French Pressed

Purple light illuminated the granite walls of the former Fourth Avenue Episcopal Church. The cathedral was no longer a house of worship. The stained glass windows with religious scenes had been replaced by massive laser light displays that morphed and shifted with the relentless rhythms that filled the century-old sanctuary.

A winding sidewalk outside the entrance to the Gothic structure had once been the path to Sunday services. Now those same stones were buried under the spiked heels and polished loafers of at least one hundred flashily dressed revelers, waiting to be admitted to the club’s inner sanctum.

In recent weeks, this gray stone structure had been rechristened Club Flux. Now there was a new breed of faithful flocking here, the type that willingly followed the leaders of the hip, the trendy, the terminally chic. If this brand-new nightspot was the location of the season, these dedicated pilgrims would line up to adulate.

I, on the other hand, just wanted to get in and out of the darn place as quickly as possible, but the length of the line at the door was irritating beyond belief. Moving past the crowd, I approached the velvet rope. Three bouncers guarded this draping gate, each bigger and tougher-looking than the last.

Seeing them here, it occurred to me that if you put Armani on a trio of football thugs, they still looked like football thugs, only dressed in Armani. I approached the least intimidating linebacker in the group—least intimidating because his shoulders were only broad enough to rival the span of the Brooklyn Bridge, his neck thicker than my waist.

“Hi,” I said, loud enough to be heard over the music. “Could you tell me how long I’ll have to wait on this line? I’m guessing at least an hour?”

I’d just exited a too-warm taxi, and my long gray coat was still unbuttoned. The big man eyed me from the top of my French twist to my green silk heels. The Valentino suit screamed class, and his gaze lingered a long moment on the exquisite emerald necklace, which shouted, “Money, honey!”

If any dame was going to buy up all those four hundred dollar bottles of Cristal inside, it was going to be the one wearing this necklace.

The bouncer winked at me and unlocked the velvet rope, which was exactly what I was banking on. People on the line booed, but not too loudly, since no one wanted to risk being shunned by the Gatekeepers of Gargantua.

After the rope guy moved aside, I strode up to the club’s door, where another WrestleMania candidate held open the slab of heavy oak.

I stepped over the threshold, took off my overcoat, and tried to speak with the woman staffing the coat check, but she cupped her ear and shook her head, pretending not to hear me over the pulsing electronica flowing off the club’s dance floor.

With Madame’s green beaded clutch in my hand, I entered Flux’s massive interior. It appeared exactly as I’d expected: flashing lights and jam-packed bodies writhing to a pounding, relentless beat.

I moved through the crowd, avoiding the central dance floor. A young man jostled me, excused himself, and I realized—as he flashed a toothy Hollywood smile—that this dude was a fairly famous television actor. I searched for other familiar faces, half expecting to see Madame here with her new, “younger” flame (she did say they were going clubbing Saturday. Maybe they’d come out Sunday night, too?).

But the only familiar face I noticed was on the crowded dance floor: Anton Wright, Solange’s owner. He was clad in the same outfit he’d been wearing at the funeral home: a tailored black jacket over a black, open-necked shirt. And he wasn’t alone. The man was dancing with a young woman in a daring red dress.

Oh, damn…another theory shot to hell…

Earlier in the evening, at Keitel’s viewing, I’d suspected Anton was getting a bit too cozy with Faye, but now I could see I’d been wrong. Anton was dancing with this young woman, but he was also touching her suggestively, occasionally kissing her. Clearly, he was interested.

Wright hadn’t seen me in the packed room and probably wouldn’t have recognized me if he had. Nevertheless, I moved quickly along to the largest bar, which was located in approximately the same spot that the church’s altar once stood. It took me a few minutes to push through the milling, thirsty mob and get the attention of a bartender.

“Where can I find Billy Benedetto?” I yelled. “I believe he’s the beverage manager.”

The man nodded. “Billy’s expecting you.”

I frowned. How can he be expecting me? Because of the loud music, it took me a moment to register the fact that the bartender hadn’t asked my name. Obviously, Benedetto was expecting someone else to ask for him. Oh, well. Too bad. I’m in.

“It’s through that door there. It’s unlocked,” the bartender said, pointing to a section of the mirrored wall next to the bar. I saw a knob and turned it; a door swung inward.

“Go to the top of the stairs. Billy’s office is the first door on the left. If you walk into the control booth, you’ve passed it.”

“Got it.” I stepped through the opening, and the door closed behind me.

The dark space was soundproofed, the music muffled to a muted throb. The narrow corridor and the staircase beyond were surreally illuminated by ultraviolet lights, the black walls covered in psychedelic patterns reminiscent of retro sixties pop art.

At the top of the stairs I saw several doors, including the door to the control booth at the end of the dark hall. It was open, and I could see banks of dials and switches for the laser lights and sound system. I found Benedetto’s office easily enough; his name was displayed on the door. I knocked, and a voice boomed.

“Come in!”

I pushed through the door.

The beverage manager’s office was small: a desk and computer, a couple of chairs. One wall held shelves crammed with bottles of all shapes and sizes, many tagged with labels that read Sample Only: Not for Resale. The wall behind the desk was dominated by six full-color monitors, each displaying live security-camera footage from each of the club’s serving stations.

Crowded and tight, the office was further reduced by the impressive girth of its occupant. Billy Benedetto was a large man—at least as large as one of the linebackers outside the club and much bulkier than the lithe Russian bodybuilders at Pedechenko’s banya.

I guessed he was over sixty, but the age thing was iffy. Judging from his bloodshot, sad-sack eyes and the deep lines on his puffy face, Benedetto could easily be a hard-living fiftysomething. Tonight he was swathed in a loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt, decorated with little art deco rocket ships. His gray hair was worn long and tied back in a ponytail. One ear was pierced with a diamond stud.

The second he saw me, Benedetto scowled. But then the man was expecting someone else.

“Who the hell are you?”

Charmed. “I’m Roman Brio’s collaborator.”

The scowl immediately vanished. “Roman Brio, the food writer and restaurant critic?”

“The same. Roman and I are working on a lengthy piece exposing the peccadilloes of Chef Tommy Keitel. You’ve heard, haven’t you, that he—

“Kicked? Bought the farm?” Benedetto’s sad-sack eyes brightened, and his face actually broke into a grin. “Yeah, honey. I heard.”

I noticed the man had been writing on something when I walked into the room. Now Benedetto lifted the item. It was a white label. I watched him affix it to a glossy black envelope, the same size and shape of the envelope I’d seen Tommy open the day he was murdered.

So, I thought, Dornier told me the truth… I was relieved to be on the right track, but a part of me tensed, knowing full well that I might have just placed myself in a room with Keitel’s murderer. But he had a motive to kill Tommy. He’s not going to kill an associate of Roman Brio’s, so just keep up the act, Clare…

“You don’t seem too broken up about the news of Chef Keitel’s demise,” I noted carefully.

Benedetto laughed. “That’s because you didn’t know Tommy like I knew Tommy. Consider yourself lucky. The great chef didn’t live long enough to stab you in the back.”

Benedetto tossed the black envelope aside, leaned back in his chair, and sighed heavily. “So who are you? You work with Brio, but what’s your name?”