Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [35]
"He say anything interesting?"
"It's all on the fuckin' tape," said Harvey. "Listen to it."
"I want to hear it from you," said Al. "What did he say? How did he seem? Happy? Sad? Nervous? Whimsical? What?"
"He seemed nervous. And pissed off about something. Didn't talk much. Just 'Where's the money, make sure you have it together for next week.' He asked about the other people. The people from Brooklyn. Whether I'd seen any of them around."
"What did you say?"
"I said no. What do you think?"
"Did he believe you?"
"I don't know. Like I said, he seemed pissed about something."
Harvey got up from his chair and went to the bathroom. He took a few sheets of toilet paper and wiped under his arms. He found a water glass wrapped in paper on the counter. He took one of the sodas off the night table, unwrapped the glass, and poured himself half a glass of Diet Pepsi.
"Shit is warm."
"Sorry, I've been here awhile. It was cold when I got it."
"They don't have ice here?"
"There's a machine by the office," said Al. "But I didn't want to leave the room."
"I didn't see your little red Alfa out there," said Harvey.
"No. I got something else today," said Al. "You see the black van on the other side of the lot? Got a sunroof and a mural on the side? That's me."
Harvey peered through the blinds. The van was parked all the way over. The mural on the side depicted a black man standing in front of some extraterrestrial landscape, surrounded by bejeweled naked women with melon-sized breasts, "Who's the schvoogie on the side?" Harvey inquired.
"Jimi Hendrix," said Al. "I think so anyway. It's a fuckin' seventies whorehouse on wheels, that thing. Carpet, beanbag chairs. Got it off DEA, they took it oft some druggie—Florida, I think."
Harvey took a sip of his warm soda and sat back in the chair.
"I went out with the chef the other night," he said.
"That's Michael, the chef—isn't it?"
"Yeah," said Harvey. "He's French, you know. Or his family's French. I don't know,"
"So?"
"Well we go out for some drinks together. Talk about the menu, discuss a few things. Well, all night long he's bitchin' about his chef's knife. It's some expensive Jap knife he got custom made, costs about a million dollars, they got to measure your hand and everything to make it. Anyway, he's bitchin' about it getting all fucked up. He comes in the other day and it's all beaten to shit like somebody's been pounding on it with a hammer. There was chunks missing out of the thing, blade all bent up. Like somebody tried to cut through a chain-link fence with it. So after he comes into my office and a lot of pissing and moaning, I sent him out to get a new one. Cost me five hundred bucks. So we're sitting there at this bar and he's going on and on about his fuckin' knife and who could have done such a thing and I start thinking. I'm thinking about when the knife got so fucked up. See the chef keeps asking who could've done it and I realize who it was in the kitchen the night before. It was that night Sally was there."
"What did you tell him?" asked Al.
"Michael? I didn't tell him anything. I don't really know anything. I mean, I know who was down there, Sally and Tommy and all. But what am I going to say? I told him maybe the porters did it trying to scrape out a pot or something."
"That satisfy him?"
"I guess so."
"So what are you telling me, Harvey," said Al. "Sally is dropping by your kitchen in the middle of the night to play with knives? Is that what you're telling me, Harvey?"
"I don't know. I don't know who did it. I just know Sally and Tommy were there that night."
"Maybe it was somebody else," said Al.
"Everybody in the place knew about that fuckin' knife. Nobody was to touch it. Chef told everybody. Cooks, waiters, dishwashers, porters. He told them all a million times. Somebody put a little ding in it one time, he called a staff meeting to tell everybody not to touch his damn knife."
"And it wasn't the porters," said Al.
"The porters weren't there," said Harvey.
"Right, right," said Al.
"Anyway I thought about that today when I'm talking to