Death Dines Out Page 6

  "Oh, were you among the audience waiting this morning?" asked Quill. "I'm so sorry we missed the souffl‚s. I hadn't drive I-95 before, you see, and it was all my fault."

  "You drove the freeway?' Bea said. "My dear, say nomore. Say no more. What an awful experience for you. Bruce! Bring Ms. Quilliam some wine."

  "I really think I should eat something first," said Quill.

  "Nonsense," Bea said briskly. "Birdie, slice her some of our bread, No, no, you just sit there, my dear."

  Birdie bounced up and over to her table, grabbed the bread, and bounced back again. Bruce came over with a chilled bottle wrapped in a napkin. Quill sat rather helplessly and watched. She nibbled at the bread, sipped at the wine, and decided to remain quiet.

  Bea tapped her forefinger briskly on the tabletop. "And how are things going, Linda? Everything straightened out after that little contretemps with the plumbing this morning?"

  "Well, the plumbing's fixed, but the electrical system's on the fritz again." She picked up the menu, set it down, tapped her fingers against the water glass, then signaled for the headwaiter.

  "You don't look fine," said Birdie. "you look worried."

  "Harassed," added Bea. "But then, you always looked harassed, Linda dear. You need to slow down. Is Chef Jean Paul throwing hissy fits again? Is that what's got you all in a fidget?" She twinkled at Quill. "Linda's the world's best customer for Maalox, aren't you, dear? I'm so glad I own stock in pharmaceuticals."

  "Yes. I mean, no, Jean Paul's fine. I just checked. He and your sister" - she glanced nervously at Quill - "are getting along like a house afire. They're hanging the rabbit."

  "The rabbit?" Quill frowned. "Oh. For the potted rabbit."

  "Yes."

  "Did she cry? Meg always cries when she has to hang the rabbit."

  "They both cried," said Linda, "and Chef Jean Paul said a little prayer."

  "Well, it's dead, isn't it?" asked Bea. "I mean, it's not as though she has to...." she made a sharp twisting motion with both hands.

  "Humanely killed," said Linda absently. "And we are very careful where we buy our stock from. They're in nice, airy cages... "

  "I," said Bea firmly, "am having vegetarian today. What about you, Birdie?"

  "Absolutely."

  Bruce , smooth and quiet, in the best tradition of headwaiters all over the world, appeared silently at Linda's elbow. She jerked her head up at him. "Oh. There you are. Would you take the orders, Greg?"

  "Bruce," eh corrected.

  She rose to her feet, dropping her napkin. "I just... Quill, would you mind very much if Mrs. Gollinge and Mrs. McIntyre showed you around? I've just gotten some... I mean, I have quite q bit of work to do. And I've got to find Mrs. Taylor."

  "You returned Mr. Taylor's call, didn't you?" said Quill. `Linda, I think I should tell you... "

  "Dear Verger," Bea said. "How is he? I'm doing so nicely since we added the Taylor Towers to my portfolio."

  Quill bit her lip. Whatever threats Verger Taylor had delivered to Linda over the phone, it was unlikely that she'd unburden herself in front of two members of the board of directors.

  "You go right ahead, dear." Birdie patted her hand.

  Linda , after further apologies interspersed with nervous flutters, almost ran out of the restaurant.

  "Excitable," said Bea. "Of course, if she's talked with Verger today..." she shook her head.

  "Terrible man." Birdie opened the menu. "I have simply got to lose another three pounds before the banquet, Bea. I'll never get into that gold lame if I don't."

  "Nobody can lose three pounds in four days," Bea said. "And I was thinking that you might want to go back to Saks and take a look at the lavender velvet, anyway."

  "You're right, of course. But I wouldn't' feel right gorging. Bruce, I'll have the salad Nicoise. And the crŠme br–l‚e for dessert." She frowned at Quill. "It's pudding, isn't it? And those little cups are so small. How many calories could there be in that little tiny cup?'

  "Golly," said Quill, "I... "

  "If you know, don't tell me."

  "Mademoiselle?" Bruce asked, in a southwestern Texas accent.

  "I'll have the mushrooms, please. And some iced tea."

  He turned to Bea, who asked for a bowl of the seafood bisque, then gathered up the menus and bowed himself off. Quill waited until he was safely out of earshot and ventured, "terrible man, Mrs. McIntyre? You mean M. Taylor?"

  "Call me Birdie, dear. Everyone does. Everyone I like, I mean. Which does not include Verger Taylor. Does it, Bea?"

  "Goodness, no. Dreadful man. Dreadful. I believe he'd sell his mother for a front-page headline. Good at making money, though."

  "Very good." Birdie drained her wineglass. "You haven't touched your wine, dear."

  Quill obediently took a sip. "The divorce seems to have been hard on Tiffany."

  Birdie shrugged. "Young people today. That's all it is. Divorce, divorce, divorce. We didn't change husbands like that in our day, did we, Bea?"

  "We did not."

  "If we lost `em, it was because they died."

  "So neither of you are interested in her charity?"

  "Excelsior?" Bea said. "Goodness me, no. That Dr. Bittern's a charmer though."

  "Little too click for my taste." Birdie sat up a little straighter. "here's lunch."

  Quill was quiet through Birdie's anchovies, the hard-cooked eggs, and the calamata olives. Her mushrooms were excellent, with just enough sherry in the sauce to pick up the flavor of the chanterelles. She sliced a Portobello in half and turned over several approaches in her mind. Bea? Birdie? Are you two ladies rich enough to take on Verger Taylor? Nope - too blunt. Birdie - Bea. We had kind of an unpleasant scene at the Taylor condominium last night. That was too tentative. It would be very easy for the widows to blink politely and move on to more pleasant topics. There was always the straight-forward approach: My sister and I are being blackmailed by a bleached-blonde shrew and a bully. And we want to go home.

  "My dear!" said Birdie, covering Quill's hand with hers. "Who is what?"

  Quill, who hadn't realized she'd spoken aloud, looked up from her salad in some dismay and, with relief, summarized her predicament.

  "Well!" said Birdie. "Isn't that just like Verger."

  "Can you blame him, though?" asked Bea. "Not the burn-down-house part, Quill - there's no excuse for those kinds of threats - but Tiffany is doing her absolute best to embarrass him in front of his friends."

  "All four hundred of his nearest and dearest," said Birdie dryly. "Remember when he opened that club on Beach Road?"

  "And said that Henry Kissinger was going to be a charter member?" Bea thumped her fist on the table. "Ha!"

  "An opportunist. No question about it."

  Quill decided to have some wine after all. She swallowed the remainder of the wine in her glass and said, "We had no idea. None. About what we were getting into. We wouldn't have come if we'd realized."

  "The problem is that a man like that is vulnerable, very vulnerable, to his ego. He sets himself up, then wails like a banshee when things don't go his way. He reminds me a great deal of my six-year-old grandson. Bratty. Very bratty."

  "But he's a lot more dangerous than that six-year- old, Bea." Birdie's shrewd brown eyes flicked over Quill. "Tell me, dear. How is this inn of yours doing? Would it be a good investment for two old biddies like us?"

  Quill blinked. She knew she shouldn't drink in the middle of the day. As a matter of fact, she shouldn't drink at all. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Why don't Bea and I buyout your mortgage ahead of Verger? That'll teach him a lesson."

  "No. Thank you, but no. I didn't... I mean, I didn't burden you with this in order to ask you for money."

  "That'd be a first, " Bea muttered. "Get that message to my so-called friends, will you?"

  Quill, conscience-stricken, had a brief glimpse of what it must be like to be elderly, widowed, and wealthy. She wished she'd insisted on seeing the pictures of Bea's fami
ly. It wouldn't have taken much time, and the old lady was obviously proud of them. "Meg talked to our family lawyer in Hemlock Falls this morning. He's a very good one, and he's taking steps with the bank to keep Mr. Taylor from pulling whatever strings he thinks he can pull. So thank you, both of you, for offering to help in a financial way. But we don't need that kind of help. At least, not yet."

  "Don't be too grateful," said Bea a little cynically. "We'd insist on a substantial portion of the equity in your restaurant. Your sister's pretty well known, you know. And there's money to be made there, if it's handled right. You sure you don't want to reconsider our offer of help?"

  "I'm sure," said Quill firmly. "What I want to know is how I can get past Verger's - prejudices, I guess. I mean, he seems to lump both Meg and me with Tiffany and her dread - I mean, her charitable work. I thought that Evan - his son - might be the way to approach him and get him to see that we're really innocent of any - well - malice. He seems to think we want to embarrass him, too."

  "Evan," said Bea thoughtfully. "That's Cressida's boy, isn't it?"

  "Cressida?" Quill asked.

  "Verger's first wife. She's a Houghton. Was before she married Verger and is again. She lives out on Hobe Sound. Good tennis player."

  "Better at bridge," said Birdie. "Cressy's a whiz at bridge. Evan's a nice boy, but he is a boy."

  "You remember him when he was eight and played croquet with you at Cressy's, Birdie. He's all grown-up now. Went to Harvard."

  "Yale," said Quill.

  "Whatever," said Bea dismissively. "But he must be twenty-four, at least."

  "He's still wet behind the ears, Bea. I know what Quill should do. She should talk to Ernst."

  "Birdie! How clever of you."

  "Ernst?" Quill asked.

  "Ernst Kolsacker," Birdie said. "Verger's business partner. The brains behind the whole Taylor empire, if you ask me: He's always been able to keep Verger from going too far over the line. That's it, Quill. I'll go give Ernst a call right this minute. You wait right here."

  "You wait right here, Birdie. Look!" Bea pointed to the front entrance. "My mother always warned me: Speak of the devil and he appears."

  Quill twisted around in her chair. The restaurant had filled up while they had been talking, and the noise level was high. The biggest racket was coming from Verger Taylor.

  "Oh, my goodness." Quill felt a cowardly impulse to crawl under the table.

  "Steady," Bea said. "He's with Ernst. See? That short fellow there, with the wire-rimmed glasses and the golf hat. Looks like a little teddy bear. He's a dear, dear man."

  "Good friend of Arnie Palmer's, Ernst," Birdie murmured. "Never could see golf, myself. Now polo, in my young days..."

  "Forget your young days, Birdie. We're both long past them. Now what in goodness' name is Verger doing here?"

  "Oh, yikes," Quill said. "It's Tiffany!"

  The crowd in front of the cash register parted as for Moses. Tiffany's white-blonde hair was drawn up tightly over her ears and she sported a large black hat slanted over one elegant cheekbone. She wore a short black skirt and a black-and-white suit coat that flared at the hips and nipped at the waist.

  "She looks like a pissed-off penguin," Bea muttered.

  Verger gave Tiffany a mock salute, with two fingers to his forehead, then stuck a cigar between his teeth. A camera flash flared; both Verger and Tiffany swung toward it.

  Tiffany began to breathe through her mouth. She yelled, "On the count of three, Verger. On the count of three. If you're not out of here, I'm calling the cops. This is harassment, you following me around like this. You hear that? Harassment. So out. Out. Out! Get out of my goddamned restaurant!"

  His tone was mild. "This isn't your restaurant, Tiffany. This is my restaurant. I own the goddamn building, don't I?"

  Tiffany's mouth dropped open. For a moment, Quill would have sworn that she was so shocked, she forgot she was in front of an audience. Her breath came back with a sound like a medicine ball hitting concrete. "You bought this place!"

  "Yeah, I bought this place. About an hour ago. You think I'm going to let you make a horse's ass of me with this goddamn charity? In front of all my goddamn friends? You bet I bought this place."

  "You don't have any goddamn friends."

  Bea grabbed Quill's arm. "Oh, no! The sculpture! I donated that piece myself!"

  The crystal narwhale flew past Verger's head. The dolphin followed the narwhale, glanced off Verger's shoulder, and crashed to the floor. He yelled "goddammit" - with what Quill felt was a remarkable lack of originality - and leaped for the safety of the half-wall in front of the cash register. The diners scattered like pigeons. Tiffany's shriek escalated to a yowl. Coffee cups, saucers, and wineglasses followed the crystal, shattering against the half-wall protecting the cash register in a fusillade of noise. It was like being trapped in a bowling alley. There was a muffled crash and clatter and another siren shriek from Tiffany, followed by a high-pitched marital squabble of Force 5 proportions.

  "Good arm," said a blue-haired lady at the table adjacent to Quill's. "I've seen Tiffany on Oprah. She works out."

  Her lunch companion frowned. "Too much muscle. I just don't like a woman with too much muscle. Now, that Debbie Reynolds? She's got a tape that tones without you bulking up so much."

  Quill sighed and looked out the window. The sun shone yellow-gold in a deep blue sky. Waves broke amiably along the curving cheek of the beach. A group of black-beaked terns scuttled along the shore. Striated white clouds streaked the far horizon. She'd caught enough of the weather report that morning to know that there'd been six inches of snow at home last night with another five predicted for the afternoon.

  The shouts in the restaurant died away.

  "They're going," said Bea. Quill glanced at her. She smiled maternally. "See? Ernst's taken care of everything. I told you he was marvelous."

  Quill turned her gaze unwillingly to the front of the dining room. The short man in the golf cap held both of Tiffany's hands in his. He spoke to her in a low, soothing murmur. Verger Taylor was gone. Everyone seated at the tables had resumed eating, drinking, or gossiping - most of them all at once.

  Ernst Kolsacker released Tiffany's hands, gave her shoulder a comforting pat, and held the front door for her as she left.

  "Quick, Bea," Birdie said, "He's going to leave, too. Whoo-eee! Ernst! Ernst! Over here." She waved energetically. All the people who'd been staring at the Taylors turned like grouper fish in an aquarium to stare at their table. Quill refolded the maroon napkin with an air of unconcern. cleared her throat, and scratched the back of her neck. If she were at home, she'd be sitting in that nice rocking chair in front of the fireplace in Meg's kitchen. The air would be filled with the scent of roast game hen. Myles would be rumbling cheerfully over the newspaper in the corner. She would not be wanting to crawl under the table.

  Ernst rolled toward their table like a golf ball on a difficult lie - erratically, but with a purposeful forward movement. He stopped, shook hands with several people, patted the backs of others, restarted, and stopped again. He arrived, finally, and bent over Bea, his arm around her neck. He gave her a friendly shake. "Bea, you look younger every time I see you. Birdie, I like the new hairstyle."

  Bea beamed. "Ernst, I'd like you to meet our young friend here, Sarah Quilliam. Quill? This is Ernst. Ernst Kolsacker. We've just been talking about you, Ernst. Sit down."

  He sat. Up close, he appeared to be in his early sixties, with a broad nose, fleshy cheeks, and the omnipresent Florida tan. He was wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt. His hands and forearms were strong and muscular. A dedicated golfer, then; Quill had seen those same over-developed muscles in Tiffany Taylor.

  "How do you do?" Quill asked politely.

  "Not all that well," he admitted. "Sorry about that scene up front."

  Bea nodded decisively. "That's what we wanted to talk with you about, Ernst. When is this ridiculous feud going to end?"

  "You want my cand
id opinion?" He rocked back in his chair with a grin. "When one or both of them is dead."

  -5-

  Quill turned over on her back, swam a few strokes, and floated, looking up at the sky. The Combers Beach Club pool was surrounded by a waist-high stone wall painted white. Palm trees fingered the sky. The air was soft. The sun was behind Quill, settling into the mansions of Palm Beach. She flipped over and watched the fading light through her eyelashes: The colors ranged through all the oranges and yellows, with a bit of mauve where the sky drifted into blue. The light fanned out like the tail of an orange peacock.