BornontheBayou by Lynne Connolly Read Free Book Online Page B

mind?”
    He didn’t have anyone in mind. “I have my manager working on
it.”
    “What can a rock band manager do to get a chef?”
    Jace chortled and let Bell hear his glee. “Do you know how
much hospitality a band on the road needs? All those media people to keep
happy, all the special fads of the crew? We don’t live on burgers and beer. Not
if we want any arteries left in our old age. Some bands travel with their own
chefs. Besides, my manager’s Chick Fontaine. He doesn’t just look after rock
bands.”
    He liked the short pause. It meant he’d made Bell think,
probably meant he’d heard of Chick, who wasn’t exactly a shy violet and had
fingers in a bunch of pies. “We’re putting Great Oaks in our luxury band, so we
want at least one Michelin star.”
    “And you want someone who can do local cuisine. You love the
Plantation Experience idea, and cooking goes along with that. What does a chef
from France know about Cajun cuisine?”
    This time there was no pause. “You have a point.” So Bell
knew something that Jace didn’t. Otherwise he wouldn’t have agreed so promptly.
    “I’m not sure I would have approved Chaballet’s
appointment.”
    He listened with glee as James Bell exploded. So much for
efficient. After about a minute, the man calmed down. “You don’t own the house
anymore.”
    “But I could. How about that?”
    Another pause and he could imagine Bell holding his breath,
waiting for the fury to pass. He loved getting to this man. He went for another
jab. “I liked Ms. Christmas; I thought she was good for the place.”
    “She’s history. Jaime tells me she’s left the house. I was
thinking of appointing Jaime in her place as assistant manager.”
    A suspicion crossed Jace’s mind, coalescing into near
certainty. Had Jaime contrived to make this happen, at least just a little bit?
She could have done something to set off the chef. If she had a suspicion she
was in line for the manager’s job, getting rid of the chef would be the perfect
way to get rid of Beverley. He wished he’d paid more attention to the résumés
he’d glanced through now.
    “I didn’t like what I saw of Jaime.” He recalled her
gloating expression, quickly masked, when she told Beverley the chef had gone.
That made sense, more than the chef waiting barely half an hour did. He wanted
to discover more and recalled his schedule, rapidly calculating how close to
the wire he could come before Chick combusted. “Listen. I want to stay over a
few days, see what you’ve done to the house. Say goodbye.”
    “Sure, no problem.”
    But Beverley was still done at Great Oaks. He’d work on it.
    He hung up and picked up his rapidly cooling coffee. He had
barely taken a sip before his phone rang again. He glanced at the screen and
took the call. “Hey, Chick, how you doin’?”
    “As well as I was when you called an hour ago.” Chick
sounded easy. He always did. Slow and easy. Unless, of course, something had
happened to spark his temper. “I got in touch with your three-star chef. He was
at the airport waiting for his flight. I know a few chefs, so I used a mutual
connection to get through to him.”
    “Sure you did.” That was why he’d thought of Chick. If Chick
didn’t know a person, then he knew someone who knew him. That old six degrees
of separation thing didn’t work for Chick. He needed only two.
    “He said the woman who met him showed him the kitchen and
answered his questions. Didn’t like the conditions.”
    “Did he say who the woman was?” Jace asked.
    “The assistant manager. She said the manager was too busy to
speak with him. Mismanaged everything.”
    Jace snorted. “I’d say she managed perfectly.”
    Chick didn’t take long to pick up the insinuation. “Ah.
Sabotage, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Cutting to the chase, I wouldn’t employ the bastard. He
might be top of the cooking tree, but his people skills leave a lot to be
desired. I looked him up, asked a few