“I don’t see a need to wait any longer. Shall we?”
The six women began to charge out of their seats when—
“If it would please all of you today – and forgive me for doing it, Coco, I went off script for this meal.”
Alvin could hear all the fibers on Hendrix’s shirt tighten up. He told the leading guard he had followed every one of Coco’s instructions to an excruciating ‘T’. And he deliberately did not do that. It was clear Coco was more ruthless than ever. A lot less forgiving. In more ways than directly.
The chef needed their attention. He needed their undivided attention, but his food was part of the problem.
“What do you mean, Al? You just told us what you prepared.”
He did not have a good answer to that.
He ran behind his chaffing dishes and serving tables and tossed down trays to the ground. There was no louder and more violent a sound. A mess of yellow, green and brown puddled and specked the linoleum floor between the chef and the dining party.
Food was not supposed to be in that space. Much less, outside of an accident. Even in the worst slip up, there would be some food left over to have.
In an unspeakable act, hours upon hours of preparation was ruined in an instant.
It was hot quiet.
Everyone reacted silently. With their eyes. Shocked. It was all they could do. A sense of anger was not quite clear, but the upsetting image was surely the gas to a growing fire.
The man of the hour knew he was in the right place when the goons could not spring into interference themselves.
The line in the sand had to be defined some more. Alvin took the other declared dishes and discarded them to the ground also. Clattering steel and textured colors painted the floor further.
“What the hell?”
That was the last straw. Absolutely no chance at anything to eat any longer. Everyone besides Coco started their vindictive go in Alvin’s direction. Hendrix got to him first and firmly detained the chef. The head guard could have done much more in that short amount of time to ensure he would have been still. Thankfully, he just kept Alvin’s hands behind his back. The others continued their cursing and their charging, but Coco raised a hand.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“Yeah, what are you doing Gates?”
Hendrix was visibly shaken with anger. He let Alvin see it. The guard knew something like this could only go a couple of ways. None of them favored the chef.
“What did you just come back from, Coco?”
Hendrix was seething. The betrayal of confidence was putrid and thick.
“That is none of your business, Chef.”
“You are beyond out of line here,” the guard whispered, as his grip tightened on Alvin’s hold.
“Leave him be, Hendrix. Pretty sure he can’t do any more damage. Why, Al?”
“If my food is as important to you as you claim, I deserve to know.”
If Hendrix hated feeling like he was made a fool of, it made Coco insane. More than she might have already been.
The most unsettling thing about her attitude was that it was restrained. Something that set the boss apart from everyone else in the room.
Something much scarier hovered behind her eyes. It was content to sit there for the time being. She needed information and maybe, for just a second, she saw her personal chef as an equal.
“You know you were far from being an invisible force in my household. I praise you and exalt your food any chance I get.”
“But that won’t change my reality if you get away with doing what you are doing.”
“What is it that you think I’m doing?”
“Why do you need all the villains for hire from their network?”
“How do you know that?”
“Your entire industry is filled with flies on the wall. People get services from others who are just as perceptive as you give them credit for. But somewhere along the way you forgot just how capable they can be. And how they are also left in the balance of whatever it is you’re operating and funding.”
Then she just stared. Silently scrutinized.
“What do you—”
“I will talk now!”
Alvin was treading on dangerous ground. It could have lost all integrity at any moment, forcing him to fall to whatever demise below.
Professionally, personally, he was not sure if he ever stood up to the schoolyard bully. Coco was more sophisticated than that. But their current exchange still seemed to be rooted in him hitting and her striking back. Much harder.
“I was only ever entitled to know how you were doing in temperament. How I was doing, attitudinally. Not what I was up to. You tell the barista at Starbucks what you plan to cook for a client? Or how it will make you feel once you finish it and serve it?”
That might have been true, but Alvin had to stay on task. Whatever crusade Coco thought she had to be on to make the world a better place, or an ideal environment for her means – at the expense of however many lives – she would do it.
“That probably didn’t feel to good, did it? To throw all that food away that was the direct product of the strength of your hands.”
“Better to waste a little bit of food to try to make a stand than be a slave for some crime lord.”
There was no audible gasp. The men and women around Alvin were too steeped in being at work to exhibit such a reaction. But they left a lot to the imagination.
“You have no idea what’s around us. Who’s in other countries with tights and capes about to fly to our doorstep. Before we can make sense of saviors, we must fortify who we are. They don’t care a lick about the greater public’s welfare. Only stopping what they deem as bad.”
“And you care? What’s the cost? How much blood do you need
