“Nobody’s mentioned the mob,” Mike said, dredging a shrimp in the sauce and moving it to his mouth without a single drip. “You know something we don’t?”
“I liked Luigi. He was a good kid. He was hardworking and smart.” Varona was pulling hard on her Knob Creek bourbon. “I guess you learned from your visit last night that I knew him from Tiro a Segno. Sergio called to tell me you were there. Luigi didn’t have any ties to the mob. He wouldn’t have lasted a day at Tiro if he had.”
“And we hired him,” Luc said. “I told the detectives that, too, today.”
“Hired him for what?” I asked.
“To work at Lutèce. To help us put a waitstaff together.”
“You knew him?”
“I met him through Gina,” Luc said. “She took me to dinner at her club expressly for that purpose. Luigi was great at his job, really well connected to guys in the business, and he spoke French as well. He seemed perfect to me.”
Luigi Calamari-the second murder victim-was linked directly to Luc, just like Lisette Honfleur.
“Why would his brother tell the cops that Luigi was fired from his job?” Mike asked. “Why would he say his own brother had a drug habit?”
“The kid was clean as a hound’s tooth,” Gina said. “I assume they’ll autopsy him. The doctors will make that clear.”
I guess Mike hadn’t told Luc yet that there were several kilos of cocaine glued to the underside of Luigi’s houseboat. Or about the skull on the kitchen table.
“It was you who convinced him to leave the Rifle Club?” Mike asked.
Gina Varona smiled again. “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. That’s why he left, Detective. Plain and simple matter of economics.”
“So who hated him enough to slit his throat?” I asked, knowing full well there was another business-the lethal one of importing drugs-that had exposed Luigi to a violent death.
“If I think of anyone, I’ll give you a buzz,” Varona said.
What did Luc possibly see in this woman, except her deep pockets?
“What about you, Mr. Danton? Where do you come into all this?” Mike asked, stirring the rocks in his vodka with his finger.
“And I thought Gina was doing so well you’d forgotten about me,” he said. “Where would you like to begin?”
“Tell us about yourself,” Mike said, gnawing on a chicken wing.
Peter Danton was drinking a glass of red wine. “Let’s see. I’m married, with one daughter away at boarding school in Connecticut. My wife and I live on the Upper West Side. I’m forty-three years old.”
“How long have you known Luc?”
He turned his head to Luc. “What would you say, my friend? Maybe fifteen years or so.”
“About that.”
“You in the restaurant business, too?”
“That’s where I started out, Detective, but it was a little rough for me. I actually thought I wanted to be a chef-you know, one of the greats. So I went to Le Relais to do a stage there when Luc’s father, Andre, owned the place.”
“A stage?” Mike asked, imitating Peter’s pronunciation of the soft “a.”
“It means a training session, Mike,” Luc said. “Like an internship. I was studying with my father, too, that summer. Peter and I became friends.”
“You stayed in the business?”
“Till I had my accident,” Peter said, holding up his hand. “I was working in the kitchen at the time, in one of Bobby Flay’s restaurants. The meat cleaver and I had different ideas about how difficult it was to prep a dinner. I’m a lefty-swung too fast and hard and I severed the tips of these two fingers on my right hand.”
Mike was the only one eating the food. I wasn’t hungry any longer.
“This is quite common,” Luc said. “You won’t find many chefs who don’t have scars and nicks, fingers chopped or cut, or who haven’t scalded themselves with boiling water, burned their hands pulling something out of the oven. Those are occupational hazards of being a chef.”
“It’s why Luc prefers working the front of the house, as they say. Anyway, it got me out of the kitchen faster than lightning,” Danton said. “But I never lost my love for the business of entertaining, for being in great restaurants, for wanting to create that unique kind of hospitality that an exclusive restaurant does. Luc’s a master at it. I think it’s in his genes.”
“What’s your game, Mr. Danton?” Mike asked. “What kind of work do you do?”
“We have an art gallery, actually. My wife, Eva, and I own it together. It’s on Columbus Avenue.”
“What do you specialize in?” I asked.
“African art. Contemporary African art.”
My thoughts flashed to Mohammed Gil-Darsin. “Any country in particular?”
“No. Anywhere on the continent. Sculptures and paintings, primarily. Ethiopia, South Africa, Ghana-there are fantastic artists working everywhere over there.”
“The Ivory Coast?” I asked.
“Sure. We’ve got a great inventory of Senufo masks. Are you interested, Alex?”
“I’m not in the market right now. I was going in the direction of current events, Peter. Do you-uh, do you know Baby Mo?”
“No, I’ve never actually met him,” Danton said, lifting his glass for another sip. “And I suppose that’s a good thing, at the moment. His wife has shopped with us, I know that.”
“Kali?”
“Yes. She’s one of Eva’s favorite customers. You’ll have to talk to Eva about her. She might have some insights that will help you with your big case.”
“And how long have you known Gina?” Mike asked.
“Maybe ten years or so. We both met through Luc. I was staying in Mougins with him and Brigitte, stopping over for a few nights on my way back from Nigeria, and Gina was there on business. We had dinner together one night, and I guess that’s how it all started. We have so many of the same interests.”
Why hadn’t I met either of these people on my trips to the South of France? On second thought, I was beginning to feel grateful that I hadn’t.
“Are you putting money into Luc’s venture here, too?” Mercer asked Danton.
“A great deal of it. We’re determined to make this work.”
“How much?”
“So far, I’ve invested three million with Luc.”
I stared across the table at my lover. My head was reeling at these numbers, and I was feeling more and more like I had been sharing a bed with a total stranger.
“I gotta tell you, Mr. Danton,” Mike said. “I had no idea there was that kind of money in African art. I mean, I look at those masks and statues, and then I see the souvenir shops at an airport in a third world country, and it looks like they were all made yesterday from the same cookie cutter.”
Danton smiled and took another drink of wine.
“You get me? It’s all women with drooping breasts and men with these enormous erect penises. No offense, Mercer, ’cause I know it’s your roots and all that, but I can’t imagine how those carvings sell for very much.”
“Then I guess you’d be quite surprised, Detective. It’s really the emerging market in the global art world. Eva and I have done quite well,” Danton said, rapping his knuckles on the table, knocking wood.
“Hey, I’m surprised every day of the week. That’s murder for you. My job is a surprise, every time I walk into the squad room,” Mike said. “So exactly how are you involved in Luc’s business, Mr. Danton?”
“Basically, I’ve done everything he’s asked me to. I think because Gina and I are here in New York, Luc’s relied on us to get the project off the ground. I found the real estate, and together we bought the building. Luc insisted on a town house, like the original Lutèce.”
“Not too rough an assignment, on a budget like the one you’ve got.”
“You’d never believe it, Mike,” Luc said. “All the restrictions the city places on us. For a building to be zoned commercial for a restaurant, it has to be within one hundred feet of a main avenue. But in order to get a liquor license, it’s got to be five hundred feet away from a church or a school. Not so easy on the Upper East Side.”