The Investigators Part 26

"Straight answer, Daffy?"

"If you can come up with one."

"As a cop, I'm a little embarra.s.sed that Chad's father, and your mothers, and you really feel it's necessary."

"That brings us back to my ounce of prevention," Chad said.

Matt confessed to the maitre d' of La Bochabella that he didn't have a reservation, and asked how much of a problem that was going to be.

The maitre d' consulted his reservations list at length, frowning, and shaking his head.

If this son of a b.i.t.c.h is waiting for me to slip him money, we'll be here all night.

"I'm afraid, sir . . ." the matre d' began.

A chubby, splendidly tailored man in his late twenties walked up to the maitre d's stand.

"Ricardo," he announced, "Mr. Brewer just phoned and canceled his reservation." He looked at Matt. "If you're willing to wait just a few minutes, sir, we'll be happy to accommodate you."

"Thank you," Matt said.

"And your name, sir?"

"Payne," Matt said. The maitre d' wrote that at the head of his list of reservations.

"Initial?" the splendidly tailored chubby fellow said.

"M," Matt said. Matt said.

"Perhaps you'd like to wait at the bar," the splendidly tailored chubby fellow suggested. "It will be a few minutes."

"Thank you," Matt said, and led the way to the bar, which occupied most of the left side of the corridor leading from the door to the dining room. When he had slid onto a stool, he saw Frazier sitting at the end of the bar, near the door.

He wondered, idly, what Frazier was drinking.

Can you sit at the bar of an expensive place like this and drink soda? Or does a rent-a-cop on duty order a scotch straight up with soda on the side, and not drink the scotch? Or pour it on the floor, when no one's looking?

The bartender appeared.

"I'll have what that gentlemen is drinking," Matt said, indicating Frazier.

"The gentleman is drinking soda with a lemon slice, sir," the bartender said.

"In that case, I think I'd better take a look at the wine list," Matt said. "We can take a bottle to the table later, right?"

"Of course, sir."

"What are we celebrating, Matt?" Daffy asked.

"Nothing, so far as I know. Why?"

"I don't trust you when you are charming. You You asking for the wine list?" asking for the wine list?"

"Then screw you, baby! You don't get no wine."

She smiled.

"Better. That's the old Matt, the one I have always loathed and despised."

Chad chuckled.

The chubby, splendidly tailored man in his late twenties, whose name was Anthony Joseph Desidiro, waited until he saw that Mr. Payne and party had taken seats at the bar, and then he walked to the rear of the dining room. Against the rear wall was a table shielded by a light green silk screen. The screen's weave was such that people seated at the table could see the dining room but people in the dining room could not see who was sitting at the table.

There were two men at the table. One was Mr. Desidiro's cousin, a large, well-muscled, equally splendidly tailored gentleman whose name appeared on the liquor and restaurant licenses of La Bochabella as the owner. His name was Paulo Ca.s.sandro. His mother and Mr. Desidiro's mother were sisters. Mr. Ca.s.sandro had provided his cousin Tony with both his tuition at the Cornell School of Hotel & Restaurant Administration, and a generous allowance while he was there so he would be able to devote his full time to learning the hotel and restaurant administration profession.

On his graduation, Mr. Desidiro spent two years working-he thought of it as an internship-at the Ristorante Alfredo, another of Philadelphia's more elegant Italian restaurants, on whose liquor and restaurant licenses Mr. Ca.s.sandro was also listed as owner.

Two months before, Mr. Desidiro had been named manager of La Bochabella. He had told his cousin Paulo that it was his plan that La Bochabella would become known as the best Northern Italian restaurant in Philadelphia, catering to the social and economic upper crust of Philadelphia.

He wanted to raise prices sufficiently to discourage the patronage of those who thought Italian cuisine was primarily sausage and peppers and spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s, and that fine Italian wine began and ended with Chianti in raffia-wrapped bottles.

"You got eighteen months, Tony," Cousin Paulo had told him. "Mr. S. thinks maybe you got a good idea. You got eighteen months to make it work."

Mr. S. was what his intimates called Mr. Vincenzo Savarese, and Mr. Desidiro was aware that Cousin Paulo's name on the licenses notwithstanding, Mr. Savarese had the controlling interest in both La Bochabella and Ristorante Alfredo.

Mr. Desidiro thought it was fortuitous that Mr. Savarese had chosen tonight to have dinner in La Bochabella with Cousin Paulo-he came in only every couple of weeks, and then mostly for lunch, not dinner-and he would thus have the opportunity to prove to Mr. Savarese that his philosophy for the successful operation of the restaurant was bearing fruit.

He stepped behind the curtain. Both Cousin Paulo and Mr. Savarese interrupted their meal to look at him.

"Is everything all right?" Mr. Desidiro asked. "Do you like the lamb, Mr. Savarese?"

"Very much," Mr. Savarese said. "The garlic-how do I say this?-is delicate."

"We throw garlic buds, crushed but in their skins, directly on the coals when the leg is still raw," Mr. Desidiro said. "It delicately infuses the meat with the flavor, I think. I'm pleased that you like it."

"Very nice," Mr. Savarese said.

"Yeah, Tony," Ca.s.sandro said.

"You know who we have outside, waiting for a table?" Mr. Desidiro said, and went on before a reply could be made. "Mr. and Mrs. Nesbitt the Fourth, of Nesfoods International."

"Yes," Mr. Savarese said. "I saw them. I was going to have a word with you about them."

Mr. Desidiro tried not to show his surprise that Mr. Savarese recognized the heir to Nesfoods International and his wife.

"Yes, Mr. Savarese."

"They have a friend with them," Mr. Savarese said.

"A Mr. Payne," Mr. Desidiro said.

"Yes, I know," Mr. Savarese said. "You should be very careful around him, Tony."

"Yes, sir?"

"He is not only a policeman, but he shoots people in the head," Mr. Savarese said. "Isn't that so, Paulo?"

"That's right, Mr. S.," Paulo agreed.

"You remember that crazy man, Tony, who was kidnapping and then doing s.e.xual things to women in Northwest Philadelphia?" Mr. Savarese asked.

"Yes, I do. A policeman shot him?"

"That policeman," Mr. Savarese said.

"Right in the head, Tony," Ca.s.sandro said, miming someone shooting a pistol. "Ka-pow! Ka-pow!"

"Very interesting," Mr. Desidiro said, wondering what a cop was doing having dinner-Mr. S. had said "a friend"-with the guy whose father owned Nesfoods International.

"If Mr. Payne should ask for the check, Tony," Mr. Savarese said, "please tell him that it has been taken care of by a friend-make that 'an admirer.' "

"Right, Mr. Savarese. 'An admirer.' "

"Please have the courtesy to let me finish, Tony," Mr. Savarese said.

"Excuse me, Mr. Savarese," Mr. Desidiro said. "I beg your pardon."

"You should learn to listen, Tony," Mr. Savarese said.

"Jesus Christ, Tony!" Ca.s.sandro snapped.

"If young Mr. Payne asks for the check, please tell him that it has been taken care of by an admirer of his father his father," Mr. Savarese said.

"Of his father," Mr. Desidiro said. "Right, Mr. Savarese."

And then he had a question, which, after a moment, he spoke aloud.

"And if Mr. Nesbitt should ask for the check, Mr. Savarese?"

"Then give it to him," Mr. Savarese said. "I am not indebted to his father."

"Right, Mr. Savarese."

"You understand, Tony," Ca.s.sandro said. "You don't mention Mr. S.'s name?"

"Right. Of course not."

"I'm going to Harrisburg," Matt Payne announced after they had all ordered, at the suggestion of the waiter, roast lamb with roasted potatoes, a spinach salad, and were waiting for the shrimp c.o.c.ktail they had ordered for an appetizer.

"I didn't know anyone went there on purpose," Chad said.

"I am being sent being sent to Harrisburg," Matt corrected himself. to Harrisburg," Matt corrected himself.

"Susan lives outside Harrisburg," Daffy said.

"You do something wrong?" Chad said, reaching for the bottle of Merlot.

"Of course not," Matt said. "I am known in the department as Detective Perfect. Yeah, that's right, isn't it? She told me that."

"s.h.i.t!" Chad said. "Who told you what?"

"Susan Whatsername told me she lived in Harrisburg."

"Camp Hill," Daffy corrected him. "Outside Harrisburg."

"What are you being sent to Harrisburg for?" Chad asked.

"They are having a crime wave, and require the services of a big-city detective to solve it."

"Bulls.h.i.t."

"You remember reading about the lieutenant the Department threw in the slammer for protecting the call girl ring?"

"Yeah."

"Not for publication, I'm tying up some loose ends on that," Matt said.

"A call girl ring?" Daffy said. "Right down your alley. You should love that."

"I'm looking forward to it."

"You really should call her," Daffy said.

"Call who? Any call girl? Or do you have a specific one in mind?"

"Susan, you a.s.s."