Neil strummed his fingers along the top of the stainless steel counters. The kitchen was eerily quiet and felt empty. No, Neil thought, it was empty. Larry was gone. The surest sign of that was the coffee machine that sat cold and silent on the far end of the counter. Neil could still smell the traces of the cup of expensive “bird poo” coffee Larry had gleefully made the night before, after cleaning the kitchen.
“It’s from the Jacu bird. Eats the beans, poops ’em out. Farmers collect them, clean them, roast them . . . and I drink them! I’m not sure how many beans to grind. I guess I’ll just wing it!”
“Don’t you have to pack?” Neil had found himself both urging Larry to go and dreading his departure.
“Already done. I’ve got my pens, paper, a couple of pairs of underwear—what else could I need?”
“Can you pack someone who’s not a total idiot?”
“Sorry. Don’t know anyone like that.” Larry had practically beamed as Neil glared at him.
Now Larry’s bad puns were gone along with the Jacu bird coffee beans. Neil couldn’t even join him on the drive to the airport. He couldn’t afford to close the restaurant. It was finally starting to make some money again after two horrible weeks of bad reviews, near explosions, and fake health warnings.
Larry had driven off on his motorcycle, waving and calling back, “I’ll see you before you know it!” How comforting, Neil thought, given Larry’s incredibly BAD habit of saying exactly the opposite of what ended up happening.
Police Inspector Sean Nakamura had offered to pick Larry up at home and drop him off at the airport. “I can give him some last-minute tourist advice while we drive,” Nakamura had said. “After all, I was born there.” Nakamura and Neil and Larry had worked on a number of cases together, ranging from forged coffee beans to the Marco Polo murders. At this point, he was more than just an acquaintance. He was a friend.
Neil looked at the clock. The flight would be boarding soon. Larry had sent a text an hour before to say everything was going fine, then said he needed to save his battery power for playing video games on the flight.
Neil sighed. He decided he might as well keep prepping for dinner. The feast for the band had gone extremely well, and Neil had Gary to thank for that. His bouillabaisse had been a huge hit, and he’d followed it up with equally succulent salmon and oysters. None of them were the protected varieties, of course. Neil was no fan of cooking endangered species, and anyway Gary refused to break the law by selling them.
But Gary had a knack for finding amazing salmon and oysters and clams—and for cooking them too. There was no doubt about that.
There was a light knock at the back door. Without looking up, Neil sniffed the air; scented perfume wafted through the screen door. “Nice perfume, bella. It smells a little like Thai basil.”
Isabella Tortellini chuckled as she opened the door and walked in. Neil and Isabella had grown even closer since they’d returned from Paris. She, too, had been there for the final battle with Valette, and it was her wits that had stopped the building from self-destructing. “Beautiful basil” was Neil’s way of complimenting her. To be compared with food in Neil Flambé’s eyes was no insult.
“Where’s Jones?” Neil said, a bit surprised that Isabella’s family friend/bodyguard/human tank wasn’t trailing her like a menacing shadow. “Not far,” she said cryptically. “But I thought you might need a visit from a friend today. Maybe just to parlare? To talk?”
“I don’t need to talk.” Neil turned his attention back to dinner prep, trying his best to sound nonchalant. “The ‘coffee must go on’ as Larry would say.”
Isabella came up behind him and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. She knew Neil well enough to know when he was upset. Neil was always tough, in control . . . or trying to be.
“So what’s on the menu?” she asked lightly.
Neil actually chuckled. “Fish. Larry hates seafood, so while he’s gone I’m going to make this place look and smell like the Vancouver Fish Market.”
“Then you can scale it back when he comes home.” She laughed at her own pun.
Neil groaned. “You should scale back hanging around with Larry. His so-called ‘sense of humor’ is clearly contagious.”
“He is a bit of a scampi,” she said, chuckling again.
“Making a fish pun in Italian doesn’t make it batter. Ugh, I mean better,” Neil said. Isabella almost doubled over with laughter.
“And you call Larry’s puns bad?” she said, laughing.
“I also said they were contagious, like the flu.” Neil couldn’t help it; looking at Isabella laughing broke down his defenses and he started laughing too.
They finally calmed down, and Neil prepped a quick snack of tuna ceviche. They sat next to each other on stools and ate and talked.
“I’m a bit worried about him, of course,” Neil said, lifting the lime-splashed fish to his mouth with a fork.
“You Flambés do have a bit of a habit of getting into trouble,” Isabella agreed.
Neil chewed lightly, letting the complex flavors hit his taste buds one by one. He swallowed and sighed. “What do we really know about this Hiro guy anyway?” Neil had done some online searching but all the pages had been in Japanese.
Isabella grinned and winked at Neil. “Well, Jones and Nakamura had the same question, apparently, and got together last night to do a little indagine, investigation.” Neil guessed that it was Isabella who’d had the same question but kept his opinion to himself. “He says there are some interesting things here, but nothing criminal.” She placed a thin file folder on the counter and the two began sifting through the pages.
“Hiro is a fairly well-known manga illustrator. ‘Manga moron’ was the term Jones used.” Isabella ran her finger down the point-form notes Nakamura had left them. “He draws all the time. He’s gone on lots of tours for his artwork, mostly comic book conventions, that sort of thing.”
“Larry said he’d met him at a convention a year or so ago.” Neil scanned the notes. “He lives on the east coast of the main island, not far south of Tokyo.”
Isabella arched her eyebrow. “This is interesting. His family is descended from royalty. They can trace their history all the way back to the shogun dynasties. But there seems to have been a falling-out, about a hundred and fifty years ago. There’s no reason given, but they were stripped of all their belongings and exiled.”
Neil felt a twinge of sympathy for the Takoyakis. Being exiled was no fun. Neil had recently learned that his own family had been exiled for standing up to a particularly ruthless order of knights during the Crusades.
“You said they lost their money. Are they poor?”
Isabella read on. “No . . . but not rich, either. The father is a mathematician.”
“Ugh,” Neil said. “The only math I like is measured in teaspoons.” He thought of the small pile of unfinished math assignments that was even now sitting on his desk back home.
Isabella ignored him. “The mother, Machiko Takoyaki, is a famous architect. Nakamura wrote, ‘She specializes in green technology.’”
Neil noticed that Nakamura had drawn a star next to this tidbit and a small note in the margin that read, “Looks like she’s been in trouble with the authorities a few times.” The next page was a newspaper clipping; Nakamura had translated the text: “Machiko Takoyaki has been arrested again for her part in a showdown with a fishing boat. The fishers had been illegally trolling for tuna, killing hundreds of other fish in the process.”
There were more articles. “She’s also protested shark fishing,” Neil noticed. Shark fin soup was a delicacy, but fishing for the sharks often involved cutting off the fins and then dumping the shark back in the water. It wasn’t pretty. “Sounds like a decent person. I wonder what she’ll make of Larry.”
“Oh,” Isabella said, catching her breath as she turned to the next clipping. “She and her husband died a year ago. Their boat sank after getting rammed by a fishing trawler.”
Neil saw the picture that accompanied the story. It showed Hiro at the burial ceremony. Nakamura had written “Buried in Taku, Saga Prefecture” in the margin. “That’s the name of the boat in the manga—Takusaga. Maybe that’s a nod to his parents’ memory.”
Isabella nodded. “That makes sense. You know, I haven’t seen the manga yet. Is it good?”
Neil hesitated, remembering the Isabella character’s outfit. “I don’t think it’s really your, um, kind of thing.”
Isabella didn’t seem to notice the hesitation in his voice and continued reading. “The rest of the articles seem to be about Hiro’s artwork.” She closed the folder. “Hiro is what you call a . . . nerd?”
Neil chuckled. The word seemed very strange coming from Isabella, but he nodded.
“Yes. ‘Comic-book geek’ would also work.”
Isabella smiled. “So, he’s probably harmless. It’s just Larry we have to worry about.”
“Like always.” Neil sighed. “Anything in those notes about the sister? I don’t see her in the picture from the funeral or anything.”
Isabella looked back at the notes. “She seems to be a marine biologist, but there’s not a lot of info about her.”
Just then the back door swung open and Gary walked in carrying a cooler. The lid was opened a crack and Neil caught a hint of the freshest clams he’d ever smelled.
“Hey, gang. I just paid another visit to my uncle’s dock. These aren’t endangered clams, don’t worry. But my uncle is an amazing fisherman and he knows all the best places.”
Neil looked at Gary and smiled. “Shall we add pasta alle vongole to the menu?”
Gary nodded. “My idea exactly, Mr. Super-chef. Pasta with claws!” Then he made his way to the sink to soak the wonderful bivalves in fresh water. “Just let me get rid of the salt and sand and these babies will taste awesome!”
Neil had still been debating the “Gary problem.” Was he harboring a fugitive? Gary opened the cooler and the full aroma of the still breathing clams wafted over to Neil’s nose.
He turned to Isabella. “You know what? I’m missing Larry less and less every minute.”