Mask Market

“Just plain water.”

“You want tap water?” he said, as if asking me to confirm I was too miserly to be at large.

“Unless you’ve got something cheaper,” I said, smiling.

As soon as he was gone, Loyal leaned forward.

“You scared him, Lew.”

“Me?”

“You scared him,” she repeated. “And you scared me, too, a little bit.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You have an ugly smile,” she said, very seriously. “Is that why you never use it?”

“That’s a nice thing to say, with all the money I’ve invested in these teeth.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, hazel eyes steady on mine. “That was an ugly smile. And your voice was ugly, too.”

“I guess that goes with being an actress. You pick up all these subtle little things that someone like me would never—”

“Be like that,” she said, closing the subject.

My plate of shells was all-the-way tepid. The pasta was mushy, the sauce had no bite. Even the basil leaf was extra-limp. But maybe I was prejudiced.

“It’s not that good?” Loyal said.

“I didn’t come here for the food.”

“You think I like food too much?” she said, archly.

“I like to watch you eat,” I said, truthfully. Loyal didn’t put away much food, ever, but when she enjoyed something, she let you know.

“You know why I love going out to eat so much?”

“Because you hate to cook?”

“I hate to cook for myself,” she corrected. “What fun is that? But I’m really a damn fine cook. Not fancy stuff,” she said, hastily, “just regular food. Bacon and eggs, roast beef and potatoes, things like that. And I bake, too. Not cakes, pies. That’s really my specialty.”

“Do you scratch-bake?”

“I do,” she said, smiling widely. “Oh, I might cheat a little on the filling, but I never went near one of those crusts you can buy in a store.”

“Sounds good.”

“What kind of pie do you like, Lew? I’d love to bake one for you.”

“Chocolate.”

“Chocolate? What kind of a pie is that? Oh, you mean like chocolate- cream pie?”

“French-silk chocolate pie,” I said, on sure culinary ground for once.

“Okay,” she said, nodding gravely, as if confirming a suspicion.

“Do you ever wonder about people working in places like this?” she asked, over her espresso cup.

“Restaurants?”

“Not in front, where you can see them. In the back. Doing the dirty work.”

“You mean like illegals, working off the books?”

“Yes. I read in the paper this morning where they arrested a man in Queens for bringing in dozens of people from—I forget the exact country, but it was in South America, maybe? —and they had to work doing all kinds of terrible things for almost no money. They were all living in his basement, like pigs in a pen. It was disgusting. Like they were slaves.”

“They were,” I told her. “It’s called debt bondage. They take out a loan to be smuggled here, then they have to work it off. That’s all they do, work. Believe me, they pay ‘rent’ for that basement pen you’re talking about. By the time they send a little money home—which is what they came here for in the first place—there’s almost nothing left.”

“How come the people who do them that way don’t go to jail?”

“Sometimes they do, but not often. It’s big business, supplying bodies for labor. There are contractors who’ll find illegals for whatever you want done: picking crops, loading trucks, cleaning toilets. Guaranteed not to gripe about working conditions, complain about the pay, or join a union. They open their mouths, and they get shipped back across the border.”

“But…”

“Anytime there’s a big profit margin, you’ll get people who want to play, Loyal. Going to jail, that’s a business risk. And, in that business, not much of one.”

“But they don’t tell them, right?”

“I don’t understand.”

“The…workers. They don’t tell them what’s really going to happen once they get here, do they? I mean, they promise them all kinds of wonderful things, to get them to make the trip.”

“Yeah, they do. How’d you know?”

“Because that happened to a girlfriend of mine,” she said. “It almost happened to me, too.”

In the short time we were inside, the weather had changed again. It was warmer after dark than it had been all day, and the air smelled fresh after the rain.

“I could never do that,” she said, as we stepped onto the sidewalk.

“What?”

“Not tip a waiter. I can’t believe you did that.”

“You think it was wrong?”

“Well,” she said, taking my arm, “I don’t think I’d go that far.

But they all work for tips, don’t they?”

“Yeah. And I gave him one that’ll pay off a lot better than the few bucks I stiffed him out of.”

“What do you mean, sugar?”

“He thinks tips are a percentage play, understand?”

“No, I don’t!” she said, deliberately bumping me with her hip.

She was looking up at me from under those impossibly long lashes, biting her lower lip. “Don’t use…language with me, Lew,” she said, pleadingly. “I’m smart, but I don’t talk the same way you do.”

I drew in a shallow breath, thinking how right she was.

“Whoever schooled that waiter told him people always tip some set amount—in this town, most folks just double the tax and call it right. So he figures, if he embarrasses people into spending more money just to prove they’re not cheap—”

“Oh! Like he tried to do with you?”

“Yeah. If he does that, the check for the meal will be bigger. And so will his tip. But that’s not going to work all the time. And when it backfires, you get nothing. So if you do the math—”

“He comes out with less,” she said, nodding in understanding.

“Right. Some people come to restaurants to be bullied by the waiters, true enough. But not that restaurant.”

I paid the parking tab. Added a fin on top, since the car jockey had listened to my “Keep it ready, okay? Two hours.” My Plymouth was right next to his booth, aimed out at the street.

I held the door open. Loyal sat behind the wheel for a second, then wiggled her way over to the passenger side.

“Have you ever been in one of those restaurants?” she asked, as I aimed the car at the West Side Highway. “Where people like to be bullied by the waiters?”

“I have.”

“Did you like it?”

“I wasn’t the one who had the reservations. I was the guest.”

“So?” she said, not to be deterred.

“I never like it, little girl. I don’t like it, period. Not when someone tries it on me, not when they try it on other