Chapter 5 #3
With a hum like she didn’t believe her, Melissa dragged Sam from one room to the next, where—Lord have mercy, the smell of moldy cheese was so pungent that she, lover of even the bluest, stinkiest of Roqueforts, had to breathe through her mouth.
Tiny yet odiferous hunks of cheese sat atop pedestals throughout the space. “Please tell me we’re getting close.”
Melissa grunted and Sam didn’t know whether it was meant to be an affirmative, but she chose to take it as one.
Her shins ached from speed walking, and the backs of her heels had started to burn, skin rubbed raw, her loafers—new, just like her suit—not yet broken in.
The sooner she got this side quest over with, the sooner she could find Hannah.
One room bled smoothly into the next, all identical except for the food presented.
From the fromagerie, Melissa led Sam through a room containing nothing but a fifty-five-gallon drum of olive oil and another with only a tiny cut of Miyazaki Wagyu beef on display.
The best Sam could tell, the place was laid out like a doughnut—food stalls encircled the grand atrium at the center with a narrow hall in between.
They passed through a room that smelled faintly of almonds, and Sam did a double take as Oslo and Felix, twin brothers from Buffalo and Glut’s two best bartenders, fell into step beside them. Melissa didn’t even break stride.
“Oslo. Felix,” Sam greeted them, a touch breathless, then frowned at their outfits. They were dressed in the same white jacket and bow tie as Daphne and the other cater waiters. “What are you doing here?”
She wanted to know if they still worked at Glut, but she couldn’t exactly come right out and ask that, could she? No, not without everyone thinking she’d lost her marbles. Or, hell, more of them.
“Good one, boss,” Felix said, and that was going to take some time to get used to. Boss.
So they were still working at Glut. Good to have another something to add to the list of what she did know, even if the scales were still tipped in favor of what she didn’t.
Why were Oslo and Felix dressed like cater waiters?
Why were any of them attending the grand opening of Coco Duquette’s fancy food hall when not one of them could stand her?
Where was Melissa taking her and why the urgency?
Why, for a food hall, was there so little food on display? Where were all the price tags?
And for the love of God, what was this about a crocodile?
The distant sound of polite applause carried from the atrium.
Oslo jogged ahead and turned to face them. “Coco wasn’t supposed to give her toast for another ten minutes.”
Melissa’s mouth flattened into a red slash. “Sam let her go.”
“I’m sorry, I did what?”
Felix dropped his head back and groaned. “You were supposed to distract her, Sam.”
Distract Coco? Why? And why her? Surely, if Coco needed distracting for whatever reason, there was someone better suited for the job than Sam.
“And whose brilliant idea was that?”
Felix looked at her sideways. “Yours.”
She tripped forward, grabbing Melissa’s arm. “Mine?”
“Is she drunk?” Oslo asked, and Melissa shrugged.
“She says she isn’t.”
“Because I’m not!” Sam cried, frustration reaching fever pitch.
“You didn’t have one of those mushroom canapés, did you?” Felix asked. “See, Oz, I told you those weren’t matsutakes.”
A shriek pierced the air and Melissa sped from a jog to a near sprint.
Sam’s heart pounded in her throat. “Would someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Oslo looked at the smartwatch on his wrist and swore. “Jasper and Horace are seven minutes out.”
“Jasper and Horace?” Sam would bet good money Coco couldn’t pick the food runners out of a lineup if she had to. And they were headed here why?
Melissa’s mouth hardened, and the fact that the usually unflappable woman looked worried spiked Sam’s concern. “Seven minutes is too long.”
Felix shrugged easily. “Emma said—”
“ Emma said to hurry your asses up.” About a dozen yards ahead, wearing the same uniform as Oslo and Felix, Emma, Glut’s ma?tre d’, ducked their head around the corner.
Bright orange sparks shot into the air behind them.
“Security passed through here about thirty seconds ago. I’d say we’ve got max five minutes before they wise up and circle back. ”
“Javier, my man, what’s good?” Oslo squeezed Emma’s shoulder as he slipped past. “How’s it going?”
Squatting in front of the wall that wasn’t really a wall at all but instead an exposed built-in vault, complete with a combination lock and a large spinning handle, with a torch in his hand, Javier paused in his apparent pursuit to melt a hole through the metal.
He lifted the face shield on his helmet and laughed. “Just like crème br?lée, baby.”
Sam had seen a lot of crazy things in her life.
Not even an hour ago she’d watched a perfectly normal-looking woman turn into a monster right before her very eyes.
She was handling this all rather well, she liked to think, but watching Glut’s prep cook burn a hole in a vault door large enough for him to fit his hand through so that he could turn the knob from the inside was a bridge too far.
Whatever shady shit was going down? Sam wanted no part in any of it.
“I’m out.” She held up her hands and stepped back. “I don’t know what you all think you’re doing, but I didn’t sign on to be part of some—”
“Be cool, damn it!” Emma drew back their hand and—a bright burst of pain exploded along the right side of Sam’s face.
Motherfucker.
“Better?” they asked.
She swallowed a pained whimper and nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
“Good.” Emma gripped Sam by the shoulders and stared down into her eyes. “I know the stakes are high this time, but we can’t have our fearless leader freaking out on us, can we?”
Because Sam’s panicking was the problem here and not—“Did you … did you say fearless leader ?”
As in, Sam was in charge of this enterprise—No. No way. Emma must’ve misspoken, because it wasn’t possible.
Sam was … Okay, if Sam was being completely honest, she lacked the essential qualities of an effective leader.
Sure, she had vision and compassion, and she was a quick learner who enjoyed a good challenge and could think on her feet and collaborate well with others, but she was also self-aware enough to know she wasn’t always the most decisive, nor was she a risk-taker. Gambling her soul notwithstanding.
She could wrap her head around a world where she’d worked her way up the chain of command, a universe where, with Coco out of the way, Sam might have been afforded the opportunity to cultivate those qualities she lacked.
Restaurateur was enough of a stretch, though not entirely outside the realm of possibility, but ringleader?
Sam was going to have some strong words for Daphne the next time she saw her, assuming she would, because this? This was in-fucking-sane. And not even close to what Sam had in mind when she had made her wish.
“Game faces, people,” Melissa barked in the same stern voice she used to command the kitchen brigade during their mandatory weekly meetings. “We all know the plan—”
“Um.” Sam cradled her throbbing cheek with one hand and raised the other. “Yeah, about this plan. Could we maybe go over it one more time?”
Oslo and Felix locked eyes, then looked at Melissa, Emma, and Javier. The group gave a collective sigh.
“ We get in, we get out, we don’t get caught ,” they chorused.
Sam waited for someone to expound further, and when no one did, she shut her eyes. Great. A mantra. That was what she got. So helpful.
“Relax, Danny Ocean.” Emma clapped her hard on the arm. “You’ve trained us well. We’ve got this.”
If the vault Javier had cracked had been her first clue that they were about to wade out into criminal waters, this was her second. Melissa shoving a big black duffel bag into her hands was the third.
Emma slipped inside the vault first, followed by Oslo and then Melissa. Felix gave her a nudge, and with no small amount of reluctance, Sam stepped inside.
The vault was freezing and predictably as dark as the inside of a cow until Javier, bringing up the rear, hit the lights.
Sam’s jaw dropped.
So this was where they kept the food.
Rows upon rows of shelves crammed with food filled the refrigerated vault, easily the size of the market down the block from Sam’s apartment.
“Don’t let the edible gold distract you. Javier, Felix, I’m talking to you.” Melissa tossed her own duffel bag on the concrete floor. “Remember our priorities and stick to ’em. Let’s go, people.”
If they were stealing food, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe it was a … a Robin Hood type of thing. Steal from the rich and give to the hungry. Sam could maybe get behind a mission like that.
The group scattered and she, not knowing what to do, wandered over to the nearest shelf and read the labels:
G OOSENECK BARNACLES :
Harvested from the northern Atlantic coast of Iberia. Five hundred dollars per kilogram. C ACIOCAVALLO PODOLICO :
Cave-aged, stretched curd cheese from free-range cows from Basilicata. One hundred and forty dollars per kilogram. J AMóN I BéRICO DE B ELLOTA :
Whole, bone-in, dry-cured ham from purebred, acorn-fed black Iberian pigs.
Three thousand dollars. K OPI LUWAK : Partially digested and fermented coffee beans collected from the fecal matter of wild Asian palm civets.
Arabica robusta blend, medium roast. One hundred and fifty dollars per one hundred grams.
Maybe, on second thought, they’d sell the food and give the money to those in need.
“Black watermelon!” Felix called out from several rows over.
“Too heavy! And what did I say about priorities?” Melissa hollered back. “We’re looking for white Alba truffles and red swiftlet nests. They’re lightweight and they fetch a pretty penny.”
Javier popped out from around a shelf up ahead, a tiny jar of what looked like saffron dwarfed in his hands. “How pretty a penny are we talkin’?”