The Cathari Treasure (Cameron Kincaid) (2 page)

“Certainly, where is Gerard?”
asked Cameron.

“I have not seen him, he must be
stuck in the library with that woman.”

“Ok, let me talk to them, I want
that party happy.”  Cameron placed a hand on the chef’s back and leaned into
his ear, “Ms. Lacroux is a favored guest, she is from the UN, she is French,
and you know she only chooses to come here because of you.”

Claude grunted and went back to
the cucumbers again.

Cameron went to the small corner
office pleased he was still able to appease Claude’s ego.  Appeasing his
old friend was all that was needed each evening to keep the kitchen running
smooth and Cameron gladly took on the role.

From behind the office door
Cameron took down the darkest of the three blazers he kept there on wooden
hangers.  He donned the jacket, adjusted his collar, and then preened
himself in the small mirror tacked up on the post-it note covered
corkboard.  The haircut, the blazer, and the shirt were each part of the
uniform that comprised his image, the image of a New York restaurateur. 
Adjusting to the image of restaurateur had taken sometime while the mindset of
a uniform, a cover, was something Cameron was quite experienced in from his
formative years.  Cameron often told himself he was pretending to be a
restaurateur and gourmet celebrity.  He often asked himself what the
difference was really.

Cameron stepped out of the
office, eyes fixed and pensive, and his mind ready to start the evening, ready
for the guests in the dining room.  Distant by nature Cameron expended a
lot of energy to be ‘on’, particularly after an already long day.

“Behind you,” said Cameron as he
swiftly slipped passed one of the line cooks toward the kitchen door.

Cameron’s pace slowed to a
relaxed gait upon entering the dining room.

Francois was polishing rock
glasses behind the bar, his back to the dining room.  Through the marbled
mirror tiles above the liquor shelf he monitored the front of the house. 
Francois was the first to notice the boss step out of the kitchen.  He nodded
as Cameron approached the bar.  Cameron returned the nod and then leaned
back on the edge of bar stool.

“Bonsoir, Francois,” said
Cameron.  He slapped his hand on the bar.

“Bonsoir Monsieur,” Francois
melodically sang out.  Francois spun the rock glass he was polishing
upright in his hand then pivoted on his heel to Cameron.

“The usual?” asked Francois.

Cameron tapped the tips of his
fingers twice on the bar.

“The usual.”

The young bartender pulled the fountain
gun from the holster under the bar, sprayed a shot of seltzer into the rock
glass, tossed in a lemon slice, then set the glass in front of his boss.

“Seltzer, no ice.”

“Merci,” said Cameron. 
Taking a slow sip of the seltzer, Cameron swiveled his stool to inspect the
house.  The restaurant was loud and full.  Servers glided between
tables and each other, trays held to their sides or above their heads, while
patrons drinking aged scotch and vintage wines conversed between nibbles of
quail egg and escargot.

Cameron did not see Gerard.

Cameron walked to the end of the
short bar to get a different vantage of the room.  He quaffed the rest of
his seltzer and then with two fingers fished out the slice of lemon and bit
away some of the sour juice.  He tossed the rind back into the empty rock
glass and then set the glass out of the way behind the bar.

Cameron crossed the room toward
the library.

Twice Cameron had to stop while
traversing the room.  Once to greet a guest’s relative visiting for the
weekend and once to compliment another regular, an aging actress, recently
returned from a spa vacation in Switzerland.  Cameron’s guests loved that
he remembered their names.

Cameron opened the library
door.  A tall black suit took up almost the entire doorframe.  The
young bodyguard’s firm jaw stayed closed as he took a step back to let Cameron
into the room.  Though a bodyguard rarely stood sentry at the door,
Cameron was not fazed.  Guests in the library most often preferred their
bodyguards to sit at the bar and pretend to read while waiting for their
celebrity clients to finish dinner.  Cameron initially thought the young
man standing expressionless by the door either did not read or was too green to
know the appropriate time to give his clients some space.  Once in the
library Cameron thought differently.  In the far corner of the library
stood another tall man in a black suit.  Older than the gatekeeper, the
second bodyguard was positioned to see out the windowed sidewall.

Cameron noticed that the
bodyguards not only wore matching black suits, their tiepins also
matched.  Each tiepin the men wore was emerald green and embossed with the
same small design.  Cameron deduced that tonight the bodyguards were not
token.  These black suited men were professionals.

At the table sat the woman from
the UN, Ms. Lacroux, with her guests.  The small group consisted of Ms.
Lacroux, and three others Cameron did not know, a man, and two other
women.  The younger of the two women looked to be around eighteen, pretty
yet plain, noticeably plain, on-purpose plain.

Gerard had his back to him and
was serving.

Cameron had found Gerard yet
something was not right.

* * *
* *

New York

Cameron was puzzled.  How
could Gerard have brought the amuse-bouche from the kitchen to the library
without Cameron seeing him?  Cameron approached the table.  Gerard
was serving the wrong amuse-bouche.  The shot glasses Gerard was placing
in front of the guests held an orange liquid that should have been green.

Then the waiter spoke, “May I
present a gift from the chef?”

The waiter’s voice, his accent,
was not Gerard’s.

Cameron knew his staff well, and
though this man has done his best to pass as Gerard, Cameron knew this waiter
was an imposter.

Cameron’s eyes darted between the
two bodyguards for a sign of suspicion.  The two men were pillars. 
Cameron knew what to do.

“Good evening everyone,” said
Cameron.  “Ms. Lacroux, if you could excuse us for a moment.”

“Certainly Monsieur Kincaid,”
said Ms. Lacroux.  To her guests she said, “This is the fine young man I
was talking about, the Dragon Chef.  He has graced us tonight.”

Cameron flashed his brow, “You
are too kind.”  Cameron casually sidled the imposter.  The man
wearing the white coat of a house waiter was no one Cameron had seen before.

Cameron gently and firmly
grabbed hold of the waiter’s upper arm and whispered into his ear, “You should
come with me.  Let’s step out of the library.”

Cool and calm, the waiter that
was not a waiter stilled himself.  His ruse was foiled.  One of his
arms was under the metal serving tray and the other, in Cameron’s firm grip,
hovered above Ms. Lacroux and still held a shot glass.

Without notice or hesitation the
imposter threw his whole body into motion at once.  His knees bent while
the arm Cameron was holding pulled away from Cameron’s grip in a downward
direction so the imposter could fluidly push the tray in his other hand toward
Cameron’s face.  Cameron let go of the imposter then raised both arms to
block and then grab the tray from his assailant.  The imposter let the
tray go freely.  Both arms now free, the imposter produced a dagger from
his jacket and wielded the long thin blade passed Cameron toward Ms. Lacroux.

Before the assassin’s blade
could connect with the dignitary’s throat, Cameron slammed the knife down with
the serving tray.

The assassin, arm pinned beneath
the tray, flashed his eyes at Cameron.

Cameron slipped his foot behind
the assassin’s legs then thrust the tray back across the assassin’s
chest.  The assassin flailed awkwardly as he fell, landing flat on his
back.

The bodyguard at the window
lunged toward the table, gun quickly in hand from the inside of his
jacket.  From the door the younger mirror did the same.  A pane in
the window shattered and both bodyguards fell as bullets pierced their upper
bodies.  Cameron looked out the window to see a black Escalade at the
curb.  Out of the dark passenger window long slender fingers wrapped a
silencer-capped pistol.  The owner of the hand was hidden in the shadow of
the Escalade.  The only thing of color Cameron’s eyes were able to latch
onto was a gold ring with a large garnet setting on the second finger of the
hand holding the gun.

Another broken pane and the
sound of more glass breaking followed.  More shots were being fired.

“Take cover!” yelled Cameron.

Ms. Lacroux, and the two women
shrank to the floor.  The man stayed seated, a black bullet hole burned
into his forehead.  No one screamed.

Dagger in hand, the assassin
pushed up from the floor toward Cameron.  Cameron threw his arms toward
the man and effortlessly gripped the wrist of the assassin.  Using the
assassin’s own momentum, Cameron pulled the assassin close and off
balance.  Then without a breath or pause Cameron threw an arm around the
assassin’s head and cupped the man’s chin.  With a sudden twist and a
crack the assassin went limp.

Cameron had not even thought
about what he was doing.

The tinted window of the
Escalade closed up as the large black SUV pulled away from the curb.

“Is there a back way out of
here?” asked Ms. Lacroux.

“Sure, why?” asked Cameron.

“It will not be safe to go out
the front, they know we are in here.”

“Right, follow me.”

Cameron stood and helped Ms.
Lacroux to her feet.  “I’m fine.  Take them,” she gestured at the two
women, the older helping the younger to her feet, “they are the ones in
danger.”

“This way.”  Cameron waved
them toward the door of the library.  There would be time to ask questions
later.

At the door stood a bus boy, a
young Mexican named Alex.  Alex had heard the breaking glass and, not
realizing the glass was from the libraries small windowpanes, had grabbed a
small broom and dustbin from the waiter’s station.

“Get Claude,” Cameron told the
young Mexican, “he will need to call the police.”

“No,” said the older of the two
women.  Cameron detected a French accent, not surprising since the woman
was with Ms. Lacroux.

“No police,” said Ms. Lacroux.

Cameron eyes jumped between the
two women and then back to the bus boy.  “Guard the door.  I’ll get Claude
myself, and I don’t want anyone coming in to this room except Claude.”

“Si, se puede,” said Alex.

“C’mon,” Cameron said to the
women.

Cameron scanned the front of the
house, the faces of the guests, the faces of his staff.  His observation
of the room vigilant, he deemed the room clear.  Cameron then led the two
women out of the library and back through the dining room toward the
kitchen.  The dining room was now surreal, bustling with the guests
unaffected by what had just happened in the library.  Their adrenaline
coursing, Cameron and the women could have been walking through an empty hall,
their pace purposeful, he focused on the kitchen door, the women focused on
Cameron.

From behind the bar Francois saw
Cameron’s brow furrowed and eyes set.

“Everything good?” asked
Francois.

“Yes,” said Cameron as he led
the women passed, “keep everyone away from the library.”

Cameron and the two women
entered the kitchen.

“This will just take a moment,”
said Cameron.

Cameron gestured to Claude then
stepped into the small office.  When Claude came to the office door, he
saw Cameron taking his SIG P226 9mm and a stack of cash from the safe.

“What is happening?” asked
Claude.

“I don’t know, but I have four
dead men in the library and I need to get these two out of here.”  Cameron
shifted his eyes toward the women now embracing each other by the
worktable.  “I need you to take care of the library.” 

The old Frenchman did not
flinch, “Ms. Lacroux?”

“She’s waiting for you. 
I’ll call you in a little while,” said Cameron.

Claude smiled, “Call me when you
can.”

Claude stepped back out of the
office followed by Cameron.

“Be safe Madame, you are in good
hands,” said Claude.  He bowed his head.

“Merci, c'est vraiment gentil de
ta part,” said the woman.  She asked Cameron, “What if there are others
waiting in the back?”

“There may be, that is why we
are taking the side door.  After you,” Cameron lifted his arm toward a
door by the office.

“I would rather you go first
please,” said the woman.

“Certainly,” said Cameron. 
He opened the door and led them into a large wood paneled room.  In front
of them, a grand wooden stairwell led up to a balcony.