Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [112]
That Victor was not better known in Miami was a matter of unspoken conspiracy among the Cuban professionals who frequented La Cumparsita. Victor was, they recognized intuitively, one restaurant critic away from chic Anglo hordes who slummed in the barrio in their fractured Spanish the way another generation of fashionable whites once cruised Harlem.
Either you knew about La Cumparsita or you didn’t. His customers preferred it that way, and so did Victor. There was a menu, but it was only in Spanish, and only first-timers ever consulted it. All others trusted in Victor. He practiced personal service, and some said that merely the sight of him waddling over in a maroon velvet tuxedo to tout that night’s specialties was worth the startling prices he charged for them.
It was a small restaurant, but Victor had resisted the temptation to expand. The self-impressed diners made him money enough, and his kitchen rewarded him with everything else he needed.
Victor was in fact a Shanghai-born White Russian who traveled on a Panamanian passport of doubtful provenance. But it had served him well in all corners of the earth, and everywhere he had gone he had massively sampled the cuisine and carefully studied the ambience in which it was served.
La Cumparsita, whose stake he had acquired in a brief liaison with an Austrian woman of more money than sense, was a blending of all Victor had learned.
He had chosen a quiet side street for his dream, in the barrio to be sure, but one tree-lined step removed from the bustle of Southwest Eighth Street. He had screened the parking lot from the restaurant with a thick hedge of southern pine breached by the single flagstone path. La Cumparsita itself Victor had divided into two distinct beings, each with its own atmosphere.
Running along most of the left side of the building and reached by a door toward the rear was a discreet bar. It was dark enough for lovers and friendly enough to soothe hungry customers waiting for tables inside.
The main dining room, twelve carefully arranged tables, was Victor’s masterpiece. It combined the atmosphere of a rich man’s club with the air of bounty and quality. From France had come the idea of wicker baskets with colorful assortments of fruits and vegetables. They faced diners as they came through the carved oak door marked only by a small sign in engraved bronze.
To the left stood a large freezer with eye-level glass panels, a copy of one Victor had once seen in Buenos Aires. Thick sides of beef, racks of lamb and hanging ducks awaited a master’s touch. The freezer’s complement to the right of the entrance was a lobster pool and a salt-water tank where Victor’s Catch of the Day whiled away their last few minutes. Order snapper, or pompano, or yellow tail, and a smiling chef in a tall hat—or Victor himself if you were an important customer—would gracefully scoop it from the tank with a net. Victor thought of the fish tank as his Hong Kong standby. Keeping the fish alive was tricky and tedious, and the tank cost him the earth, but it was worth its weight in gold.
The restaurant décor was elegant and subtle: pewterware, goblets, English crystal and damask tablecloths. Candles at each table in silver holders. The chairs were cushioned wicker, as plush as the service, as ample as the portions.
Victor had a genius for plants, and he moved them around to shed privacy or fantasy as whim and circumstance demanded. That night he had built a screen of potted palms in the far corner of the room, obscuring the last table there from all but the most determined gaze. That would be Señor Bermúdez’s table.
Victor treasured his patronage; it was like an imprimature among the Cuban elite. Sometimes Bermúdez came with his family and was expansive, table-hopping, ordering champagne for his friend there, brandy for that happy couple there.
Other times, like tonight, he demanded privacy. A large table, but set for two, he had said; his guest would be a distinguished foreign visitor whose good will meant millions for Miami. Bermúdez had politely listened to Victor’s suggestions