CHAPTER 17

MERCER FOX

The server’s name was Montreal, which struck Ephraim as tragic. He offered the day’s wine selections without so much as mentioning the menu. In a place like this, eating was apparently a many-hour experience. No rush. Wine came. Food would come too, in time. 

Ephraim didn’t know wine, but he needed something more than water. He asked for a recommendation, and without actually giving one, Montreal walked away. He returned minutes later carrying a bottle and a beautiful glass. He uncorked the bottle, then splashed a chintzy amount of crimson liquid into it. Ephraim sipped. The wine struck Ephraim’s unrefined palate as both aromatic and bitter. 

The server hadn’t left the table. He was waiting, his arm cocked, a white towel draped over his forearm, holding the uncorked bottle in his other hand. His expression expectant, as if awaiting Ephraim’s reply.

Ephraim eyed the cork, sitting in front of him like an appetizer. Figuring this was his cue, he picked the cork up and sniffed it. Montreal’s eyebrows furrowed. 

“Am I not supposed to sniff the cork?” 

“Most patrons merely inspect it, sir.” 

Ephraim inspected it. “It’s a cork.” 

A moment settled. Ephraim wasn’t sure what he was opining about the cork, so he waited for Montreal to make the next move.

“Is the Shiraz to your liking?” the server asked, breaking their stalemate. 

Oh. That’s why the waiter had given him such a shallow pour. Ephraim was supposed to sample it before committing to a glass.

“I guess?” 

“Would you prefer to try a different varietal?” 

“No.”

But he seemed unconvinced. “So, more of this, sir?”

“I’m not great with wine.” 

“I can bring you another glass.” 

“Look. I don’t want to pay for another—” 

“You misunderstand. This is on the house, sir.” 

Ephraim inspected the server, whose expression was placid. 

“Wine is on the house?”

“For your table; yes, sir.”

Ephraim looked across “his table,” which the server had indicated as if he were with a large party of VIPs. But he was just a questionably dressed man alone at his booth, without a reservation. 

“What’s going on here?” 

“Sir?”

“Why is there a side door to this place, leading into a side foyer? Why did I have to pick through the garbage to get in?” 

“Were the conditions outside unsatisfactory? I can alert the management if the front requires our attention.” 

“Conditions outside were …” But this poor dumb waiter was staring at him, with the fat bottle of wine, poised to pour. And Ephraim thought, Give it up. Montreal doesn’t know. Poor bastard has to live every day named after a Canadian province, so what chance is there that he’ll have your shit together? 

“Never mind.” 

“Would you like the Tesco Hermitage then, sir?” 

“Why the hell not?” 

The server raised an eyebrow slightly, then filled Ephraim’s glass. He left looking confused, no mention of menus. 

Ephraim spent the next minutes staring out across the dining room, over which his seat implied dominion. The men at those lesser tables were in perfectly tailored suits, and the women were in long, formal gowns, covered with jewels. Some were old, and several were younger, but almost all of Chez Luis’s diners were slim and more or less in shape. 

It was a strange thing to notice, but once the idea dawned on Ephraim, he couldn’t let it go. Why were none of them fat? Was it their haute cuisine did the trick — a diet absent empty snacks and hydrogenated oils? Or was it something else? 

Most of the world paid at least tacit attention to the free networks’ lifestyle game shows, like Eat From Your Life and First One to Lung Cancer. Here, amid all this upper-echelon wealth, Ephraim couldn’t help but spin sinister theories. Maybe those working-class game shows were ways of thinning the herd so the rich could play. Modern day Marie Antoinettes, tossing cake to the masses and watching them fight for their amusement.

“Get the steak,” someone said. 

Ephraim looked to his left to see a man beside him who didn’t belong — not at the booth, and not at Chez Luis. He wore a green blazer that looked more used car salesman than ironically stylish, and he’d tossed it over a T-shirt for one of the big Japanese tentacle porn game franchises the teenagers were so into. His short brown hair looked like he’d slept on it wrong and he had a week’s worth of unshaven growth. Instead of bespoke slacks, Ephraim’s new boothmate wore ripped jeans.  He could even see the man’s shoes. Instead of imported leather loafers, his sneakers were garish and orange. 

“It’s farm to table,” the man said. “Grass fed, humanely raised, from this little ranch like ten minutes outside the city. They serve it with an amazing shallot butter, on top of a bed of fresh greens and the in-house garlic mash. And that’s all great. But mainly I’m suggesting you get the steak because the other special is pasta shaped like little green footballs. Pussies eat that one. A man eats meat. It makes you feel like your dick’s the size of a javelin.” 

Ephraim blinked at his boothmate. “Okay.” 

The man in the green blazer picked up Ephraim’s wine and swigged it like beer. He looked around the room, inspecting diners with a neutral expression. Ephraim noticed a mole on his cheek and a violent cowlick. His facial hair was unruly. His eyes were curious — not crazy, but like someone who draws inappropriate amusement from everything. 

“You know what I do when I’m up here?” the man asked. 

“Can I help you with something?” 

“It’s like you’re a king on the throne,” the man continued as if he hadn’t heard Ephraim speak. “I watch them all down there, like a king would. Not one person in this place, I’d bet, has an income less than a half-million credits a year, and many of them would think that was chump change. Good crowd, right? Rich crowd, I mean. But I’d bet half these women like it in the ass. Do you know what I’m saying?”

Ephraim wasn’t sure how to reply.

“Her, I’ll bet,” the man said, pointing. The motion shifted his blazer and showed Ephraim plainly that on his T-shirt beneath, there was a drawing of someone pooping. “That woman with the pearl necklace.” He looked right at Ephraim, his arm fully extended with his finger out. “You see the one there that I’m talking about?” 

Several of the diners seemed to notice movement from the booth, then looked up to see Ephraim’s companion pointing. 

“Put your arm down, for Christ’s sake,” Ephraim whispered. 

“You see her?” 

“Yes!” 

He lowered his hand. The people who’d looked up continued to stare, then slowly returned to their meals with warning glances. 

“I’ll bet she can’t get off without ass play. Probably has dildos the size of fists. Maybe shaped like them, too. You ever seen one of those things?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

The man shrugged. “Just a game I play to pass the time, looking out at these fancy-asses and guessing what they might be into. I’m right, though. Bet you anything, that rich bitch has a Fisting Mitten or two.” 

“Okay. Great.” Ephraim shifted, glancing around for help. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to leave my table.” 

“But we’re just hanging out. Making small talk.” 

“Who the hell are you?” 

The man was in the middle of wiping his nose with the back of his hand when Ephraim asked, so he wiped the offending hand on his coat before extending it. 

“Sorry. Mercer Fox.” 

Ephraim looked at the hand. He didn’t extend his own, and eventually Mercer retracted his with a shrug. 

“You like it here?” Mercer asked.

“Seriously, you need to—” 

“I didn’t think I’d like it, not after having something so different in mind. But some smart people — who at the time I thought were a bunch of killjoy assholes — told me the restaurant needed to be classier than what I was thinking. ‘A better cover through luxury,’ and all that. You can get away with more shit if you hide it by dropping some exclusivity on top. Know what I’m saying? Anyway, it worked out. I’m glad they were killjoy assholes. Because who’d’ve thought? Turns out I like fancy food.” 

Ephraim squinted. “Wait. Are you saying you’re—?” 

“This was my first restaurant,” Mercer said. “But with all the money I threw into Chez Luis itself — what you see in this room, I mean — shit just got better and better. Without even meaning to, I was suddenly running one of Zagat’s top picks. I start hearing about all these fancy-pants chefs wanting to work here. For, like, prestige reasons. And so, I got an idea to open another place. The whole shebang, all over again.” 

“That’s—” 

“I found one place, a bombed-out shit-shack in an otherwise great part of London. Enormous basement and sub-basement already there, like I guess it was used in World War II as an underground bunker, so they had to hide things? Or people. And I figured, what the hell? I opened another restaurant there, using my waiting list of great chefs, and that time the rest of the operation was a breeze. The restaurant itself is almost enough for me now. Me. Who’da thought?” 

Mercer picked Ephraim’s wine glass up again, tipping it toward him in a mock toast. “Look at me. I’m an accidental restaurateur and I’m into it. But don’t blame me for the pasta. This pasta? It’s for dicks. Chef’s choice. They don’t let me play all the time.”

Ephraim didn’t know what to say. The man was either lying or insane. He couldn’t be the owner. Chez Luis was supposed to a fat Frenchman with immaculate tastes and a detestable disposition. Mercer Fox had the detestable disposition, but he looked and acted like a slob. 

“Anyway. Dinner’s on me tonight so long as you order the steak. Enjoy.” Mercer started to stand.

“Wait! Are you behind the message I got on my—?” 

“When you’re done, you can call to thank me.” 

“I need to talk to you now. Not later.” 

“I’m busy.” 

“It’ll just take a second.” 

“Call. I’m not bullshitting you, okay? Just CALL me.”

Ephraim’s jaw dropped. What the hell was happening here? He had a thousand questions, but when he saw Mercer’s arrogant, obnoxious smirk he said the first thing he could think of. 

“I don’t have your number.” 

Mercer wormed his hand into an overly tight pocket. He came out with something and slapped his hand onto the tablecloth. It made a metallic sound as if Mercer were wearing a ring.

“Call me, and maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.” 

Mercer slapped Ephraim on the shoulder and walked away, then disappeared through the swinging kitchen doors. No one seemed to be looking. Maybe the regulars were used to the odd, poorly dressed man. Maybe this was his place, strange as it seemed.

Ephraim’s eyes went to the tablecloth. Mercer had placed an old-fashioned US quarter, heads-up, on it.