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  Taco Noir

  Tales of Culinary Crime

  Steven Gomez

  Copyright 2012 Steven Gomez

  All Rights Reserved Worldwide

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  The material has been written and published solely for entertainment purposes. The author and the publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss, damage, or injury caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.

  First Edition

  Book Cover and design by Steven Gomez

  Photography by Steven Gomez and Deborah Watson-Novacek

  Printed in the USA

  Visit theNoirFactory.com for the best in suspense fiction

  www.noirfactory.com Copyright © 2012 Steven Gomez

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0615635091

  ISBN-13: 978-0615635095

  DEDICATION

  For Alfred Gomez

  Who showed me which end of the spoon was which.

  Table of Contents

  FORWARD

  THE CASE OF THE VANISHING PITS

  THE CASE OF THE UPPER CRUST

  THE CASE OF THE UNHAPPY CHICKPEA

  THE CASE OF THE SECOND STORY EXPOSURE

  THE CASE OF THE HARD-BOILED MONTE CRISTO

  THE CASE OF VINTAGE LARCENY

  THE CASE OF THE BITING SPICE

  THE CASE OF THE AWKWARD HIGH NOTE

  THE CASE OF THE FOWL PREDICTION

  THE CASE OF THE HIGH STAKES

  THE CASE OF THE UNDERCOVER MULLIGAN

  THE CASE OF THE ABSENT EXHIBIT

  THE BIG SHOULDERS

  PREVIEW OF KRINGLE NOIR

  PREVIEW OF THE CURSE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FORWARD

  By Steven Gomez

  There’s a dark alleyway because there’s always a dark alleyway. There’s fog because there needs to be fog. There’s a gin joint, a greasy diner, and a newsstand because it won’t work if there isn’t. In the distance a fog horn cries out, and the chill cuts its way through your coat like a rusty razor. You can see streetlights glow in the avenue beyond, but all they do is make the shadows that much darker. The smell of burnt coffee drifts through the air, and when the wind changes, so does the story.

  It could be the Moroccan dive down the street, where the man at the bar sports a fez and peels fruit with a stiletto. It might be the hotdog cart up the road near where the cop patrols nightly and takes a piece of whatever action comes his way. It might even be the fresh-faced kid who slings hash at the local diner, who came to the big city to be a star but ended up in over her head.

  There’s a marriage between food and American detective fiction that is stronger than any other genre fiction. When we imagine the hero of a hard-boiled detective story, we rarely think of the detective in his office any longer than to pick up messages from his dedicated (and often leggy) secretary. When he visits his apartment long enough to hang up his fedora, it is usually empty with the exception of a rumpled bed and a cheap bottle of booze.

  The detective’s world is defined by the places people eat, drink, and congregate. Our hero crashes cocktail parties, meets informants at dive bars, and gets his heart started every morning in the local hash-house with coffee every bit as bitter as he.

  From the lamb chops and sliced tomatoes of Sam Spade, the dry Martini of Nick Charles, Philip Marlow’s bologna sandwiches, or Spenser’s gourmet omelets, the food of the noir detective is every bit a staple of their world as is a snub-nose revolver. Bars, diners, and restaurants give the sleuth’s world definition and, well… flavor. Without them, the black and white world of noir literature becomes exactly that.

  The stories in this book all stem from a life-long love of great food and great detective stories. Some of the best times in my life have been defined by meals with friends, and stories shared. Going out to dinner with my parents as a kid meant going to a greasy spoon followed by a trip to the newsstand. A visit to grandma’s house was heralded by the smell of percolated coffee and freshly-made tortillas. Diners, truck-stops, and dives made up an early part of my life just as bistros, tasting rooms, and cafes made up the later years. Put them together, and it’s the best of both worlds.

  I’d like to think that I am the first person to tie these genres together in this particular way, but I know I am mistaken. I’ve seen and appreciated mystery stories that have focused on regional foods and flavors, as well as included interesting recipes, but I think that this book is a singular sort of animal.

  Our world-weary and slightly beaten no-name detective is driven not only by his search for a culinary excellence but also for justice. Although he is at times foolish, I’ve done my best (with the exception of the last story) to stay away from the ridiculous. Our hero is riddled with flaws and short-comings, but ennui isn’t one of them. I’m a complete sucker for a bruised and battered hero who remains unbroken. Hopefully so are you.

  The letter of the law is almost always broken and its spirit might suffer, but more often than not, justice is served. And it is usually served with the appropriate side dish.

  THE CASE OF THE VANISHING PITS

  When you deal with the mob, you gotta watch your stones

  Spring came late this year, fighting the good fight against the oppressive snow and the pelting rain that washed the city clean of its filth, if only for a moment. The sun visited as frequently as a paying client, but unlike those same clients, when it showed up it came like gangbusters. It beat through the clouds and filled the city with an unfamiliar sensation that I can only take as hope. For me, though, the bright sun cast long shadows into my life that brought me to mind of years past and of the Herm Walther case.

  Herman was neither a good nor a kind man, which worked out well considering he was paid to be neither of those things. From the age of three he had a thirty-inch neck and an IQ to match. At age eight he probably shook down his first mark on the playground for his milk money, and developed a taste for it. With those skills well in tow, he left behind the confines of PS 102 and set out to make his way in the world. His way led him to the wrong side of the tracks.

  Herm worked as hired muscle for a reptile by the name of Zack Demone. Demone was what we in polite society call a ‘loan agent’ and what made him a success in said field was the fact that he possessed an almost supernatural ability to find desperate mugs in need of a life line and bleed them dry. If further misfortune visited these suckers and they somehow fell behind in the payments on the soul-crushing interest that Zack charged, then he would compound said misery by visiting Herm on them. For having very little education, Herm Walther excelled in the field of payment restructuring.

  It was on such a visit, while Herm was assisting a local merchant adjust his bottom line, that Herm was pinched by the cops. A quick glance into the holding cell that had seen plenty of Herm Walther in his thirty years of existence convinced the DA that Herm was an excellent candidate for an extended stay upstate. In Herm’s chosen profession, a few years up the river was considered a hazard of the job, or even a mark of honor. Honor, like many other words, had no place in Herm Walther’s vocabulary. Compound that with the fact that Herm’s little woman was eight months pregnant at the time, Herm took his time in the holding cell to figure some new math. He sent word to the DA that there might be a deal to be made if some ‘arithmetic’ could be overlooked.

  Working for years with Zack Demone had given Herm complete knowledge of his boss’ dealings. It was perfectly understandable for Demone to assume that Herm Walther wasn’t
smart enough to notice his lips moving, let alone pay attention to Demone’s dealings, but Walther was smarter than his boss gave him credit for. Not much, mind you, but just enough to be dangerous.

  Walther’s deal with the DA was for full immunity for any crimes committed while under Zack Demone’s employment, both known and discovered under investigation. To Herm, it seemed like a sweet deal, one that would see him out of the clink by suppertime, and home for the spring to bounce little Herm Junior on his knee.

  The only things that Herm had not been granted were protection and common sense.

  On the day that Herm was to testify to the grand jury regarding Zack Demone’s criminal activities, Herm was, for lack of a better term, ‘absent.’ Herm’s absence had made as much impact as his presence did. The DA dropped the charges against Demone, and then proceeded to have a steak dinner, graciously provided by Demone. Demone himself had to go through the extensive interviewing process of hiring a new thug. The process took about five seconds. Nature, I’m told, abhors a vacuum, and the small one provided by Herm Walther’s absence was soon filled, and the city went on its own merry, apathetic way.

  With the exception of Mrs. Herm Walther and her new son, Herm Jr.

  That’s when yours truly fell into the picture. It had been my experience that lunks such as Herm Walther, for the most part, fell into relationships with women who were the female version of the same. Not that their knuckles dragged on the ground, you understand, but that they had similar compassions and sensibilities as the lugs they married. None-too-bright, as their mate, none-too-caring, and drifting along to wherever life might happen to deposit them. People like Herm Walther generally got what they asked for.

  Not so with Mrs. Walther.

  Elizabeth Walther washed up on my doorstep fresh-faced, eyes full of innocence and hope. And with a two month old boy in tow. Mrs. Walther was almost a baby herself, and what she knew of life could fill a matchbook. Once upon a time she had been told to be loving, honorable, and obedient, and had done her best to do all these things. Her husband had promised those things as well, but he also promised not to fink on his mobster boss, so it occurred to me that Herm Walther might have been a little light in the commitment department.

  Elizabeth held out hopes for Herm’s return, clearly the most optimistic individual I had ever met, and told me that the cops had not shared her sunny outlook. They dutifully took her statement and filed it in the trash when she wasn’t looking. She had dragged Herm Jr. across the city looking for any clue to his Pa’s whereabouts and had come up empty, but still determined. Her path, as well as her resources, had just about run dry, but if she could pay the rent with grit she would have lived in the Taj Mahal. She believed that her beloved Herm was still out there and she begged me to locate him.

  Part of me wanted to tell her that she didn’t so much need a private eye as a shovel, but one look into those wide, innocent baby-blues, and I couldn’t refuse. She was a good kid, too good for the likes of Herm Walther, and if I could bring some closure to her then perhaps she could move on and give Herm Jr. the kind of life his old man never had.

  Yeah, sometimes I’m stupid like that.

  After Mrs. Walther left I placed a few phone calls, doing my best to stay off of Zack Demone’s radar as I did so. Eventually an old pal of mine from the DA’s office, Mike McCarthy, gave me the first lead I had. He confirmed that not only did the DA’s case against Demone fall apart after Herm disappeared, but that he had been hearing rumors and whispers that Herm might have gone upstate after all, or as his informant had told him, “Herm had gone to live on the farm where his dog Rover lived.”

  McCarthy had assumed that his informant’s wit was about as dry as Lake Erie, but I knew better. Word on the street was that Zack Demone had done all right by his mom when the big bucks began to roll in and bought her a spread out in the country that would turn Central Park a little greener with envy. Since it was out of character for Demone to do anything for anyone but himself, it was a good bet that this show of fondness for his old Ma had some kind of strings attached. We filled up on coffee and decided to take in the country air.

  The farm itself was a slice of American Pie al a mode, a piece of Americana straight out of Ma and Pa Kettle. Despite all the down-home hokum, Mrs. Demone was a polite and civil hostess, and received us with old-world civility. She took us on a brief tour of the grounds, pointing out the fruit trees in the distance next to her victory garden. Sitting us down on the front porch, Ma Demone set Mike and me up with hulking pieces of homemade cherry pie and lemonade with the bite of a Doberman. The pie was the best I had ever eaten, and I told the old girl so. While we stuffed our pie holes with pie, Mrs. Demone talked our ears off about what a dream little Zackie was, and how busy he was making his fortune in the city. Ma Demone did say that even though Zack didn’t spend much time visiting, he was thoughtful enough to send some of his ‘little friends’ to bring out the tree that had provided the very same fruit that she had used in the pie we were eating. They were even thoughtful enough to plant it for Mrs. Demone. In the middle of the night.

  Mike and I suddenly got very full of pie.

  While Mrs. Demone took our plates to the kitchen and went to refill our lemonade, Mike and I went out to the garden to have a closer look at the cherry tree. It was an impressive specimen among fruit trees, full of lush leaves and ripe cherries. The limbs were filthy with the fruit, even bowing with them, causing Mike and I to exchange concerned looks.

  “That sure is one healthy tree,” I told the copper.

  “That it is,” he agreed. “I bet she uses some powerful fertilizer.”

  We inspected the trunk of the tree and discovered that it had been planted fairly recently. When we got back to the porch, we thanked Mrs. Demone for the pie and the hospitality. The dear gave us each a peck on the cheek and wrapped up some fruit and sandwiches for the long ride back to the city. We left the farm and drove for about a mile and a half before Mike radioed the station and had the boys round up some shovels and a warrant and meet us at the Demone farm.

  While we waited, Mike and I ate fruit and sandwiches.

  The old girl was in all her glory, whirling this way and that as she filled glasses with lemonade and doled out sandwiches, pie and coffee. She was relishing every minute of our visit, and clearly seemed disappointed when the men finished their excavations and the coroner left for the city. As we watched Mrs. Demone clean up, I could only think of young Elizabeth Walther and the bitter pill I had for her and Herm Jr.

  I knew that the young woman would take this hard, and I couldn’t just go back to the girl empty handed. I closed my eyes and exhaled, looking to the untrained eye as if I might have been praying. I opened my eyes, and had no more inspiration than I had the moment before. I needed something to take some of the pain away.

  And then it hit me….

  MA DEMONE’S SWEET CHERRY PIE

  For the Crust (enough for top and bottom)

  2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

  2 sticks unsalted butter

  1 tsp. kosher salt

  1 tsp. granulated sugar

  8-9 tbsp. ice water or more if needed

  For Filling

  4 cups pitted fresh cherries (about 2 pounds unpitted)

  4 tablespoons cornstarch

  2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar (adjust this according to the sweetness of your cherries)

  1/8 teaspoon salt

  Juice of half a lemon

  1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1 egg, beaten with 2 tablespoons water

  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

  Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes, put them on a baking sheet, and toss the sheet into the freezer for about an hour.

  In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, and sugar and mix well. Slowly add the frozen butter cubes and cut them into the mixture using a pastry knife until you break up the butter to the size of large buckshot. Add the water slowly until the dough sticks to itself when you give it a pinch.
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  Remove the dough from the bowl and put it onto a clean, dry, flat work surface. Press the dough into small discs. If the dough crumbles and doesn’t cooperate, slowly add more water, tablespoon by tablespoon, until the dough shows you some respect.

  Sprinkle each disk lightly with flour and wrap individually in plastic wrap. Place in fridge for 1 hour.

  Stir the cherries, cornstarch, sugar, salt, lemon and vanilla extract together gently in a large bowl.

  Roll out half of the chilled dough on a floured work surface to a 13-inch round. Gently place the round into a 9-inch pie pan, either by rolling it around the rolling pin and unrolling it over the pan or by folding it into quarters and unfolding it in the pan. Trim edges to a half-inch overhang.

  Spoon filling into pie crust, discarding most of the liquid in the bowl.

  Roll out the remaining dough into a 12-inch round on a lightly floured surface, cover the filling, and trim it, leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fold the overhang under the bottom crust, pressing the edge to seal it, and crimp the edge nice and pretty, so as to make Ma Demone proud. Brush the egg wash over the pie crust.

  Cut slits in the crust with a sharp knife, forming vents, and bake the pie for 25 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F and bake the pie for 25 to 30 minutes more, or until the crust is golden. Let the pie cool on a rack.

  Enjoy it with a nice, hearty cup of Joe.