Bobby Gold Stories (5 page)

BOBBY GETS JILTED

B
obby Gold in black Levis, black trainers and black T-shirt, the word SECURITY printed in white letters across the chest,
pushed open the swinging kitchen doors and stepped into the noise and heat. He hesitated momentarily by the door, fully aware
that this place — of all the various rooms, areas, offices and fiefdoms in NiteKlub — was not his territory. Here he was an
outsider, an interloper, completely unaware of the local language and customs. Dinner was winding down — all the entrees were
out, only the
garde manger
chef still plating a few forlorn desserts — and the cooks were breaking down their stations, wrapping up
mise-en-place
in clean metal bains and crocks and wiping down their areas. Out in the main dining room, the waiters were beginning to strip
the tables, hauling and rolling them off the dance floor. When the last few dinner customers put down their dessert forks
and called for their checks, the THUMP, THUMP, THUMP of bass tones would come rumbling through the kitchen walls, then the
smell of chocolate from the smoke machine — sucked in by the powerful range hoods. The Intellabeam system would wink on, bouncing
filament-thin rays of colored laser beams off tiny dancing mirrors controlled by computer and joystick in the sound and tech
booth. There was maybe a half-hour before the front doors were opened and the lines of people, already two deep and wrapping
around the corner onto 8th Avenue, were let in. Two hours from now, every foot of floor space in the main room, mezzanine,
Blue Room - even the entranceways, stairs and bathrooms — would be jammed with people.

Bobby stood near the door, unsure why he was even here. He'd told himself, climbing the back service stairs, that he was hungry,
that he'd stop by the kitchen to see if there was any staff gruel leftover. But that was something he'd never done before.
The truth was, he'd come to see the girl. The cook, the one they called Nikki — to look at her if possible, to get close enough,
maybe, to smell her hair — just for a second, to look in those eyes, the ones that hurt when they looked at you. He had no
plan - unusual for Bobby, who planned just about everything these days — and that made him nervous and uncomfortable. He certainly
wasn't going to ask her out, as he'd long ago forgotten how to do such things, and the whole thought was ridiculous anyway.

He hadn't had a woman for years.

From where he stood, awkwardly trying to figure out what to do, he could see Eric, the sous-chef, counting out dinner dupes
by the printer, spiking the little slips of paper onto a spindle, his hair plastered to his skull with sweat. A shorter cook
(he thought they called him Lenny) was scraping down the grill with a wire brush, bobbing his head along with the speed metal
on the radio, bitching in kitchen patois about some violation of protocol that Bobby didn't understand.

"You want truffle jiz? Get your own truffle jiz, cabron. I tired a you raiding my motherfuckin' meez every time I turn around,
pinchay culero.
Every time you go in the shit, you sticking your hands in my fucking bains."

Next to him, an Ecuadorian pasta cook named Manuel smiled serenly, shook his head and apologized. Insincerely.

"I sorry my friend," he giggled, turning toward Eric, who had clearly heard all this before. "Chuletita no like I touch the
station. He like I touch the pinga.
Si! Verdad!
Touch his pinga is okay. Culo, no problem. He like that. But no touch the station." He reached over and swatted a dirty side-towel
at the back of Lenny's head, before dropping down to his knees to mop out his low-boy refrigerators. Two cooks, Segundo and
Eduardo, were dumping a tray of indifferently roasted chicken legs into a hotel pan on the pass. Billy, the skinny white boy
with the pierced tongue on the
garde manger
station, listlessly tossed salad in a large stainless-steel bowl with his hands.

In the corner behind the line, Nikki was heaving a stack of dirty saucepots and saute pans into a cardboard-lined milk crate,
a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, her chef coat unbuttoned. Bobby saw the pink and red bum marks — like tribal
markings — on her forearms, and thought they were the sexiest thing he'd ever seen. Her hair was popping out of its ponytail,
long strands falling over her face, and Bobby could not help but be fascinated by how the muscles on her arms swelled and
jumped as she slung, one-armed, one heavy load of pans after another loudly into the crate. She hadn't seen Bobby yet. As
she leaned over the stove, to remove the burner covers, he stared at the way the boxy, checked poly pants stretched over her
ass.

"I'm hungry!" complained Joe, the head tech, with a hoarse, froggy voice. Billy, who relied on Joe for cocaine now and again
when the busboys and bar-backs didn't come through (Bobby knew this from observing Joe's mid-shift runs around the corner
to the Full Moon Saloon — and the ensuing not-very-discreet sequence of hand-offs and bathroom visits which inevitably followed)
was all too willing to make something special for his patron. No chicken leg and wilted salad for Joe.

In the noise and clatter of the kitchen, Nikki still hadn't seen Bobby, who continued to stand there as if invisible, ignored
by the cooks and their proteges from the floor. Unlike Frank, now tucking into a porterhouse steak on a broken chair in the
corner, Bobby did not share the impounded guns and drugs from the door with the kitchen crew. He didn't let the cook's friends
in for free — or give them drink tickets. No one had dared ask him. Everyone eating something other than the staff gruel in
the kitchen at this moment had some kind of special arrangement with one cook or another. The waitress, Tina, was a vegetarian.
The usually surly cooks had fixed her up with some grilled vegetables and cous-cous. Because she was cute. Because she flirted
with the cooks. Because once or twice a year, after a few drinks, she took Eric, the sous-chef, into the liquor cage and sucked
his dick. She sat on the ice cream freezer while she ate; a few powerless busboys and newbies poking unenthusiastically at
their chicken legs nearby as they slunk off to eat in locker rooms, stairwells and hallways. Even Hector, the night porter,
was being taken care of. He was eating a thick slice of pork loin with sauce and mashed potatoes, probably a payback for giving
the kitchen a regular cut of all the pilfered goodie bags from NiteKlub industry parties and fashion shows. He also, apparently,
threw them the occasional oddity or archeological find he'd come across when clearing out banquettes, or exploring the sub-cellars
the club shared with the hotel next door. There was a covert cooks' lounge, Bobby knew, located in a disused storage closet
on the fourth floor, which Hector had furnished nearly single-handedly with stolen hotel furniture, pilfered carpet remnants,
even a jury-rigged phone line, so the cooks could call their dealers.

A runner arrived with a tray of cocktails for the kitchen: a large pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea, a pitcher of beer, a few
Stoli grapefruits for the Chef — who was now hidden away back in his office, no doubt packing his nose with the new hostess.
As soon as he'd dispensed drinks and returned from the Chef's office, two steak frites appeared (one for the runner and one
for the cooperating bartender) as if by magic on the slide, and the runner wordlessly scooped them up and headed for the door.

Bobby, who'd forgotten to eat since yesterday's breakfast, approached the tray of chicken legs.

"Don't eat that shit," said Nikki, who'd apparently been aware of him for some time. "I'll make you something."

Bobby, surprised, stood upright, stammered, as suddenly all the cooks were staring at him.

"Uh . . . sure. Thanks . . . Th-that'd be nice."

"What?" said Eric, glaring at Nikki through the pass. "Did I hear right?"

"I said I'd make him something," said Nikki. "You got a problem with that? Or does he have to suck you off first?"

Tina, on the ice cream freezer, blushed slightly and the other cooks laughed.

"Whatever," said Eric, backing down. He looked at Bobby, a sustained stare for a few seconds, then went back to counting his
dupes. Lenny, the grill cook, however, kept staring, a look of unrestrained hostility fixed on the new intruder.

"It's not necessary, anything special . . ." said Bobby, not wanting to get in the middle of some arcane tribal political
situation. "I can have this. I can have the chicken."

"No way," said Nikki, pushing wet hair out of her face. "No way you eat that mung. I make you something nice . . . Fish okay?"

"Yeah. Great," said Bobby, no longer thinking about food at all, really. Trying not to look at the pale expanse of bare flesh
between Nikki's sports bra and check pants underneath the open jacket. It looked smooth and hard.

"Ricky!" Nikki barked, calling over a runner. "Get him a chair and a setup!"

The runner dragged over a chair from the nearby wall phone, disappeared for a minute and came rushing back with a rolled up
napkin and silver. Bobby sat down at the end of a long steel worktable in the center of the kitchen, feeling all the cooks'
eyes on him.

"You want something to drink? We got beer, Iced Teas — anything else you want. Just ask Ricky," said Nikki from behind the
line.

"Water. Water is good," said Bobby, uncomfortable with all the furtive looks and barely concealed scrutiny.

"Ricky!" she yelled, again. "Bring him una boteilla de Pellegrino! Rapidemente!"

Richard, the Chef, poked his head in the kitchen, a clot of white powder hanging from one nostril, a snap undone on his check
pants. "Eric! How many?"

"About three hundred," said Eric, not looking up, the last dupe just hitting the spike.

"Smooth?"

"Like Lenny's ass. Like a well-greased machine. No bumps. We didn't get weeded at all."

"Returns?"

"Just the one. A refire steak."

The Chef grunted and went back to his office and whatever he had been doing.

Though there were at least twelve felonies, or violations of club policy, in evidence at this precise moment, Bobby didn't
care. He watched Nikki prepare his dinner, absolutely transfixed by her smooth, economical movements behind the line. She
seasoned a thick slab of monkfish, grinding black pepper from a mill, then rubbed it with sea salt. She fired up the stove
and noisily slapped a pan on it, waiting for it to get hot. Without looking, one hand darted out, grabbed a wine bottle with
a speed pourer, and drizzled a little olive oil into the pan, stood back a few seconds, waiting for it to get hot, then laid
the fish in the pan with a sizzle and gave it a shake.

Twirling, she fired up another burner, reached for a small saucepot and positioned it over low flame. Bobby saw butter go,
a little oil, some shallots. He was amazed how quickly her hands moved, how effortlessly she seemed to handle her knife, chopping
the shallots into uniform small dice before scooping them into the saucepot. When Lenny saw her pouring hard pellets of arborio
rice into the pan, stirring it with a wooden spoon, he looked shocked. She nudged him out of the way and reached into his
lowboy.

"Hey, bitch," he protested, "don't fuck with my meez!!"

"Shut the fuck up, bitch," said Nikki. "I need stock. Gimme some . . . And some porcinis. Some porcinis would be nice."

"Fuck, man . . . they all the way in the back," complained Lenny.

"Suck my dick," said Nikki, ignoring him. "I need stock. I need porcinis. And haul me out some truffles while you're in there,
cupcakes." She gave Lenny's fat ass a gentle pat as he ducked into the low reach-in refrigerator to get her what she wanted.

She laid out a few crayfish tails from her own stores, a bottle of white truffle oil, turned to stir the rice, poured in a
little stock when Lenny finally managed to extract some from his crowded refrigerator, stirred the risotto with the wooden
spoon. Judging the fish ready to turn, she flipped it with a pair of tongs, put the whole pan in the oven and casually kicked
the oven door closed with the side of a food-encrusted clog.

"Damn!" said Lenny, seemingly appalled. "You making the man truffle risotto?"

Nikki just turned wordlessly back to her cutting board, reached down once again into Lenny's box to retrieve some arugula,
turned, stirred the risotto again, added a little more stock and stirred again — then lowered the heat, looking satisfied,
lost, seemingly in thought. Bobby saw she was chewing her lower lip.

"How do you like your fish?" she asked Bobby.

"Uh . . . I don't know . . . Whatever . . .' said Bobby. Noticing that she seemed to shake her head slightly at this, he corrected
himself. "Okay . . . uh . . . medium rare." This seemed to please her.

"Good. You didn't look like a well-done." As she turned back to the stove to once again give the risotto a stir, she said
"Good" again, softly this time.

In went the crayfish tails, the mushrooms and the truffle peelings. She reached down into the oven, a side towel protecting
her hand, and removed the fish. Bobby watched as in a small saucepan she heated a little sauce from a cooling crock a few
stations down, whisked in a little knob of whole butter, lowered the flame. Pulling the risotto off the stove, she folded
in some arugula, then carefully piled a neat mound in the center of a plate, spun back to the stove and gingerly transferred
the fish from pan to plate, resting it at an angle atop the risotto. When the sauce seemed reduced to her liking, she drizzled
some around the plate with a large spoon, then stepped back to examine her work, head tilted, seemingly unsatisfied with something.
She reached for a bottle of truffle oil over Lenny's station, reconsidered, and then, looking both ways, quickly dodged back
into Lenny's lowboy and removed a single, fresh white truffle from inside a moist towel. She was shaving a few paper thin
slices over the plate with a small grater when Eric looked up from his cocktail and his stack of dinner dupes.

"White truffle!? White fucking truffles you're giving the guy?" he spluttered, speaking as if Bobby weren't sitting right
there. "Fresh fucking white fucking truffles? Why don't you just yank down his fucking pants? Give him a nice sloppy fucking
blow job?"