Page 50 of Aftertaste

It was what he aspired to in his own kitchen. A place where everyone was welcome. Kostya wasn’t sure, watching Viktor pour another round of Imperia into a slender shot glass, whether he was the kind of person who could appreciate that.

“So.” He cleared his throat. “How did you hear about me?”

“On the Instagram. I see post from NamastayHigh.”

Kostya had to remind himself to relax his jaw. NamastayHigh was that influencer, the one who had gotten him shut down.

“I’m… surprised you saw that.”

“Everyone see it! She gets fifty thousand likes.” Viktor took another shot of vodka, a flush coming into his face. “People very interesting to know what is secret, how she see brother again, how she get this closure. So I ask her: Is this joke, dinner with ghosts? Is she making metaphors? And she tell me, no. Is chef who brings back Dead. And I know then I must meet you.”

Kostya sat back in his chair.

Fifty thousand likes! That many people thinking about his food, excited to discover it! That many people who might need his help.

“And you’d really want to back a restaurant? Just like that?”

“Listen,” Viktor said, spreading a thin layer of caviar onto buttered toast. “I have many business. Very successful. I know restaurants. And I know people. Idea, I think, is amazing. Ghosts very scary. Very sexy. Like Halloween, and people love this.” He took a bite, chewed. “Is like old spiritualists, yes? Fortune-telling? Talking to ghost through crystal ball and flying scarf. What you use now, projection? Hidden speaker? We will upgrade tech. My associate, Maksim, has—”

“What? No. No, no, no. It’s not a trick.” Kostya felt himself grow warm, his shirt too tight, the cuffs, the collar. “What I do—it’s not a show. It’s real.”

Viktor laughed like he was in on the joke. “I sure you make feel very real, but Kostya, my dear, if I’m investing, I must know truth.”

“Thatisthe truth. There’s nothing fake about it. The ghosts are real.”

“I not believing in ghosts.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that they exist.”

“This we can debate. But people not want real! They want fantasy.”

“Look, you might think that, but authenticity is everything. You need it for connection. For food, too. I was at Saveur Fare for almost a year—”

“Yes, yes.” Viktor rolled his eyes, took another bite, laughed with his mouth full. “Michel Beauchêne, I guessing, not believe in ghosts either. According to my source, he fire you in middle of service.”

“Because he saw me do it!” Kostya blurted out. “You want proof?” He tore open the buttons at the cuff of his shirt and pulled violently at the sleeve, revealing the shiny, scarred flesh beneath. “Here. I raised a ghost right there in the middle of his big holiday party, and he didn’t like it. Gave me this as a Christmas bonus. They’re real, okay?”

Viktor’s eyes drank in Konstantin’s arm, the puckered skin from wrist to elbow. He set down his toast, wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

“Okay. Let us say is real. How many times you do this, raising ghost?”

“What?”

“How many you bring back?”

Kostya dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand. Breathed.

“A couple dozen.” If you rounded up. And multiplied.

Viktor nodded slowly, calculating something. “And you can always do this, for every customer? It always work?”

“Well, no, but—”

“You can do this ten, twenty, thirty times each night, every night of week?”

“Sure.” Konstantin swallowed, his spit thick and unpleasant. “Probably.”

“You do this before, at supper club? Multiple seatings?”

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