“Nothing else, huh?”
“Not anymore.” Stefanos crushed out his cigarette. “You wanna meet the folks in the kitchen?”
“Sure.” Karras slid off his stool and walked along the bar. “Who’s the guy in the brown suit?” he asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
“His name’s Happy.”
“He doesn’t look too happy to me.”
“He’s pacing himself,” said Stefanos.
Maria Juarez and James Posten were dancing to the salsa music coming from the boom box when Karras and Stefanos entered the kitchen. Maria had the flat of her palm on her stomach and was moving two steps forward, two steps back, smiling at James, who was counting out his steps, twirling, holding a spatula up at head level.
“Cha-cha-cha, senorita, ” said James. “We havin’ us one of those carnival’s now.”
“Watch my feet, Jame,” said Maria.
Darnell stood over the sink, the hose in his hand, his back to the door, one foot tapping time to the beat.
“Hey, everybody,” said Stefanos as the song ended. “Meet Dimitri Karras, the guy I was telling you about.”
Stefanos had briefed them earlier, told them that Karras might be dropping by. Darnell turned and appraised him; Maria did the same.
James turned the volume down on the box, crossed the room, and shook Karras’s hand. “How you doin’, man? James.”
“Dimitri. Good to meet you.”
“James is the grill man,” said Stefanos. “And this is Maria – colds and salads.”
“My pleasure, Mitri.”
“My hands are kinda wet,” said Darnell. “So you’ll understand if I don’t come on over there.”
“It’s all right,” said Karras, but Darnell had already turned back to the sink.
Ramon came in, deliberately bumped Stefanos as he passed.
“Ramon’s our busboy,” said Stefanos. “And the bar-back. And the all-purpose resupplier. Anything that’s stored down in the basement, you let Ramon get it.”
“We got some serious rats in that basement,” said James. “You wouldn’t catch me down in that motherfucker on a bet. Excuse me, Maria.”
“Is okay.”
“Ramon brings in the lunch tickets along with the bus trays,” said Stefanos.
“’Cause we don’t want no waitresses comin’ around here,” said James, “pressuring us to get their food out.”
“The waitress always in a horry,” said Maria.
“A beeg horry,” said James. “You got that right, senorita.”
“Ramon will set the ticket down in front of you. You’ll slip the ticket in the lip of the top shelf, right here, in the order it came in. Then you call out the order. The time on specials varies. Salads are premade, so they’re always ready to go. Burgers take longer to cook, obviously, so you’ll want to call those out first, then call out the cold sandwiches from the same ticket later on.”
“Don’t want to have my burger up there, gettin’ cold,” said James, “while you’re waiting on Maria to put up a chicken salad on toast.”
“Right,” said Stefanos. “It can get complicated sometimes. The object is to have the hots and the colds from the same ticket come to you at the same time. Maria and James talk to you, let you know where they are in the process. You check the order against the ticket, garnish it, put it out on the reach-through when it’s ready to go.”
“Ain’t all that big a deal, Dimitri,” said James, who went to the box and scanned off the Spanish AM station, finding an R amp;B/disco station on the FM dial.
“My music time up already?” said Maria.
“Yeah,” said James. “We back to my joint now.”
James closed his eyes and began to sing soulfully to the Seal cut coming from the box, Karras noticing the purple eye shadow on his lids. Past James, Darnell had his arms raised above his head. Ramon was punching Darnell in the stomach with short, alternating jabs.
Darnell smiled. “C’mon with it, little buddy. That all you got?”
“Any questions?” said Stefanos to Karras.
“I guess not. Not right now.” Karras said to the others, “Nice meeting you all.”
“Nice to meet you, man,” said James, and Maria gave him a smile.
Stefanos and Karras left the kitchen and stood by the service bar.
“I got the impression Darnell wasn’t too happy to see me,” said Karras.
“Darnell’s a man,” said Stefanos. “You’re taking away some of his responsibilities. He’s a little hurt, maybe, but he’ll get over it. And we do need the help. Think you can handle it?”
“Yeah, but -”
“The pay’s twenty dollars a shift, cash. That’s a hundred a week. Including a lunch and a beer, if you want it. It isn’t much, I know. Walking-around money, basically.”
“I don’t have a problem with the money -”
“Good.” Stefanos handed Karras a paper menu. “Here. Have a look at this tonight. Course, you won’t learn a thing until you jump in. But familiarize yourself with it anyway. Be here about eleven-thirty tomorrow. Okay?”
Karras said, “Okay.”
“See you then.” Stefanos lifted the hinged gate and stepped behind the bar.
Karras neared the Asian waitress as he headed for the door.
“Dimitri Karras,” he said, stopping in front of her and extending his hand.
“Hey,” she said, shaking it. “Anna Wang.”
Karras was out on the sidewalk, buttoning his coat, when he realized he had taken a job.
THIRTEEN
All right, James,” said Dimitri Karras. He squinted at the ticket hanging in front of him. “I’ve got a cheddar, medium. A bacon cheddar, medium rare. A provolone, medium. And -”
“Stop there, Dimitri,” said James Posten. He dropped three burgers on the grill. “Cheddar medium, provolone medium, bacon cheddar, medium rare.”
“That’s right.”
“Go ahead, man.”
“A chicken steak, no cheese, everything.”
“Got it. Here comes your hot pastrami, buddy.”
Maria Juarez was humming as she halved an egg-salad sandwich on white and put it on a plate. She slid it onto the shelf just as James delivered his pastrami. Karras garnished both sandwiches with chips and pickle spears, pulled the corresponding ticket from the lipped shelf, and placed the two plates on the reach-through. He rang the hotel desk-style bell there with a strike of his palm and said, “Order up!” into the space.
Mai put her head in the space, slapped a ticket on the wood, picked up her order, and carried it away. Karras took the ticket and put it in the back of the line on the lipped shelf.
“Another special,” said Karras, reading the ticket. “Darnell, your meat loaf’s really moving today. Looks good, too. I know what I’m having for lunch.”
“Don’t get your heart set on it for lunch.” Darnell stood over the soak sink, his back turned to the rest of the kitchen. “How many you think we served?”
Karras checked the hash marks on a pad he kept by his side. “Fifteen by my count.”
“I only cut sixteen out of that piece.”
Ramon came through the door with a bus tray. As he went by, Karras said, “Ramon, when you go back out to
