Serious Moonlight(62)

“Fine. He’s actually one of the best,” Daniel told me. “He worked for Shiro’s, but he opened this place last year. Before all that, he used to live across the street from my auntie, and he hung out with all my cousins. He’s been shit-talking me since I was a wide-eyed, tender boy.”

“You serial pickpocketed me when I was in culinary school,” the chef argued. “That was my beer money, man.”

Daniel held my cup under a tap that jutted below the conveyer belt, pulling a lever. Steaming water streamed from the tap, making the powder inside the cup swirl. When he set it back down in front of me, the floral scent of green tea wafted up. “It’s not my fault that you were the easiest target,” he told the chef.

“Still am, probably. At least there’s a counter between us. You ordering off the menu?”

“Nah. We’re good. Do your thing.”

The chef nodded, reaching over the conveyer belt to hand us rolled-up hot towels on little oblong bamboo trays. “Let me know if you need anything.” Then he left us alone, returning to the giant gray-scaled fish he’d been carving, revealing rosy pink flesh as he sliced.

“That’s tuna,” Daniel told me.

“I think it’s still moving,” I murmured, unsure about all of this. Everything smelled and looked strange. Little signs that sat near the plates on the conveyer were in Japanese and English. It was overwhelming. Especially considering that I couldn’t discern Daniel’s intentions in bringing me here. “I’ve never had raw fish,” I told him.

“Let’s start out slow, yeah?” Daniel said, leaning his shoulder against mine and smiling down at me with his eyes.

“Okay,” I said, trying to dispel my anxieties.

Nodding, he proceeded to explain everything in detail. The purpose of all the little bottles and jars and tiny plates sitting in front us. Where to put my chopsticks. The difference between nigiri and maki rolls and stuffed temaki cones. Between us, he set up a little station of soy sauce, wasabi paste, and pickled ginger slices, and we watched the conveyer belt until he spotted what he wanted me to try first.

“Tuna roll,” he said, taking down a small plate from the belt. “It’s basic. Nothing weird.”

“It’s raw?”

“Think of it as super fresh. Do you know how to use chopsticks?”

“Sort of.” I wasn’t very good at it.

“Then use your fingers. It’s totally acceptable. See?” He wiped his fingers on one of the hot towels we’d been given, and I did the same. Then he dabbed a bit of green wasabi on two pieces of tuna roll and showed me how to dip it in soy sauce before eating a piece himself. “Mmm,” he said, chewing. “See? Try it.”

I steeled myself and popped one into my mouth. It was . . . salty. Briny. Soft. And—

“Oh God,” I murmured as my eyes watered and my nose began burning. Should I swallow this or spit it out? Was I going to gag?

“Wasabi,” Daniel said, laughing. “Swallow. It will go away. Have some tea.”

The tea was too hot. I nearly burned my tongue. But at least the terrible nose burn was fading.

“Well?”

“I can’t taste anything.”

“Try again,” he said, giving me a look that riled up those fluttery butterflies in my stomach again. “Sometimes things are better the second time.”

I tried a second piece, this time without the wasabi. And it was . . . weird but good. He pulled down other plates from the conveyer belt—a salmon roll, a spicy tuna roll, some shrimp nigiri. Pretty little bites dressed in pink and orange roe. And before I knew it, I was eating everything and liking quite a bit of what I tasted. I even began enjoying the burn of the wasabi. It was crave-able.

Throughout the meal, our conversation meandered but never slowed. We talked about work. Octavia the Octopus and the local animal rights group. Card tricks. Books. The painting we helped Aunt Mona steal. And Ivanov’s spreadsheet, of course. Neither one of us could find a speck of information on the “ZAFZ” company that Sharkovsky had translated for us. Daniel even tried enabling a Cyrillic keyboard on his laptop, hunting and pecking until he found the symbols for the address . . . Nada. Zero. Zilch.

Our Raymond Darke investigation had hit a dead end.

But despite that disappointment, it was pleasant to sit together like this, making small talk and enjoying each other’s company. Touching shoulders. Smiling at each other. Like nothing was wrong.

Was there something wrong?

Was Daniel still tense?

“See?” he told me as our little plates stacked up. “I promised you’d like it.”

“You were right,” I agreed.

“Sometimes that happens.” He smiled, but it was nervous, and that’s when I absolutely felt a change in our easy dinner conversation. After a long silence, he said, “Okay. So, I promised you that we’d talk about that thing those kids at Clue were asking me about, and I guess there’s no use putting it off.”

“Okay,” I said, my emotions all over the place. I was relieved he hadn’t said, “Let’s call the whole thing off,” but I couldn’t ignore the feeling in the pit of my stomach. That strange, buzzing trepidation that comes in that moment when you’re pretty sure you’re about to hear something bad, but you aren’t sure how bad, and all the possibilities are so much worse than knowing for sure.