“I’m putting this thing directly into the chef’s hands,” I shot back, “or I take it straight home with me. I haven’t been paid yet.”
“Paid?”
“For the truffle!” I shouted, getting even louder. “Shit, are you even listening? You can come with me, if you want. Show me where this asshole is.”
“Which asshole?”
“Ernesto!” I screamed again. “He promised he’d meet me at the door. I swear to God, if he stiffs me again—”
“Alright, fine,” the man in gray said. “Come on. I’ll walk youin and out.”
“Thank fucking God,” I swore, shaking my fist again. “For what this thing costs, it’d be a shame to waste it.”
He nodded to the others, then led me inside. We’d traversed three hallways and passed a series of walk-ins before we broke into the main kitchen. It was swirling with steam and chaos, and filled with people wearing black and white aprons.
“ERNEST—”
I cracked him hard in the back of the skull, halfway through calling out the name. The man dropped all at once, like gravity finally remembered him. I caught him before he hit the floor, then dragged him into the back corner of the nearest walk-in.
“Here asshole,” I said, shoving the ‘truffle’ in his mouth. “It’s a walnut, spray-painted black.”
I slapped the side of his cheek a few times and took off, but not before shoving a small stack of crates in front of his crumpled form. Someone would find him eventually, no doubt. But not anytime time soon.
At the front of the walk-in, there were aprons, everywhere. I grabbed one. I put on a paper hat too, for good measure, and a pair of food-grade latex gloves. When I opened the door again, I stepped into a fresh maelstrom of people; prep cooks, line cooks, servers moving to and from the ballroom. No one batted an eye at me. Everyone’s focus was straight ahead, and that was good.
It would make moving undetected through this shitshow a thousand times easier.
