Free Murder by Mocha by Cleo Coyle Page A

GE Building and NBC television.
    I had to admit, Alicia chose an impressive address to launch her new product. Crowning this art deco tower was “the Top of the Rock,” a multistory observation deck, somewhat lesser known than the Empire State Building but with equally breathtaking panoramas. Down here on the seventh floor, the Loft & Garden served as a popular space for society weddings and corporate parties. On the east end of this glorified rectangle sat the open-air Garden. It boasted a fountain and reflecting pool. At the west end was the Loft interior with floor-to-ceiling windows and space enough for a reception of two hundred.
    As twilight deepened into darkness, the tall windows treated us to views of Radio City’s neon marquee and the fairylike lights of Rock Plaza’s courtyard, where a bronze-cast statue of Prometheus attempted to offer the gift of fire to oblivious tourists strolling below.
    From what I remembered of the Greek myth, in repayment for Prometheus’s heroic act of bequeathing fire to humankind, Zeus ordered him chained to a rock where an eagle visited him daily to dine on his liver.
    No good deed goes unpunished sprang to mind. Mike occasionally muttered the aphorism in reference to police work.
    Today I knew why.
    Mike’s visit to the NYPD’s version of Mount Olympus was certainly over by now, but he had yet to return my call. With every passing hour, I worried a little more. Sure, Mike sounded firm in his decision to protect Sully and Franco by resigning, but that was only in theory. In my experience, hard facts hit you in the face with a whole lot more impact than airy little theories.
    So where was he now? I wondered. Is he with his squad? Or in some pub across town? Did he seek out some shoulder (other than mine) to cry on?
    Punishment for good deeds, or at least good intentions, had me reconsidering my own morning. After my long, head-clearing shower, I’d returned Madame’s call, absolutely insisting on straight talk. Thank goodness, she agreed. No more equivocating.
    Like me and the Fish Squad, Madame believed Alicia had been targeted for some sort of nefarious scheme. She even volunteered to question the woman, but I’d specifically asked her to get Alicia here early so we three could hash things out. At this late hour, my calls went unreturned, and I had yet to see either lady.
    I was beginning to feel like Prometheus’s brother, Atlas, whose bronze likeness was power-lifting a weighty sphere on the other side of this complex. With my own worries heavy on my shoulders, I focused instead on that universally acknowledged painkiller . . . chocolate .
    Like the Greeks and their theory of fire, the Aztecs thought of chocolate as a gift from a god, one who’d stolen the cocoa tree from paradise and delivered it to us mortals on the beam of a morning star.
    I could see Esther appreciated her little bites of heaven as much as I did. Glancing back to my senior baristas, I noticed Tuck explaining why he’d slapped her hand.
    “Sorry, but I was counting. That was your third kiss.”
    Esther’s response: “Nah- ahh .”
    Hands on hips, Tucker faced her. “Did I just hear the Dark Princess of street poetry murmur the astoundingly jejune phrase ‘nah-ahh’?”
    Esther smirked. “When you fail to amuse, I’ll disabuse. You don’t inspire . . .” She snapped her fingers. “You tire.”
    “Hey, you two,” I called, attempting to derail this hip-hop train before it fully left the station. “Tell me how this looks!”
    I had just finished placing two hundred shot glasses filled with triple-chocolate budini on a miniature staircase of blue-hued ice. The chilly steps were a dramatic way of keeping the creamy Italian puddings fresh. They circled a frozen-water sculpture of Aphrodite—your basic, armless, Louvre Venus de Milo rendered as Giant Popsicle.
    I’d recommended the budino to Alicia as an alternative to gelato, which never would have held under these circumstances. Of course,