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The usual black Mercedes waits at the curb, with Charles standing by the door to help us into the back seat. “Mr. Prince,” he says. “Ms. Key.”
In minutes, we arrive at a restaurant. A table for two is framed in the window next to the door—intimate, extravagant, with enough china and glassware to feed an army. A balding man is too busy studying his menu to look at the silver-haired woman sitting across from him.
The door opens from inside, and a man in a tuxedo bows slightly as he ushers us toward an ebony desk. A woman greets us with a polished smile. “Good evening, and welcome to Nourriture.”
This is the best restaurant in New York City, complete with three Michelin stars. Chef William Lasker’s twenty-one-course fixed-price menu changes nightly.
Trap says, “Travis Prince. Party of—”
Before he can finish, the hostess’s expression changes. The sculpted curve of her lips is replaced by a sour pout, as if she just bit down on a grapefruit rind. “Mr. Prince,” she says, and it sounds like she’s forcing his name through the eye of a needle. Her gaze hardens when she looks at me. “Ms. Key.”
She shouldn’t know my name. No one should.
But I’ve seen the expression on her face too many times in the past week. On the paparazzi who lined the airport fence when we landed from Orlando. On the mainstream journalists who camp out in front of the freeport. On otherwise-sunny newsreaders on the nightly news.
I’m the woman who killed a man in cold blood. I’m the crazed lunatic with a knife whose video has already been viewed more than a million times. I’m the subject of dozens of memes, of online essays, of pop psychologists offering their opinion everywhere.
I’m toxic.
Trap settles a possessive hand on my waist. I don’t know if he intends to give me courage, but his touch is enough to keep my knees from trembling.
The woman regains her composure almost as quickly as she lost it. She turns a page of the heavy leather book on the table in front of her, and she makes a quick mark in the margin. “If you could indulge me one moment, please.”
Her tone doesn’t match her oily words. She gestures, and the tuxedoed man by the door steps to her side. She whispers something in his ear. He nods and avoids looking at us, relying on the well-trained blindness of a man who lives on tips. He hurries toward the back of the restaurant.
He’s gone for almost five minutes. The entire time, the hostess pretends Trap and I aren’t standing there. We pretend we aren’t waiting for our reservation to be honored.
When Tuxedo Man finally returns to his place by the door, he offers a tight nod to the hostess. She summons an unconvincing smile. “If you’ll follow me, Mr. Prince.” She clears her throat, like something’s stuck sideways in there. “Ms. Key.”
Whispers begin when we enter the dining room. Polite patrons keep from staring. Rude ones ogle, reaching for their phones.
The hostess pushes through the porthole door at the end of the room. She gestures for us to come with her, into the kitchen. Glaring at two stools pulled up to a stainless-steel counter, she says, “Chef Lasker would be pleased to have you join him at an exclusive chef’s table this evening.”
A white-aproned young woman is hurriedly placing silverware beside a pair of plates. One of her colleagues adds a couple of wine glasses and two tumblers for water.
“Thank you,” Trap says, as if we’ve been offered a treasure—and plenty of Michelin fanatics would think we have been. “But we’d prefer to eat in the dining room.”
“I’m sorry,” the hostess says, not sounding sorry at all. “I’m afraid these are the only seats available tonight.”
“We’ll take the table in the front window,” Trap says.
“We already have customers enjoying their meal—”
Trap turns to the woman who set our places on the kitchen counter. “Excuse me,” he says, reaching into his pants pocket for his money clip. “Could you please take this to the couple sitting in the window? A small gesture thanking them for the inconvenience of trading seats?”
He peels off ten crisp hundred-dollar bills.
As the young chef hesitates, Trap says to the hostess, “Obviously, we’ll pay for their dinners as well. And for your trouble.” He hands a hundred to the hostess and another to his appointed messenger.
Our flurry of activity has attracted the attention of a man who can only be Chef Lasker. He’s wearing traditional checked pants and a white jacket, with severe black cording and matching buttons. His tall white hat reminds me of a bishop’s miter.
“I can’t…” the hostess says. “We must…” she tries again. “There are reasons…” Finally she gives up and appeals to authority. “Chef?”
Nourriture’s god studies Trap and me, his gaze as sharp as a filet knife. If not for Trap’s hand on my hip, I would already be out the restaurant’s front door, fleeing the bright lights of the kitchen for the anonymity of the street.
But Chef Lasker finally nods. “If our guests in the window are willing to trade tables, Nourriture would be happy to serve Mr. Prince and Ms. Key in the window.”
Defeated, the hostess grabs Trap’s thousand dollars from the cowering young woman and scurries out to the main dining room. Another five minutes pass, filled with the clatter of a busy kitchen cooking food, plating dishes, and asking for Chef Lasker’s approval.
