Page 4 of Orc'd & Loaded
"Subsection B. Smoke-producing equipment, including but not limited to grills, smokers, fire pits, and" -- I look up at him -- "bonfires must be fully enclosed and approved by the Bureau de la Qualité de l'Air prior to operation."
One more jab. Pink highlight.
"Subsection D. Violations carry fines starting at two thousand euros per incident, with escalating penalties for each subsequent infraction."
I hold the clipboard up. Level with his sternum, because that's as high as a reasonable person should be expectedto reach. The highlighted text faces him. The zoning permit number is circled in red.
"Do you see this? This is the law. These are the rules. You are breaking at minimum four of them simultaneously, and I have already photographed your exterior fire pit from three angles."
Boris Cleaver looks at the clipboard.
He tilts his massive head. The topknot shifts. Butcher's twine creaks.
And then he laughs.
Adetonation. His body expands, the leather apron strains across it, and the sound that erupts from his throat fills the entire room like a bass drum dropped into a cathedral. The hanging carcasses sway. The iron hooks rattle against the brick. In the back of the space, a stack of firewood shifts and tumbles.
He laughs so hard he has to brace one hand on his knee. The other slaps his thigh with a crack that sounds like a gunshot. His tusks frame the open cavern of his mouth, and the wet-clay eyes squeeze shut, tears forming at the creased corners.
"Small chef hasclipboard!"
"Stop laughing."
"With colors! Little colored marks!" He gasps. Actually gasps for air. "Borog has never seen someone fight withpaper."
"It's not paper, it's a legally binding municipal ordinance, and if you don't--"
"In homeland, if neighbor has problem, neighbor comes with axe. You come with tiny colored papers!" Another thunderclap of laughter. The floor shakes. "This is WONDERFUL. Borog loves this city."
The blood in my face could heat a sous vide bath. My grip on the clipboard turns my knuckles white. I open my mouth to deliver something devastating, something that will puncture this orc's impervious good humor like a skewer through a balloon.
A gust tears down Rue des Martyrs.
The kind of wind that Paris produces without warning, channeled by Haussmann's corridors into a focused blade. It rips through the open doorway, catches the interior in a spiral, and slams the heavy iron lid of the smoker beside the indoor pit. The lid drops like a guillotine.
The impact sends a shockwave through the barrel.
And the reservoir of thick, mahogany barbecue sauce pooled in the drip tray erupts upward in a geyser. A thick, viscous, fragrant wave that arcs through the smoky air in what feels like slow motion, rotating lazily, catching the firelight, and lands across the front of my chef coat with the wet, heavy slap of a death sentence.
I look down.
Dark sauce. Everywhere. Collar to hem. Soaking through the cotton. Warm against my skin. Reeking of molasses and smoke and rendered animal fat.
My clipboard drips.
Boris's laughter dies.
The silence in the room is absolute.
CHAPTER 2
BORIS
Oh no.
Oh no no no no no.
The small chef stands in Borog's kitchen wearing half a batch of his grandmother's recipe. The sauce drips from her clipboard onto the sawdust floor. A thick glob slides from her collar down the front of her coat, tracing a dark river between the buttons. She hasn't moved. She hasn't blinked. She looks like a statue carved from fury and barbecue.
