Page 62 of Aftertaste

“She thinks she is onFear Factor.” This from Volière.

“Cojones don’t scare me.” Ibáñez shrugged. “But maybe that’s ’cause I got more of ’em than most little boys running around with big knives. Don’t misunderstand, Frenchie. I play to win. I just won’t do it on their bullshit terms.”

“Yes, you aresonoble!” Volière spat, unable to contain himself. “Lying by omission! Worse even than Sunday brunch in Midtown.”

“What lying? I’ll tell them straight up what’s in it.” Ibáñez grinned, and began Microplaning the ambergris, the smell of it floating, heady, through the kitchen. “They’ll suck it down and ask for more. And you’re one to talk integrity, Lou.” She stared knives at the little bird in his hand. “LeastI’mnot serving black market.”

This smacked Volière as intended, and he shrank bitterly back to his work, squinting at the tiny fowl scattered across his station, inspecting them for rogue feathers.

Kostya peered again at the miniature bird bodies—whatwerethey? Young squab? Cornish game chicks? Fetal ducklings? Then he noticed several empty bottles of Armagnac, cognac’s spunky cousin, glinting golden on the counter just behind Volière, and the way the birds’ feathers were slicked down, wet. His eyes grew wide.

“No,” Kostya breathed. “No way.”

Ortolan.

Michel Beauchêne had told Konstantin about it one night after a late close, a dish so exquisite, so absolutely enthralling, that he’d measured everything he’d eaten afterward against it. Michel had tasted it just once, in the private home of a French chef whose name he refused to reveal, and it had been the single greatest dining experience of his life, an edible nirvana that, he said, had made him see Heaven even as he hid his face beneath a napkin veil, the traditional way, shielding his indulgence from God as thesongbird—drowned alive in Armagnac; fried and eaten whole—sluiced boiling guts and juices and hazelnut-flavored fat down his throat, its little bones breaking beneath the weight of his jaw.

Ortolans were endangered—killed off by centuries of human glut—and unlawful to poach, the dishes made with them wiped off restaurant menus and struck from the collective culinary consciousness in the nineties. Barely anyone knew how to cook them anymore—only those who had trained with old masters.

“But you couldn’t,” said Kostya. “They’re illegal.”

Volière shrugged one shoulder, almost imperceptibly, and Kutsuki made a loud clang on her board, the pufferfish tail flapping off in one piece.

“He didn’t,” she said softly. “Those aren’t ortolans.”

“As if you’d know!” Volière shot back. “It’s a bit out of your league.”

But the look on his face—like he too was looking at the prospect of being plucked and drowned in Armagnac—said more than his words.

“I bird-watch. For fun. I’m quite good.” She gave a low whistle that sounded undeniably tweet-like. “But even an amateur birder would know that what you have there”—Kutsuki switched to a fine fillet knife and shimmied it beneath the blubbery skin of the puffer—“with the characteristic golden chest, far yellower than the ortolan’s greyish brown, is American goldfinch.”

Volière looked like a large bone had lodged in his throat. Ibáñez laughed so hard she dropped a bull testicle on the floor. Kostya—who couldn’t help laughing, too—almost felt bad for the guy,almost, until Volière muttered that these idiot oligarchs wouldn’t know the difference, anyway.

“Butyouwill,” Kostya said. “Good food’s about honesty.”

“But fine cuisine,” Volière replied, impatient, “is about perception. Tradition.”

“Look, either you tell them the truth,” Ibáñez said, suddenly serious, “or I will. I’m not losing to you on a lie.”

Volière tightened the grip on his knife. Ibáñez started to say something else, but Kostya cut in.

“Say you’re reinventing it. Tell them they’ll be the first to taste ortolan reimagined as goldfinch—a New American dish, inspired by the Old World. Just like them.”

Volière looked humbled for the first time. “Merci, Chef.”

Ibáñez gaped. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because when I win,” Kostya said, “I want it to mean something.”

“When?Check out the Saturn-sized man nuts on you! Wasn’t sure you had it in you, Chef—uh—”

“Duhovny. Konstantin.”

A glimmer of recognition crossed her face. “The same Duhovny that got scalded at the Gild Christmas Circlejerk?”

Kostya held up his arm, scar tissue shimmering beneath the tattoo.

“I was told Beauchêne put you in charge of saucier,” Volière said, awestruck.

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