The black limousine carrying Jean Luc Toussaint stopped in front of “L’hippocampe d’argent.” The driver held the door open for the passenger, a cannonball of a man with incredibly short legs that barely reached the sleek with the recent rain street.
He was dressed in an expensive but crumpled suit, a white silk shirt, and a Hermes tie, clothes that, despite the chill of the April night, were soaked with sweat. He wiped his shiny face with the back of his hand and opened and closed his mouth like a trout caught in a net. Each breath and each contraction of the muscles seemed to be a challenge.
The blue and green light from the seahorse neon sign above the awning gave him a sickly appearance as if he were about to keel over and expire in front of the passers-by on their way to Moulin Rouge, a few streets away. He finally managed to heave out of the car with one last agonizing grunt.
“You can go,” he gasped dismissively, waving off the driver, then took three faltering steps towards the restaurant’s entrance, where a liveried doorman with a pronounced stammer greeted him with reverence.
“Bo…bonsoir, Mon… monsieur Tou…Toussaint.”
“Bonsoir, Philippe. I hope my table is ready.”
“Of co…course. Mo…Monsieur La…Laurent has made sure that e… everything’s just as you a…asked,” holding the door open for the man, Philippe got a whiff of sour sweat and unbrushed teeth.
“Fifty million Euros in his account, and he stinks like a pig about to be slaughtered,” he winced.
The place was half-empty; the pre-pandemic crowds of Japanese and Brazilian tourists that used to grace the restaurant were nowhere to be seen. Only one table by the window overlooking the dark at this hour Avenue de Clichy was occupied, and a loved-up couple holding glasses of Aperol decorated with orange wedges sat at the bar. They didn’t look up when Toussaint hobbled past them like a Humboldt penguin skidding on a sheet of ice.
A moment later, almost like a human Jack-in-the-box, a tall man dressed in a striped black and silver waistcoat waltzed into the dining room from the kitchen. His tie was fastened at the collar with a silver seahorse, the restaurant’s emblem.
“Monsieur Toussaint! The last time we had the pleasure was… let me think…Yes, before the pandemic, that nearly put us out of business. January… no, March 2020, if I remember correctly.”
Toussaint nodded and coughed, his face turning crimson as if even this minimal bronchial effort was more than he could bear.
“Well, yes… I don’t go out much anymore, not with my asthma and the stupid pandemic. In fact, yours is only the second restaurant I’ve visited in over three years. On Saturday, I dined at Le Jardin du Montparnasse, the new vegetarian bistro.”
“And being more of a fish and meat man, you certainly were not keen on their veggie menu,” the man in the striped waistcoat stated.
“Not one bit,” Toussaint spat out.
“And I let them know it. I let all of Paris know it,” he chuckled, his laughter laced with malice.
“France Soir published my review, and so did Le Parisien. Not to mention my own Maison de Gourmand. And you know, it sells hundreds of thousands of copies each month.”
“So I’ve been told,” the tall man answered.
Toussaint laughed again, the sound resembling the grunt of a sow with acute emphysema.
“The owner of the place, a certain Mademoiselle Pauline, tried to make me change it. Offered a free lunch for two. But you know me. I always speak my mind. It’s not my fault that her restaurant is not up to standard,” Toussaint said with a note of sadistic pleasure.
“Not up to YOUR standard, you bastard,” the tall man thought.
“They didn’t have any decent Chablis. I specifically asked for one from the Bleneau area, where the sunshine suits this kind of grapes. But Mademoiselle offered me one from Tonerre, where the average summer humidity is over sixty-eight percent. Any wine connoisseur will tell you it makes a very dry Chablis with unpleasant wood undertones. And it certainly doesn’t sit well with peaches,” the petulance made his voice high-pitched, the veins in his neck inflating with indignation.
It was well-known among Paris restaurant owners, maîtres d’, and chefs that to get a reasonable review from Toussaint, the owner of one of the most widely read gastronomy magazines, one had to satisfy his every whim, including his trademark drink – a fruit punch made with fresh peaches and the white wine of his choice. It was never the same type of wine, never from the same vineyard or even from the same country.
One day, it could be a Chilean Chardonnay, another an Italian Semillon, and yet another a German late-harvest Riesling. But if the restaurant failed to produce the right wine and make the punch to the food critic’s specific instructions, he destroyed its reputation.
During his career, Toussaint was said to have helped over twenty good restaurants to go out of business because of his scathing reviews. One restaurateur even jumped off the Tour Montparnasse when the critic called his wine selection “an abomination.”
So, whenever Toussaint booked a table, terrified restaurant owners and managers scrambled to buy white wine from the most remote corners of the world, even if, afterward, they couldn’t sell them to anybody else. It was not worth taking the risk because one word of praise or condemnation from the food critic could make or break a business. Thus, Toussaint became the most hated man in Paris and even more now, with the post-pandemic flow of tourists sluggish, when a disapproving article could sink a restaurant.
“Anyway, Monsieur Laurent, I’m sure we won’t have such a dilemma in your restaurant. You specialize in fish and seafood, so you must have a formidable collection of white wines in your cellar, “Laurent thought he could detect a threat in the man’s voice.
“But why don’t you better take me to my table? I am parched and starving,” Toussaint said with a hint of reproach and coughed again, his nostrils flaring like fish gills.
Laurent motioned him to a table. The fat man shuffled behind him, gasping like a beached whale, but failed to inhale much oxygen as if a sharp hook were stuck in his windpipe.
“Well, Laurent. What’s your special for tonight? And according to that, I will choose my punch,” Toussaint heaved, managed to insert himself in the chair, failing to reach the table because of his girth.
“Well, Monsieur, just like you are a wine connoisseur, I am a fish expert, so I’d recommend our new specialty: globefish sautéed in herb and garlic butter with a portion of string beans on the side. The chef is filleting the fish, freshly bought at the Daguerre Marée market.”
“Globefish, you say. Never heard of it. I’ll take it if you assure me it hasn’t too many bones.”
“It’s a fillet, monsieur. No bones at all. The meat is white, not unlike the Dover sole you had when you came here the last time.”
“Globefish it is, then. And for my punch… let me think. Like Dover sole, you say. I’ll have a malvoisie, the 2015 harvest. We should try to help our French winemakers. Its fruity flavor will go well with the peaches. Just make sure they are peeled. I remember that once, the sommelier served me punch with peach cubes full of fluff. I could feel the hairy stuff even when it was already in my stomach. You can imagine the review I wrote.”
Toussaint chuckled, making his three chins and jowls wiggle like pineapple jelly.
“I can certainly imagine,” Laurent answered and sighed inwardly.
The nasty man was proud of his meanness! He didn’t give a damn about destroying someone’s reputation and their business because the fruit in his punch was not peeled properly!
He gritted his teeth and said through compressed lips: “I’ll make sure everything is perfect. And I can assure you that the globe will be a life-changing experience.”
While the food was being cooked, the table by the window emptied, and the couple at the bar finished their Aperol, leaving nothing but orange peel, and left the restaurant. Toussaint was the only remaining customer when the kitchen door swung open, letting Laurent out with a steaming dish expelling scents of browned butter and Provencal herbs.
“One globefish fillet and a side order of string beans,” the manager said as he laid the plate on the table.
“The maître’d be finishing your punch. He wanted to ensure the malvoisie was just the right temperature, so he left it in the freezer for a few minutes. Why don’t you try the fish, and I’ll let him know you are ready,” Laurent said and bowed his head so low he nearly hit the table.
Through the round window on the kitchen door, the maître d’ watched. So did Philippe from the entrance.
Toussaint picked up his fork and poked at the white flesh of the fish with the prongs. It fell apart into crumbly pieces, steam curling like aromatic coils. Toussaint put the first mouthful between his lips, chewed, then swallowed.
There was no movement or sound from the kitchen as Toussaint greedily consumed mouthful after mouthful, followed by the string beans dripping with butter sauce. He put the fork on the table and was about to raise his hand to ask about his punch when a peculiar expression came over his suddenly blue and pinched face. Confusion crept into his eyes; he clutched the collar of his shirt and tugged at it helplessly, trying to tear off the tie and the two top buttons. A burst of pain tore through his gut. His head felt heavy, and dizziness started to kick in and blur his vision. Soft moans escaped his mouth as he thrashed wildly in his chair, beating the tabletop with his fists, sending the cutlery and the plates crashing onto the ground. He looked around beseechingly, but no one came to his rescue. They all watched as his cannonball body rolled onto the floor. He pulled the tablecloth on top of his enormous belly and grunted, his neck muscles stiff with the pure effort of trying to breathe. But his throat was closed, no oxygen reaching his lungs. Ten seconds passed. Twenty… Thirty... He looked up at Laurent with despair, finally lifting one hand to grab his leg, but the restaurant manager took a step back. Toussaint’s frantic fingers closed, grasping nothing but air. Exhaling one more frantic sigh, he no longer felt anything as his heart stopped beating. He was still.
Laurent waited for a minute, approached the fleshy pile on the floor, and prodded it with the tip of his shoe. Then again, but Toussaint didn’t stir. His face was relaxed now, the open eyes staring at the ceiling fan stirring the stale air of the restaurant. A ribbon of spit oozed from his mouth and dribbled onto his three chins, disappearing in the crevices of the skinfolds.
Laurent turned towards the kitchen where the maître’d stood, watching wordlessly.
“Call an ambulance, Pierre. Tell them a client has had a heart attack. Then phone Pauline and tell her it’s done. And tell Chef Takahashi his pufferfish fillet did the trick. Tetrodotoxin, indeed, works like a miracle. Stops the heart in a beat,” he smiled a little cruel smile.
“The old fool will never write another vile review in his life. Unless they have restaurants in hell.”
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