Irish Stewed by Kylie Logan Page A

to talk about Jack Lancer,” I said.
    George shot a look at me over his shoulder. “Do we?”
    I shrugged like it was no big deal when actually, I was beginning to think it was. “I hate being left out of the loop. And I am the boss.”
    “Only until Sophie comes back.”
    I couldn’t agree more and I nodded to prove it. “Only until Sophie comes back. But right here, right now, I’m in charge. And today’s going to be a crazy day what with the media circus and all. Which means if I don’t know what’s going on—”
    “Nothing. Honest.” George slipped the pancakes and bacon onto a plate and rang a bell to tell Denice to come pick up the food. After she was gone, he turned to me.
    “It happened a long time ago,” he said. “Before I came to work for Sophie.”
    “Denice says you’ve been here twelve years.”
    “Nearly.” He leaned back against the counter. “Before that, I had my own place. George’s Country Diner. South of here. Over near Struthers.”
    I wasn’t surprised to hear George had once owned his own restaurant and now cooked for Sophie. This is a toughbusiness, and restaurants open and close at the speed of light. Sometimes it’s because a place stays hot for a while, then falls off customers’ radar. Other times, it’s money problems that make a restaurant close its doors. Often, people who get into the industry picture themselves meeting and greeting patrons, sipping wine in a corner, and watching the cash roll in. Long hours, staff problems, hot kitchens, and soaring food costs have a way of wiping that fantasy off the map!
    “Jack Lancer, he lived over near Struthers then,” George said.
    My head came up. “You knew him from your restaurant?”
    George grumbled a word I couldn’t quite hear. “Thought he was God’s gift to the world. The Lance of Justice!” He spun to face the counter, his palms braced against the stainless steel. His shoulders heaved. “He used to come into my place once in a while, and you know, that son of a gun expected a free meal every single time. Because he was some big shot TV star!”
    He spun back the other way, threw out his hands, and let them drop to his sides with a slap. “That guy’s got a plum job over at a TV station and he expects free meals out of a guy who was working sixteen-hour days and barely making ends meet. Can you believe it?”
    I could. I’d seen that sort of attitude of entitlement—and worse—from the Hollywood crowd.
    “And you know, the first time he said something about free food and how he’d spread the word around about my place and he gave me that smile of his and a big wink . . .” I got the feeling that if we weren’t in the restaurant, George would have spit on the floor. “The first time, I fell for it. I was only too happy to give him a free burger and fries. After all, he was the Lance of Justice!”
    “But it happened again, right?”
    “And again and again and again. And then the Lance, he’d bring his wife in and expect her to get free food, too. Or one of his girlfriends.”
    The fact about the Lance’s affairs jibed with what Kim had told me about his private life, so I wasn’t surprised.
    “I just couldn’t do it. I had rent. And utilities. I had suppliers to pay. I told him that, too, and you know what the Lance did?”
    “Said bad things about your food?”
    “Worse than that! That no-good, lowdown scumbag had the nerve to do a piece about my restaurant. You know, one of those ex-po-sés talking about how the service was terrible and the food was rotten.”
    “Was it?”
    Fire in his eyes, George shot me a look and pushed away from the counter. Good thing he realized I was just playing devil’s advocate because had he come at me, I wouldn’t have liked to think about defending myself with nothing but the loaf of white bread on the counter nearby.
    “George’s Country Diner wasn’t no five-star restaurant, but it was clean and the food was decent and I didn’t overcharge nobody.