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  Sometimes, Dave Heinrich hated working at the Wild West Steakhouse.

  Usually, he didn't mind it much, especially if he was cooking. In cooking, at least, there was some skill required, and a degree of satisfaction; when Dave could juggle dozens of steaks on a flaming broiler, make sure that they were all done right, and get them to the customers on time, he felt as if he'd accomplished something at the end of a shift. Cooking was cleaner work than most jobs at the steakhouse, also less physically demanding. On the limited scale of prestige at the restaurant, cooks held a high position, second only to the managers. Best of all, cooks could sneak snacks easily and often, snatch a hunk of steak from the broiler when no one was looking.

  Usually, Dave worked as a cook, and he didn't mind it. Now and then, though, he got stuck in a shift as busboy or dishwasher, and that altered his outlook; when he was busing tables or laboring in the dishroom, Dave truly hated working at the Wild West Steakhouse.

  Today, he hated working at the Wild West Steakhouse. He'd strolled in at three o'clock in the afternoon, fresh from classes at Orchard College, ready for his scheduled shift at the broiler...and Mr. Martin, the manager on duty, had sent him back to the dishroom. Two people had called in sick, Mr. Martin had explained, and no one else could fill in, so Dave would have to wash dishes and Mr. Martin would cook. Naturally, Dave would have preferred if he had been allowed to cook and Mr. Martin would have gone to the dishroom...but Dave was outranked and didn't have any say in the matter.

  And so, cursing Mr. Martin and the absentees for ruining his day, Dave had shuffled grumpily back to the dishroom. Ducking into the tiny locker room, he'd slipped out of his sweatshirt and blue jeans and donned the Wild West uniform, a pair of chocolate-brown trousers and a button-down shirt with vertical stripes of chocolate-brown, orange, and white. Pitching his belongings into a locker, he'd then punched his timecard at the clock, committing himself to at least five-and-a-half hours of highly unpleasant activity.

  His shift in the dishroom turned out to be just as miserable as he'd expected. Standing at the metal counter at one end of the dishwashing machine, he received loaded bus pans as they were delivered from the dining room. Dropping the black plastic bus pans on the counter, he then had to sort through them, plunge his hands into the mounds of slop to fish out dishes. Though he'd done this for years, especially when he'd first started at the steakhouse, Dave still hated running his hands through bus pan slop; he'd learned to accept it as part of the job, but he'd never gotten used to it.

  Seeking platters and cups and silverware, Dave dug through heaps of half-chewed food, discarded bones, and dressing-drenched salad. He sifted through pudding and potato skins and cole slaw, filthy napkins and cigarette butts, wads of gristle and unidentifiable substances. He had to comb the slop thoroughly, as much as he disliked it; if he just cursorily checked it, he might miss a fork or spoon, and one of the managers might catch it during an impromptu garbage inspection.

  After pulling all the dishes and silverware from a bus pan, Dave dumped the remaining slop into the waist-high plastic trash barrel behind him. He sprayed out the bus pan with a wall-mounted metal hose, then dropped the clean tub on a shelf so the busboy could grab it when he delivered his next load. With that done, Dave arranged the dirty dishes on green plastic racks and shoved them into the dishwasher, a boxy contraption with sides of dented sheet metal. The machine pulled the racks through, scalding them with hot water, finally pushing them out onto a metal runway.

  Usually, a second person was posted in the dishroom, assigned to the end of the runway to deal with the clean dishes; since it was a Monday, however, and Mondays were typically slow, Dave was on his own this time. After shoving a few racks through the machine, he had to hustle to the other side of the apparatus and attack the steaming items, yanking everything from the racks and sorting it for delivery. Salad plates and bowls were stacked on a long cart, as were the brown plastic roll baskets; the rectangular, metal entree platters were loaded onto a smaller cart, dropped upside-down into deep channels on two sides of the cube-shaped vehicle. Coffee mugs were arranged on trays and the amber beverage cups were overturned and fit together into high columns. Silverware was a nuisance: it came through the machine jumbled on a flat rack, and the knives, forks, and spoons had to be sorted into white plastic receptacles. There were trays, too, laminated fiberboard trays which the customers used to carry cups and napkins and silverware to their tables; the trays were deposited in the dishroom in huge piles, and once they were cleaned, were restacked in identical, unwieldy mounds.

  When Dave had washed and sorted so many dishes that he didn't have room for more, or when he had time between bus pans, or when the cooks or managers told him that they were out of something, he distributed what he'd cleaned. Wheeling the carts from the dishroom through a swinging door, he worked his way along what was known as "the line," the area where food was prepared and customers processed. On one side of the line were the broiler and oven and deep fryer, and the meal assembly stations; on the other side was a walkway through which customers passed with their trays, viewing the food preparation from behind a four-foot-high partition. At the start of the line, Dave muscled the heavy stacks of trays into troughs, then slipped the containers of silverware into a metal rack above the trays. Next he deposited the towers of cups by the soda machine, the coffee mugs by the coffee pot warmers. He left the cartload of entree platters at the broiler, then removed the empty cart. Roll baskets were given to the assemblers, the girls who tossed meat and potatoes and side orders together to form dinners. Finally, salad bowls and plates were stacked in a bin near the cash register, within easy reach of passing customers.

  When Dave finished the distribution process, he returned to the dishroom, where three or four slop-filled bus pans always awaited him. It was a frustrating cycle: wash dishes, distribute them, wash more, distribute them, wash more, etcetera. Dave could never get ahead, never feel any sense of completion, because the dirty dishes kept coming. As unpleasant as the work was, for the first hour-and-a-half of this day's shift, things went smoothly for Dave; he labored at a rapid, steady pace and never fell far behind in his bus pan-sorting, dishwashing, or deliveries. At four-thirty, though, the steakhouse went crazy. Unexpectedly, a huge swarm of customers overran the place, poured in all at once. It shouldn't have happened, because Mondays were never very hectic and there were no coupons in the newspaper that might have drawn such a throng; nevertheless, the rush struck suddenly, and Dave was soon working at a breakneck pace.

  Full bus pans surrounded him so quickly that they seemed to appear out of thin air; as soon as he finished unloading one pan, two more took its place. The assemblers and waitresses and manager kept darting into the dishroom, shouting for cups or silverware or platters. Dave moved as fast as he could, emptying bus pans and shoving racks of dishes through the machine, stacking and delivering items before they were even dry, and still it wasn't fast enough. He dashed from one end of the dishroom to the other, then ran out to the line and back, then did it all again, racing and flapping in a frenzied and fruitless overdrive. With each moment, he fell further and further behind, grew more harried and frantic.

  Then, all hell broke loose. A bus arrived.

  Sixty senior citizens descended on the Wild West Steakhouse like a silver-haired invasion force. They had come from Gorman, fifty miles away, to attend a Rosary Rally in Confluence; heading home after the Catholic event, they had decided to stop for dinner in suburban Highland, and of course they had selected this steakhouse for their meal. Wild West always drew a considerable number of senior citizens, mainly because of the restaurant's ten percent discount for anyone over the age of sixty-five.

  Like a flock of birds dropping onto a field, the busload of senior citizens engulfed the steakhouse. In a mere five minutes, Dave's situation went from maddeningly hectic to completely out of control. The busboy started hauling back two pans at a time, one load of muck and dishes stacked atop the other. Waitresses sprinted in
to dump piles of plates and silverware on the counter, not even bothering to deliver the stuff in bus pans. There weren't enough cleared tables in the dining room, so Dave also had to run out with a bus pan and gather dishes.

  Fifteen minutes into the rush, just as Dave was about ready to quit his job, a door swung open, and Mr. Martin the manager blew into the dishroom. He was wide-eyed and sweating, his hair plastered to his skull, the armpits of his white shirt soaked and darkened.

  "Hey Dave!" he called, scuffing over the floor tiles, waving for someone to follow him. "Good news! I brought you some help!"

  Expecting to see one of his fellow employees stroll through the door, Dave was surprised to see a stranger enter the dishroom. The guy was about six feet tall, with light brown hair clipped in a crew-cut. He had a closely-trimmed mustache and goatee, and wore blue jeans and a black T-shirt with no sleeves. He looked as if he were in his mid-to-late 40's, and his build was average except for his arms, which were thickly muscled.

  "This is Larry Smith," said Martin. "He needs a job, and we need some help, so I hired him. Just tell him what he has to do, and get this place caught up."

  "What?" blurted Dave, gaping in disbelief.

  "Just get caught up," ordered Martin. "Larry worked in a restaurant before, so I'm sure he'll catch on quick."

  "I don't have time to train someone," protested Dave, spreading his arms wide. "Just look at this place."

  "Do it!" barked the manager, jabbing a stubby index finger at Dave. "I'm not gonna' stand here and argue with you! Just do it!" Glaring, the boss leaned forcefully forward, his blue paisley tie swinging away from his prodigious belly.

  Realizing that there was no chance of reasoning with the tyrant, Dave shook his head with disgust. Without saying another word, he snatched a bus pan from the counter and started digging through slop once more.

  "Come on, Larry," said Martin, his voice softening now that he'd exerted his authority. "I'll get you a uniform out of the back, and you can change right here in the locker room. What size do you take?"

  "What sizes do you have?" the new guy asked glibly, following the manager through a door into the stockroom.

  "Medium and large," Dave heard Martin say before the stockroom door closed.

  Dave was furious. Cursing, he slammed plates onto a rack, then shoved it through the machine with such force that all the plates clattered forward. He wished he could shove Martin through the machine instead, let the scalding jets of water burn the creep's hide crimson.

  Before long, Martin and Larry emerged from the stockroom. Hurrying back out to the broiler, Martin wished the new employee luck, and Larry went into the locker room to don his uniform.

  Still seething, Dave grabbed an empty bus pan and stomped out to the dining room, as much to get away from his new problem as to clear tables for senior citizens. After a few minutes of racing around, sweeping refuse and dishes into the pan, he barreled back to his nook. Kicking open the swinging door, he let it crack gratifyingly against the wall, then smashed the bus pan down on a counter. Taking out his anger on the dishes, he hurled and slammed them, pitched them willy-nilly over the counter, flung slop everywhere.

  Filling one rack with platters and another with silverware, he drove them both into the machine, then slouched over to the runway on which they emerged. Cursing and grunting, he snatched the platters from the rack in great handfuls and turned to deposit them in the cubic cart.

  It was only then that he noticed that the cart was gone.

  The platter cart had vanished.

  Not only that, but the other cart was gone, too, the long cart.

  Surprised and confused, Dave glanced quickly around the dishroom but could see no sign of either cart. They had been right there by the runway when he'd gone to bus tables, and now they were nowhere to be found.

  Frowning with his hands full of platters, he suddenly realized that other things had changed, as well. He'd been so preoccupied when he'd returned to the dishroom that he hadn't noticed, but now he was struck by it all. When he'd stormed out, there had been at least three full racks of dishes on the runway, and now they were gone. There had been eight or nine loaded bus pans on the counter and shelves, and now there were only four. A huge pile of dirty plates and cups had been heaped in one of the basins, and the pile was now missing.

  Still holding the platters, Dave walked across the dishroom and peeked around a corner at the locker room door. It was wide open.

  Larry Smith wasn't in there.

  At that moment, the door to the line snapped open, and Dave whirled around. He saw the long cart emerge first, gleaming in the fluorescent dishroom light. The cart was empty.

  Larry Smith was pushing it.

  "Hey, buddy!" Larry called cheerfully. "How's that dining room shaping up?"

  Dave just stood there with his mouth hanging open.

  "One hell of a rush, huh?" smiled Larry, parking the cart in its proper spot. "We really got swamped, didn't we?"

  Gaping with astonishment at the empty cart, Dave spoke slowly. "What did you do while I was gone?" he asked.

  "Well," Larry said matter-of-factly, "I cleaned out a couple bus pans and sent some racks through the machine. There were racks of stuff that was already clean, so I unloaded all that and put it on the carts. Then, the carts were full, so I took them out front and got rid of everything."

  "Geez," said Dave, shaking his head. "Are you trying to tell me that you did all that in the five minutes I was out in the dining room?"

  "Uh-huh." Larry nodded pleasantly. "Seeing as how we're so busy, I figured I'd better get right to work."

  "Where did you put everything?" wondered Dave, unable to believe the guy's accomplishment.

  "Well, I put the salad bowls and plates in the bin by the register," recounted Larry. "I gave the roll baskets to the assemblers, and those little bowls for the gravy and mushrooms. The cups and coffee mugs I stacked up by the drink station, and I put the silverware in that rack over the trays. I left the platter cart by the broiler, but I still have to bring back the empty one. Does that all sound about right?"

  "Oh, yeah," said Dave, still amazed. "That's right, all right."

  "Great," grinned Larry, scratching a spot in his crew-cut.

  "I just don't understand how you knew," said Dave. "I mean, it's just your first day. Mr. Martin told me you worked in a restaurant, but how could you know exactly where everything goes here?"

  "The place I worked at used to be a Wild West Steakhouse," explained Larry. "It was down in Virginia. Company sold it a couple years ago, so it's not Wild West anymore, but it was laid out almost exactly like this place."

  "Ohhhh," nodded Dave. "I see."

  "That was one of the reasons why Tom Martin gave me this job so quick, 'cause I could just jump right in and start working. Plus, I'm a friend of Tom's. Known him for years, so I guess he was doing me a favor."

  "Well, I've gotta' tell you," said Dave, "I'm really impressed. I mean, thanks. Thanks for doing all that stuff."

  "No sweat," grinned Larry, reaching out to give Dave a friendly swat on the shoulder. "Just doing my job."

  "I really thought I'd have to train you," smiled Dave, "but hey, this is great. Maybe we can get this place caught up, after all."

  "That's the plan, Stan," laughed Larry.

  At that moment, a door crashed open, and the busboy stumbled in with another overflowing load of dishes and slop. Dave's bout of surprise and gratitude abruptly ended, and he snapped back like a rubber band to the urgent reality of the rush.

  *****

  By six o'clock, the rush had mostly run its course. All the senior citizens had evacuated the steakhouse and wandered back to their bus. Business dropped off substantially, returning to the low, steady level which was more typical of a Monday evening. In the home stretch at last, Dave and Larry continued to slug away at the mess, clearing tables which they knew wouldn't fill up immediately, washing dishes which wouldn't boomerang back to the dishroom quite so quickly as
before. By seven o'clock or so, they finally finished the post-rush cleanup, and everything settled down. The flood of bus pans slowed to a trickle, the counters and shelves were bare, and the two guys actually found time to take a breather.

  Leaning back against the counter, Dave wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of one hand. "Man," he puffed tiredly, gazing around the dormant dishroom. "What an evening, huh?"

  "Sure was," sighed Larry, sipping from an amber cup full of cola. That was one of the few benefits which came with working at the Wild West Steakhouse: soda was free for the taking.

  "I thought this was going to be an easy night, being Monday and all. If I'd known a bus was headed our way, I would've called off sick."

  "Aw, it wasn't so bad," Larry said with a shrug. "Nothing we couldn't handle."

  "Nothing we couldn't handle," Dave said wryly, "but if it had just been me the whole time, forget it! Before you got here, I was about ready to throw in the towel!"

  "Why didn't Tom call somebody in to give you a hand?" Larry asked with a slight frown. "I'm sure he could've gotten someone to come in for a few hours."

  "Well," said Dave, catching himself just as he was about to launch a verbal assault on Mr. Martin's character, remembering that Larry had said he was a friend of his. "I really don't know. I guess maybe he figured the rush wouldn't last long, so we wouldn't need an extra person. Once that bus came, I guess he was probably too busy to make any phone calls."

  "Or maybe he's just an asshole, huh?" grinned Larry, slyly raising one eyebrow.

  Surprised, Dave bugged his eyes wide and laughed. "Well, that's possible, too," he agreed.

  "Not just possible," declared Larry. "It's probable."

  "Well, that's true," grinned Dave. "I didn't want to say it, with you being an old friend of his and all, but that's definitely true."

  Blowing out his breath, Larry rolled his eyes and dismissively waved a hand through the air. "Aw, don't worry about that 'friend' business. I said I was an old friend of Tom's, not a good one."