Bone in the Throat (6 page)

Eleven

T
OMMY SAT
in the chef's office, waiting for Sally and the others to arrive. It had been busy that night, and Tommy was tired. He needed something to keep himself awake.

The chef's office was little more than a closet with a big steel desk and some shelves wedged into it. There was no door, only a few hinges where a door used to be. Tommy looked through the books on the shelves for something to read. There was the
Larousse,
of course;
The Professional Chef; Le Repertoire de la Cuisine;
cookbooks by Roger Verge, Paul Bocuse, Raymond Oliver;
The Provincetown Seafood Cookbook.
There were food-stained copies of
Gourmet
and
Cuisine, Film Threat, Food and Wine,
and a stack of Wednesday food sections from
The New York Times.
Tommy found a pile of paperbacks; in between
Naked Lunch
and a book by a man named Jack Black called
You Cant Win,
he found a scotch-taped copy of
Down and Out in London and Paris.
He read the blurb on the back, was interested, and tried to read a few pages. He was unable to concentrate; the words swam in front of his eyes, made him dizzy. He put the book in his back pocket to read later.

He went idly through the chef's desk. In the bottom drawer was a jumble of objects that told a story: rolling papers, a film canister containing a dried-up bud of sensimilla, a parisienne scoop, an accordian file filled with recipes, a pastry bag and assorted tips, some barquette molds, pastry cutters, the propane torch that the chef used on meringues . . . Rolling loosely around in the bottom of the drawer were a few cut-down plastic straws and some Bic pens, the metal tips and ink cartridges removed. There was a new syringe, of course, still in its paper wrapping, some spare vegetable peelers, an electric shaver, and on top, a five-pronged ice shaver with a thick wooden handle, a nasty-looking object if he'd ever seen one.

In the top drawer, underneath a pile of new kitchen utensils, still in their clear plastic sleeves, Tommy found a framed black-and-white photograph of a young boy, unmistakably the chef, standing with what Tommy guessed was his mother in front of a two-story white stucco house with a tile roof and heavy wood shutters. The boy wore short shorts, a denim smock, and tattered espadrilles. The mother and the son had squinted into the lens, the sun bright in their faces. The mother was smiling proudly, the chef looked glum; unhappy, perhaps, about the shorts.

Tommy was staring at the picture, trying to imagine a boyhood in France, when the bell rang.

It was Skinny and he was alone.

Tommy led him into the kitchen. Skinny looked around, saw the sauce-splattered range top, the overflowing buspans, the sinks stacked with pots, and the food mashed down into the holes in the black rubber floor matting.

"Jesus, this place is a mess. Remind me not to eat here," he said.

"No porters," said Tommy, nervously.

Skinny walked the length of the kitchen. He looked inside the changing room, the dry-goods area, and the liquor cage. He went upstairs, Tommy following, and checked out both bathrooms, taking a peek inside the toilet cubicles. He looked behind the bar, inside the tiny cloakroom, pushing aside the forgotten umbrellas and raincoats before walking over to the window and peering through the shutters. Satisfied, he went back downstairs with Tommy, his rubber-soled shoes padding quietly. Tommy took him to the office and sat down behind the desk in the chef's ripped swivel chair. Skinny sat on a milk crate.

It was awkward. Skinny had the kind of face that made you think twice about small talk. Looking at him, Tommy had no idea what a person like Skinny's interests were. He didn't want to know, either. Tommy didn't know what to say, what to talk about, even what to do with his hands, with Skinny sitting there, unsmiling, in the cramped room. There was a nearly full bottle of Stoli on the desk, and Tommy offered some to Skinny. Skinny just frowned and shook his head. Tommy reached for the bottle himself and knocked over a stack of
Restaurant Hospitality
magazines; they slid onto the floor by Skinny's feet.

Skinny lit up a Pall Mall and pushed some papers around on the crowded desk looking for an ashtray.

"Use the floor," said Tommy, lighting his own cigarette.

Skinny looked disapprovingly at a rusted brioche mold filled with marijuana butts sitting on a stack of magazines in the corner. He emptied the roaches onto the floor and tapped an ash into it.

They sat in silence for a few more long minutes. At three o'clock, the exhaust fans in the kitchen clicked off, and there was only the sound of an occasional drip from the dishwasher and the whine of the compressors for the refrigeration units.

"Anybody else here?" Skinny asked.

"No," said Tommy. "Fan's on a timer. It shuts off at three."

After a few minutes more of silence, Tommy asked where Sally was.

"They'll be here soon," said Skinny, looking straight at him.

Finally, the bell rang. Tommy jumped out of his chair and walked quickly to the stairs leading up to the street-level trapdoors. Skinny remained behind in the office, fiddling with his tie.

Bounding up the cement steps, Tommy threw the latch and pushed open the metal doors. He was almost relieved to see Sally standing there next to another man. They were laughing, Sally's arm around the other man's shoulder. They looked like they had been out on the town. Sally wore a jacket and tie instead of his usual jogging suit. The other man looked drunk, his shirt was hanging out of his pants. He was short, with gold-rimmed aviator glasses, gold pinky ring, and a puffy, chinless face lit up by alcohol.

"Tommy, you gonna invite us down, or what?" laughed Sally.

Tommy backed down the steps. Sally helped the other man down.

"You should get a fuckin' light down here," said Sally as the other man stumbled. Tommy squeezed past them in the dark hallway to close and lock the doors.

"So, how you doin'?" said Tommy feebly. The man with Sally smelled of peppermint breath mints and sweat. Sally introduced him.

"This is a good friend of mine, Freddy. I promised Freddy here some a that good French food you keep tellin' me about. You ready for Freddy?" asked Sally.

"Freddy's ready," said Freddy. He patted his stomach and grinned stupidly. "Bring it on, garçon!"

Tommy led them down the hall toward the kitchen. He saw that Freddy was unsteady on his feet, heard him get his foot caught up in the dirty aprons and kitchen towels on the floor, heard him bounce drunkenly against the shelving, breathing heavily. Sally was right behind him, guiding him.

"I'm ready for one serious fuckin' meal here, Tommy," said Freddy. "Your uncle talks about you a lot."

Sensing sudden movement, Tommy turned around, thinking Freddy had tripped. He moved to catch him. Instead, he saw Sally coming up with a .22-caliber Hi-Standard pistol. Frozen, he watched as Sally put the gun behind Freddy's right ear and fired three quick rounds into his skull.

For what seemed like a very long time, Freddy stayed on his feet. His
eyes
jerked up into his head, a little saliva bubble forming in the corner of his mouth, his lips trembling as if he were trying to form words.

Then, suddenly, Skinny was there. He pushed roughly past Tommy, who saw that he was naked, wearing only bright blue rubber gloves and holding a kitchen apron in one hand and a boning knife in the other. He whipped the apron quickly around Freddy's leaking head and, at almost the same time, jammed the boning knife into Freddy's chest and twisted. There was a crunching sound. He withdrew the knife, and then, with Sally holding the bloody apron-wrapped head, let the body slowly down onto the floor.

"So that's that," said Sally.

"You should get him on some plastic bags," said Skinny.

"Oh, shit," said Tommy, paralyzed by what he had just seen. "Shit!" He thought for a second he was going to cry; instead, he just stood there, staring down at the dead man on the floor.

"Get some plastic bags," said Sally, pushing Tommy toward the kitchen with his palm.

Skinny poked at Freddy's buttock with his big toe.

"He's gone," he said.

"Oh, shit," said Tommy. He took a few dreamlike steps into the kitchen and returned with two large plastic trash bags. He felt like he was underwater, somehow going deaf. His vision began to get cloudy around the edges.

Sally put the bags down on the floor, and he and Skinny rolled Freddy onto them.

"Okay, Tommy," said Sally. "You can go in there or upstairs for a little while and get yourself a drink or something. We'll let you know when to come out. You got a mop around here?"

"In the garbage area, right back there," said Tommy, pointing a shaking finger toward the cleaning supplies. He walked stiffly back into the chef's office and collapsed into the swivel chair. His head hurt. There was a pounding behind his ears and in his temples. Sally and Skinny dragged Freddy past the office door into the kitchen. Tommy heard them, the sound of dead weight on crinkling plastic, pulled along the rough concrete. He watched Freddy's feet disappear from view, leaving a long trail of blood, like snail tracks. Skinny got the mop and the bucket and cleaned up. Tommy was reminded of the little man sweeping up after the elephants in the cartoon.

"MAKE SURE IT'S CLEAN," said Sally to Skinny. "I don't wanna leave nothin' like that around." He inspected the floor.

"We got time," said Skinny. "I like to let 'em sit for a while anyways. Blood gets lumpy. Makes it cleaner, easier later on."

"Alright," said Sally, "Let's get him up on there. That's good. This is good. There's a drain and everything. We can spray it down with that thing after."

The two men lifted Freddy up off the floor and heaved him onto the prewash area of the dishwasher. Freddy's face came to rest in a pile of dirty dinner plates and half-eaten food.

"Hey, Freddy got his dinner after all," said Sally.

"I just gotta open him up a bit," said Skinny, holding the boning knife. "So nothin' floats, they take him. out on a barge. You don't know where it's gonna go. Just in case." He walked over to the sauté area and looked around under the cutting board for a minute. He came back with the chef's $450 custom-made Japanese knife. "I'm gonna need somethin' bigger like this for later. Help me get his clothes off."

M
UCH LATER
, Sally lit a True 100 cigarette. Skinny sucked on a Pall Mall.

"It's a fuckin' mess here. We gotta wash up these fuckin' dishes, spray down this shit," said Sally

"Let the kid do it," said Skinny. "He's just sittin' in there strokin' his fuckin' meat."

"I dunno how he's gonna like that," said Sally. "This is his first piece a' work and all."

"I'm not washin any fuckin' dishes," said Skinny. "I did the mopping. I hadda chop the cocksucker up. Somebody else gonna do the dishes."

"Don't look at me," said Sally. "I don't even know how to turn onna fuckin' machine. And I ain't gonna fuck up this suit."

Skinny peeled off the bloody rubber gloves and threw them in the garbage can, along with the bloody trash bags, the bloody apron, Freddy's bloody clothes, and the gold-rimmed aviators. "Well, I ain't doin' it, so it's gotta be the kid." Skinny used the sprayer to rinse himself off. He soaped himself up to the elbows and then rinsed again. Sally washed his hands in the pot sink.

Freddy, neatly packaged into eight plastic bundles wrapped in butcher's twine, lay stacked against a reach-in.

"So we're gonna put him out with the garbage . . ." said Skinny, looking at the bundles. "Spread him aroun' between the cans. Mix him up so the bags ain't too heavy."

"We don't want anybody gettin' a fuckin' hernia takin' it out," said Sally.

They distributed Freddy evenly among the garbage cans in the kitchen, burying each bundle under the chicken bones, fish racks, oyster shells, and coffee grounds. They tied up the bags and dragged them back to the garbage area.

"Hey," said Sally, "I just thoughta somethin'. It'll be the Brooklyn guys taking him away."

"That's good," said Skinny. "That's ironic."

"So long, dickhead," said Sally, waving to a garbage bag.

Back in the kitchen, Skinny wiped himself down from head to toe with some Handi Wipes from his jacket, while Sally helped himself to some cooking wine from the speed rack.

"I put the other one with the dishes," said Skinny. He held up the chef's expensive Japanese knife. "What do I do with this?"

"Minchia!"
exclaimed Sally. "Skin, you really beat the shit outta that thing."

"It's a piece a shit," said Skinny.

"They should get that knife they got on TV. The ones they sell, whaddaya call 'em—the Ginsu. Shit saws through a fuckin' nail," said Sally.

"So whaddaya want me to do with this?" asked Skinny.

"I dunno," said Sally.

"Should I throw it out? I think I should throw it out," said Skinny.

"No," said Sally, "Somebody might go lookin' for it. Just wash it off and put it back where you found it. They'll blame it on some fuckin' dishwasher."

While Skinny dressed, Sally went into the office. "When's the garbage pickup tomorrow?" he asked Tommy.

"Ten
A.M.
," said Tommy. "But there's nobody to put it out on the street. The porters aren't here."

"Right, right," said Sally, furrowing his brow, "So, it waits till the next day. That happens sometime, right? That's nothin' new. You gotta do that onna weekends, right?"

Tommy nodded.

"This sucks, Sally," said Tommy, quietly, so Skinny couldn't hear him in the kitchen. "This sucks so fuckin' bad." Sally reached over and rubbed the back of Tommy's neck. "C'mon, it's not so fuckin' bad."

"It's bad. It is bad, this is really, really bad," said Tommy. "I can't believe you did this to me."

"What can I tell you, it hadda be done," said Sally.

"You dropped me right in the shit. You didn't even ask, you didn't even tell me what you were gonna do . . . Why'd you fuckin' hafta do it here? Why me? Why'd you hafta do it here?"