Art’s right: I already know why his dear wife, with her formal, immigrant’s English and shy good looks, torpedoed his dream. I know because I’ve watched Art, studied him. In the kitchen, training bumbling teens to deep-fry tortilla chips in bubbling lard. In the dining room, booming out ethnic folk songs for howling two-year-olds in booster seats. In the office, pep-talking his servers on the importance of honest tip reporting. Every business, at bottom, is a wish, and Art’s wish was for the world to rest secure inside his strong embrace. He didn’t boss or push people, he fathered them, but the hidden message of his largesse was that the world was a danger to itself, weak and self-defeating and in error. Even the way he pushed his patrons to eat, instructing his servers to refill diners’ plates without being asked, was unwittingly belittling. Art’s restaurants were fun and affordable but smothering, and though every dining room featured a full-length painting of Coquilla dressed in native regalia and offering steaming bowls of beans and rice, Fiesta Brava was really about him, his heart and potency. His wife’s rebellion was inevitable. A man who confuses his business with his family risks losing both, in my experience.
But Art doesn’t wait for me to answer his question.
“She did it because she couldn’t stand the smell,” he says. “The cooking odors. Can you say ‘change of life’? The question is: do I prosecute?”
“Of course not. Liquidate and move on. Enjoy your golf course. Sooner or later, you’ll get a new idea and then you can call me and we’ll hash it out. Don’t force things, though. And rule out hospitality.”
“Why’s that?”
“You give people more than they want. You cut their air off.”
Art drums his fingers on the tinny tabletop and little cinders skitter over the edge. I shift my weight to say I’m on my way. I didn’t count on a crisis intervention, and Art isn’t in the mood to face hard truths, nor should he have to just now. He never liked my ideas much, anyway; he retained me on the advice of his attorney, a celebrity litigator I met in Airworld and now hear has been disbarred for escrow monkeyshines.
“You hungry, Ryan?”
“I ate on the flight in. I’m truly sorry about Coquilla, Art. I’m guessing she has the children.”
“They’re hers to keep. She’s got them thoroughly brainwashed anyhow. They think that because I’m not Baha’i I’m worthless.”
“Coquilla is Baha’i? I never knew.”
“They’re tough to spot. They blend in with all the other groups.”
I stand and extend my hand.
“You going somewhere? I thought I owned your time tonight.”
“No charge. I’ll tell ISM to go light on you. You’re broke.”
Art folds his thick arms. “So this is how you operate. Guy loses everything, you’re out the door. Well, I need company, Ryan. Look at me. Either you’re hitting the town with me tonight and matching me drink for drink or I’m going to tell that guy who called last week that Bingham’s a dip, he doesn’t finish the job.”
“Who called you, Art?”
“He was checking references. Whoever it is you’re looking to go to work for.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That my wife just left me, but I’ll get back to you once I’ve blown my brains out. Does All-Star Steaks sound good? I booked a table. We can take your car or mine, it doesn’t matter.”
“Did this caller sound real or did you smell a prank? One of the guys I work with is a kidder.”
“What would you say are my chances of reopening under a new name? Not Mexican—something more sanitary. Middle Eastern?”
“That’s not as big a difference as you think. If you insist on staying in hospitality, people are having good luck with donuts now. There’s a group from down south that’s going national, but you have to co-advertise, and the buy-in’s steep.”
“No presence in Nevada yet?”
“I doubt it.”
“I tried donuts back in ’69. They petered out in the seventies. What changed?”
“These are the mysteries.”
“No one knows? Come on.”
“Maybe they know in Omaha. I’ll see.”
In science, an experiment is meaningless unless its outcome is repeatable. I feel the same way about restaurants and eating out. Unless a dish can be made to taste as good no matter where it’s prepared, LA or Little Rock, it doesn’t entice me. I like successful formulas. I like a meal that’s been tested and perfected, allowing me to order and relax, knowing the chef won’t use me as a guinea pig for his new fruit salsa or what have you. In fact, I prefer establishments that don’t need chefs because their training programs are so deft that anyone off the street can run the kitchen. That’s why I’m glad that Art chose All-Star Steaks. It’s one of the five or six chains that I depend on, whose systematic comforts always satisfy. Glass-cased sports memorabilia line the walls and the waitresses flounce around in shorts and jerseys as though they’ve just risen from bed with athlete boyfriends. They’ll have a lawsuit over that, eventually, but until that time, I’m theirs.
We choose a booth of orange textured vinyl stamped with various major league insignias. My challenge is to find a way to ditch Art without endangering my MythTech reference. Three hours from now there’s a flight to Ontario, whose local Homestead is granting double miles due to a construction inconvenience. Two nights there will help me recapture some lost momentum.
