FLAMÉ FLAMED

NEW YORK, July 30 -- New restaurant owner Frank Flamé (pronounced Fla-may) was found today, burnt to a crisp inside the meat freezer of his newly opened Flamés Steak House. The body was apparently embalmed in a variation of traditional Egyptian mummification processes. The coroner notes that the body may have been its major organs or they simply have been burnt at such a high temperature as to render them unrecognizable. Further chemical tests will hopefully be able to clarify the finer points of the body's status.

Flamé's last weeks were a strange mix of public posturing about his newly procured restaurant and a growing sense of dismay and mania. Flamé's family found him to be increasing obsessed with the location of his new restaurant, and his attentions continually wandered to the many nuances of the small lower manhattan street that he had chosen to open his steakhouse. "He said he was going to write a book about the street," Phil Flamé, 28, said of his father, "he was always such an obsessive character, even when I was young, but this was different. Normally he would want to share his interests, but not this time. When I asked him what was so intriguing about the location, he would flash me a quick look and change the subject."

The body was discovered at 7:31am this morning when the morning prep crew started work. Flamé had been missing for 48 hours prior to this. His family had not reported his disappearance as it was in fitting with his current patterns of behavior.

The only possible witness to Flamé's last hours is the night sidewalk sprayer at the luxury apartment building across from Flamés Steak House. "I saw somebody over there last night, round about 12:30 when I started my nightly spraying. They lifted the gate and went in, but I never seen them come out. I was out here spraying till about 2. Never saw the lights go on in the place neither."

The case remains open, authorites tell the New York News Gossip Section.