Leon stepped outside without looking for an escort.
"I'll walk," he told the security guard. "I know every exit here."
Outside, the afternoon air had cooled. Leon crossed the parking lot and stopped beside his old sedan. A moment later, the door opened behind him. Roz came out carrying a canvas tote and the folded apron she had not wanted to leave behind.
"Table-leg guy," she said. "You didn't have to do that."
"Yes, I did."
"You barely know me."
"I know what you did. That's enough to start with."
She looked down at the apron. "Rent is due Friday. Tips were my rent."
Leon waited, giving her space to say what she needed to say. He had learned a long time ago that people who were embarrassed by their circumstances often needed a little silence more than they needed reassurance.
"How short are you?" he asked.
Her chin lifted. "Don't. I'm not taking your money."
"I wasn't offering you a handout," he said. "I was trying to understand the damage. There's a difference."
She studied him, deciding whether to believe that.
"What's your full name?" he asked.
"Rosalind Petrakis. Why?"
"So I spell it right."
"For what?"
"For the record."
That answer did not satisfy her, but she was too tired to argue. She gave him her phone number when he asked whether she would keep it on the next day. Then she put the tote over her shoulder and started toward the bus stop.
"Get home safe, table-leg guy," she called back.
Leon almost smiled. "You too, Roz."
He watched until she reached the corner before he got into his car. He did not feel triumphant. He felt angry, and underneath the anger, ashamed. He had known for years that the group had grown large enough for him to lose sight of ordinary details. He had told himself that the managers he hired would protect the culture. He had treated trust as if it were a substitute for attention.
He had come to learn what the front door saw.
Now he had.
At 4:10 that afternoon, Leon called his sister.
"June, I'm in. Kitchen-door table. Let's see if the reviews are right," he had told her earlier, when he first sat down. Now he gave her the rest of the story, from the forty-two-minute wait to the double-priced fish and Roz's dismissal.
June did not interrupt. She had been a teenager when she and Leon washed dishes in their mother's diner, and she had heard every version of his voice: exhausted, excited, furious, grieving. The quiet tone he used now worried her more than shouting would have.
"Every register reports to our system," she said when he finished. "I can pull the records."
"Pull Ninth. Three weeks. Table twenty-two, and any other table Darren touched."
"I'll start with the overrides."
"Don't start with what you think happened. Start with what the records say."
"I know how to audit a restaurant, Leon."
"I know you do. That's why I'm calling you."
June exhaled. "I'll call you when I have something."
By seven that evening, she had found the first six transactions. By nine, she had found nineteen. At 10:14 p.m., she called him back.
"Leon, it's not just your table."
He sat at the small desk in his home office, the notebook open beside him. "How many?"
"Thirty-one overrides in three weeks. Every one of them exactly double the listed price. Every one entered under Darren's manager code. And every one is attached to a table in the less desirable sections: by the kitchen door, near the service station, or along the wall at the back. Not one window table. Not one table assigned to a reservation flagged as a corporate account."