Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (69 page)

'I hear.' On impulse, Tamara embraced Jewel and beamed
for the first time since she'd been told the screen test had been
cancelled.

Jewel made a production of scowling and pushed her away.
'You'll wrinkle mah uniform if you don't watch it.'

They were in the sweltering kitchen of the Sunset Res
taurant, a glorified coffee shop which stayed open from six in the morning till ten at night. The place was narrow and deep; up front, a big plate-glass window looked out from the dining
room at the traffic swishing sibilantly along the rain-swept
boulevard. Maroon-upholstered booths for four lined the window as well as the two side walls; smaller tables made up little islands in the centre of the room. The ubiquitous counter with
its maroon swivel stools separated the aisle behind the soda
fountain from the kitchen, and the hatchway to the kitchen
was already stacked with heavy plates in anticipation for the
noon rush. If, that was, there would be a noon rush in this
weather. Even shoppers from Woolworth's next door weren't
drifting over like they usually did on sunny days.

More through a remarkably well-honed sixth sense than by
ordinary sight or sound, Jewel sensed that the front door of the coffee shop had opened and shut. Signalling for Tamara
to stay put, she squeezed past José, the Mexican cook, and
got up on tiptoe and leaned forward, peering out the hatchway
to check on who had arrived or departed. She saw beads of
rainwater glistening silvery as a new arrival eased out of his
creamy coat and shook the rain off it before hanging it up on
one of the hooks by the door. From the look of it, it was an
expensive coat, and Jewel's calculating mind instantly trans
lated it into potential tips. She was an expert at guessing gen
erosity and miserliness just from the looks of customers, and
she was seldom wrong.

This one would tip well. Thank God.

The rest of the patrons looked far less well-off; they were obvious refugees from the street driven indoors by the rain.
At the counter, a scrawny, toothless old lady in a dirty turban slowly gummed a sugar doughnut, rinsing tiny bitefuls down
with a glass of water, trying to make it last. A quiet, reserved
young man occupied a booth by the far wall, taking nervous
little sips from his coffee cup, which he held wrapped in his
hands as if trying to absorb the warmth through his fingers.
He had been coming in for a week, now, and from flirting
with him, Jewel had learned that he was an unemployed actor
trying to break into the movies. She'd had her eyes on him ever since he'd first walked in. He was just her type, even if
she was old enough to be his mother. Grandmother, even, but
she didn't want to think about that, and pushed it out of her
mind.

'Ah'll be right out,' she called to no one in particular, then
rocked back on her heels and turned her attention to Tamara
again. 'By the way, Janette called up earlier. She won't be in,
so we're the only two workin' today. 'Fraid we'll both have to
stay till ten. Shouldn't be too bad, though, what with the rain
an' all. Just hope the tips won't be too bad. Got me a nice
dress on layaway an' Ah wanna wear it 'fore it goes outta style.
Still, Ah cain't blame nobody fer stayin' away in this godawful
weather. Ain't no time to be out 'lesson you have to.'

'I'll say.'

'Damn right it ain't.' Jewel cocked her head and frowned, then tapped Tamara on the arm. 'Lissen, somebody else just
come in. Ah gotta run, honey. If Ah don't, the customers'll
be screamin' bloody murder. You can take the counter soon as yer changed. Ah'll chat with you later.' She paused. 'Plus
there's that cute young actor Ah tol' you 'bout. He's waitin'
on his burger.' Jewel gave two well-timed snorts, wiggled her shoulders in a sexy shudder, and added, 'Wish he'd sink his
teeth into me 'stead 'o that ole meat.'

Tamara had to laugh. 'You're incorrigible, Jewel.'

Jewel flapped her hand limply. 'Ah ain't incorrigible,
honey. Ah'm horny!' And with that, Jewel tucked her chin
down into her chest, leaned forward as if into a wind, extended
an arm straight out to push on the swinging door with her flat
palm, and marched purposefully out into the dining room.
The door flapped shut behind her.

'Don' know 'bout dat Jool,' José muttered, shaking his head
as he flipped a sizzling burger over on the grill. The grease
splattered him as he pressed it flat with a spatula, but he had
long since become inured to it. Then, turning his back to the
grill, he moved over to the big chopping block and began
slicing a huge onion with a big, sharply honed knife. 'Some
time, she get into beeg trobble. You wait an' see.'

'Oh, I wouldn't worry about Jewel so much, José,' Tamara
told him. 'Bet she knows how to take care of herself better
than you or me.'

'Yeah, bot how 'bout the poor
hombres,
huh? She take a big bite out of this one and dat one an' then spit them out again. I seen her do it again an' again.' He shook his head
morosely. 'For two years already I tole her I love her, an' she
always reject me. How you like dat?'

Tamara looked surprised. This was news to her. 'You?' she
asked incredulously.
'You've
been after her, José? Seriously?'

The cook nodded unhappily, his drooping Zapata moustache making him look all the sadder. 'Only she wan' all the
others, but she don' wan' me.'

'She's a heartbreaker, Jewel is,' Tamara consoled soberly.
Then she patted him on the back. 'Maybe she'll wake up and
come to her senses one of these days.' She smiled reassuringly.

'You really tink so?' José asked, his hopes rising.

'Maybe. You can never tell. Just don't be too depressed, and don't get your hopes up too high either.'

'You a nice girl, Señorita Tamara. Now, why Jool not be
nice like you?'

'She
is
nice, under all her hardness and flirting.' It was high time she got moving. 'Well, I better hurry up and change. See you later, José.' Tamara gave a wave and hurried toward the storeroom in back, which doubled as a changing room, while
José continued slicing onions.

At that moment Jewel's face appeared at the hatchway.
'Where's that well-done burger fer mah cutie pie?' she hissed darkly at José. 'An' stop gossipin' 'bout me, 'fore Ah take that
knife away from you an' leave you singin' soprano!'

José looked up at her and continued slicing the onion, not
paying attention to what he was doing. His soulful, hurt dark
eyes were filled with tears from the onions.

'Well?' Jewel snapped, slapping the window's counter
sharply with the flat of a hand. 'What're you waitin' fer?'

José jumped at the report, and the onion slipped from his
grasp and went flying.

It was then that the accident happened. The razor-sharp
knife descended, chopping his thumb with a sickening crunch.

'Aieee!' José' let out a sudden shriek, stared at his hand with
bulging carp's eyes, and dropped the knife on the floor with a
clatter. He staggered backward. 'Now look wha' you make
me do!' he screamed.

'Laws!'
Jewel gasped, her face turning putty through the
thick pink powder. She gulped noisily. Then she found her
feet and disappeared from the window. 'Ah'll be right in,
José
'
she called urgently.
'Tmara!
'

Hearing her name screamed out, Tamara quickly back
tracked to the grill. She saw why she had been summoned so
urgently, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Her
stomach lurched and roiled and for a long, terrible moment
she was certain she was going to be sick.

José's hand poured an enormous, steady stream of blood,
and his thumb seemed to hang away from the other fingers
at an absurdly crooked angle. The sharply honed knife had
obviously sliced it neatly, even severing the bone at the first
joint. The spray of blood was crimson, a bright, wet red against
his neat, starched cook's whites.

She gripped the edge of the worktable to steady herself.

'My feenger!' José was screaming, dancing around in hor
ror. 'My feenger! I gonna die!'

Jewel burst through the swinging door like an angel to the
rescue. 'Ah'll take care of this,' she called out as she rushed
past Tamara and took over. Not for nothing was she in charge
of the restaurant. She had been working around kitchens most
of her life, and had seen plenty of accidents. First aid came
naturally to her. The first thing she did was sit José down, grab
a handful of ice shavings, wrap them in a towel, and press it
tightly around the severed thumb. Then she turned to Tamara.
'He'll have to be driven to the hospital immediately,' she told
Tamara. 'This here thumb needs stitchin' and settin' bad.
Here, hold this tight while Ah go see 'bout somebody drivin'
José to the emergency room.'

'Is he going to be all right?' Tamara asked tremulously,
pressing down around the thumb.

' 'Course he's gonna be all right!' Jewel snapped fiercely.
'Just make sure you keep pressing it tight to staunch the
blood.' Jewel disappeared, and returned in a flash with a clerk
from Woolworth's next door. Just jumping out and back in
had gotten her soaked, but she didn't seem to care. 'Hank here's got a car,' she announced crisply. 'José, you take over
holdin' that thumb and go with him. Us girls'll hold down the
fort. Keep holdin' it tight!'

Before Hank and José were out the door, Jewel was already
busy washing blood from the worktable and counters. 'It's all
mah fault. Ah shouldn'ta been at him, the po' thang.'

'It wasn't your fault,' Tamara said. 'It was an accident.'

'Never mind what it was. There ain't no time fer us to chat.
We're shorthanded now. Lucky fer us that your test's been
postponed and you come in today.'

Yes, and unlucky for me, Tamara thought. And for Inge
too. She started back to the storeroom to change into her
uniform.