Abruptly Sal's voice seemed to be speaking to her in her head: You're not being fair with yourself. You never believed the Masons were good, you weren't blind to what the Astronomer really was. And as for Rosemary, she was just a whole lot smarter than you, street smart-she took advantage of you and that should be her shame, not yours. If she even has the capacity to feel shame.
Yeah, Salvatore Carbone would have said something very like that to her if he'd been alive. The fact that she could come up with it herself must have meant she wasn't completely hopeless, she thought. But the idea didn't improve her mood or bring her appetite back.
"Excuse me, Jane," said a voice behind her. It was Emile, who had started at Aces High not long before she had and was now the new maitre d'. She wiped at her wet face hastily, glad that she had managed to gain more control over her tendency to pull enormous amounts of water out of the air when under stress, and turned around, trying to smile at him politely. "I think you'd better come down to the loading dock."
She blinked at him in confusion. "Pardon?"
"A situation has developed and we think you're the only one who could handle it."
"Mr. Worchester always-"
"Hiram isn't here and frankly we doubt he'd be much use if he were."
She stared up at Emile tensely. Emile was one of the most vocal (and unforgiving) critics of Hiram's behavior, a group that seemed to gain more members every day, all of them disgruntled employees and all of them, to her complete dismay, more in the right than she wanted to admit.
Ever since his return from the tour Hiram had been… strange. He seemed to have little real interest and no enthusiasm for Aces High these days, acting as if the restaurant were some awful albatross around his neck, a burdensome annoyance that was keeping him from something of greater importance. And he was behaving abominably toward his staff, his almost courtly manners had disappeared, and he ranged from distracted to abusively rude. Except for herself. Hiram was still friendly toward her, though it seemed to be an enormous and obvious effort to control himself and focus his attention. He had always been attracted to her; she'd known that since the night he had saved her life; and she felt guilty for not feeling the same way toward him. Being obligated to someone who cared for her when she couldn't return the affection was one of the most uncomfortable situations she could imagine. She had repaid him for the expensive clothes, and she had made every effort to be the best employee he could have asked for in exchange for the security of the job (and the generous salary) he'd given her. Lately that meant taking up for him, even against people who had known him far longer than she had and supposedly had many more reasons to be devoted to him. Some of these were the most virulent, maybe because they had so many more better days to remember at Aces High. If only she could get through to Hiram, she thought, looking into Emile's cold green eyes. If only she could make him understand how badly he was eroding his own authority and credibility and respect, he would be able to halt this terrible decline, turn it around, and become Hiram Worchester, Grand Master Restauranteur, again. Right now, it was as if he were dying.
"What kind of situation?" she asked carefully.
Emile shook his head in a small, tight way that was more shudder than anything. "It's easier if you just come," he said. "What we need right now is quick, decisive action from someone who has the authority to take it. Please. Just come down with me."
Taking a deep breath, she forced composure on herself and went with Emile to the elevator.
The scene on the loading dock was like something out of a Marx Brothers movie, only not quite so funny-like something out of a remake of a Marx Brothers movie, she thought, watching the dock crew work furiously at reloading a truck while two employees of the Brightwater Fish Market kept unloading it (or perhaps re-unloading it, while a third Brightwater employee stood on a box nose to nose with Tomoyuki Shigeta, the new sushi chef. Brightwater's man was a short, stocky nat who appeared to have high blood pressure; Tomoyuki was a slender seven-foot ace who, during the period of the new moon, lived as a dolphin between the hours of eleven P.M. and three A.M. Together they looked like a comedy team rehearsing an act, although Brightwater's man was doing all the yelling, with Tomoyuki occasionally putting in a couple of soft words that seemed to provoke the other man to higher volume.
"What's going on here?" Jane asked in her most businesslike voice. No one heard her. She sighed, glanced at Emile, and then hollered, "Everybody, shut up!"
This time her voice cut through the air, and everyone did shut up, turning toward her almost as one.
"What's going on?" she asked again, looking up at Tomoyuki. He made a slight bow.
"Brightwater has delivered a shipment of bad fish. The entire load has gone over, and it went over quite some time ago." Tomoyuki's cultured, Boston Brahmin tones held no hostility or impatience. Jane thought he was the most professional person she had ever met, and she wished she were more like him. "Some time before it was loaded onto this truck for delivery here. Unless Hiram has another source, we will be unable to offer the twilight sushi bar this evening."
Jane tried to sniff the air without being obvious about it. All she could smell was overwhelming fish, as though the greater part of the ocean had been caught and dumped in the immediate vicinity. She could not tell whether the odor was good or bad, only that it was offensively strong, and if the load stayed on the dock much longer, it would go bad if it weren't already.
"Look, lady, this is fish and fish stinks," said Brightwater's man, rubbing his upper lip directly under his nose, as though to emphasize the point. "Now, I been deliverin' loads of stinkin' fish to Hiram Worchester and a good many other people for a long, long time, and the stuff always smells like this. I don't like the way it smells, either, but that's just how it is." He glanced up at Tomoyuki in disgust. "Fish is supposed to smell bad. Nobody's gonna tell me different. And nobody's gonna tell me to take my load back unless it's Hiram Worchester himself."
Jane nodded very slightly. "Are you aware that Mr. Worchester has empowered me to act as his agent for all business transactions having to do with the Aces High menu?"
Brightwater's man-Aaron was the name on his shirt pocket-tilted his wide head and looked at her through half-closed eyes. "Just say it, okay? Don't try and jack me around with double-talk, just look me in the eye and spit it out."
"What I meant," Jane said, slightly embarrassed, "is that any decision I make is a Hiram Worchester decision. He will back it one hundred percent."
Aaron's gaze traveled from Jane to Emile to one of the dock crew and came to rest on Tomoyuki, who stared down at him impassively. "Oh, for chrissakes, what am I lookin at you for? You'll back her up a hundred percent."
Tomoyuki turned to Jane, raising his eyebrows in a silent question.
"Is the fish bad, Tom," she said quietly. "Yes. Definitely."
"Is that what you would tell Mr. Worchester?"
"In a minute."
She nodded. "Then it goes back to Brightwater. No arguments," she added as Aaron opened his mouth to protest. "If it isn't off this loading dock in fifteen minutes, I'll call the police."
Aaron's broad face twisted into an expression of hostile disbelief. "You'll call the cops? On what charge?"
This time Jane's sniff was as audible as she could make it. "Littering. Illegal dumping. Air pollution. Any of those would stick. Good day to you." She turned sharply and fled back into the building with her hand over her mouth and nose. The smell had suddenly become too nauseating to bear.