“Actually, yes. Some nights I get home so late I don’t have the energy to cook. I’ll get an egg roll or fried rice and eat it at two o’clock in the morning.”
We stood in the front of the store next to the counter. I watched his eyes cut to the half-empty bowl of cereal behind me, and I blushed. What must he think of me? My father called him and told him to check on me. When he showed up, I was in alien pj’s. And now he’d discovered that I ate Fruity Pebbles for dinner!
“I’d like to keep talking with you. If you’re game, I know where to get the best fried rice in Proper.”
“They’re open at ten thirty on a Sunday?”
“I have connections.”
Truth was, I wanted to keep talking with Tak too. He was at the party where Blitz was murdered, so he was connected to the whole thing. My dad’s and Ebony’s reassurances that he was a good guy from a good family helped, as did the need to talk to an impartial person about what had happened since I’d arrived back in town. I ran upstairs for my wallet and keys and then returned to the store. Tak waited out front while I locked up. I hopped into his SUV and we left.
*
THE Proper City streets were mostly quiet at this hour on a Sunday. Retailers and businesses that thrived in the first half of the day, like florists, coffee shops, and bakeries, had long since closed, leaving only the illumination from the occasional nightclub or restaurant. Tak drove us down Main Line Road in the same direction I’d driven earlier that day. The rotating playing card in front of Black Jack’s car dealership was lit up like a party favor. We passed that too, and then turned into the parking lot of a small Japanese-style building.
Across the front wooden roofline that curved up slightly on both sides were the words HOSHIYAMA KOBE STEAK HOUSE. The lack of cars in the lot and lights around the building confirmed my suspicion that we were past regular operating hours. Tak parked around the side of the building and turned off the engine.
“Ebony told me your parents owned a restaurant,” I said. “But I think we’re a little late for happy hour.”
“I have special privileges,” he said. “Come with me.”
I followed him to the side door. He unlocked three locks with three different keys and then looked at me. “You’re in for a treat.” Once inside, he flipped a light switch that provided a low-level glow throughout the interior.
The restaurant was made up of six individual islands. Each one had a steel cooktop built into a table. Eight chairs surrounded the islands on three of the four sides; the remaining side, I knew, was for the chef to prepare a teppanyaki feast with twirling knives, flying shrimp tails, and volcanoes built from onions. I’d long been a fan of teppanyaki. Ever since my first meal at Mori’s when I graduated from sixth grade, I was hooked.
Tak guided me to a nearby island and pulled out a chair in the middle of the long side of the table. I sat. He walked around to the back and flipped a switch. “The grill is going to get hot in a minute or two. Be careful. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared behind a long, green curtain that hid the kitchen and returned with a pushcart. On top were two medium-sized bowls of white rice, a small bowl of minced carrots, onion, and celery, a plate with a blob of what I knew to be garlic butter, and a bottle of soy sauce. Two eggs rested next to the bottle of soy, and a boneless chicken breast sat on a separate plate.
He held his open hand over the grill to check the temperature and then squirted sesame oil onto the surface. With the flat side of a silver spatula, he spread the oil around in circles that grew wider and wider. He added the chicken and then dumped the rice bowls upside down onto the empty surface of the grill next to it.
“My father tells me you work in the Clark County district attorney’s office,” I said. “I can’t imagine this is a necessary skill.”
“No, but it keeps me popular at parties.” He moved the rice around over the surface and then added the bowl of diced vegetables. Next, the blob of garlic butter went on top. He used two large paddlelike utensils to mix everything together, and then he pushed it all to the side. He cracked both eggs into a silver mixing bowl, scrambled them with a fork, and poured them onto the grill, then set the shells inside the empty bowl, which went back on the cart.
“I feel cheated. Shouldn’t you be tossing stuff in the air and catching it in your hat?”
He looked surprised. “You know about the hat tricks?”
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” I said.
“Well, then I guess I must confess. There’s a reason I’m a city planner and not a teppanyaki chef. I never got the hang of the hat part.”
I sat back and let him finish making the fried rice in silence. He diced the chicken and blended it in with the rice and veggie mix, added soy sauce and sesame seeds, and scooped it up into two separate bowls. He held out a fork and I waved him off.
“Are you eating with chopsticks?” I asked.
“Yes, but I figured—”