PLAYIN' A HUNCH
A Culinary Mystery
(Of sorts)
By
The Artful Diner
I take a gander out my third floor office window. It's a real nice view of Washington Square. Ol' George is there -- his statue, anyway -- along with a ripe assortment of bums and bag ladies. It's a few minutes past noon, so the lunchtime crowd's gatherin', too. A battalion of pigeons circles overhead, ready to drop dime on unsuspecting tourists who happen to wander over from Independence Mall. You ever notice, pigeons are pretty discriminating critters; they don't much cotton to tourists. That's one of the two things we've got in common... The other is my blue suit sittin' at the cleaners.
Philadelphia's an okay town. It's not New York -- but what is, right? It's big enough to keep a P.I. like me hoppin', and small enough to be sort of friendly. I mean, if you're gonna get mugged, why go to strangers? But I kind of miss The Big Apple, y'know. I'd probably still be there if it weren't for Brenda -- my ex. After the divorce, she decided one of us should blow town. Really, her lawyer decided... Guess who got elected?
I shrug to myself. It's been five years. Forgive and forget. Could've been worse... but not a helluva lot. Seems my soon-to-be-ex-partner was playing hide the salami with my soon-to-be-ex-wife. He got the agency and Brenda. I got the shaft and a ticket to the City of Brotherly Love. Sometimes I think I'm too trusting for this business.
I shuffle off into the outer office where Ruthie's tappin' away on the computer. She looks up and bats the longest damned pair of eyelashes I ever saw.
"Lunch, Jack?" she inquires sweetly.
As usual my glands snap to attention. "Yeah," I say.
"Will you be at the deli?"
Right now I'd kill for a pastrami on rye piled to the ceiling and a piece of cheesecake the size of Brooklyn. But I shake my head.
"Tryin' to watch my weight," I grin, sucking in a forty-inch waist. "I'm just gonna get some fruit and sit in the park awhile."
She does the eyelash number again. "That isn't very much for a growing boy."
"I'm growin' all right... In all the wrong spots."
"A man should have some meat on his bones," she throws back at me in a husky voice.
What can I say? Some women just have a way with words.
So I collect a big fruit salad from one of the street vendors, wander over to the park, and finally manage to find a bench that hasn't been baptized by the winged avengers... And you sure as hell know what I'm thinkin' all this time. I'm thinkin' about Ruthie -- and not just the eyelashes. Other parts of her anatomy come to mind. She's what the guys used to call a brick outhouse. Really built, y'know.
And she's makin' it pretty obvious lately that she wouldn't mind puttin' in a little overtime, if you catch my drift. Which'd be fine by me, 'cept that... Hey, it's not like she's married or anything, so we wouldn't be doin' it on the sly... It's just that I've sort of got this rule about screwin' around on the job... See, it's like this. So maybe we start havin' pillow talks. So maybe after a while we have a fight, or one of us just figures enough is enough. So maybe Ruthie gets royally pissed and up and quits. So then I'm out one damned good secretary. She's only worked for me six months, but she really knows her stuff. Believe me, a good secretary's a helluva lot harder to find than a good... Well, you get the picture.
I'm still mullin' things over, chompin' away on a juicy hunk of pineapple, when up shuffles John the Baptist in a pair of scrungy red sneakers.
"Hey, man, spare some change?" he mumbles through a rat's nest of beard.
I just sort of shrug and give him my best sorry 'bout that smile.
Now most bums are pretty easy-goin', kind of take it all in stride, y'know. Not John. Guess he's been havin' a bad day. He gives me the old up periscope with his middle finger, then casually drifts off to his next pressing engagement.
Yes, sir, like I was sayin', Philly's whatcha call a real friendly town.
Across the park, I see Jim Dorfman waddlin' in my direction. Hey, I may be carryin' around some excess baggage, but this guy makes me look like Chuck Norris. He goes about three hundred easy. He's a restaurant critic for one of the local papers -- and he loves his work. Right now he's movin' along like a Pizza Hut franchise, all ovens workin' overtime.
He plops down next to me, and the bench registers 6.5 on the Richter Scale.
"Jesus," he puffs. "Whereya been?"
"Right here," I say.
"Thought you'd be down at the deli... Great special. Open-faced Reuben. Coleslaw. Tad too much vinegar... But the Russian dressing was a real work of art."
I'm already salivating into my fruit salad. "Trying to drop a few pounds," I say nobly.
He throws me a look like I've just committed gastronomic heresy. Then he grabs the fruit salad out of my hands and heaves it into a convenient trash can. "Real men don't eat that crap," he grumbles.
I mean, hey, how can you argue with logic like that? "So what's up?" I ask.
"I need a private detective," he says.
He's puttin' me on, right?
"Giuseppe's disappeared."
"Who's Giuseppe?"
"Who's Giuseppe?" his four chins ask incredulously. "Who's Giuseppe? Giuseppe's the Prince of Pasta. The Maestro of Minestrone. The Ayatollah of the Antipasto."
"Ah..."
"He's the chef at Chez Luigi."
I know the place. Even eaten there a couple of times. It's a scruffy little Neapolitan joint over on South Street. Red and white checkered tablecloths. Candle wax drippin' down the sides of cheap Chianti bottles. The whole bit. I mean, the food's okay, but nothing you'd lose sleep over. But, hey, I just shovel it in; Dorfman's the gallopin' gourmet. I figure maybe he knows somethin' I don't.
So I ask, "How long's this guy been missin'?"
"He was due in at six this morning," says Dorfman. "To make pasta."
I glance at my watch. "We're only talkin' a couple of hours here... Maybe he had an emergency or somethin'."
Dorfman shakes his chins. "Would've called. Making pasta's really important to Giuseppe. He's an artiste.
Yea, sure. "Giuseppe got a last name?"
"Verdi."
"How's that?"
"Named after the composer."
"Ah..." I'm think' this must be some kind of joke, but Dorfman's as serious as his last cholesterol test.
"Luigi's waiting for you over at the restaurant," he says. "He'll fill you in."
"But, err..."
"Listen, Broadbent... You're the detective... Go and detect."
Dorfman hoists himself off the bench and towers over me like the Matterhorn gettin' ready to avalanche. "Find Giuseppe," he tells me. "I'll pay the freight."
So, I mean, what can I do? I stop off at the office, tell Ruthie where I'm goin, then hoof it over to Chez Luigi.
Luigi's wearin' a bushy black moustache and a look like he's just lost his best friend -- or maybe his meal ticket. The minute he sees me comin' through the door he starts babblin' a blue streak. I figure it's probably Italian (brilliant deduction, right), but it sounds like Pig Latin to me.
I finally get him calmed down; he pours a Campari and a double scotch (the scotch is mine, in case you're wonderin'), and he starts tellin' me about Giuseppe Verdi. Seems he's thirty years old and doesn't have a wife. Seems the only family he's got is a mother someplace in Italy. So maybe he's thinkin' about goin' back to the Old Country. Or maybe... Luigi runs the edge of his hand across his throat.
'Course he's telling me this while I'm guzzin' down my scotch... which I then proceed to spray all over the bar.
"C'mon, he wouldn't..."
Luigi shrugs. He's an artiste. Artistes are real emotional... And Luigi says he's been callin' Giuseppe's apartment all morning and not gettin' any answer.
So he gives me Giuseppe's address, and I pile into a cab and head for the Italian Market, which is where Giuseppe lives. And you know what I'm thinkin'. I'm thinkin' I'm startin' to get a real bad feelin' about this. I'm thinkin' that maybe the Prince of Pasta's done himself in, and that I'm gonna find him al dente all over the living room floor. Which is enough to put the kibosh on anybody's appetite.
I jump out of the cab and ring the doorbell at one of these neat-as-a-pin row houses. You guessed it. No answer. So I'm standin' there wonderin' just how in the hell I'm gonna crack the joint, when I see this woman step out of an apartment two doors down. She has one of those sweet grandmotherly faces, you know, the kind that belongs on a frozen pizza box.
"'Cuse me," I say real neighborly like.
"Get outta here, I calla cop."
Yes, sir, one helluva friendly town.
"I'm lookin' for Giuseppe Verde," I say.
She throws me the evil eye. "He no here. He go to work."
"Work? But, er... You sure?"
"I see him go to work. I say he go to work, he go to work... Get outta here, I calla cop."
At least I know Giuseppe hasn't gone to that big ristorante in the sky, right?
So first I take a cab to the airport just to make sure he hasn't hopped a plane back to Roma. When that doesn't pan out, I go back to Chez Luigi, collect another double scotch and a list of all his friends. Then I spend the rest of the afternoon runnin' down leads -- which means stickin' my nose in just about every damned pasta join in South Philly. By the time I make it back to the office, it's five thirty, my feet feel as flat as anchovies, and I smell like I've been usin' garlic for deodorant... And still no Giuseppe...
Which doesn't exactly make Dorfman overjoyed when I call him with the news. I tell him not to worry; I'll be on it again first thing in the morning. Which doesn't exactly make him happy either. I mean, what the hell's he expect me to do, work all night? You think he'd lost a relative instead of a damned artiste. Either that or he's got a fetish for linguini.
I hang up the phone thinkin' I've had one helluva day and deserve a little R & R-- and maybe a little company. And I'm also thinkin' about Ruthie, a nice cozy dinner somewhere... and maybe a cozier nightcap at my place. Yeah, I know what I said about screwin' around on the job -- but sometimes a P.I.'s just gotta play a hunch and let the chips fall. And I've got one helluva hunch about Ruthie.
I hear her gettin' ready to leave, so I splash on the ol' Aramis and make my move.
"How 'bout dinner?" I say.
She bats those long lashes my way, and I know she's thinkin' what I'm thinkin'.
"I'd love to," she coos. "And I know this wonderful little Italian restaurant..."
"No more checkered tablecloths," I groan. "No more marinara."
"Neither," she says. "It's northern Italian."
"Jeez, I dunno."
"It's very romantic..."
Oh, what the hell!
Anyway, the place is nice. The service is real attentive... and so is Ruthie. The food isn't bad either. I wolf down a plate of fettuccine Alfredo and a saltimbocca that's to die for.
So we're sippin' espressos and playin' kneesies under a piece of ricotta cheesecake, and I'm just about to suggest a little hanky-panky at my place, when along comes this flunky in a tuxedo.
He bows and scrapes awhile; then he asks, "How you lika you dinner?"
"Great," I say.
"Wonderful," echoes Ruthie.
More bowing and scraping. "Ah, thatsa good. Thatsa good. Our chef... how you say... he is an artiste..."
Ain't they all, I'm thinkin'.
"... He comes from the Old Country, but he very unhappy. He do nothing but maka pizza and parmigiana. He waste his gift, so he very unhappy... Now he worka here, and he happy..."
I'm just about to tell this penguin to get lost, that Ruthie and I got a hot date with a roll in the hay, when he says, "You lika meet our chef...?"
"Well, er..."
"We'd love to," Ruthie chimes in.
So the tuxedo exits stage right and comes back a few minutes later with this little guy in tow. He's wearin' whites and one of these hats that's almost as tall as he is. And he's got this kind of stupid grin plastered all over his kisser.
"I lika you meet our new chef," the penguin says. "Thisa his first day... I lika introduce Giuseppe Verde..."
My jaw drops into my cheesecake. Then I bolt for the nearest phone. "Whatsa matter?" I hear over my shoulder. "Whatsa matter?"
"Hello, Dorfman? It's me, Jack Broadbent... I got some good news and some bad news."
"Let's have the good news first," Dorfman says.
"I found the Prince of Pasta."
"Terrific. What's the bad news."
"He ain't at Chez Luigi anymore."
"Where is he?" Dorfman demands.
Jesus, I don't even know. I look at a book of matches sittin' on the shelf beneath the phone. "Santini's," I say. "It's this northern Italian joint."
"Italian's Italian," says Dorfman.
I mean, how can you argue with logic like that? "You're gonna pay the freight, right?" I remind him.
"Don't sweat it. I'll be around tomorrow with a check... Hey, Jack..."
"Yeah?"
"I'm real impressed... How'd you finally track him down?"
"Er..." I mean, I can't tell him it was plain dumb luck, can I? "... I just did what every good P.I. does."
"What's that?" Dorfman asks.
"Ah, hell..." I say. "I played a hunch..."
