Mole Hunt

I’d been of plan to write a navel-gazing piece about the view from our back porch. I’d even retreated into the basement gloom to begin writing: “The alley behind the house runs north-south. It connects with I at its southern end. Splits east-west to connect with 4th and 5th where the back yards of the houses along K block its path. A tangle of electric wires net overhead. Freestanding roll-up garage doors and chain link fences mark its edges. Narrow pinewood doors stand sentry. I feel a camaraderie with those who pass through. Prowlers and garbage men. Squirrels and rats. A bicyclist unsteady on the pitched bricks channeled to divert run-off into the Anacostia. A slight man eternally crouched on a cement block pulling with nervous intention on a spliff. He flashes his palm in surrender or greeting and is relieved when I amble by.” What dreck. Instead I jumped on Red Dust and spent twenty minutes riding through a sun shower. Today is a respite from the dreary march through the hidden recesses of my mind.

We’re at Benitos Place, a Honduran spot off 11th. Eli, Reed, Kathryn, and I. A forecast of hail led us to abandon a planned trek to Fairfax for Korean. We’re nestled cozily around two tables seated next to a group of Salvadoreñas gossiping about something on Instagram. Three TVs show the Gold Cup game between El Salvador and Martinique. Two are synced. One has Spanish closed captions and the bottom half of another’s screen is framed by paper cutouts of the Honduran, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, and Mexican flags. The third, unsynced, runs seven seconds ahead. After the standard rounds of bullshiting and congratulations (Kathryn just earned her Georgetown masters), it’s time for stories. Kathryn has one to tell. It’s about the implosion of her old restaurant, an elevated bistro in the Newton of NoVA where she waitressed through college.

“So the owner is 82 and he gets a mail-order wife from Russia. The botox makes it unclear how old she is, let’s say late 30s. Fully a 40-year age gap. She claws her way into the restaurant and forces out the head chef. We all thought he was leaving for greener pastures, bon voyage and what not. Turns out he only learned he was getting the axe after he saw his own position listed on Indeed. He confronted her but offered to stay on for another month to train his replacement. By this point, I’m getting close with the accountant, who starts to fill me in on all the shady shit going down. First, she replaced all the art inside with really high-end pieces, all sourced from a Russian dealer. She replaced all the light bulbs with a Russian contractor. His final straw was learning she owns the bougie salon next door—I’ve literally never seen anyone inside—through her instructing him to transfer restaurant funds to the salon. He quit instead. Then one day, she accuses the head chef of stealing and fires him on the spot. They escorted him out. He probably just wouldn’t go along with her schemes. The thing is though, his wife was the general manager and his sons worked there too. So they all quit too. And like, nobody was running the restaurant. Hostesses would take turns doing admin. We ran out of menus because he was the guy who ordered the paper for them. Then, she travelled to Dubai, this is 2022, right after Russia invaded Ukraine. She said she was meeting people there for business. Has to be money laundering, right? The last oligarchs desperately getting assets out of Russia through her.”

I get to thinking of Robert Hanssen. The dead mole who lived in the same town as Kathryn’s restaurant. I recently took inspiration from him. I was back with the Saffron Tagliatelle crowd on Saturday night, round two of a nightmarishly long golden birthday week (a difficult gestation, apparently), and committing faux pas left and right. I compared a friend’s three-year-old niece to Hasbulla, the Dagestani dwarf, and accidentally tapped a friend’s ass when putting my hands behind my back. “Cancelled, Alex is cancelled!” What really did me in was a comment on another guest’s baking the night before. Ben had brought home-made almond cookies to the potluck. In a moment of candor, I told Clara (the birthday girl) and Angela (her friend, in from LA) what I truly thought of them. Not much. I’d assumed this was all in confidence. The following evening, Saturday night, Angela is punch-drunk and nibbling on one of Ben’s cookies. I’m in conversation with Ben, riffing on something stupid, when Angela steps in and says, “You know Ben, contrary to popular opinion, I really like your cookies.” “Wait what?” “Your cookies are good.” “Contrary to popular opinion? People don’t like my cookies?” Angela can’t remember who said it and fails to catch my eyes pleading for silence. Word quickly spreads: someone hates Ben’s cookies. The mole hunt is on.

Here comes my Robert Hanssen moment. “Ben,” I grab his shoulders, “I’ll find who said this and report back.” The only way out is through. Hanssen once led the FBI search for himself. Why, I can do the same thing! I make rounds at the party. Inquiring earnestly and pressing the other guests hard. After all, their sincere protestations make them the perfect straight men. “Whoever said that is heinous,” one guest says. “Do I detect self-loathing?” I ask. The dog-and-pony show is working, but perhaps too well because interest doesn’t wane. An hour later and the mole is still a whisper, “contrary to popular opinion” a new punchline. Then, in a moment of lucidity, Angela remembers who hated Ben’s cookies. Her eyes widen as she looks at me. “You! You said it!” Ah, shit. Repent now, bucko, or you really are cancelled. I find Ben. I’ve got an almond cookie in hand. “I’m sorry, Ben. I’m the one who hated your cookies but I was wrong. See, I love them!” My cheeks fill with hard-tack and yesterday’s nuts. “You’re just making it worse, Alex. This isn’t helping your case.” My Hanssen moment come full circle. Worse yet, I’m tagged immediately with a nickname that sticks. “The Cookie Monster has been cancelled.”