Affairs of Steak Read online

  He clicked on his e-mail. “A file was sent to the calligraphy department from my account and when I opened that file, guess what?”

  “The Baumgartners are missing.”

  “Yes!” he said, eyes so wide I thought they might pop out of his head. “I have no recollection of sending this e-mail. None. I’d sent one about an hour prior, but I don’t recall sending this follow-up. Yet the e-mail instructs the calligraphy department to ignore the prior list and use this one.”

  His voice was hoarse as he whispered, “Who could have done such a thing?”

  CHAPTER 12

  “YOU THINK SOMEONE SABOTAGED THE LIST and wanted to frame you?”

  He sat back. “What other explanation is there?”

  “Don’t you log out when you leave your computer?”

  His face reddened. “At night I do. But during the day, I see no need to constantly log off and log on. I mean, it isn’t as though anything I handle is of national security proportions.”

  “You do handle sensitive personal information.”

  He threw his hands up. “Fine. I’m guilty. But who would want to get me into trouble? Who dislikes me so much?”

  I bit the insides of my cheeks. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  “I asked Doug who it was who’d noticed the discrepancy and he told me it was Lynn, from the calligraphy department,” Sargeant said. “That’s who I thought was coming to visit me when you arrived. Maybe she can shed some light on this.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  With about ninety individuals on staff at the White House, about ninety suspects came to mind. But the truth was that despite our differences—and the occasional personality clash—everyone here respected one another’s work. If Sargeant was right about someone trying to get him into trouble, this was a work of a saboteur.

  “What I mean is,” I said, “I can’t imagine how she would know who actually sent the e-mail.”

  He clenched his lips tightly.

  “But,” I said, “it’s worth asking.”

  “Except she refuses to talk to me.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’ve e-mailed her twice, asking her to stop by.”

  “Did you visit her in person?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “I don’t wish to discuss this in front of her coworkers. This is a private matter. I won’t be fodder for office gossip.”

  Too late, I thought uncharitably. Chastising myself, I decided to take the high road yet again. “You know, Peter,” I said, “sometimes you can be a little bit intimidating.”

  He sat up, as though I’d just paid him the highest compliment. “You think so?”

  I pictured the mousy girl. “Lynn might be afraid to come talk to you.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Did you tell her what you wanted to talk with her about?”

  He shook his head. “I want to watch her as I ask the question. Determine if she’s hiding anything.”

  “Lynn’s what? About twenty-two? She strikes me as kind of shy and nervous. I’m not sure she’d have the self-confidence to walk in here on her own.”

  “Maybe you can talk with her.”

  “Me?”

  “That favor I mentioned…”

  “You just said you wanted to watch her as she answers.”

  “She won’t even answer my e-mails, so it will just have to be you who talks with her. And report back to me.”

  I wanted to ask at what point this had become my problem, but I was again struck by the toll this had taken on him. His face was pale and slack. It looked like he hadn’t slept since Doug had delivered the news. “You know,” I said, “if you’d just taken responsibility right off the bat, maybe Doug would have considered investigating himself, once you explained.”

  I expected him to explode. To jump out of his chair and shout that he hadn’t done anything wrong and to insist he shouldn’t be forced to take responsibility for something he hadn’t done.

  Instead, he actually looked pensive. “That would have been the right move. At least with Doug. Paul would have believed me. He knows I take responsibility for my mistakes—though I’ve never made any at the White House.”

  Nothing wrong with this guy’s self-esteem.

  He sighed. “Now that I’ve argued my point, however, I am forced to prove myself. You understand, don’t you?”

  Unfortunately, I did. Too well. “Can I give you some advice, Peter?”

  He sat back as though afraid of what I might say. “Go ahead.”

  “Own up to it—”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “You left your computer vulnerable and that’s actually worse,” I said. “Take it from me. You’re always eager to point out how much trouble I am…”

  He gave a so-so shake of his head.

  “But have you noticed that despite all the ‘trouble’ I’ve caused, I’m still here?”

  He blinked twice. “You don’t think they would let me go because of this, do you?”

  I couldn’t very well share what Paul had told me. Time for me to get back to the kitchen. “Who knows how decisions are made around here anymore? Doug is still an unknown right now. It’s just smart politics to be careful.”

  He grumbled under his breath.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I hate it when you’re right.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I know you do.”

  Tonight’s dinner would be a nice, easy one. Although we were diligent at providing the tastiest and most interesting food for our guests, the kitchen remained relatively calm. This was not the sort of event that made the news. Not an official social gathering. Working dinners for the president and his guests didn’t require the crazed, last-minute wildness of preparing a hundred perfect meals all ready to go at precisely the same time.

  What was special about this gathering—at least for us in the kitchen—was that we hoped to gauge reactions to a few new items we were considering for the secretary of state’s birthday party next month. Pastry-wrapped asparagus with prosciutto topped my list. Now that the event’s location was set and its invitation list no longer in flux, I hoped to get cranking on finalizing the menu.

  “Where’s Virgil?” I asked when I got back.

  Bucky gave me a baleful glare. Cyan giggled. “He’s upstairs, in the residence.”

  “Mrs. Hyden and the kids aren’t here. The president is taking lunch in his office. What’s Virgil doing up there now?”

  “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,” Bucky said, striking a pose. “He’s walking a photographer through some of the rooms to get ‘inspiration’ for yet another magazine spread.”

  I hated to point out the obvious. “Shouldn’t the magazine be focusing on photos of him working in the kitchen?”

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you?” Bucky asked.

  Cyan wore a mischievous grin. “He prefers photographers and feature writers to capture ‘his full essence.’ ”

  “He said that?”

  Cyan laughed again. “Word for word.”

  I was not a person to look a gift horse in the mouth. “While he’s gone—” I said.

  Bucky turned. “You’ve got some dirt on him?”

  “Sorry, no,” I said, “but I do want your opinions on a matter that just came up, which I’d rather not discuss in front of Virgil.”

  “Ooh, Ollie, what is it?” Cyan crossed the room to peek around the corner. “The coast is clear.”

  I beckoned them closer. Keeping my voice down, I told them about the guest-list problem and how I believed Sargeant wasn’t responsible. “He’s asked me to help him find out who might have done it.”

  “Oh, ho!” Bucky said loudly. “Sure, he comes to you when he needs help because he knows that you find answers. Whenever you’ve been in trouble in the past, though, he’s always first in line with a rock in his hand.”

  “I know, but
—”

  Cyan winced. “I’m with Bucky on this one,” she said. “He’s been nothing but trouble for you from day one. Let him figure this out himself.”

  “Who do you think has it in for Sargeant?”

  Bucky rubbed his chin, pretending to study the ceiling. “I don’t know. Maybe…everyone?”

  “I know he’s been a problem, but I’m stuck working with him—”

  “And you feel responsible,” Cyan finished for me.

  I winced at her spot-on analysis. “Sort of.”

  Bucky leaned in. “Listen, maybe this is just the thing to get him out of here. You don’t know he didn’t make this mistake. Maybe he’s hoping you’ll poke around so that he can turn the tables and blame you.”

  I started to protest, but Bucky also had a point.

  “Call me insensitive, but all we need are a few mistakes blamed on him and we’ll be saying bye-bye to our sensitivity director.”

  “So you two think I should let this drop?”

  Cyan gave me the look. “That’s a no-brainer.”

  Five minutes before serving time, we were experiencing the last-minute jitters that always occur right before an event, no matter how small. With only twelve diners tonight, the craziness was down to a minimum, but Virgil, unfortunately, was still his wild self.

  “What is wrong with you?” Virgil screamed.

  The object of his outburst was one of the young Service by Agreement assistants we’d brought on for the night, Samantha. She cowered under the chef’s glare. In her early twenties, with chubby red cheeks and curly maroon hair pulled back in a severe bun, she’d been stuck working next to Virgil all night.

  “Haven’t you learned to pour without spilling all over the dinner plate? How did you ever land this position with such inferior habits?” Poor Samantha had done the unforgivable. Hands shaking as she’d drizzled béchamel sauce over a sampling of shrimp, she’d allowed an errant drop to land on the edge of one of the dinner plates. “Don’t they teach you anything in school? You’re not four years old anymore. You’re accountable.”

  “Yes, Chef,” she said meekly as she reached for a hand towel with the clear intent of wiping the offending plate clean.

  “Don’t use that!” he screeched.

  Startled, she jumped back, but because her left hand had been gripping the plate, the dish jumped along with her. Food leapt overboard. Most of it landed on the countertop, the rest went splat on the floor.

  Samantha’s lower lip trembled. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean—”

  “Look what you did.” Virgil lifted the plate and banged it onto the countertop in emphasis. “You ruined a perfectly good dinner. Now we have to prepare a replacement, which means our diners will be required to wait. This is unacceptable. Do you hear?”

  Fat tears shimmered in Samantha’s eyes, swiftly breaking free to run down her reddening cheeks. She looked like a trapped animal right before the hunter sliced its neck.

  I took the plate out of Virgil’s hand and spoke quietly. “This is President Polk’s china. Its pieces are irreplaceable.”

  Virgil waved dismissively. “It was her.”

  Still holding the plate, which I inspected for damage, I addressed Bucky. “Let’s get this taken care of. Can you get a new dinner together quickly?”

  “I’m on it.”

  Butlers collected the remaining eleven plates and waited for Bucky to re-create the dish. I turned to Samantha. “Take a moment, collect yourself. Go splash cold water on your face. Then come right back and I’ll have a job for you.”

  Those big eyes seemed to grow wider, but she nodded and ran out of the kitchen toward the nearest washroom.

  “Virgil,” I said the moment she was gone, “this kitchen is not the place for such behavior and I will not tolerate it.”

  “That’s your problem. You have no passion for what you do. If you did, you wouldn’t allow substandard meals to be served to your guests. If I hadn’t caught her spill—”

  “Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now,” I finished. “Because if anyone else: me, Bucky, Cyan…one of the butlers…had noticed it, we would have either pointed it out to her in a civilized manner or we would have corrected the problem ourselves.”

  “That’s no way to run a kitchen,” he shouted. “These underlings need to know who’s boss!”

  I pulled my lips tight and waited for my temper to quiet. “You’re completely right,” I said.

  “I know I am.”

  “People do need to know who’s boss.”

  He blinked.

  “I am the boss,” I said. “Go home.”

  “But…”

  “Immediately. Take off your apron and leave. Come back when you’re ready to work well with others.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Do you need an escort to show you the way out?” I asked conversationally. I nodded to Bucky, who moved closer to the phone. “We have a dinner to finish serving, and right now you’re in the way.”

  “You can’t do this.”

  “Watch me.”

  As my second-in-command picked up the receiver, Virgil yanked off his apron and slammed it onto the countertop. “Fine. I’m out of here!”

  He stormed out of the main kitchen into the back area, where most of us kept our coats. Not one of us turned as he stomped past us. Not one of us wished him a good night.

  The moment he was gone, Bucky said, “I swear that guy is the biggest diva I’ve ever met. He’s even worse than I was.”

  CHAPTER 13

  DINNER WAS SERVED AND ENJOYED. EMPTY plates were returned to the kitchen for us to analyze. We made our notes, cleaned up, then sent Samantha home with our thanks for her help and a promise that we’d call her again.

  Then came my favorite time: Bucky, Cyan, and I basked in the glow of a job well done. Bucky gave the countertop a final blast with cleaning solution, then wiped until it sparkled. “You realize you got lucky,” he said.

  Cyan, transcribing our notes into a computer document, perked up. “You mean because just about everyone tonight joined the clean-your-plate club? Luck has nothing to do with that. It’s our incredible talent that made this happen. If these weren’t fancy schmancy White House people, I’d have guessed they all licked their plates clean.”

  I laughed. It felt great to have created a meal that had been so universally enjoyed. Except for one diner’s plate that came back with the asparagus virtually untouched, the food had disappeared. To us, that indicated an unqualified success.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Bucky said. “You’re lucky you reamed out the First Lady’s pet chef while she was out of town. He can’t go crying to her tonight. He’s going to have to wait until she gets back.”

  “And by then he’ll probably have lost his steam,” I said, “right?”

  “Right.”

  “Just like Cyan said a minute ago: Luck had nothing to do with it.”

  Bucky’s eyebrows shot up. “You planned it that way?”

  “I didn’t plan to reprimand him tonight, if that’s what you mean, but I suspected the pressure would get to him. It always does. And I was completely aware that the First Lady was out of his reach.” I smiled. “You heard of picking your battles? Well, tonight I chose wisely.”

  Bucky grinned. “There’s hope for you yet.”

  One of the White House pages showed up in the doorway. “Chef Paras?” she said.

  I looked at Bucky and Cyan. “I hope I didn’t speak too soon.”

  “The secretary of state would like to speak with you upstairs.”

  My hand flew to my forehead. I’d totally forgotten about Secretary Quinones’s plan to give me a gift for rescuing his father-in-law. “Do you need me up there right now?”

  “What’s going on, Ollie?” Cyan asked.

  “It’s nothing. I should be back in a minute,” I said. Quickly washing my hands and drying them, I untied my apron and brushed crumbs off my smock. “Do you think I
need to change it?” I asked.

  Cyan squinted. “For meeting with the secretary of state? With the president there? With a bunch of other really important people around you? With that splotch of grease across your chest? Yeah, I think maybe you should change.”

  I held a finger up to the page, who looked terrified to be making a top official wait. “I’ll just be a second.”

  “I’m sure he’ll understand. You work in a kitchen, after all—”

  By the time she got the sentence out, I was through the door with a new smock in my hand. Less than a minute later I had donned fresh clothing and was making my way back to the kitchen. “See,” I said, “that didn’t take—”

  A stranger stood in the center of our kitchen. “Ms. Paras?” he asked. Wearing a charcoal suit that contrasted his fair skin and hyper-blond hair, he was about my age and very tall. I didn’t recognize him. Astoundingly handsome, with expressive blue eyes and a tentative smile, he reached out to grasp my hand. Thank goodness he couldn’t see Cyan’s thumbs-up of approval from behind.

  “My name is Ethan Nagy. I’m assistant to Secretary of State Quinones.”

  I was sure I must have seen this man on TV at some point, but he didn’t look at all familiar. That wasn’t unusual. We didn’t always get to know all the assistants of all the cabinet members.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Nagy.”

  “Ethan, please. Secretary Quinones would have liked to have come down here himself…”

  “I’m sure he has much more important things to do.”

  A wider smile this time. “Thank you for your understanding. Secretary Quinones wishes to express his profound gratitude for your help in rescuing his wife’s father.”

  “He already thanked me once,” I said. “Really, it was just luck that I happened to be there.”

  Ethan turned his head a little bit. “I don’t think luck had anything to do with it,” he said, echoing the words we’d said in this kitchen just moments before. “From what I understand, you have a history of getting involved in unusual circumstances.”