Free Goldenboy by Michael Nava Page B

elbows, red silk ties.
The busboys were similarly dressed but without ties. They swept across the
tiled floor like ambulatory mannequins.
    “Excuse me, are you
waiting for someone?” It was the girl at the podium. I looked at her. She was
very nearly pretty but for the spoiled twist of her lips.
    “I’d like to see
Josh Mandel.”
    “Are you a
salesman?” she asked, already looking beyond me to a couple just leaving.
    “No, I’m Jim Pears’s
lawyer.”
    Her eyes focused on
me. Without a word, she picked up the phone and pressed two numbers. There was
a quick, sotto voce conversation and when she put the phone down she said, “He
asked for you to wait for him in the bar.”
    “Fine. By the way,
is Andrea Lew working today?”
    The girl said, “She
quit.”
    “Do you know how I
can reach her?”
    “No,” she said in a
tone she probably practiced on her boyfriend.
    “Thanks for your
help,” I replied, and felt her eyes on my back as I made my way to the bar. I
found an empty bar stool and ordered a Calistoga water. Andrea Lew was right;
it was impossible for anyone to enter the restaurant without being seen from the
bar. Assuming, of course, that someone was watching.
    I was about to ask
the bartender about Andrea when I heard someone say, “Mr. Rios?”
    I looked up at the
dark-haired boy who had spoken. “You’re Josh,” I said, recognizing him from
court.
    He nodded. In court
he had seemed older. Now I saw he was very young, two or three years out of his
teens, and trying to conceal the fact. The round horn-rimmed glasses didn’t
help. They only called attention to green-brown eyes that had the bright sheen
of true innocence. His hair was a mass of black curls restrained by a shiny
mousse. He had a delicate, bony face, a long nose, a wide strong mouth and the
smooth skin of a child. “Why don’t we go down to my office,” he said, and I was
suddenly aware that we had been staring at each other.
    “You mind showing
me around the place first?” I asked, stepping down from the bar stool. I was
about an inch taller than he.
    He frowned but
nodded. “You’ve already seen all this,” he said, jutting his chin at the dining
room. “I’ll show you the back.”
    We made our way
across the big room and pushed through swinging double doors.
    “This is the waiter’s
station,” he told me. We were in a narrow room. The kitchen was visible over a
counter through a rectangular window on which the cooks placed orders as they
were ready and clanged a bell to alert the waiters. In one comer was a metal
rack with four plastic tubs filled with dirty dishes. A busboy took the top tub
and carried it out through another door behind us. Pots of coffee bubbled on
the counter. Cupboards held coffee cups, glasses, napkins, and cutlery. One of
the blond waiters walked in, lit a cigarette and smoked furiously.
    “Put it out, Timmy,”
Josh said as we passed through the door where the busboy had gone and stood at
the top of a corridor that terminated at the back door. Josh walked toward it.
I followed.
    “Dishwasher,” he
said, stopping in front of a small room where a slender black man wearing a
hair net pushed a rack of dishes into an immense machine.
    •
    We walked back a
little farther. “Employees’ locker room,” Josh said. There were three rows of
lockers against a wall. Opposite the lockers were two doors, marked men and
women. A bench completed the decor. “This is where we change for work,” he
said.
    We went back into
the corridor.
    “Back door,” he
said, pointing.
    I looked at the door
and realized, for the first time, that the lock which Andrea Lew had talked
about was an interior lock. Inspecting it further I saw that it could not be
unlocked from outside at all but only from within. I asked Josh about it.
    “It’s for security,”
he replied. “It can’t be picked from outside.”
    “You keep it
unlocked during the day?”
    “Uh-huh, for
deliveries. Night manager locks it up when the