To say a hush fell over the crowd would be a cliché. What really happened was this.
First every human noise fell silent—no more uproarious laughter, catty banter, or jostling for position around a B-list celebrity. Every fashionable body in the room was suddenly doing an impersonation of a dummy in a Bloomingdale’s window. The only sound remaining was the relentlessly throbbing electronic dance music, which seemed to swell until it filled every corner of the place. Behind trendy glasses and black liner, wide eyes stared at the two young men sprawled, one atop the other, on the polished hardwood planks.
Ricky Flatt, the unfortunate victim on the bottom of the two-person pile, remained motionless. The unconscious boyfriend was still gasping for air, his labored rattle barely audible against the pounding, insistent rhythm of the synth-pop beat.
Someone bumped past my shoulder, suddenly shaking me from my paralyzed stupor. It was Esther, the house emergency First Aid kit clutched in her hands. But she was beaten to the stricken men by a tall figure in black Armani—my ex-husband.
Matt rolled the gasping man off his still partner, opened his gaping jaw even wider to peer inside, then carefully probed the victim’s mouth with two fingers.
“No obstructions,” he announced.
Esther was still holding the First Aid kit, unsure what to do next. It was Tucker who snatched the kit and dropped to his knees beside Ricky, checked his ex-boyfriend’s mouth and throat, tilted his head back to open the airway, then unwrapped a plastic CPR mask, placed it over Ricky’s bright pink face, and began the first stages of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
So what was I doing during all this? You would think after everything I’d been through—enduring a harrowing attack on a Greenwich Village rooftop, braving the business end of a loaded gun in this very coffeehouse, raising a teenaged daughter at the dawn of the twenty-first century—that I would instantly spring into some sort of competent action.
But you’d be wrong.
Like an idiot, I stood there, silently gawking, along with everyone else in the room. That is, until I heard someone urge—
“Clare? Clare? Shouldn’t you do something?”
It was Esther, and she was addressing me as Clare. Not “boss” in that urbane, near-sarcastic tone she typically used. She called me “Clare”—a word that only came out of Esther’s mouth when things were bad.
“Call 911,” I heard myself say.
Esther pointed to the crowd around us. “I think that ship’s already sailed.” Dozens of beautiful people were whipping out color-coordinated cell phones from designer bags or secret hidden pockets in their skin-tight rags. A few standing close to us were definitely talking to 911 operators—others, unfortunately, were calling their limo drivers and car services to arrange hasty retreats.
Within minutes, the front door opened and two NYPD officers came through, dark blue uniforms, nickel-plated badges, squawking radios. I recognized the pair at once—Officers Demetrios and Langley from the nearby Sixth Precinct. The Village Blend wasn’t just part of their regular beat, they were also regular customers (Turkish coffee and House Blend drinkers, respectively.)
Tucker was still giving CPR to Ricky. Matteo looked up at the two policemen. “We have a medical emergency here,” he informed them.
“Help’s coming,” said Langley, raising his radio.
And it arrived soon after. An ambulance pulled up to the curb, siren’s blaring, red lights rippling through our tall front windows. Two paramedics hurried into the coffeehouse, both laden with medical equipment.
Officer Demetrios touched my arm. I jumped, startled out of my entranced disbelief that something like this could have happened tonight of all nights. “Choking victim, Ms. Cosi?” asked the young, raven-haired Greek cop.
I stammered an unintelligible reply.
Esther quickly translated. “Choking seems really unlikely. The odds against two people choking at the same table are phenomenal—and I’d say the odds are just as high against double heart attacks…unless of course they were both smoking crack cocaine and simultaneously OD’d or something like that.”
Demetrios frowned. He turned from Esther to face me. “I’m sorry, Ms. Cosi, but if this was the result of a crime, or criminal activity was involved, we’re going to have to secure the area.”
“What do you mean exactly by ‘secure the area’?” I asked. “Does everyone have to clear out?”
“No. The reverse. They can’t leave. They’re all suspects.”
I closed my eyes, not entirely surprised but sick to my stomach nonetheless. “My god, this is a private party…all these people are here by invitation. What will they think?”
Demetrios glanced around. “They’ll probably think they’ll have another story to tell at their next party.” The Greek officer turned, waved to his tall Irish partner, gestured with his chin toward the front entrance. Already some of the partygoers were attempting to slip out the door. Langley jumped to the exit before a pair of young women could flee the scene.
“Just hang out awhile, ladies,” Langley told them. “Once we get names, addresses, and statements, everyone can go home.”
“Statements? Why in the world do you need statements?” whined the short, white fedora-wearing, Truman Capote wannabe, standing near me. “Those young men were poisoned. Surely you can see that for yourself.”
“Just take it easy,” Demetrios replied. “It’s not our job to rush to judgement. The docs will rule on that.”
I frantically scanned the room for Lottie, finally catching sight of her on the edge of the crowd. The sponsor of the party seemed worried, but not overly distraught. Thank goodness, I thought, because I felt horrible. Seeing these two men collapse made me feel bad enough—but poor Lottie had chosen the Village Blend as the perfect location for her preview party. Now the entire event was ruined. I could only pray the negative publicity (which, with this catty crowd, was as sure a thing as the rising sun) would not ultimately ruin her runway debut with Fen at the end of the week. And, of course, I was worried about the Blend’s reputation.
While I pondered a possible rocky future, most everyone else watched with varying levels of interest as the two paramedics checked vital signs on the two stricken men. For Ricky Flatt, things looked bad. The medical technician hovering over him lifted a stethoscope from Ricky’s stiffened chest and shook his head. I felt sick to my stomach as I watched both paramedics abandon Ricky as gone, then move to the man who was still breathing. They checked his pulse, blood pressure, and the dilation of his eyes, and they snapped on an oxygen mask.
Finally the paramedic with the stethoscope looked up—addressing the crowd in general. “What happened here? This isn’t a heart attack, and it’s not a choking incident either.”
“That man said he was poisoned!” cried a young woman in a metallic gold minidress and matching stiletto ankle boots. She pointed to the gasping victim. “His face turned so pink, he looked like an ad for Juicy Couture!”
“Juicy Couture?” I whispered to Rena, who was standing behind me.
She shrugged. “West coast designers. A few seasons ago they made pink the new black.”
As the two paramedics continued to work on Ricky’s date, I noticed Matteo standing by, watching. Behind his eyes, I saw that something was upsetting him—that is, beyond the level of distress anyone would feel over two strangers possibly dropping dead right in front of you. I simply knew Matt too well not to recognize when he was personally disturbed, but I also knew now was not the time to ask him what was wrong.
At Matt’s side stood Tucker, face flushed, hands trembling as he stared in disbelief at Ricky’s corpse. The paramedics primed a needle and shoved it into a vein on the other man’s arm, then attached it to a bottle of intravenous fluid of some kind.
At the front doors, officer Langley stepped aside to admit a third paramedic who entered rolling a stretcher in front of him. He joined the other two and the trio quickly laid Ricky’s still-alive boyfriend on the gurney. Then they pushed through the crowd, out the door, and across the sidewalk. While the boyfriend was loaded into the ambulance, a second ambulance rolled up. Its siren cut out and the brakes squealed as it bounced onto the sidewalk and stopped just outside the Blend’s front entrance.
After a short conversation with the first group of paramedics, the second pair opened the rear doors of their vehicle and wrestled a gurney to the sidewalk. As the first vehicle pulled away, the two paramedics from the second ambulance hustled inside. The pair, a young Hispanic man and a middle-aged Asian woman, wore patches on their
