The Bobby Gold stories - Anthony Bourdain [0]
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Nonfiction
Kitchen Confidential
A Cook's Tour
Typhoid Mary
Fiction
Bone in the Throat
Gone Bamboo
THE
BOBBY GOLD
STORIES
ANTHONY BOURDAIN
BLOOMSBURY
Copyright © 2002 by Anthony Bourdain
First published in Great Britain in 2002 by Canongate Crime, an
imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address
Bloomsbury, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
Published by Bloomsbury, New York and London
Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers
First published in hardcover in the U.S. by Bloomsbury in 2003
This paperback edition published in 2004
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bourdain, Anthony.
[Bobby Gold]
The Bobby Gold Stories / Anthony Bourdain - 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Originally published as Bobby Gold. London: Canongate Crime, 2002.
eISBN: 978-1-59691-722-4
1. Gangsters—Fiction. 2. Restaurants—Fiction. 3. Women cooks—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3551.0838B63 2003
813'.54-dc21
2003041882
13579108642
Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Polmont, Stirlingshire, Scotland
Printed in the United States of America by
R. R. Donnelley & Sons, Harrisonburg, Virginia
To Nancy
CONTENTS
Bobby in Color
Bobby at Work
Bobby the Diplomat
Bobby Eats Out
Bobby in Love
Bobby Gets Jilted
Bobby Gets Blue
Bobby at the Beach
Bobby Gets Squeezed
Bobby's Not Here
Bobby Takes It on the Lam
Bobby Gone
BOBBY IN COLOR
Bobby Gold at twenty-one, in a red-and-white Dead Boys T-shirt, blue jeans, high-top Nikes and handcuffs, bent over the hood of the State Police cruiser, arms behind his back, wished he was anywhere but here. The beach would be nice, he thought, as the trooper to his right read him his rights. The beach would be great. Cheek pressed hard against the hot metal of the car's hood, Bobby wondered: if he held his head just right —so that his ear cupped against the blue-and-white car — would he be able to hear the ocean?
The rented Chevrolet Caprice sat on the shoulder, between two cruisers, bathed in flashing red and blue lights. Styx had come on the radio just as they'd pulled him over. He had been happily listening to "Monkey Man" by the Stones, singing along, in fact, volume all the way up when he'd seen the lights in his rear-view mirror, and in the excitement and confusion of the moment, had neglected to turn the radio off. Now Styx was playing on the radio, always and forever the soundtrack to any future memories of this ugly event. Damn, thought Bobby.
Bobby wondered how the rental company dealt with a situation like this. Would he be charged for the extra days that the car was held for evidence? Who would come and pick it up?
What if the cops tore the car apart? This was a worst-case scenario as there were three kilos of cocaine hidden inside the spare tire - and another two kilos behind the seats. Would the guy from Avis take a taxi to the police impound lot, and then drive the car away — or would another employee drive him over, then follow in convoy? As the cops pulled him upright by his hair and walked him over to the rear of one of the cruisers, held his head as they pushed him into the back seat, Bobby found himself curiously detached from events around him.
He would not be sleeping with Lisa tonight —that was for sure. He wouldn't be lying in the bed they shared in the Stimson Dormitory, listening to Brian Eno and sniffing Merck cocaine and smoking hydro. Lisa would not, later, when the quaaludes kicked in, look him in the eyes and turn up the corner of her mouth in a dreamy smile while she sucked his cock. Not tonight. Tonight he was going to jail.
His parents, the already disappointed-in-their-son Dr. and Mrs. Sherman Goldstein, were not going to be happy about this. The words "This is the last time —" echoed in Bobby's head as he vaguely remembered