The Last Order

THE LAST ORDER

Chapter One — The House Special · Part I

Palermo, Friday, September 23, 2011

The woman at La Casseruola wasn’t pleased to see me. Nothing new there. Usually, though, people found out my name first.

She was holding a folded tablecloth and blocking my way in without seeming to make any effort. Behind her, chairs were still up on a few of the tables. A smell of meat and sautéed onions drifted out of the kitchen, making our conversation that much more unpleasant.

“We open at noon.”

“I’m looking for Enzo.”

“He’s not here.”

“I was told I’d find him here at nine thirty.”

She looked at the clock above the drinks refrigerator, then back at me.

“You’re early.”

It was nine twenty-seven. She was right; I was off to a bad start.

“Can I wait for him?”

She looked me up and down, taking her time.

“At that table. The others aren’t ready.”

She let me through. Her right sleeve was rolled up higher than the other one, and there was a coffee stain on the cuff. Her brown hair was tied back at the nape of her neck, a few strands stuck to her temples. As she spoke to me, her eyes kept straying toward the tables that weren’t ready. She didn’t ask my name. For the moment, I was one more thing she had to deal with.

The restaurant was on via Sant’Anna, in a long room with eight tables and the kitchen at the back. A narrow aisle ran between the tables, wide enough for a tray if people kept their elbows to themselves. The light was good by the window, but anyone walking past could count every bite you took. As I made my way between the chairs, my pants caught on one. I freed them carefully. I’d bought the suit because there were occasions when I needed to look respectable; it would have been a shame for a chair to kill it before it could do its job.

There were family photographs on the walls: a wedding, a christening, a meal with too many people and too few chairs. In a larger frame, a man was smiling as he held an enormous fish. His arms were straining, and he looked like a man who couldn’t hold out much longer, but no one was telling him the picture had been taken. The fish, on the other hand, seemed to have given up on social life altogether.

I sat down and opened the menu.

The menu had anelletti al forno, caponata, and fish, depending on what came in that morning. A few prices had been changed in pen. There were no pictures of the food. I already liked the place, which wasn’t part of my assignment.

Through the kitchen doorway, a woman was stirring something in a saucepan. She lifted the spoon, watched the sauce run off it, and left the pan on the heat a little longer. I leaned to one side for a better look.

“Lidia, I need table four for the boxes,” she said. “Put him by the window.”

Lidia looked at me. I took the menu and moved.

This is where I’m supposed to impress you with the people I knew and the things I was capable of. Bear in mind, though, that on that particular morning, some pasta boxes took priority. I could move under my own power.

From the new table I could see the street and almost the whole dining room. On the sidewalk, a woman was pulling a child along by the hand. He was walking backward, absorbed in something in the store window next door. He trusted his mother to handle the steering. A reasonable division of responsibility.

I looked at the menu again. I would have taken out one of the tables. Maybe two. I imagined an oven that heated evenly, a short menu, and people coming to see me because they were hungry. At twenty-five, I had plenty of time to learn. My cooking didn’t always turn out right, but at least those mistakes could be thrown away without discussing it with Santiago first. My phone vibrated.

Bruno.

I closed the menu and went to the doorway. The air outside smelled of stone that was still damp and cigarette smoke. Higher up on the building across the street, the sun had reached the closed shutters.

“You there?” he asked.

“They let me in. I’m trying not to ruin everything before the owner gets here.”

“Enzo’s not there?”

“Not yet. You said nine thirty.”

“The money hasn’t come in for four Fridays. Three hundred a week. Santiago wants to know what’s going on.”

I looked through the window. Lidia was pulling a chair out from under a table, trying not to hit the next table.

“Twelve hundred. Did somebody get lost on the way?”

“That’s what you’re there to find out.”

Bruno didn’t make conversation. He told you what you had to do, then waited for you to stop screwing around too.

“Don’t hurt Enzo,” he went on. “Santiago wants the restaurant open.”

He hadn’t sent me to kill him. He’d sent me because Enzo had no way of knowing that.

“Understood.”

“Tell me what he says before you settle anything. By eleven.”

“And if he doesn’t come back?”

“You call me.”

He hung up. I held the Nokia in my palm a moment longer. I liked how little space it took up. Bruno managed to fit inside it with all his demands.

When I went back in, Lidia had laid the last of the tablecloths.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Thank you. No sugar.”

The coffee came in a thick cup. I took a drink while looking toward the kitchen and burned my tongue badly enough to bring tears to my eyes. Lidia saw. I set the cup down very carefully, as if that would fix anything.

The woman at the stove was just blowing on a spoonful of sauce before tasting it.

Take a look at the two of us: she waits three seconds for the sauce to cool; I dive into the coffee. If you ever hear someone say I’m a calculating man, you’re entitled to an opinion of your own.

“John,” I said when I could.

Lidia turned her head.

“That’s my name.”

“Lidia.”

“And what’s her name?”

“Vera. She cooks here.”

Vera didn’t turn around. She’d tasted the sauce, set the spoon aside, and was now taking the pan off the heat. She had an old burn on her forearm and her glasses pushed up into her hair. She worked fast, but when she tasted something she stopped and waited, as though nothing around her was worth interrupting her concentration. She didn’t seem to need my approval. That was exactly why I wanted to give it to her.

“Six portions for the order,” she said. “If they want eight, tell me before ten. I’m not changing the tray after that.”

“I’ll call her,” Lidia replied.

At nine thirty, Enzo still hadn’t come. At nine forty, Lidia started looking toward the door every time someone passed. I finished my coffee. I wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere, but Bruno had set a deadline for an answer. I’d have to explain that I was still waiting. At least I’d get to spoil his mood too.

Enzo came in at nine fifty, a crate of vegetables resting against his hip and a bag under his arm. He was a big man, red-faced, with a patch of damp below his collar. His fingers were spread beneath the crate, the knuckles thick, the nails cut short. He started telling Lidia something about a supplier. She pointed to my table.

He stopped.

The crate tilted a little. He straightened it and looked toward the kitchen, as though hoping a more pleasant problem was waiting for him there.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning.”

“John. Bruno sent me.”

He put the crate on a chair. He didn’t know what to do with the bag. He held it out to Lidia.

“Take this, please.”

She took the bag but stayed where she was.

“Is this about the money?”

“I’ll do the talking, Lidia.”

Enzo came over to me. He wasn’t looking at my face; he was looking at the table, the empty cup, how close I was to the door. I had a clean shirt on, and I hadn’t raised my voice. It would have been hard to explain to a passerby why he was afraid.

He pulled out the chair and kept his hand on the back.

“I paid.”

I put the menu down.

“I haven’t asked you anything yet.”

“I know why you’re here.”

“Then sit down.”

He sat.

“The money hasn’t been coming in for four weeks,” I said. “Three hundred each week. Can you explain that?”

“I handed it over.”

“To whom?”

He looked toward the kitchen again. Vera was moving a dish onto the counter. Lidia had put the bag beside Vera and was coming back.

“I need to take the vegetables in,” Enzo said.

He got up and took two steps.

“Enzo. We talk first.”

I hadn’t raised my voice; there was no need. I looked at the chair, and he came back and sat down with his hands in his lap.

A spoon clinked against the rim of a pot in the kitchen. Lidia stopped beside us.

“Is the other one coming too?” she asked.

Enzo pressed his lips together.

“What other one?” I said.

“The man who collects the money. He’s coming by today before noon.”

I pulled out a third chair. Lidia sat down, even though Enzo had signaled her not to join us.

“We can’t pay it twice,” she said.

Until then, I’d had an owner who was running late and twelve hundred euros to find. Now I also had a man who was due to turn up. I turned my phone faceup and asked Enzo to start from the beginning.

“Someone new took over,” he said. “At the end of August. Someone else came.”

“Had you seen him before?”

“No. He said he’d be handling it from now on.”

“On whose behalf?”

Enzo swallowed before answering.

“Mr. Santiago’s.”

I leaned back a little. Lidia was rubbing the white mark on her ring finger. Enzo looked at me with his eyebrows raised, then made a small gesture toward the phone. He probably wanted me to confirm his story and leave. That would have suited me too.

“Did you ask anyone whether Santiago had sent him?”

“I called the man who used to come.”

“And?”

“He didn’t answer.”

Lidia rested her hands on the table.

“You told me you’d spoken to him.”

“I tried to speak to him.”

“Enzo, look at me.”

He looked at her.

“I asked you if the man was who he said he was. You said you’d taken care of it.”

“I thought it was better not to ask any more questions.”

The last few words were barely audible. I looked at his neck, where the wet shirt clung to his skin. He no longer looked like a restaurant owner caught hiding something from his wife. His shoulders were drawn in, and his right hand had disappeared under the table again.

“Didn’t you have another number you could call?” I asked.

He shook his head.

It occurred to me that Enzo had been stupid. Easy to say from my chair. He’d had to ask a stranger whether he really was authorized to hurt him. I’d walked in with a name and an ironed shirt. No one had asked me for proof. I hadn’t brought any either. Between you and me, a system where people got scared before checking suited me very well.

“What does this new man look like?”

“About my age. Short hair. A scar near his eyebrow.”

“Which one?”

Enzo touched his left eyebrow.

“Here. I’d recognize him. He’s been here four times.”

“A name? A phone number?”

Enzo shook his head.

“He asked for what we always paid,” he added. “Three hundred.”

He could have learned the amount from someone else. Just as easily, Enzo could have been making the whole thing up. I still didn’t have a name to give Bruno.

“The dates?”

“August twenty-sixth. September second, ninth, and sixteenth. Every Friday.”

He said them without thinking. That told me he knew the dates. Not what he’d done on them.

“Do you have anything written down?”

“Yes,” Lidia said before he could.

Enzo turned to her.

“The green folder. In the office.”

Lidia got up and went toward the door beside the counter. He watched her until she disappeared, then leaned across the table.

“Mr. John, I don’t have the money to pay it again. I pay for the supplies, I pay Vera. I can’t afford to keep the restaurant closed until I find the money.”

“I didn’t tell you to close.”

“But you’ll ask for the money.”

If he really was behind on the payments, I’d ask for the money. For now, I didn’t even know if he was. Enzo understood perfectly well why I’d been sent; I was still trying to understand what he’d done.

“First I want to see the papers.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t know yet.”

Enzo moved his chair back a few centimeters. He hadn’t liked the answer. At least I hadn’t promised him things would be all right.

At ten, Vera brought the bowl of pasta over to a greased baking tray dusted with breadcrumbs. The sauce slowly covered the pasta, collecting between the little rings, and she began turning them with a long spoon. She added chunks of cheese. For a few seconds I forgot to watch Enzo.

“What cheese do you use?” I asked.

Vera looked up.

“Caciocavallo and primosale.”

“I’ve made it with just one.”

“You can do that too. The primosale stays soft inside.”

She poured the pasta into the tray. Enzo was watching me with his mouth slightly open. I realized he was waiting for me to connect the question to his money. I couldn’t. I was interested in the cheese.

I lowered my eyes to the empty cup. I didn’t like that he’d seen how easily I could be distracted. I liked it even less that I was beginning to feel at home there while he was afraid of every question I asked.

“Do you have a restaurant?” he asked.

“No. I’d like one.”

He opened his mouth, then looked toward the office where Lidia was.

“It’s a lot of work.”

“You’re not getting rich off eight tables?”

“Some nights we don’t even fill those.”

Not a trace of irony. He’d answered me seriously. I looked at the menu beside my elbow and pushed it farther away.

Vera put the tray in the oven. Lidia still hadn’t come back. From the office came the sound of a drawer now and then, and occasionally the brief rustle of a folder being shaken. Enzo craned his neck toward the door.

“I put them together,” he said. “They were all there.”

“She’ll find them.”

“Lidia keeps the invoices. I moved a few folders out of the cabinet yesterday. I can’t remember where I put them.”

He seemed more worried about the folders than about me, but he was rubbing his thumb against his forefinger until the skin turned red. I gave him time. I didn’t have lunch to prepare, and I wasn’t at risk of losing my savings because a stranger had said the right name. The least I could do was keep quiet for five minutes.

At ten seventeen, Lidia came out with the folder and an order pad. She put four slips of paper on the table and straightened them with a fingertip.

Four dates. Three hundred, four times. On three of the slips there was also a mark made in pen.

“He made these,” she said. “I wasn’t here the first time. Enzo wrote that one down himself. After that, I asked the man to write something.”

“On your paper?”

She showed me the pad they’d been torn from.

“He said he didn’t have anything to give us. I put the pad in front of him myself.”

Enzo listened with his eyes down. He’d looked the same way when he said he hadn’t asked any more questions. I picked up one of the slips. The mark was illegible. It could have been a signature, two initials, or just a hurried scrawl. The date and amount had been written firmly enough for me to feel the impression of the pen on the back.

I couldn’t tell when the note had been made. Or who had held the pen. If I thought they were honest because they’d given me good coffee, I needed to find another line of work. I was planning to change careers at some point anyway, but I’d rather not let a cup decide for me.

I put the slip back.

“What have you set aside for today?”

Lidia went to the counter and took an envelope out of her bag. She placed it beside the papers.

“Three hundred.”

“You have that much.”

Enzo leaned forward.

“For this week, yes. Not another twelve hundred. We set it aside. We haven’t touched it.”

I was looking at the envelope, but I saw his hand stop halfway toward it. He wanted to pull it back. He didn’t dare.

“That’s why the oven still hasn’t been fixed,” Lidia said. “We put something aside, payment day comes, and we take it out of that. The repairs have to wait.”

“It works,” Enzo said.

Vera came to the kitchen doorway. We’d been talking loudly enough for her to hear.

“It works if I turn the tray. It burns at the back and doesn’t brown at the front. When it stops altogether, I won’t be able to make lunch.”

Lidia nodded.

“I’ll get him in next week.”

“Tell me which day,” Vera said. “So I know what I can cook.”

She went back to work. Enzo kept his eyes on the envelope.

I could collect today’s payment and leave Bruno to sort out the rest. I’d walk out with something in my pocket and an explanation ready: they’d paid for the current week, the previous four still needed checking. I’d be free of the restaurant by noon. What a lovely start for a man who’d just been dreaming of having a place of his own: take another man’s money and leave him the problems. I didn’t touch the money.

I hadn’t been overcome by kindness. If someone had been collecting in Santiago’s name, I needed to find out who. If Enzo was lying, I wanted to hear his story in front of that man too. An envelope in my pocket wouldn’t explain where the four earlier payments had gone.

I called Bruno. He didn’t answer. I sent him a text: Enzo claimed he’d paid all four weeks to a new collector; he had notes; we needed to talk.

“We’ll wait,” I said.

Lidia started gathering up the slips.

“Can I take those with me?” I asked.

She stopped.

“No. Please. We don’t have anything else.”

Those last words came out more quietly. Enzo turned his head toward her.

I’d spent the morning playing the polite man. She had four pieces of paper and didn’t want to give them to me. If I asked again, I’d probably get them.

I’d killed people for Santiago. I couldn’t pretend that had nothing to do with the way the woman in front of me answered.

“Keep them,” I said. “Can you leave them here a little longer?”

She placed them beside the cup. She took the envelope and put it back in her bag, this time without waiting for permission.

Enzo got up. He’d been trying to reach the kitchen since the conversation began. Now that no one was stopping him, he stayed beside the table.

“Are you staying?”

“Until he calls me.”

“All right. We need to get ready for lunch.”

He went to get Vera’s boxes. I watched him open the pack beneath the counter and count out six boxes, then count them again. For a few seconds I was simply watching a man doing his job. Then he dropped a lid and looked toward me before picking it up. The landline rang. Lidia answered with the restaurant’s name, in a voice that betrayed nothing of what we’d just been discussing.

“Six,” she said. “You needed to confirm earlier if you wanted eight.”

She listened.

“I can add bread. But there are six portions. I’ll pack them separately.”

She listened again, her pen poised above the notebook.

“At eleven. Yes, we’ll be expecting you.”

She hung up and wrote something in the notebook. The woman on the other end probably just wanted lunch. I envied her lack of information.

The smell of toasted breadcrumbs was coming from the oven. Vera turned the tray and pushed the door shut with her hip. A strip of sunlight had come through the window and stretched as far as the leg of my table. Outside were footsteps, voices, an engine struggling to start. Every time someone slowed in front of the restaurant, Enzo looked up.

Lidia came over with a glass of water.

“What if the man gets here before he calls you?”

“I’ll ask him what he did with the money.”

“I mean the envelope. Do I give it to him?”

“Not before I talk to him.”

She looked at my phone. So did I. Nothing.

“Will you stay here?” she asked.

She wasn’t asking whether I wanted another coffee. If I was telling her to turn a collector down, she wanted to know who would be standing beside her when she did.

“For now, yes.”

She didn’t seem happy with that “for now.” Neither was I. I’d already asked her to hold off on paying without asking Bruno. I’d meant to speak to him first. It was wonderful how many things you could justify because someone else wasn’t answering the phone.

I turned back toward the street. Earlier, I’d been watching the people going past because I had nothing else to do. Now I was trying to guess whether any of them intended to come in. Enzo’s description wasn’t much help at that distance. There were plenty of men with short hair. One turned toward the window and met my eyes. I realized I was staring. He looked at the posted menu, then walked away.

I kept looking at the spot where he’d been. Maybe he would have come in if he hadn’t seen me. At my own restaurant, I’d also have to learn how not to scare the customers.

I’d been imagining a little place for some time. I always stopped at the pleasant parts: what I’d cook, how the room would smell in the evening, someone asking for another portion. In my dream, no employee got paid and no one paid rent. I wasn’t a bastard of a boss; I simply never got as far as the expenses.

Now they were right in front of me. And on top of those, there were people like me.

Vera took the tray out around ten forty. The crust had risen a little at the edges, and in one corner the cheese was still bubbling. Enzo came over with a serving spatula.

“Five minutes,” she told him. “Let it set.”

I didn’t know whether Enzo would hate me by the end of the day. He might as well start then. I was hungry.

“Will there be a portion left after the order?” I asked Lidia. “I’ll buy it.”

She looked to Vera for approval.

“From what’s set aside for lunch, yes,” the cook said. “But you still have to wait five minutes.”

I nodded. At last, an order I agreed with.

I admit I liked being told to wait for a reason I understood. With the payments, I didn’t know who was lying or where the money was. With the tray it was simple: leave it alone for five minutes, and the pasta wouldn’t fall apart when you served it. If people came with instructions that clear, Bruno and I would have argued a lot less.

Enzo brought my plate. He set it a little too far away, taking care not to touch my arm. I thanked him. He nodded and went back to Vera, who’d begun filling the boxes. I cut a piece from the edge and waited for it to cool. I’d learned something that morning. Beneath the breadcrumbs, the pasta held together in the sauce, with pieces of meat, soft cheese, and a few peas. It didn’t scatter across the plate, but you didn’t have to wrestle it with your fork either. The taste made me forget where I’d left my phone.

Then I saw it beside the payment notes.

It was harder to eat with those in front of me. I moved the plate a little to the right. A modest change, but for the moment that was as much as I was willing to do about my character.

“Vera, mine comes out dry after I take it out of the oven.”

“Do you use enough sauce?”

“I think so until I take it out.”

She looked at me to see whether I was serious.

“Leave more sauce in when you mix it. It thickens as it bakes.”

“Could I come back and ask you a few things?”

“When I don’t have orders. Right now I need to finish.”

“Of course.”

I had other questions. A lot of them. I kept them to myself and took another bite. For the first time since I’d walked in, I’d given myself a reason to come back that had nothing to do with Santiago. I avoided thinking too much about that.

I asked Lidia for the check.

“And the coffee.”

“The coffee’s on the house.”

“Then the pasta.”

She brought me the check. I paid, and she took the money without looking at her husband or saying I didn’t have to. I liked that too. I was starting to collect reasons like an idiot.

At ten fifty-two, my phone vibrated.

I put down my fork. Enzo stopped what he was doing, and Lidia turned toward me.

“Go ahead,” Bruno said.

“I’ve spoken to both of them. They say they paid. All four Fridays, three hundred each time. To a man who replaced the regular collector at the end of August.”

“Enzo told you that?”

“His wife too. They have four notes. Three have a mark they say the collector made. The first is entirely in Enzo’s handwriting. I have nothing to compare them to.”

A door closed in the background. Bruno said nothing for a few seconds. My eyes went from Lidia to Enzo. Neither was moving anymore.

“Did you take any money?”

“No.”

“The papers?”

“On the table. Still with them.”

“Good.”

“The man’s coming again today. Before noon. They’ve got another three hundred ready for him.”

I stood and walked toward the entrance, lowering my voice. Lidia watched me.

“You’re leaving,” Bruno said.

I stopped beside the door.

“He’s coming here. I can wait for him.”

“Don’t take any money or papers. I’ll handle it from here.”

“Enzo can identify him. He gave me a description too.”

“You’re not meeting him, John. Get out of there.”

He hadn’t raised his voice. The rustling of papers in the background had stopped too; he usually worked while we talked. I turned toward the street. A man was walking past the window with a newspaper under his arm, without stopping.

“Why?”

“Because I told you to leave.”

“You sent me to find out where the money is. I haven’t found out yet.”

“You’ve told me what I needed to know.”

He hadn’t asked for the man’s name, his description, or a more precise time. “Before noon” could mean five minutes from now. I looked at Enzo. He had his hands pressed against the edge of the counter.

“Does Santiago know what you’re telling me to do?”

Bruno let a moment pass.

“Listen to me, Padre. Get out. Call me when you’re outside.”

He hung up.

I stayed beside the door. I could have left. I’d told him what I’d learned, I had a clear order, and I hadn’t taken anything. Later, if Santiago asked why I hadn’t waited for the man using his name, I could tell him Bruno had told me not to. I didn’t know whether that answer would satisfy him.

Lidia took a step toward me.

“What did he say?”

“To leave.”

Enzo lowered his head. She looked toward her bag.

“And what do I do with the envelope when he comes?”

In the kitchen, Vera closed the last box. She called Lidia over to show her the order, then, when Lidia didn’t answer, came to the doorway. On the table, half my portion was cooling beside the four slips.

I put the phone in my pocket and went back to my chair.

“I’m staying a while longer,” I said. “Don’t give him the money until I’ve seen him.”

Lidia went to get the envelope. Enzo sat down opposite me, this time without waiting to be invited. He put his hands on the table. For the first time since he’d arrived, he didn’t seem to want me to get up and leave.

Until then, Bruno had wanted an explanation. Now, with the man who could give me one about to walk through the door, he’d forbidden me to meet him.

Why the hell was it so important for me not to see him?