Turn up the Heat

answered unabashedly. “It’s more of a way to collect what we deserve. Bonuses, I guess. Where do you think I got all this chicken we’re using?”
    I stared at Josh, who, I assumed, would be horrified to learn what Snacker had been doing. Josh, however, looked not at all surprised. “You, too, Josh?” I felt like Julius Caesar: Et tu, Brute?
    Josh just shrugged and kept wrapping foil around a tamale. “Snack’s right. Once in a while we have to take a little something.”
    “Doesn’t this kill your food cost and everything? I thought you were worried about that all the time! And you’re stealing all this stuff? Oh, you guys took that beer in the fridge, too!” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I could understand why overworked and underpaid chefs might feel entitled to everything they could get their hands on. But the social worker in me was alarmed at the blatant thievery. And, of course, I was worried about Josh’s job. What if he got caught?
    Josh stood up and poured water into the pots of tamales that were ready for cooking. He covered them, turned up the heat, and grabbed Coronas for himself and Snacker. “Yeah, it can take a toll on the food cost, so you have to be careful about it. But, look, Chloe. Everyone steals from restaurants. Just the nature of the beast, I guess. But not everything in this kitchen is stolen. Gavin lets us buy a lot of stuff from the purveyors for our own use, so we get it cheap. When it comes to stealing at a restaurant, you don’t always see it, but you know it happens.”
    “It’s not just these criminal chefs,” Blythe said lightly, teasing Josh and Snacker. Yeah, I thought, tell me something I didn’t know. She stood up and went to the sink to wash her hands. “The bartenders always have their own cups behind the bar, drinking the restaurant’s liquor. And the waitstaff will take stuff like silverware and napkins.” The pot calling the kettle black! A restaurant cliché if there ever was one! When Belita had said that Kevin was taking bottles, she really had meant that he was stealing—just like everyone else at Simmer. And Blythe? Was she one more ordinary restaurant thief? Or something worse?
    “It happens at every restaurant,” Snacker agreed. “But it’s the customers who are the worst. Christ, they’ll take the salt and pepper shakers right off the table, steal their napkins, candleholders, small vases, all that kind of stuff. Women just drop stuff into their purses.”
    “Nobody really gets caught,” Josh said. “It’s just part of restaurant life. The only time it pisses me off is if someone steals a whole eighty-dollar tenderloin that I could’ve sold for three hundred and fifty dollars in plated dishes, and it blows my food cost to hell. Or when someone does something really stupid, like steal obvious appliances. That’s just dumb. But the worst is when someone takes something from my toolbox. Like my knives. That’s my money they’re taking, and I’m sick of having to lock up and bolt down everything I own in my kitchen.” Josh practically shuddered. “Don’t even get me started on what’s been taken from me.” Blythe didn’t flinch. Maybe she was a great actress. Maybe she truly believed that she’d had the right to steal from Josh’s kitchen and that her pilfering would have no impact on my underpaid chef. “There are two things that always hold true in this business,” she said. “Everyone steals, and everyone sleeps with each other.”
    Snacker sat up straight at that statement.
    “Oh, speaking of which,” she continued, “I found out that one of my friends from law school, Katie, slept with our Kevin. She picked him up at a bar!”
    “Well, hey! All right, Kevin!” Snacker clapped his hands together. “Come on, guys. Let’s go sit in the living room while the tamales cook. Should be about another hour and a half.”
    I downed my Corona and took another from the fridge of stolen food. I stared at the assortment of vegetables and meats resting comfortably in Josh and Snacker’s kitchen and shook my head. Then I shut the refrigerator door and headed for the living room.
    Snacker cranked up some Black Crowes and held Blythe closely while he spun her around the room and belted out a raspy “No Speak No Slave.” Blythe laughed and kept her arms wrapped around his neck. She did seem to like Snacker, but I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the prospect of the two of them as a couple. In fact, I wouldn’t know