“Sure.”
“Your boss has given you a glowing report,” Rifkin said. “First, he liked the way your job interview went, then he liked the way you’ve done the job he gave you.”
“I’ve hardly done it yet,” Gennaro said. “Our first guests are just arriving, and nobody’s asked for a drink, so far.”
“I guess not,” Rifkin said, chuckling appreciatively. He looked at Gennaro’s employment application. “I guess you know just about everything about restaurants, don’t you?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Why did you leave the family business?”
“I had two older brothers who wouldn’t go first.”
“No room at the top, huh?”
“And my father is still running the place.”
“No room at even nearly the top.”
“You got it. A friend of mine introduced me to the Beverly Hills Hotel operation, and it worked.”
“But not in the restaurant end?”
“The bar is in the restaurant end,” Gennaro replied.
“What would your next logical promotion there have been?”
“Maybe maître d’, but I’d have had to wait for the owner of that position to die—he would never have retired.”
“So you applied for a bartender’s job at The Arrington?”
“Not really. I was aiming for a managerial job.”
“So you invented one for yourself.”
“I showed them how I could be more useful in a supervisory position.”
“So what’s your next promotion possibility here?”
“Maître d’, if the owner of that job dies. He’s only fifty-six.”
“Nothing else?”
“Sure, food and beverage manager. I mean, my boss isn’t going anywhere, but in a new hotel, things are fluid. He might get promoted.”
“An astute observation. You have access to the wine and spirits storage room, don’t you?”
“I’m in charge of it,” Gennaro replied. “Word is, you found something illegal in there.”
“You might say that,” Rifkin replied. “Any idea what it was?”
“I heard a guy came out of there in what looked like a diving suit. Lobsters?”
Rifkin laughed. “I’ll bet you know what that suit was.”
Gennaro shrugged. “I go to the movies, I watch TV.”
“Tell me, Michael, you’re a bright guy—speculate for me how whatever he found in there got in there.”