. Mich.e.l.le remembered the incongruous details: the wall of books and old jazz records, prints on the wall that betrayed a somewhat more complex character than one would have expected solely from seeing his mug in the magazines or listening to him at the bar. It was too bad he was so awful on television, when television seemed to be what he really wanted.

And he was awful. Nothing helped. Not the hair, not the voice coaches, the media training, format changes, nothing. The TV people had even conducted focus groups, dragooning unemployed loners from every demographic into dark screening rooms, trying to solve the problem of Why America's s.e.xiest Chef Sucked On TV. When the cameras turned on, Rob stood 2-54.

there like a hapless lox, swallowing his words, moping uncomfortably like a downbeat Eddie Haskell, exuding nothing of the charm or the ability he conveyed in the kitchen, the dining room, or face to face over a shot of tequila and a beer. That he was a brilliant cook meant, of course, nothing on television. The focus groups deemed him adequately "likeable," but he scored low in the "sincere" category. He had no schtick to speak of. No catch phrase. He refused to have a sidekick or to submit to a band or some cranked-up hyperactive studio audience or even a funny sock puppet. The last thing the television audience of Bible thumpers, widows, spinsters, and h.o.r.n.y divorcees (deemed likely to tune in by the pollsters) cared about, really, was how to make a lemongra.s.s-infused grilled octopus salad with Thai basil vinaigrette and pancetta lardons. h.e.l.l, most of them lived a few hundred miles from the nearest pancetta and would probably rather toss off a rabid jackelope bare-handed than let octopus anywhere near their mouths. So where was he}} It was no longer unusual for Rob to not be around, to have gone off on "research" trips to the Napa Valley or France, a book tour, a foodie symposium, golf weekends, or just to hole up in some f.u.c.k-shack with whoever he was doing lately. But it was unlike him to stay away for so long, especially when the situation was so desperate. Mich.e.l.le finished dressing and poked her head in the office, where she found Paul at the desk, staring blankly at a spreading water stain on the acoustic tile on the ceiling.

"Paul," she said, "has he called? Does he know what's going on?"

"He knows," said Paul.

"What does he say about all this?"

"I haven't heard from him in a couple of days," admitted Paul. "Two days ago, he said he was coming in. He said he had to talk to me. Since then? I ain't heard s.h.i.t. He doesn't answer the phone. There's n.o.body at his house and his cell phone goes right to voice mail. I just don't knowa""

"Where could he be?"

Paul just shrugged. "Lissen, okay?" he said, lowering his voice, "it's not just here, all right? The whole f.u.c.king empire is going down. He's got bigger problems than just this place." Paul turned his gaze to the bulletin board on the office wall. Between price quotes from produce companies, a calendar with a wine company's logo, cooks' schedules, and a fuzzy faxed photo of the New York Times food critic, was an old snapshot of Rob and Paul, standing out front of Red House: two young men, looking c.o.c.ky and triumphant in snap-front dishwasher shirts, brandishing their knives and grimacing for the camera. Red House had been the place chefs ate after work! All twelve tables were constantly booked! They had been the toast of the town . . .

Things were different now, he thought. Turning slowly to Mich.e.l.le, he asked her for a cigarette, lit it, took a deep draw, and sat back in his chair. "I know where he's going to be tomorrow," he said. "Get somebody to cover for you until nine. We'll go and get him."

The Hitchc.o.c.k Annual Christmas Party was in full swing at the Turgeson Galleries in Chelsea. An entire floor of industrial s.p.a.ce had been set aside for the event. In the center of the room, an enormous ice carving of a letter H kindly provided by Tavern on the Green melted slowly into a bed of crushed ice and seaweed. Behind it, two uniformed oyster shuckers from the Grand Central Oyster Bar, dispatched at the last minute after a late-night request heavy with implicit threat and promise, opened littleneck clams, Wellfleet oysters, and sea urchins from a not-characteristically-so-generous seafood company. Cooks from a cross-section of New York restaurants struggled to keep up with the hungry partygoers, arranging tiny sculpted portions of intricately garnished food on paper plates and decorating them with squeeze bottles, tiny heaps of frizzled vegetables, and truffle chips, while their chefs looked nervously on in their best embroidered finery with pained rictuses of smiles st.i.tched across their faces. A charcuterie and provisions company had come through with twin towers of Armagnac-soaked foie gras-stuffed prunes, pate a.s.sortments, galantines, and sausages, and a cook seared tiny packages of feuille de brie pastry filled with duck rillettes on a hot plate.

Rob Holland, dressed as Santa Claus (though without wig or beard), posed for photographs with giggly female Hitchc.o.c.k staffers and their mothers. He was drunk and smelled of old lady.

"And what do you want, little girl?" he managed to say, as yet another blushing a.s.sistant from the ad sales department squirmed sweatily on his lap. Jesus, she had her legs apart on his thigh, was rubbing herself on his red polyester-clad upper leg while her pink-blotched mom snapped a photo. This was the final straw, Rob was thinking. Free food, fine. Reservations at the last second, sure. Sending over some hors d'oeuvres for his c.o.c.ktail parties, kiss the ring. Reasonable. Hook him up with a Viking range or a Sub-Zero at cost (or better), all right, why not? It sucked, but this is the business we chose. And he is the all-powerful one who must be pleased at all costs. How this latest outrage would forestall what was clearly shaping up to be the inevitable, however, Rob didn't know. He'd agreed to do it when the despotic entrepreneur had last been in Saint Germain for dinner. Hovering cheerfully at the table after the last course had been served, fussing and flattering Hitchc.o.c.k for the benefit of his guests (two future victims, no doubt), Rob had been too surprised, too horrified, too pressed against the wall to give what should have been a flat "no" followed probably by two kicks in the groin. He'd found himself saying, to his surprise, that yes, yes he'd be delighted to play Santa at the annual Hitchc.o.c.k Christmas party. Of course he would.

It had taken a half bottle of vodka to get him past his bathroom mirror in the Santa suit: floppy peaked cap with white pom-pom, oversize red coat with fluffy white trim, red pants with black synthetic boots that were made of the same material as a child's Halloween costume. This was it, thought Rob, as a cruiserweight-size a.s.sistant editor took her place on his lap and a gaggle of girlfriends snapped her photo. The wait between pressing the b.u.t.ton and the blinding flash seemed always to take forever. Rob was already drunk. Spots swarmed around in his eyes, making it even harder to focus on what was happening in the rest of the room. The other chefs were no doubt snickering up their sleeves at his sorry predicament. Oh Jesus, oh G.o.d, please make it stop, he was thinking. Where is my f.u.c.king Santa Claus? Who will save my pitiable restaurant? How will I escape this headlong rush to shame, embarra.s.sment, disappointment, and ruin? Is this the bottom of the barrel? How much lower can I go? Rob pictured himself flogging Ronco garlic presses at mall openings, doing infomercials for fat-free grills, print ads for Lomotil and Kaopectate. No. It could not possibly get worse than this.

"f.u.c.k it!" he said suddenly, unsure if it was he who had said it. He stood up, nearly upending an approaching office manager, and lurched toward the bar. He saw a worried Hitchc.o.c.k shoot him a look, but he ignored it, making straight for the bar, where two well-built young men in tight-fitting black T-shirts and elf hats served martinis donated by a liquor company.

"Give Santa a f.u.c.king vodka mart," he snarled, pushing between two representatives of a suburban shopper newspaper. "Santa needs a drinka"or he'll put a cl.u.s.ter bomb up your chimney." When the drink arrived, he knocked over a bowl of taro chips but managed to negotiate the thin-stemmed gla.s.s, draining the drink in one gulp and quickly demanding another.

At some point someone, he wasn't sure who, put a hand on his shoulder, suggesting in the kind of tones you use with a recalcitrant child that he once more take his place in Santa's North Pole workshop. He responded by balling up his fist inside the black polyurethane Santa glove and slamming it as hard as he could into somebody's face.

After that, there had been some jostling and struggling. He would later recall that he might have reacted badly, responding with some additional moves of his own, possibly a kick or two here and there and maybe a few blows, before he was wrestled to the ground and beaten and kicked by headset-wearing security goons who were most definitely not in the spirit of the season as they frog-marched him to the door and shoved him onto the freight elevator. That he vomited on himself at some point was without dispute, as the evidence was now spread across his red and white coat and wide black belt. As career moves go, thought Rob, sagging inexorably to the floor as the freight elevator began its descent, this had not been a good night.

"Dude! Wake up!" came the voice. Rob opened his eye, the one that did open (the other had swollen shut after contact with an elbow), and saw Paul and Mich.e.l.le, looking down at him. "What the f.u.c.k happened to you, bro?" The two grabbed him under his arms and managed to haul him to his feet before half dragging him to the street.

"Rob!" said Mich.e.l.le. "For Chrissakes. Wipe your mouth! You're drooling!"

It was snowing hard outside, the large flakes burning cold when they landed on his skin. They were big and fat and slow-moving and they were everywhere, swirling and drifting slowly around him, collecting in heaps as the plows made their first forays down the streets and the shop owners cleared their sidewalks. The black plastic boots had no traction at all. Rob's feet slipped out from under him again and again, finally forcing Paul and Mich.e.l.le to sit him up as best they could in the service entrance of a clothing store. As he slipped into unconsciousness again, Rob heard the distorted tones of "Jingle Bells" playing from a damaged speaker and glimpsed an unhappy-looking Pakistani, also in a Santa suit, handing out flyers for the clothing store's Christmas sale at the corner. The two locked eyes in a brief second, a shared moment of misery.

"So, genius," said Paul. "What now?"

Mich.e.l.le had never in her life been an optimist. Her faith in her fellow man had generally, up to this point, extended only to what she could see with her own eyes. Given inadequate scrutiny and half a chance she'd found, after years in professional kitchens, and more than enough unhappy relationships with men, that people will inevitably disappoint you. She had, she thought, comfortably reconciled herself to this, careful at all times to have low expectations. But looking down at Rob's unconscious face, his eyes closed and without expression or care, blissfully snoring as "Jingle Bells" played on and on, the snow-flakes beginning to collect on his lashes, she found herself thinking how sweet he looked, how strangely innocent he'd once been. She remembered the first time she'd met him. Just a quick h.e.l.lo between orders at Red House, where she'd had to poke her head into the kitchen to greet the people who'd prepared what had been a spectacular meal. He'd been distracted. His eyes had swept right across her face without registering. He'd managed a "Nice to meet you" before hurrying back behind the single six-burner range to rescue an order of skate gren.o.bloise. It had been all about the food then. She'd recognized that look.

They could leave him like this. It might serve him right. Could be a much-deserved wake-up call, coming to in a doorway in a puke-stained Santa suit. But he looked so abjectly helpless, didn't he, so f.u.c.king adorable lying there in that ridiculous outfit, snow collecting on his chest and legs like something out of d.i.c.kens. She could take him home. Drop him in a hot tub. Feed him hot cocoa with marshmallows. Or she could draw the word a.s.shole on his forehead with red lipstick and leave him to possible hypothermia and a "Page Six" item. She looked at Paul, saw the fatigue, the worry, the disgust in his facea"the look she'd seen in so many good cooks' faces over the years when faith and hope had begun to ebb. And then she had an idea.

"I know what to do," she said. "Hail a cab and help me pick his sorry a.s.s up. America's s.e.xiest chef is gonna work the line tonight."

When they arrived at Saint Germain, Mich.e.l.le and Paul hauled Rob down the service stairs and hosed him off. Mich.e.l.le then helped peel off the sodden Santa suit and they managed to dress him in a snap-front dishwasher shirt and some ill-fitting checks borrowed from Manuel. After several large mugs of coffee and threats and numerous stomach-emptying trips to the bathroom, Paul announced to the crew that Rob would be working the saute station for the rest of the shift.

"I can't do it," Rob had protested, as he was half carried, half pushed onto the line. Kevin, eyes gaping, stepped aside after a final wipe of his cutting board, and Mich.e.l.le moved in to take over at grill. Paul took his place at the expediting station. "You can do it, chef," he said. "Remember? Out all night snorting blow and doing Jager shots, puking on the line into the trash bins? Cold sweats and shakes? We cooked, man. We got three f.u.c.king stars working like that, bro. You can do it. Think of the good old days."

"Oh G.o.d . . . Please . . . kill me now," said Rob, leaning down instinctively to check his mise en place in the lowboy refrigerator. "Just come now, tear my head off, empty out this rotten husk of a body and leave the pitiable empty sh.e.l.l right here. Oh G.o.d . . ."

"That's it, chef," said Mich.e.l.le. "Nice and morbid, that's the spirit."

Suddenly, the printer began to click out its taktaktak tune, spitting a curl of three-layered paper into Paul's hand.

"Oh f.u.c.k me. Oh G.o.d, oh Jesus ... a motherf.u.c.kin' orderl"

"Relax. It's for Marvin," said Paul. "And the missus. They're having dinner together tonight." He adopted his best, most impersonal expeditor tone, the fighter-pilot drone he favored, and began to read: "Ordering: One Dueling Foie . . . one sweetbread . . . followed by a lamb MR and a Dover sole!"

Rob snapped into motion, reaching down for a trimmed, boned-out loin of lamb and a whole Dover sole, laying them out in separate sizzle platters and then preheating two pans.

"It's Robo-Chef," said Mich.e.l.le.

Out in the empty dining room, Marvin nearly choked on his lamb when he heard that Rob had actually cooked the thing himself. What was going on? He looked around the dining room, trying to gauge from the expressions on his staff's faces what might be happening. Was there something he should know? There did seem to be something, a collective smirk, a slightly cheered look of amus.e.m.e.nt or something that he couldn't put his finger on.

"Is something wrong?" asked his wife.

"No," said Marvin. "Everything's fine. Little slow tonight. They're probably coming late."

Maybe there are Christmas miracles. And maybe there are special angels for chefs and cooks and for all the people who toil and scheme in the vast underworld of the restaurant business. Maybe once in a very great while, everybody who deserves a break gets a big fat one. All at the same time and on the same night. Because that's what happened on that night before Christmas at Restaurant Saint Germain. The doors opened, an icy draft blew in a few flakes of snow, and with it came Roland Schutz, the poodle-coiffed multimillionaire developer, with two girlfriends and a bald-headed security guard. Alexandra, the good hostess, greeted them warmly and helped them with their coats.

"I guess we don't need reservations," quipped Schutz as Alexandra pulled his camel-hair coat over his thick, stubby, but well-manicured fingers. "Wow!" he said, momentarily concerned as he looked around the empty dining room. "Did I come on a bad night? What the h.e.l.l happened?"

Marvin, hearing this from his table, did his very best to look like six or seven very happy customers instead of one very worried owner and wife, bursting forth with a forced "ha ha ha" of faux holiday mirth. His wife looked at him like he was out of his mind.

"Are you all right?" she asked, her eyes narrowing as she searched his expression for any signs of incipient insanity, stroke, or Tourette's.

"Fine! Fine!" insisted Marvin, beads of sweat erupting on his brow. "Best meal I've had in ages ... ho ho ho. Waiter!" he commanded. "Some dessert, please!"

Of course, Alexandra adroitly rescued the situation, smiling warmly at the two women guests, patting one on the hand and confiding, "Actually tonight's a very good night to be here. A very special night. The chef is cooking everything himself. You know he can't do that very often anymore. Tonight is a very special night. You're in luck." She whisked them to a four-top in the center of the dining room and seated them with menus. Ricardo, the restaurant's best waiter, was at their elbows in a second, while Paul, in a moment of possibly divine inspiration, pretending to visit the service bar for a consultation, whispered an order to extinguish the lights out front and draw the curtains. "Lock the door," he said. "No more customers." There was a brief exchange with Ricardo.

"Mr. Schutz," said Ricardo in hushed tones meant to convey solemn, yet breathlessly concealed, delight, "the chef has instructed me to close the restaurant to all other customers. It would be his honor and pleasure to prepare a special menu for the four of you. If it's all right with you he'd like you to just relax and enjoy. He has something really extraordinary in mind for your party. Would that be satisfactory to you and your guests?"

The two girls, already thrilled that America's s.e.xiest Chef would be personally preparing their meals, were exuberant, particularly as the two of them had, until their recent move to New York, experienced nothing more extravagant than Shoney's and Olive Garden. Here they were nowa"with Roland Schutz! Being fed personally by Rob Holland. And look Look at this A magnum of champagne, gratis! Headed their way was Ricardo, at his most graceful with the white napkin as he peeled the foil, removed the wire stay, and gently released the cork with a m.u.f.fled pop. Schutz, who at this early stage of the evening was concerned with nothing more substantial than getting the two girls to go tag-team in his heart-shaped bed later, was happy to go along. They were happy? He was happy. f.u.c.k the food. He'd just as soon be sitting on his couch in his silk boxer shorts, eating his usual peanut b.u.t.ter and bacon sandwich (no crusts) and watching American Gladiators with his chin-strap on. But chicks didn't dig that. The girls looked pleased. They looked impressed.

And that was what was important. Cleveland, his security guard, ate, as far as he could tell, only energy bars and Grape Nuts.

"Yes, of course. That would be delightful," he said. "Please thank Rob for me." His use of the chef's first name implied familiarity, though he had never once eaten Rob Holland's food or even met the man, to be honest. "Tell him I'd be very pleased to eat whatever he'd care to send us."

Back in the kitchen, Rob had been, of course, immediately apprised of the situation.

"C'mon, chef," said Paul, grinning horribly, with a death's-head who-gives-a-f.u.c.k smile you generally saw in war movies just before the last suicide charge up a machine-gun-infested hill. "This could be the last d.a.m.n meal we ever cook in this dump. Let's make it a keeper."

"Show me some f.u.c.king moves, chef," said Mich.e.l.le snapping Rob's a.s.s with a side towel. "Victory or death!"

There was a lot of unused food in the Saint Germain stores. Most of it would probably never be eaten. Rob pillaged his refrigerators and shelves for the best of everything. Working quickly, he whipped up a batter for cornmeal blinis, browned them in a nonstick pan, teased them with a few shavings of homemade gravlax, carefully applied dollops of creme fraiche, and heaped them with beluga caviar until they threatened to topple over. He applied near microscopic dots of bright green chive oila"in gradually descending size around wide white plates, and sprinkled a tiny, tiny brunoise of hard-cooked egg yolk over and around. His hands flew. They did not shake.

There was a torchon of foie gras, which Rob sliced and cut and stacked into artful submission between paper-thin slices of toasted brioche and quince chutney, a thin drizzle of balsamic reduction issuing from his spoon with a precision Paul and Mich.e.l.le had thought long gone. He worked silently, saying absolutely nothing, other than when he issued faint commands to his left and to his right. He didn't just work the saute station, he worked every station, moving from saute to grill to garde-manger like he'd lived there every waking hour, the other cooks serving as commis. Mich.e.l.le even found herself wiping his brow at one point when a drop of sweat threatened to fall onto a plate of "mosaic of copperhead salmon and fluke carpaccio with citrus jus," surprisingly, not minding at all. Those cooks not helpinga"Billy, Jimbo, Leon, and the resta"simply stood by and watched as Rob moved efficiently, as if to some internal rhythm, back and forth from station to station, from one plate to anther, course after incredible course. They were silent, as if by speaking, they might break the spell. There was a total hush in the kitchen. The back waiters and busboys tiptoed in to do their work and then tiptoed out. It was as if Rob were a pitcher working on a no-hitter, and a dropped fork, a plate set down too loudly, might destroy what might well turn out to be a perfect game.

While Ricardo cracked open the very best wines from the Saint Germain cellar, knowledgeably describing the domain, vintage, grape variety, and history of each without belaboring the point, Rob cooked, and kept cooking. Six two-bite courses, then seven, eight, nine, and they were still on appetizers! Nothing was from the menu. Each dish seemed to drop fully formed from Rob's mind in a direct route to his hands, then the plate.

Oyster "stew" with a panacotta of cauliflower and lobster essence, ravioli of white truffles with a sauce of morels and confited woodc.o.c.k (Paul and Mich.e.l.le had never seen ravioli made so quickly from scratch), "linguine" of baby eelsa"not linguine at all, but quickly marinated baby eels from Portugal, translucent and tender, tossed with fresh herbs and olive oil from a tiny estate in Italy, the bottle hand-numbered and signed by its creator. Frica.s.see of sweetbreads, dusted with spice and crisped in a pan with rendered duck fat before being propped up under wide, thin disks of black truffle. It went on and on. Nikki began to wonder if they would be able to eat it all.

She need not have worried. The girls, who hadn't eaten in weeks in antic.i.p.ation of an imminent shoot for Victoria's Secret (in this they had been misled), ate like hungry longsh.o.r.emen, devouring everything on their plates and mopping sauce with their bread. Schutz, after the fifth or sixth gla.s.s of wine, had begun to enjoy himself with abandon, licking his woefully stumpy fingers with a tiny pink tongue, drops of sauce falling on the napkin fastened under his chins. When the Trio of Bellwether Farms Lamb arriveda"a single medallion of perfectly seared and roasted loin, a glazed kidney, and a tiny scoop of braised shoulder, along with lovingly caramelized shallots and glazed cubes of turnip stuffed artfully into a hollowed-out courgettea"there were oohs and aahs and even Cleveland, Schutz noticed, seemed uncharacteristically inspired, attacking his food with fervent dedication.

"Extraordinary," said Cleveland. "Absolutely ethereal. Intox-icatingly good. This man is brilliant. This man is a genius. I've eaten a lot of good food in my life, Mr. Schutz. A lot of very good food. I used to drive for that guy from Vivendi, the French dude? He knew how to eat, man. In France. Used to take me with him everywhere. And I've never experienced anything like this. This man doing the cooking? This Rob Holland guy? This man's a genius."

Schutz had never heard Cleveland speak so extensively on any subject. He was dismayed to hear of his prior experience with haute cuisine. He felt suddenly embarra.s.sed about the napkin under his chin, and his own efforts with a fork, as Cleveland worked a veal cheek with lemon and saffron risotto like an aristocrat, doing the fork-knife cross-over with effortless grace, dabbing occasionally at the corners of his mouth as he savored the latest wine with the gla.s.s held elegantly by the stem, swirling it almost imperceptibly in his cheek before swallowing.

"You are absolutely right," he said, hurrying to agree. "This is something truly remarkable. I've eaten around a bit too, you know. We have some of the best, the very best chefs in the world at my casinosa"but thisa"this is something else, isn't it?"

Schutz downed another gla.s.s of wine and looked across at the two girls golden in the flower of their youth, imagining they'd taste of strawberry ice cream. But how could anything taste better than this? He felt, in a rush of heat that seemed to rise from his toes to the crown of his overly coiffed head, elated, near giddy with delight. He'd have to pay more attention to what he ate in the future. He'd clearly been missing something.

Marvin lingered over his third cup of coffee and pretended to listen to his wife. He hoped, of course, that Schutz would enjoy himself. That he'd tell his friends. Maybe book a Christmas party or two at Saint Germain, provide a little last-minute cash flow to keep the doors open a few more days or weeks. But who was he kidding? The p.r.i.c.k could bail out this business with what he spends on carpet cleaning each week. But why would he?

Chet, the bartender, had more measured hopes for the evening. He wished for nothing beyond a very fat tip, which the floor would carve up and of which he'd get one fifth. Signs were favorable in this department. One rich guy, bodyguard, and two good-looking women usually translated into a heavy tip meant to impress the broads as much as anything else. Chet calculated in his head the likely total, what with all the wine and the multiple courses and the likelihood of port or cognac to follow. He was thinking big. A few rounds of Louis Treize, now that would be nice.

In the kitchen, Paul, Kevin, Mich.e.l.le, and the rest hoped for nothing beyond what they had right now, the pure pleasure of seeing Rob Holland cook again. He was in the zone now, oblivious to the outside world, cooking and cutting and arranging and moving about in some wonderful culinary fugue state, cookinga"as all the best cooks doa"solely for himself now, climbing the mountain for what might well be one last, best time.

It was okay now, thought Mich.e.l.le, knowing that Paul was thinking the same thing. All would be okay if they closed the doors to Saint Germain forever after this evening. They had seen Rob Holland at his very best. They could always tell this story and it would all be true. That they were there the night Rob Holland kicked a.s.s like no one else they'd ever seen; that he'd shown them what a cook could be.

As it turned out, they needn't have worried. Roland Schutz liked to own the things he admired. Even more, he liked to own the things other people admired. And when, after the four rounds of Louis Treize and a chocolate souffle dusted with a few grains of sea salt and the pet.i.t-fours and a single spoonful of Meyer lemon sorbet, Rob emerged from the kitchen to dazzle the girls (who were now so drunk as to be nearly unable to speak) and receive sincere thanks from Cleveland, Roland Schutz sat Rob Holland down and did what be did so well. He made a multiunit, multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal, acquiring (after the lawyers and accountants had looked things over and cleared the way of any obstacles) a 65-percent share in the soon-to-be-formed Rob Holland Group International.

The Boston and Philly partners would be bought out and the restaurants closed. The airport operations would be sold (at a tidy profit) to Wolfgang Puck, who needed more locations to sell pizzas. New Rob Holland restaurants would open in Schutz-owned casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and in hotels in Miami, London, and Dubai. Trusted Holland a.s.sociates Paul, Kevin, and Mich.e.l.le would each head up a unit. Other loyalists would be similarly rewarded with positions suiting their skills. Even Thierry scored a position as chief of operations at the retail baking and pastry wing in the soon-to-be-erected Schutz Plaza in midtown Manhattan. Marvin accepted a very generous offer of two million five for his stake in Saint Germain, which would allow him to return to the more secure prospects of the auto body business. (Which, he had to admit these days, he'd always loved and never should have left. He'd be able to quickly open up five new stores across Long Island and become wealthier than his wildest dreamsa"a rare survivor of the New York restaurant industry. There was the added perk that Marvin would still be able to eat and entertain for free at Saint Germain whenever he wished.) Saint Germain, as the flagship of the new Schutz-Holland Axis, was allowed to retain its 60-percent food cost and to run even higher labor percentages as it was the showcase (and loss leader) for the whole empire. Schutz and eventually the repugnant Hitchc.o.c.k were favored with regular tables of their choosing. Hitchc.o.c.k was additionally favored with the offering of a free renovation of his kitchens in Bucks County, South Hampton, and Manhattan (supposedly from Rob but actually from a Schutz-controlled contractor). The restaurant was saved. The Puebla Posse soon ran the kitchena"even hiring additional friends and family members from their hometown of Atlixco. Though Rob continued to retain the t.i.tle of chef, Manuel was given the day-to-day responsibility of running the kitchen and the t.i.tle of chef de cuisine and a sizable raise to go with it.

Needless to say, everyone got a generous Christmas bonus. No one got kicked out of their apartment. Credit card payments were made. Thousands of miles away, new satellite dishes appeared on rooftops in tiny Mexican towns.

Best of all, Rob continued to cook now and again. On slow Sunday or Monday nights, his black Town Car would pull up outside and he'd walk briskly through the dining room as voices hushed and people pointed out that "the chef is here." He no longer ventured into the dining room. He never schmoozed. With his future secure, he gave up his dreams of television. Though he worked relatively little at Saint Germaina"or anywhere else for that mattera"content to golf and read and dream much of the time, to settle things with old wives and current girlfriends, he did drop by now and again. He'd put on a snap-front dishwasher shirt, some faded checks, his old clogs, and an ap.r.o.n. He'd tell Segundo, or whoever was working saute that night, to knock off early and he'd cook. He'd cook every order off his station, and off others besides. He'd stay till the very end, until the last order was gone. Then he'd dutifully clean and wipe down his station like he'd done when he'd been young and coming up. Afterward, he'd sit at the bar with his crew, who were now allowed to drink at Saint Germain, and they'd review the evening and tell stories and bust each other's b.a.l.l.s.

They'd tell stories, like the night of the Christmas Miracle, when the restaurant was saved. When they'd stayed, the whole crew, to drink the remainders of all those magnificent wines left over from their new benefactor's table and to congratulate themselves on their good fortune.

A few days or weeks later, he'd return. And do it again. He'd cook.