Knife Skills by Wendy Church

Author:Wendy Church [Church, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2023-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

I deposited the listening devices at home then headed straight to the restaurant. It really was nice to not have to be there at the crack of dawn.

Valentin came in a while after I arrived and gestured me upstairs.

I walked up, and he handed me an envelope full of cash. It was fatter than the last time. I resisted the urge to look in it. ‘Thanks.’

‘There will be another small event this Sunday. Not big, and not dinner. A little food on the trays. It will be at the normal time, seven o’clock, about ten people. Our guests are from Mexico, from Sinaloa. Anatoly would like the food to please them.’

This was the event with the cartel that Smith had mentioned. I nodded, although I wasn’t looking forward to seeing them. I hated drug dealers.

‘And one more thing.’

Somehow that simple phrase sent a chill up my spine.

‘The dinner parties have unlimited budgets.’ He picked up a folder from the desk. ‘The restaurant does not,’ he said, opening the folder and peering at the top page. ‘Since you took over, non-personnel costs here are up thirty percent. You need to keep expenses in line with what we were spending before.’

He was right, I’d definitely upped the spending at the restaurant. We were starting to put out really outstanding food, and the clientele was already changing. A recent online review noted my tasting menu, and more people were asking for it. But I was surprised he was bringing it up. He hadn’t said a word about the costs for the dinner parties, including the last one, where I’d spent a few thousand for the ice sculpture and over a thousand dollars for the Wagyu appetizer alone. I’d assumed the money was all coming from the same place. And I knew I could do this profitably. Tasting menus were great for that. Not only could you charge more, but it helped manage food costs. When everyone was eating the same thing, it was easier to plan, and we ended up throwing out less food.

I took a deep breath. ‘I know our expenses are up, but the receipts should be up. We’re spending more, but we’re bringing in more too.’

This seemed like a no-brainer, and I couldn’t think of a reason why he would object. Smith had said they were using the restaurant to launder money; the way I thought about it, if we brought in more people and they paid more per person, it stood to reason that they could launder more money. I realized vaguely that I was helping aid and abet them to be more successful criminals, but I pushed the thought out of my mind.

‘It’s not your job to keep track of that. I told you – leave the accounting to me.’

I was getting used to running my own kitchen and doing what I wanted, and didn’t want to let it go. ‘Look, this week we turned almost thirty percent more covers than the average for last year at this time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.