fritters in baskets, too? With roasted red pepper jelly and the Pancho Villa honey.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Marta said. “Cool. I’ll get on it.”
Elena took a breath. “Is there anything else that could get in our way before the end of the night?”
“We’re short on those little silver bowls. If the dishwasher gets behind, it could be an issue.”
“Who can do dishes up here?”
“We’ll figure it out.” Patrick gestured toward the clock. “You can get to the kitchen.”
She met his eyes. “Showtime.”
He smiled, very faintly, and bowed. “At your service, madam.”
In her office, she sat for a moment at the desk, for one second allowing a sense of disaster to wash over her. She thought of Juan, locked up or in some truck going back to Mexico, and the two dishwashers, and the women and children who would go back with all of the construction workers, and all the money that would go into the pockets of the coyotes who were getting rich on the backs of human dreams and corresponding misery.
It made her furious. The heat of it sucked her throat dry.
Ivan came to the door, knocking with the back of his knuckles, even though the door was open. “You all right, boss?”
She shook her head. “No. But we’ll make it work anyway. Do we have any way to get in touch with Juan, once he gets to his hometown? Does anybody know where he’s from?”
“I’ll find out. He’s a good man.” Ivan’s hooded lids fell over the brilliance of his eyes, and Elena waited. “Chef, I’m sorry. We’ll make it work, you know.”
“You promised,” she said. “You checked every one of them.”
“And I did. I swear to God.” He held up a hand, palm out. “It’s not that hard to fake papers with a social security number, you know? They all had good papers.”
Elena sighed. “You’re right. It’s not your fault.” She shook her head. “How the hell are we going to replace Juan?”
He combed his fingers through the neat beard on his chin. Shook his head. “We won’t.”
“I have to call Julian, then I’ll be in the kitchen.”
The rush started at six, and by six-thirty the bar was full. They’d prepared as much as they could ahead of time, cutting extra buckets of meat, doubling the prep on soup. Ivan fried twenty-four dozen tiny corn fritters, and Tansy proved herself worth her weight in gold by making dozens of corn and flour tortillas and preparing chiles for the tasting plates; she had fresh churros and giant pans of pomegranate baklava ready to go. Peter and the boys cut extra buckets of everything they could think of—lettuce and tomatoes and onions. Upon hearing about the raid, Portia volunteered to come in and woman the dish machines. Elena was stunned and delighted—another fourteen-year-old couldn’t have worked there but dispensation was made for the children of owners. Peter, smitten on sight, proved an able, if sporadic assistant.
At first, it seemed to be working all right. Between Elena, Ivan, and Peter, they ran the line pretty well. Tansy worked prep, soups, and desserts.
Elena had always loved the rush of managing a busy line, the shouts, the clatter of dishes and platters and lids on pots and the sizzle of meat and the swoosh of the dish machine in the background. The music was loud and fast, an eclectic mix of Spanish guitar and Rolling Stones tossed with Devo and a strong helping of pop favs from the eighties—Cyndi Lauper and Madonna. Elena and Ivan danced the line, plating and wiping and tossing in a tango of cooking.
The dishwashing was a critical problem. On a busy night, there were usually at least two boys on dish and one runner, and one inexperienced fourteen-year-old wasn’t enough, even though she worked like a demon. Tansy and Peter and the boys all worked on it, and one of the bussers dove in every half hour or so, but the dishes were piling up.
“Running low on saucers!” a server cried, and Portia dutifully ran a rack of saucers and plates. “Need forks ASAP,” said another, bringing in a huge load of dirty dishes. By seven, Portia was flushed and sweaty and frustrated, but to her credit, she never complained.
Everyone else was balls to the wall, too. So to speak.
The first mini-disaster was running out of cherry mojo for the duck tamales, which were proving to be a huge, huge hit with this crowd.
“How did that happen?” Ivan roared, looking around for a victim. Peter ducked away, as if