Fry Me a Liver (7 page)

“What have you seen?” I asked. I wasn't really interested in the self-impressed
shmendrick.
But like the game he used to play, local government was all about areas of responsibility. He controlled his like a little czar and, unfortunately, I needed his okay to do anything with my business. So I made nice.

He looked down at me from six-foot-seven and smiled. “Contrary to what the philosophers tell us, lightning does strike twice.”

“I think it was old wives who said that, not philosophers and scientists. Because I can tell you from personal experience, the Empire State Building gets hit dozens of times a year, same spot.”

“Well,”—he laughed one of those deep, condescending laughs—“a lot of you northern folk do things that are contrary to the laws of nature.”

I didn't want to get into this with him. Harkins went to Thom's church. It might embarrass her if we had a row. At the very least, she'd be forced to defend me when she needed to concentrate on getting better. Yet, despite that, despite my better angels, I heard the tiny little demons in my mouth saying, “Such as?”

“Hey, I'm not supposed to expand on personal views during working hours,” he said.

“Were you just in a garden?” I asked.

“On one of the greenway trails,” he said. “Honeysuckle?”

“Fertilizer,” I replied.

“I was checking out a storage shed,” he admitted. “Anyway, there are more important things than how I smell, such as—how are you?”

“Drying.”

“Say again?”

“I took a street shower with a bottle of water, courtesy of Metro PD,” I said. “Other than that, I got cut up a little down there, nothing serious.”

“Glad to hear it,” he said. “I heard Thomasina was down there with you. I called the hospital, they told me she's serious but stable.”

“That was nice of you, to check.”

“The church sends out e-mails so that we can pray for our fellow parishioners,” he said. “I wanted them to know her status. She's good people.”

“She's very good people.”

There was a short silence and then Harkins said, “I've just been inside the kitchen, Ms. Katz. I am very concerned about the structure.”

That was spoken like a man who was accustomed to giving people two answers in the same neutral voice: “
You're good to go
” and “
I am very concerned about the structure
.” That latter means you're
shtupped
.

“How concerned?” I asked.

“The van appears to have compromised the floor supports.”

“They're iron.”

“They're bent iron,” he said. “They cannot be bent back without a loss of integrity. They will most likely have to be replaced. There are also significant cracks along the baseboard in the kitchen on the northern and eastern walls. That suggests the walls have also been dislocated, which would impact the ceiling as well.”

That was the analysis of someone who probably took a two year course in structural engineering, possibly when he was in college but more likely on the dime of the DCBS after he went to work there. Not that his assessments weren't valid. But I didn't understand why the city didn't just send out a qualified engineer to render a real decision instead of a middleman to give me an interim one.

“The final decisions will be rendered by our engineers and of course your insurance carrier will endorse or rebut those findings, but I do not believe they will find it advisable to reconstruct the building.”

Which I owned and did not rent. Which meant the headache would be mine, all mine.

Even though I was only half listening to a semieducated dissertation that used big words to make a jock sound more knowledgeable than he was; even though I sort of knew that the building took a hard, hard hit, hearing the words “reconstruct the building” was a kick in the
kishkes
.

“What about my stuff?” I asked numbly. “In the office.”

“That can be brought out by qualified retrieval personnel or with proper supervision,” Harkins told me.

What the hell did “qualified retrieval personnel” mean? Half man, half Irish setter? I asked what he meant. He said I could engage an engineering firm that worked in “high risk” recovery or, if my insurance company had no objections, I might be able to go in myself along a carefully demarcated “safe route.”

Blah and blah.

Listening to him was like listening to a rabbi at a funeral. The body was in the ground, I'd had my moment, and there was nothing to be gained by standing here. I didn't want to go home and I didn't want to go to the hospital. My staff had enough on their souls. They didn't need to hear this.

“Thanks,” I said.

“If you need financial aid during this transition—”

“I'll be okay, thank you.”

“Hey, I know you're independent and all that, but small business funds are there to be used.”

“I don't believe in taking what I don't need,” I told him. “Not from anyone but most especially I don't want handouts from the government.” I looked up at him. “And what is ‘independent and
all that'
?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “You're from New York City. You're a feminist accustomed to having a support group for any opinion you care to have.”

“You say that like they're bad things.”

“When they hold you back, they can be.”

“Would you take offense if I said that about your color?”

“As a matter of fact, yeah. It's not the same. I am black. I can't—” He came to a hard stop.

“You can't what?” I pressed. “Change what you are, who you are? Well, Mr. Harkins, neither can I.”

He held up his hands. “Lady, I give,” he said and backed off. “I didn't mean to offend your politics.”

“You didn't. You can't.”

He shook his head and I watched him go, typing on his tablet. I still didn't think he understood. It wasn't politics. It was about survival. He wasn't offering to help, he was offering a crutch. It wasn't a way to heal, it was a way to continue on as a cripple. Because even if we got through this thing his way, I'd still have, in my head, the idea that if I fell, the government would be there to pick me up. That was not how I was raised and it was not what I believed about myself or about this nation. Whatever part of this country you lived in, whatever stratum of society you were born into or rose to or fell to, I believed that you were responsible for yourself. Otherwise, whatever you achieved was not really an achievement, it was a dependency, a lark, a whim; not a fierce need, not a real risk. It was like riding with training wheels and calling yourself a biker.

That was not how societies grew. It was how they stagnated or fell.

I had been through rough patches in my life—the worst of them was what brought me down here to Nashville—but I had never faced a situation like this, where I had somewhat limited savings, all kinds of potential liabilities, and no clear path to tomorrow. I didn't know how long the insurance company would take to cover my loss—or how much of the loss they intended to cover. I also didn't really have anyone I could turn to for advice.

Those were the negatives
, I thought.
What about the positives
?

I had come to Nashville to run a deli. I did that. I learned the business fast and had used my financial training and instincts to build on what my uncle had left me. I had good credit, I had a damn good staff, and I had me. I also had one other thing: nothing else on the horizon for as far as I could see.

So where did all those plusses leave me?

Uncertain and standing still on the street, neither of which was a place I was accustomed to. It was time to do
something
.

I turned to my left and started walking in a gathering rush. I was still uncertain. I still didn't know where to go, exactly. I couldn't decide whether to retreat or to attack—who and what, I had no idea.

But at least I was no longer standing still.

I decided to just go somewhere else.

As I walked down the street to the parking garage, I felt a little bit of freedom but a whole lot of uncertainty. Despite my chutzpah with Harkins, I was scared down to my toes. I didn't want help, other than whatever insurance I paid for and was thus entitled to. Whether that was principled or independent or stupid, I couldn't say. To find out where I stood on my own, I decided to go see my broker, Alan Zebeck, who worked at a storefront agency on Charlotte Avenue. My cell phone was in my office and, to Alan's credit, when I stopped at a phone booth to call the deli voice mail, I found a message from him asking me to stop by. I had no opinion of the man. Alan was my uncle's broker and, although we had spoken on the phone, I had only met him in person once, when he came to the house where I was sitting
shiva
after the funeral. He was a heavyset guy, about five-six, balding, with a lisp. He had a senior partner, Steven Rapp, who was out of town for my uncle's funeral and whom I did not meet today.

Alan came out when the receptionist/ secretary/partner's daughter Hilary told him I was there. He was dressed in a snug-fitting sports jacket. He gave me a warm hug and a sincere smile. He was heavier than he was when I first met him, a little more bald, but otherwise unchanged. I followed him into his office, where he already had my file open on his desktop. He did what it seemed to me a good insurance agent should do: he told me not to worry about anything, that he would take care of getting the property assessed quickly and would see that recompense was made. He was evasive when I asked for a ballpark figure. I would have been too, but I had to ask. Then he asked about injuries and it hit me that he wasn't enquiring out of concern for the staff.

“They're going to sue me, aren't they?” I said with awful realization. It was as if I'd walked into a pie that someone was just holding, waiting for me.

“It is likely they will sue you for physical injuries and psychological trauma,” Alan said. “So, I suspect, will every patron who was in the dining room and more than a few passersby.”

I wasn't naïve but I was still shocked.

“If it was an accident, they will charge you with negligence,” he went on.

“It wasn't,” I said.

That surprised him. “Then they will say you neglected to have reasonable security measures in place, that hostile acts by disgruntled employees or customers or enemies of customers is the new normal.”

“But you can't foresee everything, and even if you could the cost of attempting to prevent it—”

“Don't tell
me
about the absurdity of it all,” he said. “When your uncle took out this policy he was concerned about hot grease splattering on a cook or a busboy slipping on chicken fat. He had me write those very concerns into the policy, as I'm sure you know. The last thing he added was blue ice falling from an aircraft through the ceiling.”

Blue ice was frozen toilet water ejected on occasion by aircraft. Typically, it vaporizes in the atmosphere. Sometimes it does not.

“You know, I understand the stuff that constitutes traditional workplace hazards,” I said. “But this is idiotic.” What was even more idiotic was that I was angry at my staff and customers and no one had even done anything yet.

“Be glad you're covered,” he said with rabbinical finality.

“I am, but it's like I just told someone from the city buildings department, I don't like the way things work.”

“It's the swinging pendulum,” he said, still playing the part of the cleric. “A hundred years ago, people died in workplace accidents and the employers sent a wreath to the funeral—if that. It will come to center again.”

“How? How do you get away from this
fachadick
mess?”

He snickered.

“What?” I asked.

“Your uncle used to say things like that. Hebrew words.”

“It's Yiddish,” I told him, sounding snippier than I had intended. I wasn't angry at him but at the system of which he was a part.

“I see,” he said, though clearly he didn't.

“Hebrew is a Semitic language. Yiddish is from the German.”

“I did not know there was a difference,” he said. “Good to know. To answer your question, we all get away from binds like these when states put a cap on damages.”

“How likely is that?”

“As likely as a cap on medical expenses,” he said.

“So—nothing personal—but insurance companies raise rates to cover this stuff, the so-called victims benefit, and we go deeper into a world where everyone's
tuchas
gets powdered by me.”

He nodded gravely. I was sick inside. If Lenin weren't glued to that glass coffin in the Kremlin, he'd sit up and clap.

“But here's some advice,” he said. “There's nothing we can do about the system, so it's best we get ready to look after our own tookasses.”

I appreciated the effort but here was another
goy
who couldn't do a guttural
ch.
At least Alan's heart was in the right place. So was his brain, which was good for me. I was already gnawing at my own insides but at least I had an advocate. At least I wasn't alone.

“Hey, what about getting back inside?” I said. “There are things in my office I need, like my cell phone.”

Alan went to his computer, accessed a file, and printed out two letters. He signed one and handed it to me.

“The first one, the signed one, says the corporation—you—are fully covered against injury to you,” he said. “The second says you abrogate all right to sue the city and its representatives if anything happens to you. If they want to retain these, that's fine.”

“You have these ready to go?” I asked.

“Those and every convolution and contortion,” he smiled.

I asked if I could check my e-mails and he graciously allowed me to use his desk. He left the office.

There were the usual business e-mails and a few from concerned restaurateurs . . . plus one that had just arrived from Candy Sommerton:

I thought for a moment. I wasn't eager to see her but I was curious what could be more important than an interview to the interview queen. Plus, it was something to do. I said I would be there in an hour.

The rest of the e-mails could wait.

“Anything new?” Alan asked when I walked out to the reception area.

“Nothing,” I replied. “Is there anything I need to do, anything need filling out?”

“It's all on file,” he said. “I just plug in the data. Most of what I need will be in the police report.”

“Thank you.”

“I hope you're going home to rest—though it doesn't look like it.”

I smiled. “I'm not from the resters.”

“Your uncle wasn't from the resters, either. He burned himself out.”

“I know. But I also think music did that. He wanted that more than anything. When it didn't come, I suspect he kind of gave up.”

“He still played at the deli now and then.”

“I know, but that's not the same thing as having your tunes on the radio.”

“I guess not.” He studied me for a moment. “What's your dream? Not the deli—?”

“No. The deli is—I don't know. A ‘pit stop' sounds dismissive, but it's a good enough description for now. Why?”

“I guess I'm asking if you want to rebuild,” he said.

“I don't know. Why? Is there something you aren't telling me?”

“Not really. It's just going to be a long road and the money is the same, more or less, whether you reopen or walk away. It's just something you might want to consider, if you have your eye on a different path.”

He sounded sincere and his advice was sensible. I thanked him for the counsel and told him I'd think about it. And I would. I'd see how I felt when I wasn't suddenly obsessed with the idea that some shyster could actually get hold of my staff and convince them to sue me.

I don't remember going back to the car. Which probably meant I shouldn't have been driving at all. I tried to focus on something positive, like the fact that I wasn't still in the deli basement and I was alive, that the air I was breathing was clean. But when your life revolves around a group of people—your surrogate family—their absence, their injuries, and a theoretical adversarial relationship works unhappy, unwelcome wonders on your mood.

I concentrated on wondering what Candy Sommerton could want. It had to have been about either the cell phone video Benjamin had taken or the shots her cameraman got before the explosion. If so, why call me and not the police?

Or maybe she had and they were waiting for me
, I thought. Maybe there was something incriminating on it, like I'd mixed horseradish with farfel and caused the explosion. She wanted to make sure she caught my arrest on video.

Candy's television station was located on Knobb Road, about sixteen miles west of the insurance office. I had been there once, not long after I arrived, to do a roundtable show on some noon broadcast about the importance of food to Nashville. It was an instructional experience. I was ostracized from the get-go by the awful silence that followed my opening remark, that without food, many Tennesseans would perish. I learned on that show, and from the e-mails I got over the next few days, that Nashvillians had a different sense of humor than I did. It didn't help that I felt like the odd woman out talking about white fish and chopped herring among all the homegrown chefs.

The building was a boxy affair, functional, with a reception area in the glass section off the parking lot and everything else—two studios—housed in big red brick. There was an Action Van with a satellite dish and an older Action Station Wagon parked out front. There were no police cars. I hadn't really been expecting them.

Candy was waiting for me in the lobby, her coral lips unusually pouty, her hair once again in its natural state of overteased. She was pacing and, upon seeing me, intercepted me halfway through the door. She took me by the arm as if she were about to sell me the bridge I used to live near.

“Come here,” she said urgently. “I need to talk to you, in private.”

As if I had a choice. She half walked, half tugged me to the van, opened the door, and went in before me.

“Slow down. My knees aren't working so well.”

“Sorry,” she said as we went inside. “I'm a little worked up.”

“Noticed.”

“This is—big. I think. Maybe.”

I had never seen Candy so agitated. She shut the door hard behind us and we sat on two plastic swivel chairs before a modest console on the driver's side of the van. I sat still, slumping to stretch my legs; I was tired and my various cuts stung from the perspiration of our little jog. Candy swiveled.

“Did you ever meet that guy Benjamin before today?” she asked.

“No. Why?”

“Because neither Washington nor I can remember having seen him before the explosion,” Candy said. “And my cameraman remembers everything that goes on in front of his lens.”

“Benjamin said he was in the bathroom.”

Candy shook her head. “Washington remembers someone else coming out of there and no one else going in.”

“It's possible you missed him. I was there and I saw Washington moving around a bunch.”

“It's possible,” she agreed. “What's not possible is that ‘Benjamin West' does not show up anywhere on the Internet. Not this one, anyway. There are plenty of others.”

“Did you check his restaurant?”

“No,” she said. “I wasn't really listening to all that.”

I thought for a moment, remembered the business card he gave me, then rose a little so I could get his card from my back pocket. I held it toward the light of one of the monitors, which was tuned to an afternoon cooking show,
Olive's Oven.
I had done her show. Olive Boyle was a short, perky, pushy fiftysomething who looked thirtysomething due to twentysomething different facial alterations. She usually wore oven mitts because her hands looked like the rippling sands of the Sahara. I turned my attention to the card.

“Here's your answer,” I said.

Candy leaned toward me and I showed her the card.

“His name is not spelled W-e-s-t but W-e-s-z-t,” she said.

She typed it into a laptop that was plugged into the console. And there he was, just as he had said, listed as one of the two owners of GAB. They had a menu online but did not do takeout because, according to the site, “We cannot then maximize the temperature and plating of your meal.”

“Crap,” was all Candy could say. “A Quasimodo.”

“What?”

“A bad hunch.”

I didn't know which was more surprising, Candy making a politically incorrect reference or Candy making a literary reference. I also wasn't sure if she was ticked that she had lost a potential Big Story or was embarrassed to have called me there for no reason. Whichever, it was probably time to go. Once again, I didn't know where—just somewhere. I started toward the door.

“Wait,” she said. She grabbed my arm.

Here it comes
, I thought. The interview pitch. The way I was feeling, that was going to get her a long string of what-fors. I watched like a fencer on guard as she planted her feet on the rubber floor to stop swiveling and faced me.