Running Hot

THIRTY-ONE

Grace shoved several strands of sweat-dampened hair back under her net and seized the heavy soup pot with both hands.

“When was the last time you cleaned the deep-fat fryer and changed the oil?” she asked.

“Can’t remember.” Petra emerged from the walk-in freezer with a package of frozen fish fillets. “Figure the more stuff you cook in the oil, the more flavor you get. Besides, every time it boils, you kill off all the germs.”

“That’s an interesting theory.” She wrestled the big pot into the soapy water and reached for the scrub brush. “I’m surprised the health department doesn’t take a slightly different view, however.”

“We don’t have a lot of problems with health inspectors here at the Dark Rainbow.” Petra ripped open the package and dumped the rock-hard fillets on the counter. “They don’t show up often, and when they do they don’t hang around long. Generally speaking, they take a quick look in here and off they go.”

“Please don’t tell me that’s because Luther uses his talent to urge them along.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you that.” Petra dumped a mountain of uncooked French fries into the fryer’s basket. “But that thing he can do does have its practical uses.”

She dropped the basket into the hot oil and jumped back with a practiced movement to avoid the hiss and splatter.

The kitchen door swung open. A wave of rock music rolled in from the main room. Wayne appeared, an empty tray tucked under his arm.

“Order up,” he announced. “Three of them.” He tore three pages off his pad and added them to the long row of orders already hanging over a counter. “Gettin’ busy out there. Full house tonight. Bunch of damned tourists wandered in.”

He turned and stalked back out through the swinging doors, allowing another flood of hard rock to inundate the kitchen.

“Well, doesn’t that just suck,” Petra muttered. “What do they think I am? A machine? I can’t crank out food like I’m some kind of assembly-line robot.”

“Looks like an assembly line is exactly what we need,” Grace said. She dried her hands on her apron. “I’m caught up with the dishes. Why don’t I take over the fish-and-chips orders while you deal with the dead red?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Petra grumbled. “Watch out you don’t burn yourself on that damn fryer.”

Grace eyed the sizzling oil warily. “I’ll be careful.”

Petra glanced at the remaining order slips, scowling. “Three fish and chips and five more burgers.”

“Got it.” Grace selected a few pieces of thawed fillets and dipped them in the batter.

“Keep the portions below four ounces,” Petra said. She tossed five raw hamburger patties onto the grill. “Aim for three. We’re not running a homeless shelter here.”

“Isn’t three ounces of fish a rather small serving?”

“Not when you’re feeding tourists. They’ll never know the difference. Besides, the batter blows up a lot in the fryer. Makes the portions look bigger. Then you fill up the rest of the plate with a lot of French fries. Potatoes are cheaper than fish. And since it’s all fried, it’s all the same color. No one notices where the fish stops and the potatoes begin.”

“I can see you’ve got this down to a fine art.”

“Damn straight.”

The swinging door opened again, releasing another flood of rock just as Grace was lowering the basket of batter-dipped fish into the fryer. Luther came into the room. He frowned at her.

“Watch that fryer,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

“Trust me, I’m being very careful.”

“Thought you were supposed to be washing dishes,” he said.

Petra looked up from the burgers. “Gave her a field promotion due to the fact that we’re swamped. How’s it going out there?”

“Busy night. Probably peak in the next hour or so. Bunch of tourists found us. You two doing okay?”

“Do we look like we’re okay?” Petra snapped. “It’s hotter than hell in here and we’ve got orders coming out the ass.”

“Now there’s an appetizing visual,” Luther said. “Do they talk like that on the cooking channel?”

“Damned if I know,” Petra said. “I didn’t learn to cook by watching the cooking channel.”

“Well, hey, I’m just the bartender,” Luther said. “I sure don’t want to slow down the process in here. I’ll leave you two to get on with the preparation of your culinary art.”

He winked at Grace and went back through the swinging doors.

Petra glared at the doors. “What the hell is culinary art?”

“Cooking,” Grace said.

“Oh, yeah, right. I knew that.”

“Where did you learn to cook?” Grace asked, curious.

“Wayne and I hired us a real cook when we bought the place. Watched him for a while. By the time he quit—and sooner or later they all quit—I figured I could handle the kitchen. No big trick to it. So long as you put the food in the fryer or throw it on a grill, folks will eat it. Fact of life.”

“I can see there’s a real emphasis on healthy, organic cooking here at the Dark Rainbow. How did Luther come to join the staff ?”

“After he moved to Waikiki, he found his way here like the rest of the regulars. Started coming in occasionally for a beer and sometimes a meal. On quiet nights we got to talking. You know how it is. Strong sensitives usually recognize each other.”

“Yes,” Grace said, thinking back to that day on the concourse when she first saw Luther. “I know.”

“We had some things in common. He’d been a cop and he was doing some contract work for J&J. Wayne and me, we’d done something along the same lines. None of us had any family to speak of. Guess you could say the three of us sort of understood each other.”

“You formed your own family.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“But how did Luther get involved in the business?” she asked.

“After a while it came out that me and Wayne were having some problems here. There was a lot of drug dealing in the alley out back and some of the low-rent hookers had started hanging out in the bar. We had a few fights break out. Police started showing up a lot. Disturbed the regulars. They stopped coming around. All in all, we were going under. Luther fixed a few things.”

“How?”

“Let’s just say he got rid of some pesky problems. The regulars returned and we’ve been okay ever since.”

Grace smiled. “Another practical application of Luther’s talent?”

“Told you, that talent of his does come in handy once in a while.”