The Russian Takedown: Chapter 10

Toronto is a beau­ti­ful city, obvi­ous­ly mod­ern in every sense of the word, a bustling metrop­o­lis with all the accou­ter­ments that one would expect to find in a pro­gres­sive city.  No doubt, like all cities, Toronto also has its seedy areas where the under­cur­rents of dai­ly life reside, but I hoped not to see any of that if only my quar­ry would lim­it them­selves to the nicer areas.

It took a while to nav­i­gate to the Hazelton since I spent a good deal of my time get­ting there just gawk­ing at the sur­round­ings, wish­ing I might have suf­fi­cient time to take in more of the sights while here.

As I pulled up to the front door of the hotel, I was prompt­ly greet­ed by a friend­ly, mid­dle-aged gen­tle­man who was at the dri­ver’s side door before I could exit, hold­ing the door and wel­com­ing me to the Hazelton.  He informed me that I could go ahead and reg­is­ter and that he would take care of park­ing the car and bring­ing my lug­gage to my room.

Entering the lob­by, I was impressed with the mar­ble floors and walls, the bright­ly-lit inte­ri­or, and the lav­ish furnishings.

It was not a busy time of day, and as I walked up to the check-in desk I was greet­ed by a prim­ly uni­formed young female with a cul­tured smile who greet­ed me warm­ly, wel­com­ing me to the place.  Her uni­form was a deep blue two-piece suit, with a pale yel­low shirt and a light blue silk scarf high­light­ing her neck.  The lapel of her suit sport­ed a small gold­en logo, obvi­ous­ly that of the hotel.  Her hair, a dark blond, was pulled back and fas­tened into a pony­tail.  She seemed eager to help as I gave my name, and she scanned the com­put­er screen to quick­ly find my reser­va­tion and all the infor­ma­tion I had pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed to make the check-in more expeditious.

As she hand­ed me my room card and I turned from the counter, I noticed the chap who had greet­ed me at the curb cross­ing the lob­by with my bags, head­ing for the ele­va­tor bank.  I decid­ed to let him deliv­er my things to the room while I roamed around the ground floor and checked out the ameni­ties.  I was espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in find­ing the in-house restau­rant and perus­ing the menu; I expect­ed to be eat­ing there in a few hours.

It was imme­di­ate­ly appar­ent just how plush the hotel was.  All the fur­nish­ings and accou­ter­ments were of the high­est qual­i­ty no mat­ter where in the hotel I wan­dered.  I found the restau­rant after a short while and scanned the menu which was offered to me by the maitre d’ at the entry.  Yes, the place was plush, obvi­ous­ly sup­port­ed by rev­enue from the restau­rant, judg­ing from the prices.  Armin was going to have a con­nip­tion fit if I ate all my meals here, but I had already resolved to look around the area for oth­er restau­rants when the oppor­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed itself.

Satisfying myself to take my evening meal here, I head­ed to the ele­va­tor bank and up to my room.

It was a mar­vel, high­ly con­tem­po­rary décor with a large sit­ting area con­tain­ing a sofa and easy chairs — not near­ly as nice as my Herman Miller — and a desk area where a busi­ness­man could get work done in rel­a­tive com­fort.  The space was cer­tain­ly more spa­cious than need­ed for one per­son, but at least I would­n’t be trip­ping over my lug­gage try­ing to get from one side of the room to the oth­er, as is the case with so many min­i­mal­ly-appoint­ed places.  The bath­room was a sea of mar­ble and glass, lux­u­ri­ous in every respect, except that I could­n’t help think­ing how dif­fi­cult it must be for the clean­ing staff.

I was glad I did­n’t have any­thing ques­tion­able in my lug­gage as all the con­tents had been removed and placed either on hang­ers or in some of the numer­ous draw­ers locat­ed around the room, the lug­gage placed dis­creet­ly out of sight inside a large clos­et.  Things might not have been arranged exact­ly as I would have done, but it was a nice feel­ing to be wait­ed on to such an extent, and I would find every­thing eventually. 

It had been a long dri­ve, not quite the twelve hours I had allot­ted, but long nev­er­the­less, so I decid­ed to show­er and change before din­ner.  I near­ly chose to take a bath instead, the tub was so roomy and com­fort­able-look­ing, but old habits are hard to break, so I basked in a won­der­ful­ly hot and steamy show­er for much longer than normal.

Though I had­n’t seen any infor­ma­tion to sug­gest what the prop­er attire might be for din­ner din­ing, I elect­ed to be con­ser­v­a­tive, don­ning a dark pin-striped suit with a suit­able tie, and head­ed down for the evening meal.

The restau­rant was not very crowd­ed when I arrived at about sev­en-thir­ty, either because many peo­ple were eat­ing ear­ly or because the hotel was­n’t ful­ly occu­pied at this time of year.  Regardless, the maitre d’ — the same gen­tle­man who had shown me the menu ear­li­er — led me to a two-per­son table adja­cent to a win­dow and asked if I would care to see the wine list.  Never one to forego the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sam­pling a new wine, I respond­ed pos­i­tive­ly, and he hand­ed me a glossy, fold-out wine menu con­tain­ing dozens of choic­es … none cheap.  Funny how my thoughts kept going back to Armin at moments like these.

As I looked over the list, the som­me­li­er appeared, stand­ing where he knew I was aware of his pres­ence, but said noth­ing, sim­ply wait­ing for me to make a choice.

“I think I’ll have a glass of the William Fevre Chablis Bourgos Grand Cru, please,” I said, hand­ing him the wine list.

“Excellent choice, sir.  Thank you,” he said as he turned and walked away.

Of course, I did­n’t know if my choice was good or not; I’d find out when I tast­ed it.  But it was expen­sive, and it was some­what nat­ur­al for me to acquaint price with quality.

In a few moments, he returned with a typ­i­cal chardon­nay glass filled three-quar­ters with the near­ly clear white wine.  A chardon­nay glass (as I learned rather off-hand­ed­ly from read­ing an arti­cle in a New Yorker mag­a­zine many years ago) is a long-stemmed wine glass with a slight­ly round­ed bot­tom.  Apparently, dif­fer­ent wines deserve dif­fer­ent glass shapes, with red wine glass­es being some­what more tubu­lar than white wine glass­es.  All these dif­fer­ent shapes are alleged­ly designed to bring out the fla­vor of the par­tic­u­lar wine.  I’m afraid my wine tastes are so prim­i­tive, they could put it in a beer stein, and it would­n’t taste any dif­fer­ent to me.

I sipped the wine and watched passers­by through the win­dow for a good fif­teen min­utes before a wait­ress approached the table.  I was absolute­ly cer­tain that she had been watch­ing me for a while and was wait­ing for me to savor the wine for a short peri­od before com­ing to ask for my din­ner order.  It’s the lit­tle things like that that sep­a­rate a real­ly fine restau­rant from a mediocre one.

“Good evening, sir.  My name is Anitra.  I’ll be serv­ing you this evening.  Are you ready to order, or would you like a bit more time to look over the menu?” 

Her words flowed like molasses on a hot sum­mer day, and her voice was as melod­ic as one would imag­ine the voice of an angel bring­ing glad tid­ings.  Her hair was a brown­ish-blond, her lips col­ored with a pink­ish-red gloss, and she was clad in a black, pant­ed uni­form with a sleeve­less black jack­et but­toned down the front, and a sparkling white shirt open at the neck.  The left lapel of her jack­et sport­ed a small tag with her name ANITRA, and she emanat­ed a soft fra­grance, not at all harsh, just bare­ly notice­able and very pleasant.

“Anitra,” I said, “that’s a love­ly and unusu­al name.”

“It’s Scandinavian.  It means favor or grace.  I’m from Viborg, Denmark orig­i­nal­ly, but my par­ents brought me to Canada when I was three.”

“Well, it’s a beau­ti­ful name. It fits you.”

“Thank you, sir.  Are you ready to order?”

“Oh, yes.  I am.  I think I’ll have the lob­ster spoons with ver­mouth but­ter as an appe­tiz­er and the organ­ic Irish salmon with Asian greens. I’d also like a mini loaf of rye bread to go with that.”

“Very well, sir.  Would you like some­thing else to drink with your meal?”

“No, the water and wine will be suf­fi­cient.  Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir.  I’ll have your appe­tiz­ers out shortly.”

As she turned to leave, I hoped “short­ly” was cor­rect.  I judged her to be about thir­ty, and I did­n’t see a ring on her fin­ger.  Of course, that was­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly an indi­ca­tion that she was­n’t attached, but it offered inter­est­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties.  Anitra was cer­tain­ly an attrac­tive and unex­pect­ed addi­tion to the meal.

I con­sid­ered ask­ing her to share a glass of wine with me fol­low­ing my meal but real­ized that might be inap­pro­pri­ate and that she would be unlike­ly to accept, owing to her job.  Still, an offer for a drink lat­er or at anoth­er time might be in order.

The meal was as tasty as the price sug­gest­ed it should be, and Anitra attend­ed my table sev­er­al times, inquir­ing if every­thing was alright.  I let the oppor­tu­ni­ty pass to ask her out, feel­ing that doing so after so for­mal and brief a meet­ing would be out of line.  But I deter­mined that I would dine again in One Restaurant and not let the occa­sion pass with­out an effort to make a date.

I asked her to have the som­me­li­er return and ordered a glass of Castelnau du Sudairant sauterne as an after-din­ner indul­gence.  While I thor­ough­ly enjoyed the wine, it was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to watch her as she went expe­di­tious­ly about her job with the few oth­er din­ers in the place.

As I was leav­ing the restau­rant, hav­ing signed the bill to my room along with a gen­er­ous tip, I noticed that Anitra was serv­ing a table where two nice­ly dressed gen­tle­men were din­ing.  I could hear their con­ver­sa­tion and noticed a cer­tain dis­com­fort from Anitra.  Nearing their table I dis­cerned that the two men were attempt­ing to arrange some­thing with her, some­thing that was­n’t sit­ting well as she tried to keep her tone professional.

I passed close to her and touched her light­ly on the arm, stopped, and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. 

“Thanks, hon,” I said pleas­ant­ly.  “See you at home when you get off.  I’ll pick up the kids on the way.” I then walked on to the exit. 

I did­n’t look back but expect that she had a sur­prised look on her face.  I felt sure the two fel­lows would shift their con­cen­tra­tion to just hav­ing dinner.