The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne (14 page)

I moved a little farther down the street so that I wasn't directly in front of the window. I didn't want the Godfather to look up from his garlic bread and find a large pair of lurid spectacles watching him above a mouth moving silently in translation. I crouched behind a parked car where I still had a good line of sight to their table. They say that nothing you have ever learned is entirely lost, it's just locked and filed away somewhere in your brain under “completely useless information.” All I needed to do was find the key. I let my mind go blank and just watched the Ferret's lips moving, hoping the words would float unbidden into my consciousness.

And it worked! Suddenly I heard a little voice in my head saying, “My bum was anointing the jelly and scotch.” Perhaps they were speaking in code. Maybe I'd got it slightly wrong. Perhaps it was really, “My gun was pointing at his belly and crotch.” That would make sense, particularly if the person he was talking about had a very large, overhanging stomach. I concentrated again and this time picked up, “If the telly welly bit the leopard hard my pants were wet with dew.”

It was no good. This was getting me nowhere. Anyway, my cover was blown when the driver of the car I was hiding behind accelerated into the traffic, leaving me crouched in the middle of the street and the subject of a few strange glances from passersby. There had to be an option three, though I was buggered if I could think of it.

And then, like the first flash of lightning in a storm, the solution seared across my eyeballs. A blimp in a red and white checked uniform hove into view. It was Rachael Smith. She of
the lesbian taunts. The one who had spread rumors about me to the entire English-speaking population of the world. She was a waiter at Giuseppe's! I watched as she leaned over a table with a carafe of water, smiling at the customers. They looked a little startled, but that might have been because she blocked out all available light. They also looked as if they were tourists. Rachael was probably going to tell them about me.

Now, I want some credit here. You will understand that of all the people in the world, Rachael Smith is the one I definitely wouldn't wee on if she was on fire. Yet I needed her help. The fact that she was a loathsome putrescence wasn't going to deter me from talking to her.

I ducked down the side street beside the restaurant and found a back door that gave onto a storeroom. I stood unhappily among the vats of olive oil, looking for inspiration or Rachael Smith—whichever came first. I have to admit I was nervous. I have no idea if it is some sort of felony to be lurking with intent among industrial packages of lasagne, but I had sudden images of a police bullhorn crying, “We know you're in there, Harrison. Come out slowly, with your hands on your head, kicking the tagliatelle in front of you.” Fortunately, at that moment another door opened and Rachael came in.

When she saw me, a huge, imbecilic smile spread across her plump cheeks.

“Calma Harrison,” she said, proving that she could remember a name overnight. “Or should I say,
Gayma
Harrison?”

“Great one, Rachael,” I replied. “You must have been Oscar Wilde in a previous existence. Look, I'd love to exchange witticisms with you, but tempus is having a damn good fugit.”

“What?”

“Time flies. Oh, never mind. I have a proposition for you. I want to do your job for the next hour. No pay, of course. You keep that. I just want to do your work.”

She was immediately suspicious.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“It's personal, okay? I don't want to go into it. Just an hour. That's all.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“What do you mean, ‘What do I get out of it?’ You get to sit on your fat ar—You get to relax while I do all the work. No catches. Simple as that.”

“I dunno. I could get into trouble. Mind you, the boss is away today….” I could see the cogs whirring slowly. “Have you waited on tables before? It's very skilled, you know.”

“Are you kidding? I was employee of the month at Pizza Pizzazz four times running. What I don't know about pizza and pasta isn't worth knowing.”

“I still dunno.”

“I'll give you twenty bucks.”

“Deal! But I want it up front.”

It was reassuring to know that Rachael's sense of obligation to her employers was so firm in the face of temptation. I handed over the twenty bucks and she handed over the uniform, a smocky number you could lose a sea cow in.

“I'll be back in an hour,” she said, disappearing off through the outer door, probably in search of a cake shop.

As you may have guessed by now, I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do. However, the first step seemed simple enough. I put the uniform on. It was like a sailcloth. Doing a fair impersonation of a hot-air balloon, I went out the door that Rachael had come in. Inside was a large anteroom and it was buzzing. Waiters were screaming around like dodgem cars. Chefs were yelling out orders, and plates of steaming dishes were being slung onto a low aluminum counter, where the waiting staff were collecting them. It looked like chaos. I didn't know where to begin. However, there was one woman who seemed a promising point of contact, on the simple grounds that she was screaming, “Where the hell is that Rachael?”

I fronted up to her.

“Who the hell are you?” she enquired, without modifying the decibel count.

“Rachael had to go. An emergency at home. She'll be back in an hour. I said I would cover for her.”

The woman looked me up and down and she didn't seem pleased with what she saw.

“Hell, hell, hell. I do not need this. I really do not need this.”

I explained that I was an ideal replacement, but she was only half listening. Occasionally she would yell at some poor waiter. “Not the lasagne for
table four
, you complete idiot.
Table six.
And where's the wine for
table nine?
What the hell
have I done to deserve this?” Finally, she turned her attention to me.

“I haven't got time to argue. You're on tables three, five and seven. There's a carbonara ready for five, two side orders of salad and a fettuccine special. Table seven are just about to order. Take the wine list. Table three will need the dessert menu in about ten minutes. Come on. Get moving. Hell!”

And she was off, presumably to lash a few of the scurrying minions with a bullwhip. I moved to the counter and collected what looked like a carbonara and a fettuccine special. Listen, I might exist largely on a diet of microwaveable chicken offal and frozen pizza, but I watch all the cooking shows on TV! All I needed to do now was find table seven. Or was it table five? I breezed through the swing doors into the restaurant and looked around. My Mafia man was still sitting with his cronies, but it was obvious that my order was not for them. I decided the best bet was to spot two people who weren't eating, but looked hungry.

It didn't take long to find them, I can tell you. I hurried over with a look of abject apology.

“The fettuccine and the carbonara? I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting. Still, I can promise you that it'll be worth the wait.”

I plonked the plates down in front of them and was about to rush off when the man stopped me.

“Excuse me! I ordered the carbonara and my wife ordered the fettuccine!” He pointed down at the plate in front of him. It took me a while to realize what he meant. I had the plates in
the wrong places. My first reaction was to tell the lazy bastard to switch them himself. I mean, how much effort does it require to swap plates? Instead, I apologized and switched things around. I was halfway back to the kitchen when I heard his voice again.

“Excuse me!”

I felt like I was attached to him with a piece of elastic. I hurried back.

“Yes?”

“Side salad?”

“Where?”

“We ordered side salads.”

“Ah, yes, I believe you did. Would you like them now?”

“Well, it would be nice to have our salad with the main course, rather than with dessert!”

Part of me wanted to warn him not to get into a battle of sarcasm with me. If there were a sarcasm Olympics, I'd be first choice to represent my country. However, I gave a simpering smile and scurried off.

“Excuse me!”

Now, I had excused him twice already, and my patience was starting to fray. I came back wearing one of those smiles that looks as if it has been ironed on.

“The carbonara is cold.”

“Would you like it hot?”

The man's face turned red. Under other circumstances, it would have been an interesting phenomenon, but I quickly grabbed the plate and shot back to the kitchen. I had to get a
replacement dish, pick up two side salads, take an order from someone somewhere in the room (pick the customers who were starting to eat the tablecloth?), find a bottle of wine, open it, give it to whoever ordered it and then take a dessert order from someone somewhere else. I decided that I could afford a small detour.

I approached the Mafia table and hung around, hoping to pick up a little of the conversation. After a minute or two, the Ferret turned to look at me.

“Can I help you?” he asked. I was disappointed to notice that his accent, far from being Sicilian, was true-blue Aussie. Still, that didn't mean a whole lot. In most of the gangster movies I had seen, they all had American accents. I couldn't really expect him to have half a goat draped around his neck and a shotgun slung on his back. I went for a winning smile.

“Are you enjoying your meal, sir?”

“It's very good. Thank you.”

I smiled again, but he seemed to expect me to leave.

“Can I get you anything, sir?”

“Nothing at all, except a little privacy. That would be nice.”

“Of course, sir.”

I didn't really have much choice. Plus, I still had a job to do. I went back into the kitchen and found the microwave. It was a huge, industrial-sized thing with enough dials and knobs to confuse an airline pilot. I shoved the plate in and put it on high for a minute. Then, in the recesses of Rachael's uniform, I found a pad and a pencil and went off to take the order from table seven. Or table five. It wasn't difficult to
find them. They were the four drumming their fingers on the table and looking around with a desperate air. I rushed up and apologized.

“Never mind, never mind,” said a middle-aged guy. “Just take the orders, please.” His tone was acerbic. “We want one linguine al troppo with extra Parmesan and the spinach pesto; one calamari Mediterranean with a green salad on the side, NOT on the plate, that's with Thousand Island dressing, naturally; one alla Borghese WITHOUT the Parmesan but WITH the mange tout; and a Fabrizio ravioli, provided it's al dente. Plus, we'll have four Campari Sodas.”

I nodded furiously and wrote down
four pepperoni pizzas.
I recognized him, you see. Mr. Gray, my math teacher in Year 8. Frankly, I thought that screwing up his order was completely inadequate payback for a year of differential equations and a classroom management style that consisted entirely of purple-faced invective, but you have to take your chances when you can. Plus, with any luck, I'd be out of there before smelly things started to hit the fan.

“And where's the wine list?”

“On its way, sir.”

I ran back to the kitchen, slapped the order onto the table and grabbed the carbonara from the microwave. Plate was bloody hot. I did the little “ouch, ouch” bit as I ran back, getting the thing down onto the tablecloth moments before my fingers started smoking. Now, what was it next? Ah, yes, the dessert menu for someone or other. Boy, this was a tough job. My fingers were smarting and my forehead was developing a
thin sheen of sweat that I confidently expected to drip onto someone's plate. I hadn't moved three paces before I was stopped in my tracks by an agonized scream behind me.

The man with the carbonara had gone an interesting shade of purple and was pointing desperately at his open mouth. Thin wisps of smoke were issuing from the gaping orifice. I scuttled back.

“Remarkable taste, isn't it, sir? I trust it's to your satisfaction.”

For a moment, it looked like he was going to collapse onto the table. I hoped to hell I wasn't going to have to do the Heimlich maneuver. That was tucked away in my brain next to the lip-reading skills. Luckily, he recovered a little and, gasping like a gaffed fish, finally found his voice.

“Are you mad?” he spluttered. “This thing is boiling! It's approaching the surface temperature of the sun! It's cauterized my lips!”

No pleasing some people, I thought. First it's too cold, now it's too hot. I was about to point this out to him in my normal tactful fashion when the supervisor shot out of the swing doors like a greased torpedo and was at the table in slightly less than half a second.

“Is everything okay, sir?” she asked. Clearly a born optimist since it was apparent to everyone that the answer was unlikely to be “Never been better, thanks for asking.”

“No, it bloody well isn't. First the food was stone-cold and now it's like molten lead. I have never, in my life …”

The supervisor gestured for me to go. I was happy to oblige, I can tell you. To be honest, I had my suspicions that
I'd blown my tip from table seven. Or was it table five? Still, it gave me an opportunity to check out the Mafia table again. I swept past the foursome with the mad mathematician and he took the opportunity to pluck at my sleeve.

“Wine list?”

“No thanks, sir. I'm trying to give up.”

And then, just when I thought the whole thing was destined to remain a complete and utter disaster, a monumental waste of time, I had the biggest stroke of luck….