Festival of Fear Read Free Page B

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    All the same, Tony’s was quite a handsome-looking restaurant with a brick front and brass carriage-lamps outside with flickering artificial flames. A chalkboard proudly proclaimed that this was ‘the home of wholesome, hearty food, lovingly prepared in our own kitchens by people who really care.’ Inside it was fitted out with dark wood paneling and tables with green, checkered cloths and gilt-framed engravings of whitetail deer, black bear and moose. It was crowded with cheery-looking families, and you certainly couldn’t fault it for ambience. Smart, but homely, with none of that wipe-clean feeling you get at McDonald’s.
    At the rear of the restaurant was a copper bar with an open grill, where a spotty young guy in a green apron and a tall green chef’s hat was sizzling hamburgers and steaks.
    A red-headed girl in a short green pleated skirt sashayed up to me and gave me a 500-watt smile, complete with teeth braces. ‘You prefer a booth or a table, sir?’
    â€˜Actually, neither. I have an appointment to see Mr Le Renges.’
    â€˜He’s right in back . . . why don’t you follow me? What name shall I say?’
    â€˜John.’
    Mr Le Renges was sitting in a blood-red leather chair with a reproduction antique table beside him, on which there was a fax machine, a silver carriage-clock, and a glass of seltzer. He was a bony man of forty-five or so with dyed-black collar-length hair which he had combed with something approaching genius to conceal his dead-white scalp. His nose was sharp and multifaceted, and his eyes glittered under his overgrown eyebrows like blowflies. He wore a very white open-neck shirt with long 1970s collar-points and a tailored black three-piece suit. I had the feeling that he thought he bore more than a passing resemblance to Al Pacino.
    On the paneled wall behind him hung an array of certificates from the Calais Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Maine Restaurant Guide and even one from Les Chevaliers de la Haute Cuisine Canadienne.
    â€˜Come in, John,’ said Mr Le Renges, in a distinctly French-Canadian accent. ‘Sit down, please . . . the couch, perhaps? That chair’s a little—’
    â€˜A little little ?’
    â€˜I was thinking only of your comfort, John. You see my policy is always to make the people who work for me feel happy and comfortable. I don’t have a desk, I never have. A desk is a statement which says that I am more important than you. I am not more important. Everybody who works here is of equal importance, and of equal value.’
    â€˜You’ve been reading the McDonald’s Bible. Always make your staff feel valued. Then you won’t have to pay them so much.’
    I could tell that Mr Le Renges didn’t quite know if he liked that remark. It was the way he twitched his head, like Data in Star Trek . But I could also tell that he was the kind of guy who was anxious that nobody should leave him without fully comprehending what a wonderful human being he was.
    He sipped some seltzer and eyed me over the rim of the glass. ‘You are perhaps a little mature to be seeking work as a burger chef.’
    â€˜Mature? I’m positively overripe. But I’ve been working in the upper echelons of the restaurant trade for so long, I thought it was time that I went back to basics. Got my hands dirty, so to speak.’
    â€˜At Tony’s Gourmet Burgers, John, our hygiene is second to none.’
    â€˜Of course. When I say getting my hands dirty – that’s like a metaphor. Food hygiene, that’s my specialty. I know everything there is to know about proper cooking times and defrosting and never picking your nose while you’re making a Caesar salad.’
    â€˜What’s your cooking experience, John?’
    â€˜I was a cook in the Army. Three times winner of the Fort Polk prize for culinary excellence. It made me very good at home economics. I can make