Done in Fifteen Years novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Who Cooked Kansas City

I wiped my hands on my apron and looked through the order window.

She was in her fifties, with short silver hair and reading glasses pushed up on her head.

Her navy polo had a little pine tree stitched over the heart.

She was the only person in line who wasn't sunburned.

"Brisket plate, please," she told Macey. "Moist end. And whatever she thinks I should have with it."

"Who's she?" Macey said.

The woman smiled.

"The cook."

Macey didn't blink.

"Twelve dollars. Bread's one slice. This is a business."

I cut the plate myself.

Moist end, a burnt end on the side, white bread, an onion and two pickles.

I didn't send it out.

I carried it.

The river people at the counter went quiet as I came around the end of it.

The tube man put down his tea.

I set the plate in front of her.

"You were in the front row," I said. "On the square."

"I was." She held out her hand. "I run acquisitions for Lone Pine."

"I know who you are."

"Then you know I'm the one who told my board to pay forty million dollars for Kilgore's."

I shook her hand.

Her grip was dry and hard.

"Your husband says you've had a breakdown," she said.

"My husband says a lot of things on TV."

"He also says he cooked the brisket that won Kansas City." She picked up her fork. "And you said, on a microphone, in front of my whole team, that you did."

The counter was so quiet I could hear the walk-in compressor.

"I did," I said.

"Can you prove it?"

"Not on paper."

"Then how?"

I nodded at her plate.

She looked at me a moment longer.

Then she cut a bite with the side of her fork and ate it.

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