The Chef - James Patterson Page 0,43

want to know is,” he asks, “how did they expect to get any information out of him if…he couldn’t speak?”

Confused, I step in again and peer closer at Farzat’s bloody mouth. One of the forensic techs shines a flashlight inside—illuminating a shredded stump where the victim’s tongue once was. The bastards must have stuck the drill bit in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

“Bet you wish you had more customers like that,” Quincy says. “Sure, they can’t taste your food. But they can’t complain about it, either.”

Gallows humor. That’s Quincy for you.

But I don’t shoot a joke back. At a time like this, I don’t feel like laughing.

And unless I find out who killed Farzat, and fast, in a few days there won’t be much laughter in New Orleans at all.

Chapter 34

QUINCY WAS right. I don’t have any appetite left. But that’s not going to stop me from going where I need to go next.

One of the fanciest, most exclusive restaurants in all of New Orleans.

Rosella sits on a leafy street in the Garden District, inside a meticulously renovated plantation-style mansion. It’s actually not far from LBD—Lucas Dodd’s eatery, where I first met Vanessa—but right now, that’s the last thing on my mind.

Even a light meal at Rosella will set you back a few hundred bucks. It’s where celebrities, athletes, and politicians chow when they’re in town. A couple of paparazzi, cameras in hand, always seem to be hanging around outside, chain-smoking. The eccentric owner, David Needham, Billy Needham’s older cousin, once tried to push an ordinance through the city council forbidding that—then changed his mind and lobbied to have it fail. His critics said it was all a publicity stunt. A “humblebrag” to trumpet his restaurant’s popularity. An attempt to have it both ways.

Which is very much in character. David Needham is a man known for his contradictions—even though few people seem to know him well. He’s staggeringly wealthy but notoriously cheap. He’s a hurricane of creativity in the kitchen but a fastidious and cutthroat investor. He serves ludicrously fattening meals and desserts but is a lifelong holistic health nut. He wears five-thousand-dollar Brioni suits with beat-up tennis shoes. He craves fame and adulation but shuns the spotlight like a hermit.

It’s one thing to be a little odd, a bit kooky. But could David Needham really be connected somehow to a terrorist plot against Mardi Gras?

A few days ago, I would have said that was preposterous.

Until his cousin said he’d made threats of violence.

Until an industrial site he recently purchased was surveilled by the FBI.

Until a possible terrorist suspect turned out to work at a café he’d invested in, and said suspect ended up tortured and killed.

Let’s just say, David Needham has a few questions to answer.

And I’m hoping, praying, that what’s going on is not a possible terrorist action, but something simpler and more prosaic: a family feud escalating from threats to actual violence.

I exit my car and after a few brisk steps, walk inside the ritz and glitz that is Rosella. It’s about midway into lunch service and the elegant dining room is packed. Walking through the gold-paneled entryway, scanning the crowd, I spot two city council members, the Louisiana state attorney general, the assistant head coach of the Saints, and a handsome Hollywood A-lister known to have deep affection for our fine city.

I stride past the hostess stand into the dining room, bound for the kitchen—when a firm hand grabs my elbow. Like a ninja, the maître d’ slides in front of my path.

“Are you lost, my friend?” he demands, in a vaguely Eastern European accent.

Not to be cruel, but despite the fitted tuxedo he’s wearing, this is one unattractive fellow. He’s fifty-ish, short, bald with splotchy skin, with a patchy moustache nestled under a crooked nose. But I give the guy credit. He does know how to project authority.

“Not at all,” I answer. Then I bluff: “I actually am a friend. Of David’s. He’s just getting settled in the back office. He’s expecting me.”

Keeping his hand on my elbow, the maître d’ laughs in my face.

“Really? If that were the case, sir, you would know that Mr. Needham won’t be arriving at the restaurant until later this evening.”

I lock eyes with the maître d’, refusing to back down.

“If that were the case, why did I see his Town Car show up ten minutes ago?”

That’s another interesting fact about David Needham. Whether it’s a phobia of the road, a fear of another DUI like the one