TOO MUCH TIME passes. Matthew begins to wonder why their table isn’t ready. He excuses himself and goes to speak to the maître d’.
The maître d’ isn’t at his station. From somewhere nearby, Matthew hears an animated conversation, in hushed, tense tones. In the mirrors that line the room, he sees two men in an alcove to his left, lit by the glowing light of a cigarette machine, kept discreetly out of sight behind a grove of potted ficus trees. He can see only the backs of their heads, but he’s sure one is the maître d’, who seems to be trying to calm one of the waiters. For a moment, Matthew, emboldened by the fact that he’s Leila’s escort, is about to walk right over and inquire about his table, but he thinks better of it.
The tone of voice. Something’s wrong.
“I want you to call the police,” says the waiter.
“I will,” says the maître d’. “I told you. I’ll call the police. But I want you to calm down. Just carry on with your work, and I’ll handle everything.”
“He’s not getting out of here tonight. I know he did it. If the cops don’t take him, I’m going to take care of this myself. You hear what I’m saying?”
“I hear what you’re saying. Put that away.”
“Put that away”? What? A gun? A knife?
Probably nothing worse than a knife, BW tells him. It isn’t likely that waiters are carrying guns yet. Although it certainly isn’t impossible, if preadolescent drug couriers are packing Uzis. One might want to rethink one’s tipping policy if the practice becomes widespread.
“You ask anybody,” the waiter is saying, beside himself and yet restrained, perhaps by some professional code, from raising his voice above a whisper. “This guy is no good. I’m not the first one. Things are missing from there all the time. From the lockers. Nobody says nothing. Nobody wants to make trouble.”
Jesus, it’s just like my building, thinks Matthew. You can’t get enough water for a shower some mornings, but nobody complains. At the owners’ meetings everybody just shrugs as if there’s nothing anybody can do.
“Nobody has the nerve,” says the waiter.
That’s it. Nobody wants to make a scene.
“Hey. Let me tell you something. That’s not the way I am.” Matthew can hear a fist thumping a chest. “I’m not taking it.”
Maybe this guy would like to move into my building.
“Somebody hurts me, I’ll hurt him. I’ll hurt the guy, you know? You know what I’m saying? I’ll hurt the guy if I have to.”
“Look,” says the maître d’, “let me give you the sixty bucks, and you calm down.”
“What? What? What are you telling me? Why are you going to give me the sixty bucks? Then what happens to him, nothing?”
Matthew would like to hear more, but there is the possibility that they’ll come out from the alcove and find him eavesdropping. He walks to the maître d’s station, where he stands and looks into the dining room, as if he has just arrived there, has heard nothing. He expects the maître d’ to be watching that spot, expects to be seen, and in a moment he is. The maître d’ comes bustling across the floor.
“Ah, yes, sir, yes,” he says. “Did you have a reservation?”
“Yes,” says Matthew. From the corner of his eye, he sees the waiter emerge from the alcove and disappear into the dining room. He’s small and thin. He doesn’t look dangerous. Matthew wonders whether he really does carry a knife — or a gun. “Yes,” he repeats. “Barber. We’ve been waiting in the lounge? You said our table would be ready in a moment?”
“Oh, of course, of course. I was just going to come to get you. Your table is just ready now. Would you care to go in?”
“I’ll be right back,” says Matthew. He’s annoyed. He suspects that he was parked in the lounge so that he’d spend more on drinks, a second-rate trick. He thinks of telling Leila about his suspicions, but she looks so pleased, sipping her champagne, that instead he just touches her shoulder (there goes his heart again) and says, almost in a whisper, “Our table’s ready.”
[to be continued]
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🎧 507: Too much time ...