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Félix was sick of Paulie, who was supposed to split the tips with the busboys and the dishwashers but kept some back. Paulie thought nobody knew it because he did the counting at the concierge stand in front, but he didn’t notice that Félix could see him from his post cleaning the glass front doors.
The restaurant was an Italian place that cost a lot. Some days Félix worked from opening at eleven o’clock in the morning until after closing at ten o’clock at night, running plates and clearing tables. He was slower than some, because he checked over and over for steak knives and broken glass in the bins. He had tried to explain it once to a cook who was watching him unload dirty dishes, but he didn’t have the word for it in English, and when he tried to describe the problem, the cook look
