Page 45 of Aftertaste

DISCOMFORT FOOD

IN THE KITCHEN of DUH, Konstantin was trying to remember to breathe.

He felt like he’d just been blast-chilled, every one of his extremities numb. Vibrating with exquisite pain.

“Stan?” Maura’s face was blotchy, slick with tears. “Say something.”

He shook his head.

This wasn’t how the night was meant to go. They were supposed to be celebrating. He was supposed to bring Everleigh back, and give Maura closure, and fix what had been wrong. To have a romantic dinner in his kitchen and spend the rest of the night christening every last inch of his restaurant.

Instead, she’d torn his heart out and thrown it in a blender.

She reached for him, but he pulled away, fast, a reflex against a dangerous stove.

“Konstantin,” she whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please … just try to understand how it felt, how complicated—”

Something inside him burst. A flavor spread over his tongue, not aftertaste, but memory. Betrayal. Pine-Sol.

“Oh, I understand completely,” he snapped. “You used me. Seduced me. Fucked me to get what you wanted. All these months, you made me think—God, I’m such an idiot!—you had me believing you actually loved me! And now you claim some shit went down with ghosts and a veil and you’re blaming me for it? And—and Frankie? Who’s dead, by the way, so I’m not exactly sure how he figures. That about sum it up?”

“That’s not fair.” She felt like she was falling. “Something did go down. I saw them. I do love you.”

“Bullshit.” He stood up, everything itching inside, that sick sensation like he was about to hurl. “You love not being Hungry. You love yourself. You love that you can hitch a ride to the Afterlife whenever you feel like taking off my pants.”

“No! Konstantin, that isn’t—that might be how it started, but it isn’t how it stayed! I fell for you. It would have been so much easier if I hadn’t.”

“Glad we’re just doing what’s easy now.”

He walked around the station, angry-clearing plates. The glasses of champagne. He needed to move. To keep busy. To not look at her.

Maura steadied herself on the edge of the counter, the steel a block of ice beneath her grip.

“It wasn’t easy. Any of it. I’d give anything to take it back.” It was hard to breathe; she couldn’t get enough air. “The Hunger… it took so much from me—”

Konstantin slapped a wet kitchen towel down, the sound so loud it made her jump.

“Yeah? As much as tasting the Dead for a couple decades? Or thinking you’re insane every time some mystery flavor appeared? And let’s not even talk about my assorted paranoias and trust issues. But hey, you’re the only one who’s ever suffered, right? At least you know what you did to deserve it. My mouth just happened to me.” He snatched the plastic bag of Reese’s and dumped the whole thing into the trash. “You should go, Maura.”

“Please.” Her voice was a sliver. “I need you to believe me.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” He scrubbed angrily at the counter, scouring it, his blurred reflection staring back from its surface. “But I can’t see you right now.”

“What about the ghosts?”

“What about them?” A vein pulsed in his jaw. “I haven’t seen an actual issue yet. So, uh, thanks for the tip; I’ll figure it out when I get the time.”

“You can’t just figure it out . There’s a hole in the veil! We have to do something.”

“There’s no we , Maura. And what I have to do is focus on my opening.” He gestured toward the stairs. “Just go.”

“Stan.” She stood, wobbly on her heels. “I know you’re mad. So mad you might never forgive me. But this is bigger than us. You can’t open. You can’t bring more ghosts back. Promise me.”

“Wow.” He gave a strangled little laugh. “Right. You wanna take this away, too? Cooking—raising them—it’s the one thing that still has any meaning right now. The only thing that’s real.”

“I’m real!” Her voice cracked. “But you can’t—”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

The 6 thundered past them again, the train flickering the lights in the kitchen, making things look slow, stop-motion. Maura stared out at the platform, tears falling, diamonds in the strobing light. Suddenly, her expression changed.

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

She pointed at the train, was racing across the kitchen toward it, rushing the row of windows to press her face against the panes.

“What’re you—”

“These windows,” she asked, breathless, “do they open?”

“I don’t know? I don’t think—”

But she was already jimmying a latch, prying it up, and with a snap it swung open. She held her hand out to him.

“Come on,” she said. “If you don’t believe me, believe your own eyes. I just saw Everleigh on the tracks.”

Kostya didn’t move.

Part of him—a small, annoying part that still loved Maura, that always would—wanted to cross the room and follow her. To pull her into his arms. To forgive her. To believe that she really did love him, and that it was true about the ghosts, all the things she’d said. That part just wanted things to be okay again.

But another part of him—the part that didn’t want to be an idiot—wondered what kind of mess she was walking into. Like, how, exactly, had Everleigh gotten there? Was she dangerous, like he’d long suspected? Maura wasn’t exactly the poster child for solid decision-making, and if something went down—if Everleigh hurt her—would he be responsible if he sent her off alone?

Because most of him—the part winning this internal argument—was still too numb, too raw, too angry to be in the same room as Maura, let alone follow her into some wild-ghost chase through the bowels of the MTA. She had lied to him! Used him. Preyed upon his deepest vulnerabilities, seen his desperate desire to be loved and dangled that carrot to her own ends. For all he knew, this was just another manipulation. Some ploy to get him to forgive her. He wouldn’t let her fool him twice.

“Stan? Please?”

“I—”

But before Kostya could answer, his phone exploded with sound, making them both jump. A text. Viktor.

Kostik, where are you?

DUH Kitchen , he shot back. Why?

Have urgent business. Viktor pinged him. We coming down.

Down ? Were they already here?

“Viktor’s on his way,” he told Maura, his voice carefully detached. “To the kitchen.”

“What? Now? ”

“He says it’s urgent.”

“Well, tell him to wait! This is literally life-and-death.”

Kostya looked at her, weighing the choice.

Maura or Viktor. Maura or DUH. Maura or clairgustance.

So many times, he’d chosen her. Over Frankie. Over himself. Always her. And she’d betrayed him.

“We open tomorrow. And my boss needs to see me.”

She blinked at him, pain shivering across her face.

“You’re really gonna open the restaurant? After everything I just told you?”

He didn’t answer, just set his jaw.

She nodded once, resigned, then climbed through the window onto the platform.

He hesitated, then called after her, “Be careful, okay? With your sister.”

But she didn’t reply, the click of her heels already swallowed by the dark.

A MINUTE LATER, he heard a different pattern of steps.

A pair of Givenchy loafers—Viktor’s—appeared on the stairs. These were followed by black leather sneakers—the workingman’s shoe—and a pair of orange Air Jordans, both sets of feet moving slowly, gingerly, as if their owners were carrying a couch.

Once Viktor’s head appeared, Kostya opened his mouth to ask him what, exactly, was so urgent, but he shut it again once he got a look at the package the other two were hauling in. A thick, black garbage bag, secured on either end with duct tape, the contents inside stiff and unwieldy. They flung it unceremoniously down atop one of the clean prep stations and looked to Viktor, who was taking a leisurely drag of a cigarette, for further instruction.

Kostya recognized them.

Black leather sneakers was The Comrade (real name: Stanislav Boroholshik), the bodyguard Kostya had met at Viktor’s apartment, complete with navy track suit, large, round Rolex, and resting I-kill-you-now face.

Air Jordans was a tech guy Kostya had seen around the restaurant—Max, or maybe Mark—who’d installed the Wi-Fi, the security cameras, the alarm system, and who seemed to be busily disabling those features from his phone.

The whole thing was giving major Tarantino: high tension; high risk. Like any moment there might be blood. Kostya swallowed, the spit thick and unpleasant in his mouth.

“Gentlemen.” He tried to sound casual. “What, uh, what’s going on?”

Viktor stubbed his cigarette out on the counter.

“We have business tonight, in restaurant. Is good you here, Kostik. Good we can talk.”

Viktor toyed with his lighter, flipping the cap open and clicking it closed.

Flip. Click.

Cold beads of sweat wound down Kostya’s back. Something felt wrong. Very wrong. He squeezed his hands to stop the tremor in his fingertips.

“Talk?”

“About DUH. Very much riding on opening.”

Flip. Click.

“Yes. Definitely. Big day tomorrow.”

“Is big investment for me. And location—is very important location stay open.”

Flip. Click.

“I understand. Of course. That’s what I want, too. For this to work.”

“Is more than want, Kostik. It must work. We lose location, then we have big problems.”

Flip. Click.

“We’re ready. I mean, it’s not exactly Restaurant Row, but we’ll try our absolute best to make it a success.”

“Is no try ,” Viktor said flatly. “You stay open. My business”—he nodded at the station beside him, acknowledging the mystery package for the first time—“depending on it.”

Kostya’s eyes snapped to the bag. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop tracing its odd lumps and shapes. He thought horribly of all the warnings his mother had lobbed at him— mobsters, drugs, dirty money, bad deals, bang bang .

“What’s in there?”

“Do not worry about this,” Viktor said smoothly, selecting a fresh cigarette. “Stas and Max, they will come by kitchen sometimes, to move”—he placed it at the corner of his mouth and lit up, spoke around it—“ ingredients in and out.”

“Ingredients.”

“Yes.” Viktor nodded. “And you will keep restaurant open so they can do this work.”

“Is—is that coke? Or heroin? Is it money?” Kostya swallowed around a walnut-sized lump in his throat. “Is that a bo—”

Viktor chuckled. “Oy, Kostik! Better you not know. Plausible deniability.”

“Fuck,” he said softly, his eyes still glued to the bag.

“For you, is very simple.” Viktor took a long drag of his cigarette. “You make smash tomorrow. So big that DUH stays open long, long time. Lots of press. Lots of ghosts. More is more.” He blew smoke from the side of his mouth. “If not, then we have problems.”

On cue, The Comrade’s hand shifted at his hip, revealing the handgun tucked into the waistband of his pants.

“I don’t want any problems,” Kostya said quickly.

“Good.” Viktor shut his lighter again. Flip. Click. As if that settled it. “What time you have?”

Kostya fumbled with his phone, swiping past the usual string of missed calls from his mother. “Eleven oh three.”

Viktor nodded at his goons. “Two minutes. Time to go.”

The Comrade and Air Jordans lumbered over and hoisted the package up again. They heaved it across the kitchen—whatever was in there decidedly heavy, odious, an association Kostya did not want—but instead of heading back up the stairs with it, they tugged it forward, toward the subway.

Kostya’s blood seemed to curdle in his veins.

Was Maura still there? How much had she seen? Had she been able to escape through the other side of the tunnel, or was she on the platform now, witness to what was probably a crime, one exacted by a bunch of criminals who surely wouldn’t blink twice before cutting a loose thread?

He scanned the windows, hoping she was far, far away, and nearly choked on his spit. There she was, at the end of the row, peeking out behind the glass. His head gave an infinitesimal shake. Get-the-fuck-away. She vanished out of sight, but not before he registered her face, the way all the light had left it. All the hope.

She must have seen the whole thing.

“Wait!” he shouted, trying to buy time. The goon squad turned to stare. “You—you can’t just take that on the subway! There’s cameras!”

Viktor waved him away. “Max take care of this.”

“What about the conductor? The other passengers? Someone’s gonna see you if you take—” Kostya fumbled for a word, “ that onto a train.”

“Next train our driver,” Viktor said calmly. “Express to Brooklyn.”

“But what about—”

“Move aside.”

The Comrade shoved past him. He turned the handle on one of the panes of glass—like he’d done it before; like he’d been intimately familiar with this convenient feature of the architecture—and climbed through it to the platform. Air Jordans heaved the package over the ledge—it landed on the other side with a thunk —and climbed over, too.

For a moment, nothing happened, and then bright light washed over the kitchen, the 6 Train flooding the station, not speeding past like it usually did, but slowing down, the brake screeching to a halt. Ding-dong , the subway doors pealed as they opened. The goons hustled the package in. Stand clear of the closing doors. And away they went. As if they’d timed it.

And, Kostya realized with a start, Viktor had.

“Kostik,” Viktor said then, “go home. Rest up. Like you said, tomorrow big day.”

Kostya’s eyes burned, liquid with fear. How had he not seen it, been so willfully blind? Viktor didn’t care about him, or his food, or even the ghosts. He didn’t care about restaurants, or Michelin stars, or reviews. He just needed the 6 Train. This abandoned station.

“The restaurant was a front,” he said, numb.

“Of course.” Viktor shrugged like it was obvious. “Original plan not so good as you, I confess. Was only going to be so-so Russian nightclub. Enough for cover. But then I meet you; you say I make killing, and I think to myself, ‘I like cake, to have and to eat also.’ More successful restaurant bring more money. Less suspicions. Longer lease. Win-win-win.”

He exhaled smoke in a long, slow stream, the room so cold it hung there in the air.

“Until tomorrow.” Viktor rose from his seat and patted a stunned Kostya on the cheek. “Remember: Many ghosts. No whammies.”

He stood frozen, staring at his kitchen as Viktor walked up the steps and out of sight, as he listened to the creak of the floorboards overhead, as the heavy entry door gave a bang and Viktor exited the building.

In the morning, whether he wanted to or not, Kostya would come back here. To lead a team of cooks, people he actually cared about, in service of this man, this mobster—damn it, his mother had been right!—to raise enough Dead to keep them open for a year, which, according to Maura, would bring about some sort of ghostpocalypse.

Maura.

He darted to the windows and threw them open, shouting her name onto the platform. Angry or not, seeing her that close to danger had shaken him.

But only his voice echoed back.

Maura was gone.