To Kill a Cook

Tuesday
1

So it started with a severed head.
Well, not really—nothing ever starts with a severed head. It started at seven a.m., I guess, when the kids woke up screaming like they were being stabbed in the spine. I’d been living with my fiancé and his boys for about a year but I hadn’t acclimated to the furious inefficiency of a morning with children, so even before I got out of the house I was running late. I skipped breakfast because I was headed for Laurent’s, on 54th and Mad, only half a block from a nasty little deli that does the most exquisitely greasy pastrami, egg and cheese, so I stomped through Central Park toward my destiny or, at the very least, something to eat.
It was a bright blue morning in early April and the sun was shining like a freshly unwrapped toy. It should have been beautiful, yeah, but this was New York in 1972, so getting out of the park meant navigating a four-foot smear of human waste. Shit doesn’t bother me—you step around it, it’s not a hassle—but being late makes my jaw ache. Toru had the kids, which meant it was my turn to work. I had a column to write and nothing to say, so I needed to do some eating and some thinking and unless I stuck to my schedule there was no way I’d have time for both. By the time I hit Mad the coffee had turned to bile and I was dying for a cigarette and it would have been fine if I’d gotten that sandwich, but when I neared the deli there was smoke on the wind. Somebody had smashed a wood-paneled Torino wagon through the front window and I definitely wasn’t getting anything to eat.
Still, I felt better when I got to Laurent’s because I always do. I turned at the faded green awning, took four steps down from the sidewalk and pulled the handle of the famous rust red door. It was locked, which was annoying because Laurent had promised to leave it open, but you don’t get to be a genius by remembering to unlock doors. I thumped a few times and I guess I looked unhinged because a family of tourists outside the hotel next door stared at me like I was a rabid dog. I peeked through the window.
“If he’s not here I’m gonna kill him,” I said.
Two huge ferns flanked the front door, older than the dinosaurs. I played a quick game of eenie, meenie, minie, moe, chose the left one, buried my hand in damp dirt and felt around for the spare key. The tourists continued to gawk. They were refugees from the Sears catalog. The mom looked like a creamsicle—orange minidress over orange slacks, all dripping white fringe—and the boys had matching bowl cuts, green polos, plaid pants, and expressions of stupor. The only thing spoiling the picture was the dad, who was wearing a puffy winter coat even though it was, I don’t know, sixty-five degrees? He had one of those three martini faces, twisted into sweaty fear.
“The concierge said it isn’t safe,” he said.
“Bert,” sighed the woman. “He said it was safe after eight.”
“It’s 7:54,” said one of the kids, staring intently at his Mickey Mouse watch. “No. 7:55.”
“We’re going back inside,” said Dad.
“I did not cross half the country to sit in the hotel,” answered Mom.
“And I didn’t come here to get stabbed.”
Tourists really do get worse every year. Sure, plenty of people get killed in this town, but the odds are decent that on any given day it won’t be you. So I pulled my arm out of the planter and yelled something encouraging:
“Get breakfast!”
They froze. Which I guess is understandable because I was a stranger with a dirty arm but they were gonna benefit from my expertise whether they liked it or not.
“You’re three blocks from Cohen’s, they do amazing potato pancakes. On Madison and 52nd there’s this pastry shop called Antoine’s I think, and they’ve got éclairs and croissants that ooze butter, or if you want something good for kids, go left on Lex and walk until you see this big chrome clock—that’s Shepherd’s Diner, which is cheap and the food comes fast and the waiters flirt but not too much.”
As far as I was concerned this was all very helpful—free advice from a professional eater—but I guess I was kind of shrieking because with each word they inched closer toward the door. The man tried to answer.
“The concierge said—”
“The concierge wants you inside all week eating room service. Where you from?”
His mouth flapped. No words came out. I yelled louder:
“I said where are you from?”
“New Harmony,” said one boy.
“Indiana,” clarified the other. The parents hugged them closer, afraid that any more information would be enough for me to murder them in their beds. I plunged my arm into the second planter and dug for the key that, dammit, just had to be there. I kept my eyes on the family, though—I’m coordinated enough that I can shout and rummage at the same time.
“And you didn’t haul yourselves all the way from Indiana to sit on a hotel bedspread eating rubber eggs and watching Captain Kangaroo. Don’t be a coward. Eat!”
Y’know when Daffy Duck runs away so fast that he leaves behind a little cloud of duck-shaped dust? That’s how they bolted back into the hotel.
“Their loss.”
My hand closed on the chill metal key. I put New Harmony out of mind, brushed off the dirt, and opened the door.
It was dark in there. That was part of the charm. At night it was a place of shadows and golden light where everyone looked a little bit beautiful. In the morning, it was a big room with the lights off. I waited for my eyes to adjust. When they didn’t, I felt for the switch and tried to ignore how threadbare everything looked under the glare.
“Laurent?” I called. “César?”
My voice crashed into the soft beige tablecloths and died. I passed the maître d’s stand and climbed to the bar, jaw clenchingly aware that I had roughly fifteen minutes before I had to head downtown. I filled a rocks glass with something called “pub mix.” Once Laurent’s bar snacks had been toasted almonds and cured olives, but the belt had been tightened until only canned mix was left. It was stale, yeah, but salty too and exactly what my body required. I bit through the pale brown crunch and eyed the old pictures of Laurent posing with all the favorite post-war celebrities: Lee Dixon and Walter Pidgeon, Tommy Dorsey and this blonde whose name I couldn’t remember but whom I considered deeply glamorous when I was a child. They looked bleached and tanned and sweaty with gin, smiling like the party was never gonna end. I found it terribly unfair that they were allowed to smoke while I was not.
Time passed, like it usually does. After thirteen minutes, I grabbed the bar phone and dialed PA 9-9229. Judy Grich, my editor, answered mid-inhale. I could smell her from here.
“Yeah?” she said.
“It’s Bernice.”
“Not like you to be running late.”
My back got hot. The only thing worse than being late is being called out. I twisted the phone’s pale blue exoskeleton in my fist.
“It’s Toru’s birthday party Friday. We’re having it Laurent’s.”
“Sure is nice to have fancy friends.”
“Except he called with the menu and it was, I don’t know. Bland.”
“Like what?” She sounded hungry. I flipped open my notepad and read what Laurent gave me on Sunday night.
“Cruise ship food. Chilled hearts of celery. Something called ‘Petit Alaska Shrimp Cocktail Gourmet.’ Yorkshire pudding, garden peas, Carolina rice, all wrapped up with fruit compote and lychee nut ice cream.”
“Not very French.”
“That’s what I said! I told him to serve the fucking classics, right? Caviar and champagne and orange duck and chocolate mousse.”
“And what’d he say?”
“He said come by before we open and he’d show me something special. So I figured I’d squeeze it in before our meeting but he’s running late so maybe I come by next week instead?”
“Yeah…” Her lighter flicked. Another long drag. “Nah, sorry, I gotta see you today.”
“What about?”
“Nothing really. Just gotta see you.”
“Can we do it on the phone?”
“I’d rather not.”
Shit, I thought. Shit shit shit. It’s lovely having a sociable editor—it’s a good way to get lunch on the magazine’s tab—but when she insists on meeting, well, either it’s because my cover story on “The New Spaghetti” had won a Pulitzer or something had gone wrong.
“How about 10:30?” I said, with an irritating note of fear.
“That’s just fine.”
She hung up. I popped another piece of pub mix and found I had no spit. I hung my elbows on the bar and scowled at the room. I don’t like being in restaurants when they’re empty. It’s improper, like catching Helen Hayes in her curlers. The chairs were upside down and the air was crisp with Pine-Sol. The mirrored columns looked foggy; the banquettes sagged; the seaside murals of Calais looked cheap. And the clock was still ticking. Soon I’d be late again.
I remembered some awful show the kids watched where this fresh-faced ersatz hippie whispered about how, “When we’re angry or upset, when we’re feeling scared, all we need to do is breeeeeeeeathe.” I tried to breeeeeeeeathe, which made me cough, which made me want a cigarette. I was tempted to root around to see if CJ had a pack stashed, but instead I closed my eyes and tried to find my happy place and remembered that, fuck, I was already there.

I fell in love with Laurent’s long before I ever passed through its door. I found out about it through Our World, one of those full color magazines that were such a big deal back when the whole world was black and white. They dubbed him “King of the Butter Boys” in 1955, which would’ve made me, Christ, about twelve years old. He got the cover and an eight-page spread and the declaration that his place was “the first great restaurant New York has ever seen.” Which sounds impressive, yeah, but you’ve gotta understand how little competition he'd had. Back then American fine dining meant ham steak and boiled potatoes with a cup of terrapin soup. Our fruit was mushy; our veggies canned; our meat indistinguishable from asphalt. Laurent was different. He preached green salads and red steak, hand-whipped mayo and icy champagne, brackish caviar and creme pâtisserie so sweet it made your heart pound. Our World showed him at the red door, smiling wide, one hand in the pocket of his double-breasted suit, the other clutching a thick cigar. He was stout and cheerful, with thick black glasses and a gap between his front teeth, and he talked with the confidence of Moses, commandments in hand.
“Americans believe French food must be luxurious, and yes, sometimes it is. But luxury should not inspire fear. Good food—really good food—is a painting by Vermeer, a beautiful woman, an impeccable sunset. It requires no expertise. All you need is an appetite.”
Well, that and a bankroll—the prices Our World quoted made clear that, despite his republican chatter, Laurent’s was no soup kitchen. But it was expensive because caviar is expensive, because truffles have to be dug out of the damn ground by pigs. He was dishing up Pigeonneau Bresanne! Goujonnette de Sole with Sauce Tartare! Médaillon de Ris de Veau de Maréchal! I didn’t know what it meant but it sounded like heaven on a plate. The restaurant and the celebrities who roosted there were beautiful but the prettiest picture in the article was of the orange duck, which I cut out and taped to my dresser. It cost $6.50—a fortune—and the price only made me want it more.
Because let me tell you, my family didn’t eat like that. I was born in Brooklyn—don’t snicker, it wasn’t my idea—to an Anglo-Irish sandhog named Barton Black and a woman born Annie Giolitti who was the only Italian in the borough who hated Italian food. I grew up in a house where garlic and onions were prohibited, where tomatoes were unwelcome, where even salt was barely tolerated. Mom tried like hell to be English or Irish or anything but Italian, so instead of being raised on tortellini and parms, I got her interpretation of British cookery: boiled meat and boiled veg and tough little rolls that the NHL sometimes used as pucks. So it was Dad who taught me and my sister to eat. The subway still cost a nickel then, so on his day off we’d ride all over town to sample hotdogs at Coney Island, borscht at Brighton Beach, pastrami up and down Flatbush, and spicy sausage closer to home. I’m not nostalgic for old Brooklyn—the trolleys were slower than walking, stickball is boring, egg creams are worse than milkshakes, and Ebbets stank of piss. But those afternoons on the train with Dad, I think about a lot.
So when I went off to college at good ol’ CUNY-Forest Hills—let’s go Seagulls, rah rah rah!—I was determined to eat the city whole. I started by finding the best Chinese takeout, pizzeria and diners near campus, then expanded across Queens, eating Greek and Puerto Rican and West Indian and anything else I could find. All of it was beautiful and I learned a hell of a lot, but at night I still dreamed about Laurent’s. By then he was probably the most famous chef in America. He’d turned out some cookbooks and he had a cooking show that was broadcast pretty widely across the northeast, where he’d pull housewives out of the audience and teach them to flip omelettes and use their blenders to whizz up mayonnaise. But the restaurant remained his home and I still dreamed about it often enough that I figured it was time to get a taste.
I took a job at the school library microfilming back issues of the New York Clarion, where I got wicked headaches squinting at ads for Dort Motor Cars and Palamino Cigarettes—“You Can’t Help But Love Them!,” yeah, no shit. They paid me pennies and I saved every one. By winter break, just before the end of 1961, I had enough socked away. I broke out my prom dress, a scarlet number heaped with ruffles and flared to kingdom come, paid too much to have my hair teased, and talked my roommate, a skittish wannabe model named Lucy Rogers, into coming with. We dropped our tokens in the turnstiles, rumbled under the East River, and emerged into a world of white lights, perfume, and fur. As soon as we crossed Park Avenue, Lucy got twitchy. I could feel her hand sweating through her glove.
“We look like dopes,” she said.
“We look phenomenal. Everybody thinks I’m some Eastern European princess and you’re a movie star just in from the coast.”
“I’m from Jersey, Bernice. Not even one of the high class suburbs. I’m from the shore.”
“So fucking what?”
The light changed. I tugged on her hand. She quivered like a tightrope.
“Can we skip it? Find some red sauce place and eat spaghetti and go home?”
“We’re doing this.”
“I’ll treat. Cheesecake, even. Just please let’s go somewhere we belong.”
“We belong wherever the hell we say.”
So I basically dragged her over to 54th and her legs got heavier with every step. I think I could have muscled her inside if it weren’t for the limousines. As soon as she saw them—eight coal black Cadillacs, like some mobster’s funeral—she let out this little yip and ran.
“God damn it!” I shouted.
“I’m sorry!”
“It’s only food, y’know? You’ve had it before.”
“I’m getting pizza and I am going back to Queens. You coming or what?”
I looked at Lucy, shivering in her mother’s clothes. She was dressed like a pineapple and still looked better than me. But I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and when my stomach’s growling nothing stands in my way. So I strolled down the steps like I owned the building and reached for the door. The doorman got there first.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”
I gave an asinine curtsy and tried to remember what fearless looked like as I shuffled into another world. You know The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe? It was basically that except instead of being about Jesus it was food and sex and instead of stepping into a magic forest I tumbled into a fog of smoke and Shalimar, iced gin and sizzling fat. The lights were dimmed down to nothing. Every candle glimmered like its own little star, its glare dancing off the mirrored columns and the dangerously low-hanging chandeliers and a few million dollars worth of rubies and emeralds and diamonds, diamonds, diamonds.
Everyone looked so gorgeous that it took me a moment to notice the actual famous people perched on Olympus—the five prime tables on the raised platform that overlooked the door, which I’d been seeing in my dreams ever since Our World taught me its name. Merle Oberon piled a toast point with caviar. Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra fenced with their cigars. Burt Lancaster told Gregory Peck, “Shut the fuck up, I’m paying,” while Mort Sahl gawked at the legs of Cyd Charisse, whose dress was pale blue and studded with lace flowers so delicate they made me feel like I was wearing a barn.
I wanted to run. I figured I had about fifteen seconds before they grabbed me and trussed me and hurled me into fancy people jail. But then a waiter swirled past carrying mussels and scallops and crisp striped bass and I knew there was nowhere else I belonged.
I tore my eyes off Olympus—let me tell you, it’s hard to stop looking at Cyd Charisse—and strode up to the maître d’, a plush-bodied man who’d been born in his tuxedo. He was shorter than me but his eyebrows had been teased toward the heavens, giving him a look of incredulity that only grew more severe as he watched me approach. His name, if my research was correct—and folks, it always is—was César Lerond.
“Bernice Black,” I said. I’d never hated my voice so much. “7:30.”
He dropped his eyes. He found my name. He looked surprised.
“A table for two.”
“That’s me.”
He gestured at a pair of pink velvet chairs.
“You may wait here until your date arrives.”
“I don’t have a date.”
“Oh?”
“My friend Lucy, she, well…It’s just me.”
His eyes were little red marbles. I expected the glasses to tumble off his nose but somehow, they held on.
“That is not possible.”
“And yet here I am.”
“But a young woman unattended…even at the bar…you understand how it would appear.”
I blinked. He didn’t. Berra jabbed his cigar at Stengel’s chest, sending his erstwhile manager tumbling into his chair. Beside them I spotted a sad-eyed woman with a halo of blonde hair, staring listlessly into her soup, absolutely alone.
“What about her?” I said. “She’s unattended—nobody thinks she’s a whore.”
“Because that is Princess Grace.”
“Of Monaco?” I gulped.
“The same.”
He lit a cigarette. I’d never had anyone light a cigarette at me before, but that’s how he did it—like he was putting a bullet in my skull.
Garbage stink wafted through the front door. A cackling couple tumbled through with it.
“Excuse me,” said César. “There are other guests.”
He waved his hand and I stepped aside. I wanted to sob but I had no interest in letting Grace Kelly see me cry. Instead I waited, metal in my mouth and acid in my gut, thinking how hideous it would feel to get back to the subway and find Lucy waiting on the platform with pizza grease on her chin and no slice for me. I’d starve to death before we made it back to Queens.
I’d rather die here.
So I sank into one of the pink chairs, which smelled exactly like your grandmother, and watched for an opening. Through the mob I spotted a table in the back where a heavyset Ivy Leaguer stared blankly at an empty bottle of champagne while his date worked her way through the biggest piece of cake I’d ever seen. A brace of bus boys hovered above her shoulder, waiting for the last crumb to tumble across her lacquered lips. When it did, everything happened all at once.
The girl stood. It took him a couple of tries, but her man did too.
The bus boys reached for the plates.
And César lit another cigarette.
As his eyes crossed over the Zippo’s flame, I darted onto the floor. Daffy, I know—what’d I think, he wouldn’t notice?—but I had this twisted feeling that once I sat down, once I crossed my legs and ordered my wine and demonstrated that I knew exactly which fork was which, they’d see that I belonged. My heart pounded, my palms sweated, my feet screamed RUN, but I forced myself to proceed as sedately as the lady I was pretending to be. I had nearly reached my freshly-cleared table when a plump little hand closed on my arm.
“Mademoiselle.”
Shit, shit, shit!
César had caught me and whatever he did was gonna be worse than pizza on the subway. It was gonna be an all-time humiliation and I’d be banned forever and I’d never have the nerve to go into a restaurant again. I’d die. In Brooklyn. Hungry and alone.
Except it wasn’t César.
It was the man himself.
Laurent Tirel.
My first thought, on meeting the chef whose genius I’d been admiring since I was in bobby socks, was that Our World must have taken his picture with him standing on a stool. He was at least two inches shorter than me and I have never been mistaken for tall. His teeth were crooked and his glasses made his eyes look like full moons, but something about his smile told me that once, long ago, this guy was a dish. As he spoke he smiled like the words tickled his mouth:
“You are?”
“Bernice Black. I’m not famous or anything, I go to CUNY-Forest Hills, I grew up in Brooklyn and I have a reservation for 7:30 and it was a table for two but—”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why did you make a reservation at my restaurant?”
“To eat.”
“To eat what?”
“Everything you have.”
He chuckled—the best department store Santa in the world didn’t have so warm a laugh—then let go of my wrist and offered his arm.
“If you need a date, my dear, perhaps you would accept me?”