French Pressed

boudin blanc, black blood and white veal sausages.

I discovered several newspaper and magazine clippings in the mix—not about Solange, or even food. The articles were all about the New York art scene.

One recent clipping was a page from Time Out, advertising a Chelsea gallery exhibit of three new artists, one of them Tobin De Longe. Another clipping from a local paper featured a scathing review of the same show, singling out Brigitte Rouille’s boyfriend for special scorn. Other clippings mentioned De Longe’s artwork. The notices were either neutral or negative.

Finally I found a couple of pages covered with names, phone numbers, and addresses, written at different times with whatever ballpoint, felt-tip, or pencil was within reach at the time. As I scanned the pages, one name jumped out at me. It was written in bold felt-tip and underlined twice:

Nick

“Nick?” I whispered. The address under the name was on Brighton Beach Avenue. I closed my eyes, remembering the shady-looking guy to whom Tommy Keitel had introduced me on the night that Vinny was murdered. Nick from Brighton Beach, Tommy had called him. This had to be the same man!

“I wonder if Mike’s ever been to Brighton Beach…” I murmured.

“Brighton Beach?” Esther said, overhearing me as she set down a fresh espresso. “Did you just say something about Brighton Beach?”

“Yes…there’s someone there I definitely need to find.” I showed Esther the note with the address. “Part of my investigation for Joy.”

“That’s a coincidence,” Esther said with a tilt of her head.

“What is?”

“Boris is taking me to Brighton Beach tonight.”

Did I miss something? “Boris?”

Esther nodded. “Boris is taking me to Sasha’s for chicken Kiev and blinis with caviar.”

“Back up, Esther. I thought you were dating some rapper character named Gun. Who’s this Boris?”

Esther rolled her expressive brown eyes. “Same guy. BB Gun is his handle, but his real name is Boris Bokunin.”

“Your boyfriend is a Russian rapper?!” I asked excitedly.

“A Russian émigré slam poet and urban rapper,” Esther corrected, raising an eyebrow above her black glasses. “They pretty much broke the mold after they made my Boris.”

My brain was racing now (and I hadn’t even needed the second espresso). I remembered what Mike said about investigating new clues together, emphasis on together. But the man wasn’t going to be available until tomorrow morning, and I doubted very much he spoke fluent Russian, anyway.

If Boris was a recent émigré, he probably could. At the very least, he knew his way around the population of eastern bloc expatriates in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

There was no time to waste, and now there was no reason to waste it. “Esther.” I took hold of her arm. “Would you and Boris mind if I tagged along on your date tonight?”

Esther gagged. “Boss, puh-lease. I don’t need a chaperone. I told you before, Boris is a good guy, a real gentleman, actually—” She stopped abruptly and covered her mouth. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Esther, listen. It’s not that I think you need a chaperone. It’s that I might.”

“What?” Esther scratched her head. “Okay, now I’m existentially confused.”

After I laid it all out, she told me she would be happy to help.

“Thanks, Esther. I mean it. And listen, I hope I don’t ruin your big date.”

She shook her head. “I’ll smooth things over with Boris. We’ll just hit Sasha’s a little later, after we find your mysterious Nick guy.” She laughed. “Boris is the kind of dude who’s up for anything. He’s a real man of the world.”

I excused myself to go upstairs, splash some water on my face, and check the apartment’s machine for messages. When I returned to the Blend thirty minutes later, Tucker and Dante had already arrived to relieve Gardner and Esther. And Esther was waiting for me at a table with her date. He stood when I approached.

“Clare Cosi, this is Boris Bokunin,” Esther said.

I recognized him as the same wiry, tightly wound dude I remembered from the other night. He was wearing the same spiky blond hair, too, and the same black leather blazer. But his baggy blue jeans and basketball shoes were now replaced with pressed black slacks and black boots. The T-shirt was gone, too. Tonight’s shirt, peeking out from behind the black leather, was a bright red silk number. He stood and removed his sunglasses. He had close-set gray eyes filled with curiosity, a wide nose, and a genuine smile.

I offered my hand, but instead of a simple shake, Boris slapped it, squeezed it, waved his hand around, and slid his fingers along mine, then gave a high five. Finally he tucked his hands into his belt and struck a gangsta pose.

“Clare Cosi, Clare Cosi, a fresh urban posy, a fragrant flower with the power to make the Village rosy,” he rapped. “How you do, how you do, so nice to meet you!”

“Uh, hi,” I replied. “I guess Esther talked to you about my dilemma? I’m so sorry to ruin your date—”

He raised a hand to silence me. “To someone so phat, so perky and tender, I’m proud and glad to have a service to render, for the Cosi, Cosi, the Village posy.”

I glanced at Esther. “Does he do that all the time?”

“You’ll get used to it,” Esther replied with a shrug. Then she grinned. “Now I want you both to make nice while I change clothes in the euphemism.”

I found it very sweet and European the way Boris waited until I sat down before he sank into his own chair.

“So, Boris, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a baker’s apprentice,” he replied. “It’s a temporary thing, to make the Benjamins. Long term, I’m looking to hit it big in the show biz thing, like Eminem. He da man. He da king. He da boss with da bling.”

Boris slipped his sunglasses back on.

“Esther tells me you have lots of talent. But she didn’t say how you got into this whole rapping thing.”

Boris leaned across the café table. “It started once upon a long ago—” He moved his hand through the air. “Back, back when I was in school. See, Clare Cosi, I’m a practical guy. I want to be more than a baker someday. But to get ahead in this world, respect’s what plays.”

“Respect? What do you mean? Like good manners?”

Boris nodded. “Exactly! Here’s my grandfather talking now: It’s important to remember someone’s name. It’s the right and polite thing to do. Don’t forget a man’s name, or he might forget you. To remember is respectful. It will gain you his friendship. Or to put it the Russian way, it’s for blat.”

“Excuse me?”

“Blat. That means having friends in the right places. Connections.”

I scratched my head. The sentiments were actually fairly conventional. “I don’t see what that has to do with rapping.”

“Here it is, Clare Cosi. I am not so good at the memory thing, but I like the rap music, and I remember the lyrics, and I can make them up, too. One day I discovered that if I rap a person’s name, make it like a song, then the memory is locked here.” Boris tapped his temple. “That way I never forget.”

“There’s a name for that kind of thing,” I said. “Mnemonics? I think that’s the term. I can’t remember.”

Boris stuck a finger in the air, nodded sagely. “Ah, but you would not have forgotten if you had rapped about it!”

“Ready to go,” Esther declared.

I looked up, blinked in surprise. The transformation from barista to hottie date was stunning. Esther wore a little black, clingy dress that hugged her zaftig curves and dipped daringly down to reveal a Renaissance-era quantity of push-up bra cleavage. The hem barely reached midthigh, and she added matching black tights and stacked heels. Her black librarian glasses were gone, replaced with bright red cat glasses. Esther had applied scarlet lipstick to match the frames, and she’d lined her big, brown, long-lashed eyes with a sexy dark liner.

Boris grinned stupidly and practically stumbled to his feet. “Like a vision of night, her beauty takes flight! Like