In celebration of my wife’s birthday, we recently had dinner at New York City’s Michelin two-star Gabriel Kreuther restaurant. Situated across from the New York Public Library and just outside the border of Manhattan’s Times Square, this establishment is a far cry from most pre- or post-Broadway theater dining spots. Opened in 1995, it is named for its chef/co-owner, who has previously held head chef positions at some of New York’s top eateries, including Jean-Georges and The Modern at MOMA, and he has won multiple awards (including the James Beard award as Best NY Chef in 2009).
        The restaurant serves first class seasonal fare with a nod towards French-Alsatian cuisine in an exquisite, rather serene, yet simple space of modernity in shades of gray and beige with exposed wooden beams, featuring booths as well as widely spaced, free standing tables—all with fine signature china, excellent glassware and good silver. Also, upon entering the restaurant, we were struck by the fact that people were speaking in hushed voices (unfortunately all too rare for most New York City dining establishments).
        As to the seasonally changing food choices, there are three-course ($155) and four-course ($165) menus with 4-5 choices in each course as well as a chef’s tasting menus at $165 (three courses), (195 (four) and $265 (tasting men), in addition to a “to share” section including items such as caviar—Kaluga ($270 for 50 grams) and Oestra ($300), both served with nori gateaux and buttermilk éspume—a hen-of-the-woods tarte flambée ($34) and truffled country pâté ($34). And, after some explanation of a number of items on the different menus from a very patient, professional server, we chose the four-course menu and, rather than go with the wine pairing, we chose a bottle of 2014 Château de Sales Bordeaux from Pomerol ($125), with flavors of ripe plum and cherry and a smooth finish with hints of herbs, that made a great match for the food served.
        The parade of artistically presented, flavorful fare began with an amuse bouche of two small mushroom-flavored puffs, a jellied square that had the taste of Alsatian Riesling, and a few other portions of delectable tidbits, each tasting of the French countryside. For first courses we selected a moist aged yellowtail kingfish crudo, its natural buttery flavor enhanced by a citrusy marinade and pickled tomatillos, as well as a generous portion of fois gras terrine served with pickled jackfruit, Riesling gelée with notes of tropical fruit and a slice of slightly sweet, nutty-tasting bread, made in-house from emmer wheat.
       For one mid-course item we enjoyed a memorable sturgeon and sauerkraut tart topped with imperial Kaluga that had a combination of smokey, tangy, sweet and salty flavors reminiscent of those previously encountered at restaurants in Alsace; the other consisted of a generous portion of four-cheese agnolotti accompanied by a heady red pepper-olive relish and a sweet Sungold tomato coulis. From a selection of five main courses we opted for an order of hay-smoked, two-week-aged duck breast, two thick cuts of rosy, moist duck served with a portion of scallion-cheddar cornbread, and a slice of medium-rare free-range roasted lamb loin from Thomas Farm in Australia, served alongside sweet tri-color carrots and a portion of spicy merguez sausage.
      We concluded with pastry chef Priscilla Scaff Mariani's coconut and pineapple panna cotta served with dollops of frozen mint marshmallow, and a derby-shaped portion of milk ice cream encrusted with chocolate. And, of course, they served my wife a special over-the-top celebration dessert of a white chocolate cake with a pistachio-caramel-rice crust.
        All in all we thought that the meal was comparable to those we’d only experienced in Alsace at the Haeberlin’s outstanding Auberge de L’ill in Illhaeusern and definitely worth a visit when in New York. And we are already planning to return, without even a special occasion to celebrate.

Open for Lunch Mon.-Fri.; dinner Tues.-Sat.

        Katie and David saw no benefit in telling Toth anything else, since it appeared his plan was to keep them from ever leaving that room. David said, “It was simpler than that. I just checked the military archives and your name turned up in both the American and British records.”
         “But how did you then make the connection of Neame with me?”
         David was not about to say anything about Kim Philby so he said only, “MI6 had more info on you than you probably realize.”
         Toth sniffed, “I doubt it. Otherwise they would have come after me a long time ago. Of course, I did have my Russian benefactors who kept the British off my trail after I left Vienna. I’m assuming you put two and two together at some point, but it really doesn’t matter. The fact that you are here and know what you know means that I’m not going to let you go back and write one of your award-winning stories about me, Miss Cavuto. I’m afraid your investigation has come to nothing.”
         “So what now?” asked David. “You gonna just shoot us and toss our bodies in the lake? Maybe feed us to the wolves?”
         “Oh, the lake is much too shallow and there haven’t been wolves in these forests for decades. It should be of no concern to you once you are dead. And I have devised a method of your dying with relatively little or no pain. My company has developed a drug that shows real promise in slowing the progress of Alzheimer’s Disease. We’ve been doing clinical trials on animals for quite some time, but we’re not there yet. We haven’t found the right levels or mix with other drugs that counteract the side effects.”
         Katie’s eyes were wide, her frame shaking. David was squinting at the three men in front of him, trying to figure out how to buy time. He said, “I’m afraid to ask, but what might those side effects be?”
         “Mainly, if too much is administered in too short a time, the brain begins to shut down and the synapses stop firing, and, well, it’s all very technical, but let’s just say, you will cease to be you. Not quite the way I ceased being Harold Neame, but you will cease to be. You won’t feel very much. More like going to sleep, losing your bearings over an hour or so.
         “The good thing is that, if such effects take hold in a controlled experiment, we’ve found they can be easily counteracted within the first fifteen minutes by a simple injection of  a compound called acetylcholine, preventing memory loss. Good for metabolism, too. They are also widely used in the food industry, where it’s called, simply, vinegar. One injection and it stops the drug from overpowering the brain’s natural metabolism.”
         “Why the hell don’t you just shoot us?” growled David.
         Toth scoffed at the suggestion. “I’m not one of your Mafiosi, Detective Greco. Plus, I’ve never been able to experiment with the drug on human beings, so I hope to learn something that can be applied to making it fit for humans in the future.”
         “You’re deranged, Toth,” said David. “Probably always have been, and now you’re trying to make us believe your murdering us is some kind of medical experiment, like the Nazis did. What a delusional piece of crap you are.”
         David thought that might get him slapped but Toth just shook his head, as if to suggest he was not a thug like his henchmen.     
         The cuffs made it impossible for David to reach out and calm Katie’s shaking but he kept nodding at her and saying, “It’ll be O.K, it’ll work out fine,” not believing a word he said. If only he could somehow disarm one of the thugs and turn the gun on the other, but that was not going to happen.
         “Tell me something, Toth,” said David. “I’m sure you know that speech Harry Lime gives in the Ferris wheel car when he asked Holley Martins if he gave a damn if any of those people below died because of Lime’s activities. I take it that pretty much sums you up.”
         Toth collapsed back onto the couch and laughed. “That was a brilliant little piece of dialog, wasn’t it. Greene certainly had a way with words.”
         “Actually, Orson Welles wrote those lines,” said David.
         “Really? I had no idea. In any case, maybe I did feel that way back then. I had seen so much evil during the war, so much killing and bombing of civilians by the Allies. Dresden just went up in flames like a bonfire. More than a hundred thousand people wiped out at Hiroshima and almost as many at Nagasaki. Did you know that even the great Churchill allowed Coventry to be bombed by the Germans so that they wouldn’t find out the Brits had broken their Enigma Code?”
         Katie finally piped up, “For what it’s worth, that story’s been totally debunked.”
         “Maybe so, maybe not. Official histories aren’t very reliable.” Toth’s face darkened. “By then I’d seen so much of death, so many people sacrificed on both sides for the almighty ‘cause.’ I was there when the Allies stumbled into Auschwitz—Der Führer’s so-called ‘Jewish solution.’  However horrible to see, I’d been so numbed by then that I saw the camps as just one more insidious form of mass madness that had gripped the entire world.
         “In any case, those experiences soured me, and when it appeared I could make a little money on the black market selling both real and fake penicillin, I managed to distance myself from the effects of the latter.  I didn’t always know which was which, and I never believed the fake stuff did any harm to anyone. I don’t think I was as cynical as Lime, but perhaps I thought the world was turned upside down and I was scrambling to keep my balance in it. You know, Graham Greene once wrote, ‘We'd forgive most things if we knew the facts.’”
         “And the Russians were complicit in your activities and helped you escape the Allied military police?” asked Katie.
         “I’ve already said more than I should.” Then, looking at his watch, he said, “Anyway it’s getting late, and I’d rather have this business behind me.” Toth motioned to his men, who rolled up David and Katie’s sleeves, tying a rubber tube tightly around their arms. Katie struggled and screamed at her captors, while David flexed his arm muscles, causing Toth to say nonchalantly, “Relax, Mr. Greco, it will hurt more if you flex your muscles.”
         Toth went to the refrigerator and brought out two glass vials and two syringes. Katie was screaming, shaking her head violently. Toth extracted the drug from the vials, shot a little from each syringe into the air and said, “Now, who would like to go first? Mr. Greco? Or ladies first?”
         David told Toth to go fuck himself. Toth said, “Ah, you make me wish I were using a dirty needle,” then told his henchmen to hold David steady. “Relax, relax, relax. I haven’t given anyone an injection in a long while, so I don’t want to hit a nerve.” 
         The thugs were holding David down with his head tilted and his stomach over the back of the sofa. One of them had him by the neck, the other with his knee against David’s spine. Toth inserted the needle into David’s vein, and, like a pediatrician speaking to a frightened child, said, “All done. I don’t think I need to wipe it with alcohol. You won’t have time to develop an infection.”
         The henchmen let David up from the sofa and shoved him back down on a chair.  Katie was watching intently for any signs of the drug taking hold.
         “It will be very gradual,” said Toth, who was now taking notes on a pad. “And, I assure you, it will all be painless. Just drifting off to sleep really. And now, Miss Cavuto, if you would stop struggling, please. I don’t want my men to have to hold you down.”
         The men did hold Katie in her chair, and somehow she had managed to calm herself down and catch her breath. Toth came over to her with the syringe and lifted her bicep.