I have to say that’s the first blow job we’ve had in the dining room during service in a while. Or indeed, ever. I do remember hearing from a friend about a well-nourished restaurant critic who once turned up very drunk at his place, with a rather venal and vituperative writer, plus two more plastered hackettes, only for one of the girls to disappear under the table to perform fellatio on the fat critic. My mate, who was maître d’ at the time, couldn’t believe it. Firstly, that the girl could find the fat critic’s penis, when surely he himself hadn’t seen it for years, and secondly, that she couldn’t wait until the main course.
‘It was during the starter!’ he said.
‘How big was the restaurant?’ I asked.
‘Not big enough,’ he replied.
He had no idea what to do. The critic was important and he couldn’t boot him out into the street, scrabbling at his fly. Anyway, it ended in tears. The girl’s. Apparently she came up for air, drank another shot of vodka and was so appalled by her own behaviour that she promptly ran out of the place in tears.
A blow job in the room is quite rare. We’ve had a few hand jobs and some pretty full-on footsie before, where the ladies – and I use that term loosely – have removed their underwear and the gentleman has taken off his shoes. They think they are being discreet, but you can usually tell by the silence at the table, or the concentrated look on the bloke’s face. Plus we’ve had quite a few pairs of pants that have been cleared away along with the napkins, having been left behind on the floor. But normally if someone can’t control their tumescence, they’ll retire to the lavatories. We have endless liaisons in our toilets and, fortunately, they are little larger than anything you’ll find on an airline, so you don’t need a trick pelvis to enjoy them. Although sometimes you’d be amazed quite how athletic seemingly ungymnastic middle-aged customers are. A few weeks ago one of the cleaners called me over to show me the men’s loo. We’d a couple who’d disappeared for about twenty minutes during dinner the night before, and here was the reason why. Halfway up the wall, to the right of the loo seat, were two perfect stiletto prints on the new cream paint. It was so weird. Everyone came in to investigate. She must have had extremely flexible hips to get her legs that high in the air. It was impressive. But you know, if you can manage it in a broom cupboard in Nobu, you can manage it anywhere. Talk to anyone at Nobu and they’ll say it was the staff room, although Boris Becker himself said it was the stairs – as if that’s any better!
‘What shall we do?’ I ask Michelangelo, still staring at the pair of red soles poking out from under the table. I glance around the room. I am desperately hoping no one else has noticed. But the WKF and his gang are too confident that everyone else is looking at them to see any of the other customers and the three girls on the next-door table are providing the perfect audience. It’s the inspector I worry about. Although, you never know, he could throw in a couple of red knife and fork symbols, or couvert, our way denoting the restaurant is a ‘pleasant place to be’, with good décor and, indeed, service. But somehow I doubt it. ‘How much longer do you think she’s going to be?’
‘Judging by the look on his face, not long,’ replies Michelangelo.
‘Do you think?’
We both stand and stare. It is hard not to. Mr Sergeev’s face is puffed and pink with drink, his eyes are bulging slightly and there is a smirk of pleasure playing on his chapped lips. His forehead is covered in a dank film, his thin mouse hair that was combed carefully over the top of his smooth domed head when he arrived, now hangs in a few sweaty strings. His small mouth suddenly opens like a goldfish gasping for air. He raises his thin eyebrows with surprise, coughs once and then reaches for his glass of champagne.
‘There,’ nods Michelangelo.
‘Really?’ I’m pretty sure I’d make rather a lot more noise than that.
But he’s right. The red-soled shoes move and a skinny black-clad backside emerges from under the cloth and the dark-haired woman appears, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. I look across at the inspector; he is fortunately busy picking his way through the last of his crab salad. I can’t help but breathe a small sigh of relief.
‘Oh, by the way,’ says Michelangelo, ‘have you heard that Jorge is planning to leave? Apparently he’s been in negotiations for a while.’
‘Yes.’ I nod. I feel a smart of irritation – why am I always the last to know anything? ‘It has been brought to my attention.’
There’s movement from Prinz Zee’s table as they all get up at once. There are five empty bottles of Cristal on the table and a pile of cash. He can come again any time he wants. He saunters over to the table with the three girls and, pushing his cap at a 45-degree angle, proceeds to give them all a high-five. This seems to go down well as the level of giggling and hair flicking reaches fever pitch. One of the girls gets out her phone and Zee poses next to the other two, sideways on, with his index finger pointing towards the ceiling like a gun. There is more laughing and the chicken-bag girl manages to snatch a kiss. I am hoping she is now so thrilled with her evening she’ll forget the dry-cleaning bill. Zee and his entourage are about to leave when he turns and walks towards me. His fist is extended.
‘Man,’ he says, giving me a punch on the arm. ‘Great evening.’
‘Thank you.’ I am not really sure if I am meant to punch him back. The man’s barely capable of growing facial hair. I could be had up for child abuse. So I resist and fiddle with my cufflinks instead, like Prince Charles. ‘I am glad you had a nice time.’
‘Man, you’ve got a good place,’ he nods, looking around the room nodding some more. ‘Cool.’
I am not sure how many Michelin-star places he’s ever eaten in but I’ll take any compliment. ‘I am glad you liked it.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I met your PR, Caz, the other night. Great lady.’
‘Caz?’
‘Yeah, we had fun.’ There is a vague snigger from a couple of the younger men in the entourage. ‘We had, like, a very good time.’
‘Excellent.’ I smile. So this is Caz’s handiwork. I must remember to thank her.
He ambles towards the door, his baggy trousers belted to the bottom half of his buttocks, his cap on sideways; even with a distinct heel to his trainers he can’t be more than five foot six. Outside the paps who’d remained encamped despite the chilly conditions have their dedication rewarded, with single shots of Zee doing peace signs in the street and a couple of up-close-and-personal shots with the entourage. I expect I’ll see those as Biz-Bits in all the tabloids tomorrow. The fluffy blonde with the Grand Canyon cleavage calls a halt to proceedings and pops them all into a nearby blacked-out people mover.
Could Caz have really shagged that?
‘Excuse me, sir?’ Mikus is by my side whispering in my ear. ‘You are needed urgently out the back.’
I look at him. ‘Urgently?’ He nods.
I walk into the kitchen, just as Luca glides past with a perfectly plated turbot destined for the inspector. Inside the kitchen is looking remarkably chastened and taciturn. They are looking towards the back door. I open it.
‘Jesus Christ!’ I recoil. Standing in front of me are four men in stab jackets crowding into the door.
‘You the manager?’ barks one, his freezing breath bellowing out of his mouth like a charging bull.
‘Who wants to know?’ My mind is racing. My heart is pounding. Who the hell are these guys? There are no markings. The first thing that comes to mind is that Big Pete has sent some heavies round.
‘Immigration,’ says one of them. He unzips his jacket and flashes me his UK Border Agency badge.
‘But I’ve got customers,’ I say.
‘And we’ve got a job to do.’ He sniffs. There’s a crackle on his radio and I hear the muffled words. ‘Go! Go! Go!’
Four guys storm in the back door, flattening me against the wall as they pass. Another eight pile in the front. They are swift, vocal, armed and they mean business. It takes less than four minutes to corral everyone together in the kitchen and they don’t use the softly-softly approach. It’s physical and there’s plenty of pushing and shoving. The agency KP makes the mistake of continuing to polish the silver. He is yelled at and told in no uncertain terms to ‘PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!’
Out front it’s chaos. Anna is trying to assure the customers that everything is fine. But everyone is standing up, milling round, asking what is going on, wanting to pay their bill, trying to get their coats. The Russians look particularly perturbed. There’s nothing like a vanload of armed officials with heavy boots and small weapons to get an oligarch to pay up and piss off at speed. Within seconds of the boys bursting through the door, two other burley blokes in suits appear at the restaurant window with fat necks, cropped hair and earpieces. A blacked-out Merc screams on to the pavement, Mr Sergeev drops £1,500 in cash on the table, and within two minutes the party of four are gone. His bill was just over a grand so he left a £500 tip, which is generous in anyone’s book.
The other customers are a little less organized. It takes another ten to fifteen minutes to empty the place. The table of three girls giggles out into the street, pronouncing it the most exciting night they’d had in years – what with sitting next to a pop star and witnessing a police raid, I can pretty much now guarantee we won’t have to pay for the bag. Everyone else leaves in a polite and charming fashion, quietly collecting their belongings and walking single file as they would during a school fire practice.
The last out is the inspector who, I note, did manage to finish his turbot despite the interruptions.
‘I am terribly sorry,’ I say, holding out my hand to shake his.
‘These things happen,’ he replies, giving me a weak tug on the arm.
‘They could have waited another half-hour,’ I said. ‘But I hope you enjoyed your food.’
‘It was good, very good. I shall have to come back and sample the rice pudding soufflé, I was looking forward to that.’
‘It’s amazing.’ I smile. ‘Delicious. Do you have a card on you? Mr …?’
‘Adams. No, I am afraid I don’t at the moment.’ He moves towards the door. ‘But I shall be back for the pudding.’
‘Yes, do!’ I call after him. ‘And maybe bring a friend.’
‘Maybe.’
The man is definitely an inspector, definitely. I feel it in my bones. At least if he comes back we’ll know this time what he looks like. Although I am pretty sure he probably won’t because they’ll surely send someone else. However, you never know. Sometimes they do make themselves known to you; they can even leave a card, just to inform you that you’ve been inspected, just to make you a little more paranoid, if that were possible. Anyway, at least we won’t be judged on tonight. Or I bloody hope not.
Back in the kitchen and all my staff are lined up as if they are about to face a firing squad. Some of them look terrified and the others look bored, jaded and just keen to get home.
‘Right,’ says the tallest, broadest bloke. ‘I need IDs and I need them now.’
‘I’d just like to say that I am the owner and I know there is no one illegal here, so all we need to do is go through things politely and calmly and everything will be OK.’
‘With all due respect, sir,’ he says, his nose is a little too close to mine for comfort, ‘we have information that tells us otherwise.’
‘Oh, that’s ridiculous!’ I laugh. ‘I wouldn’t employ anyone illegal, I just don’t. It’s not worth it. It used to be, I grant you, I mean we all did!’ I laugh again, attempting to lighten the atmosphere. ‘But now you guys can pop in whenever you fancy, we don’t. I don’t, none of us do.’
‘We’d like to see your paperwork.’ He exhales in my face and his breath smells of cheese and onion crisps.
‘What, now?’
‘Yes, now!’
‘But I’ve seen all their IDs! I have photocopies of their passports in the safe and I’ve checked them all and they are all fine.’
I am now beginning to sweat a little. I quickly thank my lucky stars that Gina is Danish, because I haven’t even got her sodding telephone number, let alone her passport details.
‘We need to see the paperwork,’ he repeats.
‘Fine,’ I reply. ‘It’s in the office in my other place up the road.’
‘Get it. We’ll send a couple of our officers with you. In the meantime, you lot can stay here.’
‘Well, actually, can I just point out that I am a UK citizen,’ says Andrew, running his hands through his long greasy hair. ‘You may have heard of me? Andrew James? I’ve been a judge on MasterChef?’
‘Yeah, well,’ replies the officer. ‘Cooking is not really my thing.’
On the way up the street to Le Bar, I start talking to the officers who are escorting me. Called John and Conner, they are quite nice blokes and apologize for the heavy-handed approach, saying they are always quite tense before they go in, because, despite the intel, they never quite know what they’re going to come across. They go on to tell me some story about how two of their colleagues were attacked with machetes when they raided the bowels of a Chinese restaurant in Soho.
‘They play dirty, those bastards,’ says John as we arrive outside Le Bar. ‘Raiding Soho is not a job we’re queuing up for. They both ended up in hospital with serious wounds.’
‘Hello, sailor!’ purrs a plastered brunette as she spies John in his uniform. She and a couple of girlfriends are curled around an outdoor gas-burning heater, puffing away on cigarettes.
‘I’m not a sailor, I’m an immigration officer,’ he replies, ignoring her advances.
We enter the bar and the place is mobbed, everyone the worse for cocktails. Like molecules treated with heat they are moving around, dancing, zigzagging and constantly bumping into each other. I catch Adam’s eyes and he gives me a puzzled look as he takes in my two escorts.
‘Immigration,’ I mouth. His eyes widen and he comes over immediately, pushing his way through the crowd.
‘Everything OK?’ he shouts above the loud music.
‘Fine, I’ve just got to get the paperwork.’
‘All right, gentlemen.’ He attempts an ingratiating grin. The officers remain stony-faced.
The back office is a complete mess. The large black desk is covered in piles and sheets and random bits of paper. There are at least three half-drunk Starbucks cups that have separated into a layer of cold coffee with a thick milky head. There are two jam jars crammed with a collection of barely working pens, pinched from hotels all over the world. There’s a saucer of spare change, endless Juicy Fruit wrappers and a sprinkle of fag ash all over the place. The walls are painted dark claret red, three cork noticeboards line one side of the room, covered in staff rotas, photos and invitations to trendy Shoreditch pop-ups. In one corner, there’s an old wooden hatstand overloaded coats, scarfs and plastic bags. Opposite sits a black filing cabinet with a large, slowly dehydrating spider plant on top and next to its shrivelled leaves is a small, suspiciously smeared-looking mirror and a curled £20 note. I pick up the note and put it straight in my pocket, hopefully quick enough for Immigration not to notice.
‘I am sorry about the state of the place,’ I laugh, slowly pushing the mirror under the plant. ‘The records are in the safe.’
Inside the safe there are plastic files with photocopies of everyone’s passports along with wads of cash, bags of change and my divorce papers. There is also a padded brown envelope that I am pretty sure contains at least four grams of cocaine.
‘Here we are!’ I say, swiftly shutting the door.
Back at Le Restaurant and only a small gang of the staff remain standing to attention in the kitchen. Andrew, Oscar, Barney, Matt, Davide, Anna, Luca, Gina and a few of the others who have managed to prove their human right to be here are sitting around at one of the back tables drinking wine. I am not sure where the bottle has come from, but given the day we’ve had, nor do I care. There’s still a group of sweaty nervous individuals who need my help proving exactly who they are.
‘OK,’ I say, licking my finger and leafing through the photocopies. ‘So this is Alfonso, he’s Italian, from … Capri. Capri?’ I say, turning to look at him. ‘I never knew that?’
‘You never asked,’ he replies.
‘Yes, well.’ I nod. ‘And he’s thirty-eight years old.’
‘Right.’ One of the officers leaning on the pass ticks the names off his list. ‘Next.’
‘Next is Mikus … something unpronounceable. Polish. Gdansk. He is twenty-four years old.’ I hand over the photocopy and they check it over carefully. ‘And here is Jorge de los Rios – Cadiz, Spain.’ I smile at Jorge, handing over the photocopy of his passport. He is standing with his hands behind his back, chin up, like he’s on parade. ‘He’s forty-three. Forty-three?’ I exclaim. ‘You’ve worn well.’
‘It’s the genes,’ he replies, raising his eyebrows.
‘Where are you from, mate?’ asks the officer, leaning on the pass, scrutinizing the papers.
‘Cadiz, Spain,’ says Jorge.
‘What’s your date of birth?’
‘Um, sixteenth of May nineteen sixty-six, no, sixty-nine.’ There’s silence. I look at Jorge. The officer looks at Jorge.
‘These papers are forged,’ says the officer on the pass. Another two go to verify it.
‘Forged! Don’t be so ridiculous!’ I can’t believe it. ‘Forged? But Jorge has been here for years, he’s my right-hand man, he’s one of the best maître d’s in town. He’s brilliant. He’s fantastic with people.’ He is also a disloyal tosser, but let’s gloss over that. ‘They can’t be forged. The man is—’
‘From Brazil,’ says the officer on the pass.
‘Brazil?’ I stop in my tracks. ‘But he’s Spanish.’
‘Brazilian,’ the officer corrects. ‘Usually it’s a Portuguese passport. But it happens all the time. Your industry is packed with Brazilian chefs who come over here on a student visa where they can work sixteen hours a week and they end up doing nine shifts a week of seven hours a day; they work for two years, max out on their credit cards, pay sod all off and leave having built a new home in São Paulo.’ He sniffs and looks a Jorge.
‘Well, firstly, Jorge is not a chef, secondly, he’s been here for years and thirdly, he doesn’t have a house in São Paulo.’
‘And fourthly, here is his student visa.’ The officer holds it up. It is so old Jorge’s photo is almost unrecognizable.
‘Christ!’ I turn and look at him. ‘You’re illegal?’ He shrugs. ‘How long have you been in the country?’
‘Over ten years,’ says the officer.
‘You’ve been illegal for all the time?’ He smiles and nods. ‘And you’re from Brazil?’
‘São Paulo,’ he confirms.
‘So you have built yourself a house in São Paulo?’ I am so shocked, I have to hold on to the pass. I have been out and about with Jorge, we’ve got drunk, we’ve shared secrets, he’s been my right-hand man for the past five years, and now it transpires that everything I know about him has been a lie.
‘I am sorry,’ he says. ‘What can I say?’
‘A little bit more than sorry,’ I replied. I feel bitter and hurt, as if I’m being dumped by another one of my many girlfriends.
‘Come with me, then,’ says the officer closest to the door, reaching into his back pocket for a pair of handcuffs.
‘What will you do with him?’ I ask, suddenly feeling very nervous for my duplicitous friend.
‘We’ll take him to the station for processing and then he’ll be straight on the plane.’
‘What, deported?’
‘Deported.’
They cuff him and lead him away out of the back of the restaurant.
He stops and turns. ‘I am sorry,’ he says, cutting a forlorn-looking figure in his Armani suit and his shiny shoes. His dark eyes are red with tears. ‘Can you get someone to clear out my flat? Send my things back?’
‘Won’t you be allowed to go home?’ I ask, somewhat stunned. Everyone shakes their head. That’s it. He’s gone. A six-year friendship goes up in a puff of smoke.
By the time I come back out of the kitchen, everyone looks miserable. I plonk myself next door to Gina on a banquette and stare vacantly into space as I try to take in what’s happened. My phone goes. It is not a number I recognize.
‘Hello?’
‘Good evening,’ says a very Russian voice. ‘My name is Alexander Petrovsky, I am the owner of—’
‘I know what you own.’
‘I just wanted to say that I have asked your maître d’, Jorge de los Rios, to come and work for me and he has gladly accepted my offer and he will be starting with me as of Monday.’
‘Right.’
‘I gather you are supposed to tell the person,’ he says and pauses. ‘So consider yourself told.’
‘You’re welcome to him. Although I suggest you get yourself down to Soho nick.’
‘I am sorry. I do not understand. Who is Soho Nick?’
I hang up, while Gina pours me a very large drink.