Spiced To Death Part 25

"What do you think?" I asked Gabriella.

She eyed the hunks of meat in their sh.e.l.l of ice. She looked doubtful.

"I don't think I'd like it."

"I don't mean that. I mean, is it genuine?"

"In a place like this-who knows?" she said.

"Something wrong with this place?" asked a hard voice.

His face was as hard as his voice. Thin-lipped, cold-eyed, he studied us suspiciously. He wore a dark suit with a black s.h.i.+rt.

With so many people in there, I didn't know how he had heard us. Gabriella might have spoken slightly above a normal tone so as to be heard over the hubbub of voices but he must have had very sharp hearing.

Gabriella was cool as the ice that had allegedly come from the North Pole.

"Kinda crowded," she said disparagingly. "Hard to get around."

He nodded, a.s.sessing us both.

"Regulars here?"

"No," said Gabriella. "Our first time. You the guy who runs this show?"

"Who sent you?" he asked, ignoring her question.

"Whistler."

"Who?"

"Whistler," she repeated.

Whistler seemed to be a character who was recognized by no one the first time around.

"He couldn't have sent you," the man said and I felt a slight chill.

Gabriella shrugged a take-it-or leave-it shrug.

"He's still inside," the man said.

Gabriella stared insolently back at him. "So? He hasn't been struck dumb, has he?"

The man said nothing at first then he asked, "See anything here you like?"

"Lotsa things," Gabriella said, "but the prices are too high."

"Best in town," the man said.

"What we were hoping to find," said Gabriella, "was some Ko Feng."

I hadn't been expecting her to be that forthright. The man hadn't either. He gave her a quick glance and his expression changed.

"That's that spice that went missing?"

She nodded.

"You call these prices high and you're looking to buy some of that?" he asked.

She looked uninterested. "Have any?" she asked casually.

He shook his head. She wasn't going to give up.

"Know where we can get any?"

He gave a noncommittal grunt.

"We can raise the cash," she said.

He shook his head again. "The word is that that English guy s.n.a.t.c.hed it."

"He was shot," said Gabriella.

"Then the other English guy's got it."

"Is that a fact?" Gabriella drawled. "Know where we can find him?"

The man's eyes were on me but I didn't think there was any significance in it. I hoped I was right.

"Shouldn't be hard," the man said.

He eyed me a moment longer, then gave us a nod and walked away.

This time I waited until he was out of earshot-and everyone else in the place too.

"Don't believe a word he said," I advised Gabriella.

"Maybe he knows something," she said.

"He's wrong."

She half smiled.

"Is Whistler still inside?" I asked her.

"Who?"

"Now, don't you start with that!"

"I don't know."

"You don't know!" I said, appalled. "You don't know and you risked our lives!"

"Police work occasionally entails risks," she said carelessly. "What's on that stand over there?"

It was more hot merchandise, large restaurant-size cans of oysters. We listened to the presentation being repeated by a heavy, overdressed woman who Gabriella thought was moonlighting from her regular job in a brothel.

The numbers of cans she was offering brought a further comment from Gabriella. "Just about a twenty-ton trailer load."

It was then that I saw another face I recognized. Gabriella saw me looking. "Know him?"

"His name is Lennie Rifkin. He has a restaurant called Phoenicia. It prepares and cooks dishes of the ancient world-Greece, Rome, Egypt and so on. He's hoping for some Ko Feng."

His course brought him directly into our path. He stopped when he saw me. He stared at Gabriella, then looked her over again, more slowly. Tearing himself away from that pleasurable action, he gave me a curt nod.

"Might have expected to find you here," he said.

"You too," I said. "Come here often?"

"Just like to look," he retorted.

He looked Gabriella over again appreciatively, waiting for me to introduce him. When I didn't do so, he said in a surly voice, "Haven't seen any Ko Feng here, have you?"

"Not yet."

"Expect to?"

"Going to keep looking until I find it."

He sniffed, either unconvinced or disbelieving, and went on by.

"Not one of your admirers," commented Gabriella.

"Not even a supporter," I admitted. "Yet another of the legion who doubt me."

"Speaking of doubters," said Gabriella, her voice changing, "look who we have here."

It was the cold-faced man from before.

"And this time, he's brought help," she added.

The two of them approached us directly. The second man was bigger and looked even tougher. The man we had talked to previously raised a hand to detain us.

"This is a buddy of Whistler's," he declared.

Gabriella gave him a nod.

"Pleased to meet you," I said. "Any friend of Whistler's is a friend of ours."

Gabriella gave me a glance of warning not to get too flippant. The fact was, I was annoyed. The man's face darkened. "Tell us when you talked to him," he invited and I didn't like his tone.

The resourceful Gabriella was about to say something when we were joined by another. This one was the biggest of all. He dwarfed the big man confronting us and easily outweighed the two of them. It was Yaruba Da from the Congo.

He came up from behind them and clapped a hand the size of a shovel onto the shoulder of each.

"You met my friends already!" he said jovially. "That's good. I like to see folks getting along. It's a pity they have to leave but you gentlemen and I can have a chat-as a matter of fact, I wanted to ask you about this olive oil over here. It seems very reasonably priced and I was wondering about its origin. I shouldn't sound so suspicious, I know but at this price, well..."

His formidable grip turned the two of them away from us.

"Our cue to leave," muttered Gabriella. We slipped through some bunches of eager customers and the teenage boy with the ponytail standing by the steel door gave us only the briefest of glances-and that was at Gabriella-before letting us out.

We hurried along the tunnel, gave the man at the other end a nod and emerged thankfully into the daylight. I didn't let out my breath until Gabriella had pulled away from the curb and the Ford engine was hammering out a farewell.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

IT WAS ABOUT TWO o'clock as we reentered Manhattan.

"How about some lunch?" I suggested.

"I really should get back to my desk ..." Gabriella said but I have always been a firm believer that when people say they "really should" do something, it means that they can be persuaded to do something else.

"Even hard-working cops get time off for lunch," I told her. "Anyway, this will be police business-I want to tell you about my inquiries yesterday. So where do you recommend?"

"To a gourmet? I wouldn't be so bold."

"I don't eat gourmet all the time."

"You don't? What about the Bull Moose-can't get any more gourmet than that."

"That was a culinary experience not to be forgotten," I said carefully. "Can we ever match it?"

She laughed. "Okay, I can't stop too long but there's a place near here-we go right past it on our way back. By the way, do gourmets eat chili?"

"I do. Love it. I often cook it at home. I'm always trying different ways-there can be few dishes that have so many variations on one theme."

"Good," she said. "When you cook at home ... does your wife like chili too?"

"I'm not married," I told her. "I live alone."

She made no reply and in about ten minutes, she stopped to put the Ford in an outdoor parking lot. It had barbed wire around the top of a rusting steel fence, the ground was sand and gravel, which must be a mess in rainy weather. A black man came out of a battered, tiny wooden shack to collect money, and even he looked at the Ford with disdain.