He shook himself awake in his chair, glanced at the fading daylight pouring in the window, and then at the hero riding away into the matching sunset on the television set. He looked at his watch; five forty five. He got to his feet and stretched hugely, and walked over to the set and turned it off. In the bathroom he splashed water noisily on his face, his palms rasping the bronze shadow on his jawline. Resignedly he dried his face and took down the electric razor.
He shaved hurriedly and looked in the living room for his uniform jacket. He picked it up from the chair into which he had thrown it upon entering, but at sight of the resultant wrinkles he dropped it again and removed a fresh one from the closet.
In the corridor he considered a moment and then walked down the five nights to the lobby and on into the bar where Fred, the day man, nodded a greeting. “Little early for you, John.”
“A little. Richie around?”
“In the kitchen.”
He walked down the length of the long bar, its gleaming mahogany ever so faintly iridescent under its coating of linseed oil, and passed through the service door into the kitchen beyond. White uniformed cooks, assistant cooks, and busboys rushed about behind the long steel counters ministering to the horde of red-jacketed waiters, and a confusedly subdued babble of sound rose and fell above the steaming atmosphere.
Richie approached him with a service setup on a tray and a glint of curiosity in the hazel eyes. “Hi, John. You deputizing?”
“Yeah.” Johnny took the tray from him. “What'd she order?”
“Roast beef.”
“Not much they can do to spoil that.” Johnny looked over at the salad counter. “Henry?” The salad man looked up from his half crouch in front of his sink as he rinsed his hands in cold running water. “You got time to let me get in there and rustle myself up a little something?”
“Help yourself, John. My rush is over.”
Johnny moved in behind the short counter with Richie on his heels, and the boy looked at him appraisingly.
“Why'd you bother asking him?” he inquired in a lowered voice when the saturnine Henry moved away to the other end of the kitchen. “D'you think he'd have tried to Stop you?”
Johnny looked up over his shoulder as he knelt before the opened door of the square salad refrigerator. “You must think I'm tired of livin', kid. You don't reach my age pushing kitchen help around. That kind of stuff calls for slow music and faded flowers.”
After a momentary inspection of the refrigerator's contents he removed a head of lettuce, a stalk of celery, a bunch of radishes, two tomatoes, a small cucumber, and a scallion. He straightened up and removed a clove of garlic from the drying string overhead and added it to the pile. From the maple cabinet to the left of the refrigerator he took out ewers of olive oil and wine vinegar, and shakers of pepper and salt. He reached back in once more for a large salad bowl with a visible sheen, then removed his jacket and handed it to Richie.
He rolled up his sleeves, picked up a knife and tried it for balance, and laid it down again. He stripped the slightly wilted outer leaves from the lettuce head and tossed them in the soup stock box. He removed another half dozen crisp leaves and rinsed them lightly in the cold running water, then laid them out on the drain board while he rapidly washed the rest of the vegetables. He picked up the knife again and cut the clove of garlic in two and carefully rubbed the salad bowl with the larger portion. He looked across to the watching Richie.
The big hands gathered the vegetables together on the cutting board. He shredded the lettuce and lined the salad bowl cut the tomatoes in wedges and tossed them in, and chopped the radishes and the scallion, the rapidly moving knife thudding on the board like the roll of a small drum. He diced the celery, and sliced the small cucumber, and added them to the bowl. Measuring with a judicious eye he picked up the olive oil and poured a small quantity over the bowl's contents, and followed suit with the wine vinegar, even more sparingly. He used the salt and pepper liberally and tossed the salad vigorously with his hands for thirty seconds before stepping aside and rinsing off at the running water.
“That looks good,” Richie announced. “Where'd you learn to do it?”
“In Italy. A bishop showed me. He had a broken leg, and he couldn't get around to make it for himself, so he taught me to make it for him. Helluva guy; none better. He must have weighed better'n two sixty and he could go up a rope hand over hand like a hundred forty pounder.”
“Aww, cut it out! A bishop climbing a rope?”
“I'm telling you he could really go.”
“If he had a broken leg he must've gone down one time instead of up.”
“A character cut the rope, but that's another story. Everything else ready?”
“All ready.”
“Let's go, then.” Johnny covered his salad bowl and followed Richie and his tray behind the enormous kitchen range to the tiny room service elevator. To the right of the elevator stood a sleekly polished rolling oven, and Johnny indicated it to Richie with a nod as he slid open the metal door. “Kick that steamer aboard here, kid.”
The boy complied, shaking his head as he carefully set down his heavily burdened tray. “Boy, are you ever making a production out of this thing! You figurin' on marrying the dame?”
“Paste this in your derby, Rich: you should never serve a meal upstairs without a steamer, even if it is a little more trouble. Okay. See you around.” He closed the elevator door, punched the twelve button on the automatic pilot, and waited until the car stopped and the door slid open silently. With the salad bowl aloft in his left hand he steered the freely rolling oven off the car into the corridor and around two corners to the door of 1224. His knock was answered immediately, and he eased the wagon over the slightly raised threshold.
She stood aside to let him in, a slight smile on her face, and he crossed to the card table ready with its usual tablecloth and deposited the covered salad bowl. He returned to the oven, knelt and lit the alcohol brazier and slid the tray into the heating compartment. When he had made the customary place setting and withdrawn her chair, she seated herself in silence, but when Johnny removed the cover from the salad bowl she exclaimed with pleasure. “Insalata mista!” The momentary brightness drained from her features, and she looked up at him speculatively as he spooned a portion of the salad into an individual bowl and placed it before her.
He spoke without looking at her. “Not everyone calls it by that name, ma'am.”
Her fingers plucked stiffly at the napkin in her lap. “I have eaten it before,” she said finally. “It is not uncommon.”
“But more common in some areas than others?” She stared down at her water glass without replying, and Johnny took up his usual station behind her. She began to eat slowly and despite her preoccupation, appreciatively. The room was quiet in the interval before she looked up again in the little gesture which indicated that he was to move back into her field of vision. She looked directly at him an instant, and then back down at the salad. “This is very good.” She hesitated. “You keep reminding me of- of things I thought I had forgotten.”
At her left he refilled her salad dish and set it a little to one side. He returned to the oven, swathed his hand in a napkin and removed the roast beef platter from the heating compartment. He placed it before her and removed the aluminum lid. “Careful. Plate's hot.”
She nodded absently, her eyes following the quick dexterity with which he deepened the incision in a foil-wrapped baked potato and inserted a slice of butter, and then with a circular motion of his wrist opened up the potato until its mealy center was exposed. “Why do I feel that you remind me deliberately?”
He took up her knife and fork and cut her roast beef into manageably small pieces, placed the knife on the butter dish, and handed her the fork.