The Japanese, the chef, the old lady and the fish

Lisa Le Faucheur

A cute Japanese broad struts towards me. She smiles like she’s paid per tooth she flashes. She has long, shiny hair and a pair of heels to make a man’s eyes water. Her red dress fits in all the right places and is slit to mid-thigh. I try to smile back but I’m rusty and she’s shimmied right past me before I’ve so much as curled an upper lip.

I tear my eyes away and look around. The usual crowd of suits and secretaries on their boss’s tabs. Brokers waving their dollars around like they didn’t get burnt in the crash like everybody else.

‘Just one?’ Sure, sweetheart. It’s always a table for one, you know that as well as I do. I ask if chef is working today. She says chef works everyday. I ask what kind of a nut-job boss doesn’t have a day off every once in a while. She doesn’t like me talking about her boss like that.

She starts reciting the specials, but I interrupt: ‘Tell Frankie out the back it’s Jimmy Chess and I’ll have the usual.’ She looks at me hard. ‘With a glass of that burgundy I know he keeps out the back for his favourite customers.’ I smile properly this time and wink at her and she totters off as fast as those stilettos let her, head high, small bottom thrust out.

The Japanese returns with a glass of red.

‘Have a seat and I’ll buy you a cocktail.’

‘I’m working, and I doubt you can afford it. I didn’t think inspectors earned that much.’

‘Well, you’re a sassy one. What happened to the old waitress?’

‘She wasn’t old. She left. I’m the manager now.’

‘So how’s Frank? He been in a better mood since the competition bit the dust?’

She stares at me impassively. Smooth skin and large, baby eyes. Her mouth is painted red to match her dress.

‘Shame they had to close. What was it—food poisoning?’

‘I have no idea. Excuse me, I’m busy.’

If she was surprised she didn’t show it. Real poker face, that one. I preferred the old waitress. She was older, a little on the plump side, with fading blonde hair. She knew enough to be grateful for the attention she got. Waitresses don’t get tipped so well once they reach a certain age.

A waiter arrives at the next table and presents a large white plate, dotted with brown and green like paint blobs and a phallic shard of parmesan thrusting out of the middle. In amongst the mess that some sucker paid $80 for are slices of eel, black caviar and blood-red roe, and some brown squares that just might be foie gras.

That’s right, chef likes to play around with his cuisines. ‘Fusion’ they call it. On one plate you’ve got wasabi trying to make friends with roquefort, or sashimi tuna drizzled with red wine jus. Frankie does nothing by the book anymore, he smashes through every rule about cooking like they were personally invented to piss him off. He’s like that guy who mentions every exotic place he’s been when you didn’t ask. I shake my head. Frankie has changed. Nobody calls him Frankie any more; it’s ‘François’. I’ve been staring at the plate so long the guy there is looking at me with a glare that is easy enough to read. I tip my head at him and look hard at his date instead. He clenches his jaw a little tighter as she smiles back.

Frank knows what I like and soon it arrives. Two deep-fried pigeons lying on their backs, twisted claws clutching at something that isn’t there. I pick one up, yanking off a leg with a brittle snap. I picture Frank out the back picking over rows of small, dull bodies, scraping out bloody innards.

‘Hello Jimmy.’

Frank stands behind me. I twist and look up at him. The same neat, muscular build under his chef’s jacket and houndstooth pants. A prominent, curved nose, and beneath it a dusting of black and white pepper. Not much has changed.

‘You sure can fry a bird, Frankie.’

‘This is your second visit in ten years, and you think you can just come in and harass my manager?’

I bite off a foot, crunch it to a lumpy stew of gristle and jelly and swirl it around my mouth. I pause to wipe my mouth.

‘So how’s business now you’re the only one in town with two stars?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You heard about the woman who got sick? Eccentric old bat. Didn’t belong in a trendy place like that. She dined alone, walked out alone and an hour later they found her passed out on a park bench in a pool of her own vomit.’

‘What of it?’ Frank practically snarls. The edges of his nose flare and his eyes flatten.

‘Everybody thought it was food poisoning. The Chef Hat boys certainly did. I wasn’t surprised. You shoulda seen the fridges in that place—if the boss had paid any attention to my report, the joint would have shut down six months ago.’

‘It was no surprise to me! The food they cooked, it was a gimmick, it was mimicry …’

Frank draws out the syllables, laying on the French accent nice and thick. I interrupt him before he gets himself all wound up. ‘I didn’t think much of it ’til I get a call from the old dame. She didn’t think it was seafood poisoning.’

‘So what?’

‘Well, I did a little investigating. The fugu did it. Damn near killed her. Yeah, you know what that is. I know you know. Nasty little fish. Personally, I don’t know why the Japs make such a fuss of it.’

‘Interesting.’

‘Interesting? Interesting how? That a place in downtown Adelaide had the nerve to serve fugu without a licence? Or that it wasn’t even on the menu? The old woman orders the seafood special, expects a few prawns, maybe a scallop or two, and winds up poisoned by the most expensive seafood this side of Tokyo. What I want to know is, how does the tapas bar next door end up serving a Japanese delicacy they haven’t even heard of?’

‘Whatta you asking me for?’

‘I know you, Frankie. You trained in Japan. You even worked in a seafood joint there. That’s how you got your second hat, right? Combining Japanese and French cuisine. The critics raved about your confit of tuna with seaweed.’

‘I’d stop right there, Jimmy, before you say something you regret.’

The Japanese, who had been eavesdropping on the whole conversation, starts clearing my half-eaten plate.

I grab her wrist: ‘Be a doll and leave it.’ She puts the knife back like she can think of a place she’d much rather stick it. I let a picture slip into my mind, of her walking up my back wearing those stilettos and not much else.

‘I think you didn’t much like losing business to those Spanish wannabes. You slip out the back, have a friendly chat about the price of squid, and while you’re there you slip some fugu in a clamshell, only this piece wasn’t prepared properly. It has just enough tetrodotoxin to cause trouble for somebody, you don’t care who, as long as word gets out. Everybody will think it was seafood poisoning. Pity for you I happen to be a seafood expert. I did some digging, turns the only fugu delivery in the area was to a woman. Real nice-looking, they tell me. Asian.’

Frank makes a gurgling noise and his eyes dart over to the Japanese. She stares right back with her smooth, rigid face. ‘You and your girlfriend need to come with me—down to Food Safety headquarters.’

I stand up, grab the last pigeon thigh off my plate and tear a hunk out with my teeth.

‘It’s a damn shame, Frank. You always knew how to fry a bird.’