The chef kept a room in the hotel. It was no big deal really, just a relatively small corner room that was his. Bill would find out that they had poker games up there and sometimes they had some small parties that were kept among the top personnel in the hotel. The chef, the GM, the Food and Beverage Director, Millie’s boss, the head housekeeper, and a few corporate executives were generally the ones who attended. They were not illicit affairs and they were nothing that had to be hidden. Sometimes the top management just met there to make executive decisions.
Millie’s boss was a youngish woman. She was not American by birth, as the chef was not. She was French-born and had been working in the corporation since she was a kid. She had graduated the university supporting herself working as a maid and upon her graduation she had been promoted to a supervisor. She had accepted and was pleased with several promotions that were conditioned upon transfers within Europe, all of which were favorable to her, and finally they had asked her to come to the States. New York or somewhere out on one of the coasts might have been more desirable for her, but hey, here she was living in America with a good job and lots of perks.
After they had put everything away and made sure the walk-ins were secure, Jimmy G and Kalista said good night to Bill and headed off to their respective locker rooms to change into civvies and head home. Bill stopped into the chef’s office, not particularly because he wanted to but because he thought it was the right thing to do. He didn’t have much to report and quickly told the chef they were done and everything had gone well. The chef thanked him for letting him know and told Bill that he had spoken with Caesar about the waitresses eating the fish. The chef surprised Bill by telling him he didn’t care what the waitresses ate since there were only three of them, but he reminded Bill that appearances counted and that word spread like wildfire. He also reminded Bill that food cost was a factor and that sooner or later the cost would go up if he gave away a lot of high-cost food.
Bill was not apologetic in his response. He told the chef they had had a fish special that sold out and that what he had fed the girls wasn’t going to make another day, not that it was old and bad, just that it had lived it’s time. So since he had the mushrooms and the inclination, he had given them what he wanted to not have left over, killed two birds with one stone as it were, made the girls happy and gotten rid of what he wanted to. If he’d had the day’s special left over, he would have given them that, he told the chef.
“I see everything,” the chef said. “It’s my job. I see everything and sooner or later I hear about everything. Caesar will fall into line, but he’s never going to be happy with you.”
“It’s nothing I did,” Bill said.
“I did it,” the chef said. “I did it and I’m doing it. And I’m glad about it. You’re just stuck in the middle, so suck it up and make sure you don’t get caught doing anything worse than you’ve already been doing with the girls you been doing it with.”
“You know about that?”
“Millie, Beverly and your two from The Falstaff Room? Yeah, what did I just say?”
Bill looked at the chef. The chef looked back at him.
“I was young once too,” the chef said. “I got married too young, before I’d finished what I should have done when I was single. Just don’t do anything really bad like drugs or stealing. Haven’t we said this already?” the chef asked.
