Страница 52 из 75
“Sends her love,” boomed the man. Be
“Excuse me, sir, this is important.” Be
“Please, in one minute.” The maitre d’ flashed her the one-minute sign, then waved hello over her shoulder. “Lustig, Gail Lustig, your table is ready. Please, follow Adriana, she’ll take you.”
“What about me?” said another woman, flanking Be
“Ms. Haggerty, your table is being set as we speak.” The maitre d’ hurried around the side of the lectern to speak to the woman while Be
“Thanks, I accept,” the woman said, but Be
She gave up on the maitre d’ for the moment and took advantage of his absence to peek over the lectern at the reservation book. The book was as huge as the lectern top itself, and glowed like gold under a dim yellow lamp that curved over its pages. Names filled the lines on the page, and next to them was a row of circled numbers, presumably indicating the number in each party. Beside that were all sorts of scribbled notations in pen and pencil. But the page showed reservations for tonight, not last night.
Be
“May I help you?” the maitre d’ asked, clearing his throat the way only maitre d’s can.
“Yes, please. I see that Herman Mayer was here last night for di
“I don’t know Mr. Mayer,” the maitre d’ said, but his brow was furrowed and he took Be
“Good. So Detective Needleman did speak with you?”
“Yes, he verified that the Mayer party dined with us last night. Mr. Mayer, and Mr. St. Amien.”
“Did he talk with the waiter who waited on the Mayer party?” Be
“He asked to, but Dante was the waiter and he came in late today. A doctor’s appointment.”
“Which one is Dante? I need to speak with him.”
“Please, don’t keep him long. That’s him.” The maitre d’ pointed at a short young man darting among the tables with a huge tray of full plates balanced high above his shoulder.
“Thank you, I’ll be quick,” Be
Dante finished at the booth, stopped to chat up an older man at one of the other tables, then hustled toward the kitchen with his empty tray. When he realized that Be
“Excuse me, Dante, this is police business,” Be
“Yeah, I did.” Dante straightened up. He couldn’t have been twenty-one, and he had the thick neck and polite ma
“Do you recall the di
“Yeah, yes. Too bad about that Belgium guy, who got stabbed.”
“St. Amien was French,” Be
“No.”
“Did they fight at all. Argue?”
“No.”
“How did they act?”
“Normal, no fighting. Just talked, you know, quietly. Sounded like business every time I went over. Nothing special, that way.” Dante flipped his tray under his arm like a notebook. “What I remember is the tip. The dude who paid, Mayer? He only left ten percent. They didn’t even drink much. Only the other guy, the dude who got killed, he had wine. Knew his wines, too.”
Oh, Robert. “Do you recall what they ordered for di
Dante thought a minute. “The one, Mayer, had the strip steak, and the other guy had the spaghetti and clams.”
Be
“Probably.” Dante’s dark eyes widened. “You think-”
“Can’t discuss it,” she interrupted. “Just answer the questions and I’ll let you get back to work. Who cleared the table, you or the busboy?”
“I did… He was catching a smoke.”
“Do you remember if the steak knife was there when you cleared?”
Dante thought longer. “Nah, I don’t know. Sorry.”
“You sure? It’s very important.” Be
“Sure. Mr. Linette, he’s a regular. Comes in all the time.”
“He does?” Be
“Real big. Tips awesome. He wasn’t in my station last night, though. We gotta rotate.” Dante snapped his fingers in disappointment. Be
“Did you say Bill Linette ate here last night?”
“Sure.”
“But I didn’t see his name in the reservation book.”
“He doesn’t have to call for reservations anymore. He comes in every Tuesday and Thursday for di
Be
“Sure. He even said hi. Always does. Friendly dude.”
“Who’d he eat with?”
“Some guys he knows, I think. Suits. Two.”
“Quinones, Kerpov?”
“Don’t know them, only Mr. Linette.” Dante shrugged as another waiter hurried by. He shifted his feet. “Will this take a lot longer, sir? Miss?”
“I’ll make it fast.” Be
“Wait. I want to get this right.” Dante paused, thinking. “Yes. Definitely. Mr. Linette came in later and he left later, I think. Mr. Linette likes to have his after-di
“He drink a lot last night?”
“Well, yeah. Always. But he doesn’t get sloppy, he’s a classy guy. He holds it pretty good. He’s big.”
Be
“Like I said, Mr. Mayer was in seven, I mean, that’s the table in my station against the front wall, in the window. In the middle, see?” He pointed.