The Last Coin (41 page)

But it wasn’t the cats. “It was a beetle!” shouted Ken-or-Ed. “A big damned beetle! In my damned salad!”

“Must’ve been an olive,” Pickett said.

“I saw it, too,” said Mrs. Ken-or-Ed.

Pickett brassed it out. “Seems to have disappeared, doesn’t it?” He turned around and looked at Andrew in the doorway. Pickett’s face was white. Out of nowhere came a man from KNEX, waving a video camera, grinning. He was a tall Asian, Chinese probably. He looked familiar as hell.

“Come, come,” said Andrew, strolling out among the tables. “I put that salad together myself, piece by piece. I can assure you that there was nothing at all in it that shouldn’t have been. I’d have seen anything out of the ordinary, wouldn’t I? It’s not one of your tossed-together salads. It’s a bit of salad nouvelle. The arrangement, you see, is at least as important as the flavor. Texture is as important to the eye as it is to the palate. The byword in salad-building is … Ah, here’s our man’s toast!”

Rose had appeared, carrying two slices of quartered, dry toast. The old man was suddenly full of goodwill, as if at last he’d found someone in the restaurant who wasn’t certifiable.

“And something’s knocked over my water glass!” cried Mrs. Ken-or-Ed. “I don’t know what it was. Something was on the table.”

Andrew smiled at her and then, grinning almost wildly, he patted Ken-or-Ed on the back. The man jerked away, looking as if he would kick the table down. Andrew righted the water glass. “Did the bug kick it over?” he asked. Then to Pickett he said, “A fresh glass for Mrs. Fitzpatrick.”

Meanwhile the camera whirred away, filming the whole thing. Andrew turned to confront the cameraman, grinning into the lens. “I’ll sue you blind,” he whispered, winking at the man. The Fitzpatricks snatched up their coats and stormed toward the door, slamming out, Mrs. Ken-or-Ed giving Andrew a look that resembled the face of someone who’d drunk turpentine. Suddenly Andrew knew who the cameraman was. He’d seen him just that morning, at work at the Bamboo Paradise.

So that was it. A beetle! “Sorry folks,” Andrew said. “I’m afraid that the couple who left weren’t feeling up to snuff. That was Eddie Fitzpatrick, who used to play for the Dodgers. He was hit by a line drive in his last season. In a coma for a year and a half. Maybe you’ve read about it. Never been the same. They live across the street, and we invited them ’round tonight to eat on the house. They haven’t been out for nearly fifteen years, because he’s developed a fear of insects. I thought we’d have a go at breaking him of it. But I guess …”

Rose angled in toward him, smiling very nicely. “The kitchen, perhaps …” Andrew waved at the troubled guests, hurrying back toward the kitchen where his kettle sat red hot on the stove. He collared Pickett on the way.

“Shit!” Andrew said, looking at the smoking kettle, “It’s
hot
enough anyway,” and with that he dumped in two cups of oil and two cups of flour, whisking away at the mixture. Rose went out carrying the first bowls of gumbo. “Pour everyone a drink on the house!” Andrew said to her. Then to Pickett he said, “Do you recognize the guy with the camera? The Chinese man?”

Pickett shook his head.

“He was one of your hosts this morning.”

“Get the hell out of here!” said Pickett, incredulous.

“Honor bright. Hand me the damned pot holder.”

“Well listen to this. There
was
a beetle in that idiot’s salad.”

“Couldn’t have been.”

“Big as a damned mouse. Must have been some sort of imported variety.”

“Then the bastard put it there himself. It sure as hell wasn’t in there when I put the salad together. Where would something like that come from?”

“My bet is …”

“Of course,” said Andrew, anticipating him. “From Chateau, from Rodent Control. It was one of those prize bugs of his. Pennyman must have walked out with it, the dirty … It had to have been him. And KNEX, too. I should have known when they called out of the blue like that …”

“Wait,” said Pickett. “That’s not the half of it. Do you know what kicked over the water glass?”

“She
did, I suppose. Or else her stinking husband …”

“Uh uh. Neither. It was your
toad
. That damned pancake toad from your back porch.”

Andrew handed the whisk to Pickett and ran out to look in the aquarium. The toad was gone. The tank was empty. The thin reflector lid lay on the linoleum, and a trail of water led away toward the cafe door. Andrew hustled back into the cafe kitchen, where Pickett scoured away at the kettle with the whisk.

“Where the hell did he go?” asked Andrew, taking over.

“In among the logs by the fireplace. He’s in there now, eating the beetle. He came out of nowhere—snatched the bug off the table and ran for it. Thank God she didn’t see
him
. She’d have to be hospitalized.”

“We’ll give him a medal,” said Andrew. “It’s the Toad Hall of Fame for him now.” How convenient, he thought. Fancy Rose having left the brick off his lid today, of all days. And then the toad … Talk about timing.

Aunt Naomi stuck her head in through the door. “Mr. Pennyman’s here,” she said.

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Holy mother of …”

“Take my word for it, ” said Pickett. “He’s just here to watch. He’ll be puzzled that your man across the street is gone.”

The man with the camera loomed in the open door, filming Andrew just as a great splop of napalm-hot grease slid off the whisk and into the open flame, igniting in a wash of leaping fire. Andrew plucked up a dish towel and slapped away at it, dropping his whisk. Hunks of burning grease splattered across the back of the stove.

“Baking soda!” shouted Pickett, looking around wildly as the camera zoomed in.

Andrew flailed away with the towel. “What!” he shouted. “Out in the other kitchen. In the house!”

And right then Rose pushed in past the cameraman, shaking a can of beer, her thumb over the popped top. She slid her thumb aside and cascaded beer foam onto the islands of burning grease, then stoppered the can, shook it, and sprayed it on again. The fire smothered itself out under the foam.

“Turn the fire out first thing,” she said to Andrew, who was just then twisting the knob under the burned-up gumbo. The kitchen was filled with smoke. Rose turned on the fan in the flared hood and a swoosh of smoke was sucked up and out. Then she closed the open door in the face of the man with the camera in order to keep the smoke out of the cafe itself. “I’ve got Mrs. Gummidge serving sorbets. That should kill some time. There’s enough gumbo for almost everyone, although I had to tell the camera crew that there wasn’t.”

Andrew waved his whisk, furious at the burned muck in the kettle. “I’ll tell them more than that …”

“Where are the hats?” Rose asked, cutting him off.

“What? Out back. With the helium.”

“Let’s get that over with then. Get them out of here.”

“That’s a damned good idea,” said Andrew. “See to it, will you?” He nodded at Pickett. “There’s a flap in back with a clip to seal it off. Fill it there. The tank’s simple. Just a valve. Don’t overfill it though. We don’t want a balloon; we want a sort of floating cloud effect. Tell them that I’m busy as hell in here, and that they’ll have to get in and get out just as soon as you’re ready.’’

“Right,” said Pickett.

Andrew nodded cheerfully at Rose. “This will be good,” he said. Secretly, though, he knew that it wouldn’t be good. His chef’s hat plan was spoiled. No matter how good the idea had been at the outset, this new Pennyman twist wrecked it. KNEX would find some way of making a hash of it. Pennyman would see to that.

But Andrew couldn’t let on to Rose, could he? She had put hours into the hats, into his damned, cockeyed hats. He
had
to tough it out—to be entirely surprised when the whole hat plan went to bits. He couldn’t reveal that there was a Pennyman plot afoot. He couldn’t reveal anything. He had to pretend to be an entirely innocent victim. “So—what?” he said to Rose. “No more gumbo?” He was relieved about that. Making another pot of gumbo was the last thing he wanted to do. He put the kettle into the sink and turned the water on.

“Not now,” said Rose as Pickett went out the door.

The other member of the KNEX crew, a man dressed like a lumberjack and with a beard, looked in just then and growled something about its getting late.

Rose shut the door in his face. “Mr. Pennyman is the last of the guests, I think, for the evening.”

“Pennyman,” said Andrew in a hollow voice. “Let’s serve him dead rats just for the hell of it.”

Rose ignored him. “He’s sitting with the ladies from Leisure World. They’re really very sweet. They loved the salad and place settings and the fireplace. One of them apologized on behalf of Mr. Fitzpatrick. She said it was terrible about his being so long in a coma.”

Andrew smiled at her. Then the thought that Pennyman might actually fancy a plate of dead rats wiped the smile from his face. He pushed the door open and leaned out, to give things a look. The place had settled out now that the Fitzpatricks were gone. There was Pennyman, dressed all in white, sucking up to the four old ladies, gesturing expansively, talking about China. He tipped a non-existent hat at Andrew and smiled a jolly greeting. Andrew shut the door and took a deep breath.

“Are you all right?” asked Rose.

“Tip-top. Still recovering from the fire. The beer foam trick was neat.”

Rose nodded. “Yes, well, portion out the gumbo then. We shouldn’t need but five more.”

“Piece of cake,” said Andrew. He opened a cupboard, hauled out two cans of beef broth, opened them, and poured them into the finished gumbo. What else did he have—a big can of crab meat, a bottle of oysters … He’d flesh the pot out a little. To hell with making more. Rose went out into the cafe just as Pickett was coming in—or trying to.

He wore one of the hats, about three-fourths inflated. The whole cafe watched in disbelief. The old toast man had half stood up, gesturing with his spoon. The hat wanted desperately to float off, but Pickett had strapped it around his neck. He forced it through the doorway into the kitchen, plumping it sideways as if it were an enormous pillow.

“Put the apron on him,” said the KNEX lumberjack. “This is good. This is theater, is what it is. Here, give him this big whisk. Dip it into the pot there, Mr. Pickett. That’s it. What the
hell
is that thing there? A shrimp? That’s a
shrimp
? Good God. That’s right. Hang it from the whisk there. You getting this?”

The cameraman grunted, the camera whirring away.

“
Do
something with it,” said the lumberjack.

“What?” asked Pickett.

“Bite its head off.”

“Are you picking up voices, too?” asked Andrew. “Because if you are …”

“To hell with the voices. We’ll dub this later. Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the owner …”

“Stand back, then. That’s right, wave that thing around. Get a close up of that goddamn shrimp, Jack. Then back off and pan the whole kitchen. Get the hat. Hey! I got it. Let loose of the strap, Spickett. Let’s float the hat out into the cafe. ‘Runaway Hat,’ we’ll call it. That’s it.”

And before Andrew could intervene, the lumberjack leaned in and unsnapped Pickett’s hat, which floated toward the ceiling. The man batted it toward the door, then tried to yank it through. It caught on the corner of a hinge, though, and hung itself up, at which the man jerked on it, pulling loose a seam. The hat deflated in a whoosh, sinking to the floor like a bottled genie that had granted its wishes and gone home.

“Shit,” said the lumberjack. “Sorry. Someone fetch the other one.”

Andrew gritted his teeth.
“Forget
the other one. That’s plenty. You’ve got enough, I should think.”

“Edited down, though …”

They were interrupted by the clatter of a plate hitting the floor out in the cafe. The cameraman flipped around, his eyes round with anticipation. What would it be, wondered Andrew: Cats? Ken-or-Ed having come back with an automatic rifle? The toad terrorizing the Leisure World women?

It was Mr. Pennyman, having a fit. He sat perfectly rigid in his chair. His bread plate lay broken on the tiles of the hearth. His face was all moony, and he was breathing quick and shallow, as if he were hyperventilating. Andrew had seen that look on his face before. Little gasping noises came out of his throat, throttling together second by second into a sort of high-pitched keening. His hair—perfectly neat when he’d sat down—seemed to dishevel itself in a little storm of dandruff flakes, and his shoes thumped against the floor, each thump causing a spasm of pain to lance across his face, only to reveal a mask of even more intense pleasure.

The street door opened and Ken-or-Ed surged in, followed by Jack Dilton.

“I’m the health inspector!” Dilton said aloud. Then he saw Pennyman carrying on and he lapsed into a grimace of startled surprise. He turned helplessly to Ken-or-Ed.

There was a sickening smell in the air—the odor of long-decayed fish, of bacteria, of sewer sludge. On the end of the bar, not two feet from Andrew’s elbow, lay the pint glass of spoons that Andrew had put away on the shelf. Half the spoons were gone. It didn’t take three seconds to figure things out. Mrs. Gummidge had found the pig spoon, and had given it, very innocently, to Mr. Pennyman, who had shoved it into his gumbo.