Off the Chart. James Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ of course,’ he said, giving her a more careful look. ‘Who could forget Maureen O’Hara?’

      ‘Hey,’ said the sulky blonde. ‘Are we having lunch or what?’

      In the Lorelei kitchen, Vic Joy made an offer. Seven million dollars.

      And Milton Stammer, who owned the joint, said sure, sure, he’d think about it and get back to Vic real soon. Blowing Vic off.

      ‘What’s to think about?’ Vic said. ‘It’s two million more than the goddamn place is worth.’

      Milton Stammer was a short balding man with a formidable paunch. He kept smoothing his hands across his bloated belly like a pregnant woman trying to get used to how big she’d grown.

      ‘Okay, so I sell you the restaurant, what am I going to do then, Vic? Move to Boca, sit in a golf cart all day, cocktails at four, early bird at five, sit around, talk about how everybody did on the back nine? I’m a blue-collar guy; I’m too freaking old to pick up golf.’

      Vic glanced out the serving window and watched Thorn and his group sitting in the sun, waiting for their lunch. In his free time for the last few months, Vic had made Thorn his project. Shadowing him, asking around about the guy, trying to get a feel for what would motivate the asshole.

      Today Vic had tagged along two cars back and wound up at the Lorelei, where his own sister worked. His estranged sister. Two of them hadn’t spoken in years.

      When Thorn and his gang pulled into the Lorelei, Vic parked a few spaces away facing the sprawling restaurant and bar. He sat there for a moment watching Thorn and his friends walk into the place. Vic must’ve driven by the Lorelei a million times, but he’d never given it any serious real estate scrutiny. It had a nice ramshackle feel. A laidback, outdoorsy vibe. A nice fit with the rest of his holdings. Five minutes after pulling into the parking lot, he was inside the noisy kitchen, waving seven million bucks in front of the owner’s face. That’s how Vic Joy worked, relying on his creative juices. Weaving and bobbing as events took shape. He’d built a damn nice empire that way.

      ‘Place like this,’ Vic said, staring up at the ceiling, ‘all this wood. Must be a bitch to insure.’

      Milton closed his eyes and shook his head solemnly.

      ‘A grease fire,’ Vic said. ‘Or maybe a smoker flicking his butt in the bathroom waste can, or bad wiring, overloaded circuits. Shit, it could start a hundred different ways. All this old timber, about twenty minutes all you got is ash and rubble. Then you’d be sorry as hell you didn’t take the six million.’

      ‘What happened to seven?’

      ‘Did I say seven? Well, I meant six.’ Vic watched the hubbub of the kitchen. Steam rising from the dishwashing machine. A darker steam coming from the deep-fat fryers. The Lorelei was a busy place, and prickly hot. Kitchen staff hustling back and forth, sending uneasy looks their way. Everyone knew Vic Joy, how he worked. ‘Actually, Milton, now that I take a careful look around, I’m going to have to back down to five mil. All this wood. This place is a fucking fire trap. I don’t know how it’s lasted as long as it has.’

      Milton’s stubby arms hung at his sides. The man’s eyes were grayish and bulgy. A large man’s large eyes. Pry them out of their sockets, they’d fill your palm. For a second Vic flashed on an image of a couple of gray eyeballs floating inside a glass jar, suspended in formaldehyde. Make a nice addition to his collection.

      He smiled at the big man, but Milton wasn’t in the smiling frame of mind.

      ‘I’ll tell you what I’m doing, Vic. I’m taking all that fire shit as a threat. I don’t know if that’s how you meant it, but that’s how I’m taking it. Now I want you to get the hell out of here. If I ever see your sorry ass around my restaurant again, I’ll call the cops. You got that? Tell them you been threatening me.’

      ‘The cops?’ Vic shivered and wobbled his hands in the air. ‘Be still my heart. Not the cops.’

      Milton gave Vic a bitter glare, then about-faced and tramped across the buzzing kitchen to his office and shoved the door closed behind him.

      Vic stepped over to the fry cook, a tall thin man with a hook nose. Guy’d been eavesdropping, sneaking looks.

      ‘You know who I am, kid?’

      ‘Vic Joy,’ the hook nose said.

      ‘Bingo.’

      With a wide spatula the cook slid a burger onto a plate, then settled a fish sandwich onto another. Lettuce, tomato, pickle on the side.

      ‘Let me see that ticket.’ Vic reached out and snapped the order slip from the clip. A few minutes earlier he’d watched Anne Bonny hang it there. When she’d appeared, Vic swung around and kept his back to her. Didn’t want to give his little sister a cardiac right there at work, bumping into her long-lost brother after all these years. Vic studied the order slip. In his sister’s scrawl, Thorn was written out next to the guy’s order.

      ‘Which one’s the grouper with Swiss?’

      Vic nodded at the six plates lined up in the window.

      The hook nose took a careful look at Vic.

      ‘Which one?’ Vic said again.

      The fry cook reached out his spatula and tapped one of the sandwiches.

      Thorn’s lunch. Fried fish with a layer of melted cheese. Guy was going to choke on cholesterol if he wasn’t careful. Which suited Vic fine, as long as the jerkhole waited till after Vic was completely done with him.

      ‘Guy’s a friend of mine,’ Vic said. ‘We do this, me and him. Little pranks back and forth.’

      ‘Whatever.’ The fry cook got busy with the dressing on a cheese-burger.

      Vic peeled back the bun on the grouper sandwich and laid it on the plate. He reached into his pocket and drew out his penknife and flicked open the blade. Out on the sunny patio Anne Bonny was taking the order at another table. Two blondes and a dark-haired guy. Vic craned forward and squinted into the sunlight.

      Dark-haired Romeo smiling up at Vic’s little sister. Batting his eyes and Anne batting back.

      Vic laid the blade against the palm of his left hand. He looked over at the fry cook, but the guy was focused on his work.

      Vic gritted his teeth and sliced the blade across his palm, an inch, another inch, just deep enough to get a trickle of blood rising from the seam, spilling into the web of creases.

      He reached out to Thorn’s open sandwich and made a fist and watched the dark fluid dribble out. Six, seven drops spattering against the melted Swiss.

      He milked out a few more drips, then closed up the sandwich and set it back under the warming lights just as the fry cook smacked the signal bell.

      A few seconds later Anne headed back toward the window to pick up her order. There was a tiny smile on her lips. Probably nobody else would’ve noticed, but Vic was her brother and he’d spent years studying the looks that came and went on Anne Bonny’s face. He’d never seen that exact smile before. Not once.

      Vic СКАЧАТЬ