Fortune Found and Lost

“G'Night, Paul!”

“Night, Paul!”

“Good night, ladies; I'll see y'all tomorrow.” Betsy and Tammie headed home to their 2.5 children, 1.9 cars, and white picket fences.

I still had a fair bit to do that night before locking up, but I needed a break so I headed across the street to grab a quick bite at Dino's Diner. Me an' Dino went back ages.

“Hey, yo, where's Dino at?”

The cook, Danny, good kid, shouted back, “You tell me, Pauli! He said he was makin' a quick cash drop and never came back. I figured he was wit you! It's been like 2 hours!”

That's not like Dino. I called him, but could hear his phone ringing in the office.

“Oh brilliant, Sherlock! I wish, I'd thought of callin' 'im!”

Danny was a bit of a wise-ass.

“Yeah, yeah... hey make it to-go would'ya? I'm gonna close up myself and I'll make my own cash drop, see if I don't bump into him.”

“You tell 'im he owes me overtime for this. I was supposed to be off 20 minutes ago. I got dinner with the wife tonight; I miss that, he owes me hazard pay, too!”

“Yeah, I'll tell'im...”

I took my roast beef on rye, pickle, and fries and headed out the door just as Dino stumbles in, almost knocks me over.

“YO! DI-NO! Where ya bin?? I was supposed ta be home by now!”

Danny was already around the counter with his apron coming off. Dino hardly noticed—just mumbled some thanks and waved him off. He still hadn't looked at me yet. Danny stopped at the door, “Yo, you don't look so good, D. You need me ta stay? We need to call the cops?”

“No, nah, it's.. it's nothin'. I'm gonna close up early today. I gotta get some stuff done around here and it's dead anyway.”

“You sure? You're really lookin' a little rough, there...”

“I'm FINE!” A little too much bravado.

“Alright, alright! No need to get all pissy, just tryin'a help!” And then Danny was gone.

I helped Dino into the booth closest to the door and grabbed us a couple of waters from behind the counter.

“Heh... I'm gonna need somethin' a little stronger than that...”

“You look like you just saw a ghost. Lets start with some water to clear your head a little.”

“Yeah, alright... I'm fine, though.. I'm gonna be fine, it's … I guess it really wasn't even my money anyway, but it sure was nice havin' it. Made this place a lot easier to run, I can tell you that....” He trailed off a little wistfully, with a sad smile. “Ah well... it was a good run.”

“Whatchya talkin' about Dino, 'a good run' you're doin' great here! What money? You worked hard for every dollar you got! You never took loans 'cept to get the place goin', never had no partners or investors muckin' up your plans...”

I'd known Dino since before he opened the diner while he was still working at The Steakhouse. He was basically running that place; the owners were clueless and the kitchen would have fallen apart without Dino. The owners didn't agree, and when Dino asked for a raise, they said “Nah...guys like you are a dime a dozen out there! You should be grateful for what we've given you!” So he kept that restaurant going on his back for a little over two years from that night, then, just before he closed up one shift, he calls up the owner, tells him he's not coming in tomorrow and they can go find another dozen of him to work there. Dino had spent those years building a business plan, finding a place he could run, and saving every dollar he could. Alfredo Bianchi walked in to First National 5 weeks before he quit, secured the funds to buy The Burger House, and once all the paperwork was settled, he started converting it to Dino's Diner. There wasn't much to do beyond a new sign and changing the menu; The Burger House had been basically functioning as a diner for more than 15 years prior and all the staff were happy to stay on. That was over 32 years ago. Now Dino's was an icon, still a small diner with Danny cookin' for the last 12 years, a revolving door of dishwashers, and mostly high schoolers as waitstaff. Dino still liked to get in the kitchen and worked it when Danny was off, but most of his time was spent running the place.

“Well... That's not entirely true.” Dino started. “I did have an investor who knocked years off my plan. Never told no one 'cept for Margie. See I was still at the Steakhouse and got to chatting with a customer who said I should be running the place. I told him to keep it on the down-low that I was putting aside money and hoped to buy an existing diner or grill. Well, he said that was great and wished me luck and I thought that was that. Then, when I went to clear the table, I saw he'd left a tip that was double the cost of the meal along with a note that just said, 'When you have a place picked out' and a phone number.

“I figured it was a scam, but I kept it anyway almost as a joke. A few months later, I started talkin' to Frankie about takin' over The Burger House. He gave me the price it would take to buy him out and I knew it would be another 10 years at least before I could save up enough even for a down payment on a loan for that much. Frankie wouldn't budge, he wasn't really lookin' to sell, but this place was perfect to me. A couple of days later, I saw that old note in my drawer and though 'What the heck, what could it hurt?' so I called the number.

“I can still remember the sound of the secretary who answered. Voice like silk but she didn't have time for some random jerk callin' her boss outta nowhere, and she said as much, but in a polite way that made you feel like it was better you were shut down. I wasn't really that disappointed, I never really believed the note was genuine anyway. And I felt a little like a heel now assumin' he wanted to help me get into a new place rather than maybe just takin' an interest.

“So I resigned myself to just workin' at the Steakhouse for the rest of my days, but the next morning, the phone rang and that same silk voice told me 'Mr. Weber would like to talk to you.' The line went dead and one Mr. Herbert Weber came on and introduced himself.

'Hi there, Alfredo, my name's Herbert Weber. Jenny tells me you called yesterday. I'm glad you did! It takes guts to ask for help, but I guarantee it'll be worth your while.'

“I told him how much I needed to buy out Frankie and how short I was just to even get the loan and he laughed and said: 'I have to admit, I was a little worried you were going to come to me with a big number, but two hundred grand is easy enough to settle on.'

“I tried to explain that was just for the loan amount, that I only need a fraction of that for the down payment, but he wouldn't hear it. Said it was '...hard enough to get a restaurant up and running. You don't need some scumbag banker down your neck every month! You do this for me: you keep a ledger of every month you make a profit and you give me 10% of that and we'll call it even.'

“I'd've been a fool to pass this up! A cashiers' check showed up by courier a couple of days later and once the funds cleared, I wrote my own cashiers' check to Frankie and The Burger House became mine. Now I did still end up getting a loan to cover the costs of transforming the place into Dino's but it was a much smaller loan that I was able to pay off in just a few months. Regulars of The Burger House kept the place goin' until Dino's made a name for itself.

“So the first thing I bought for the business was my little black notebook I used for the ledger. I chose black because I was superstitious and wanted to restaurant's books to always be 'in the black.'”

I snorted.

“Yeah, yeah, shaddup...” he continued, ”So anyway, for the first few years, I was super diligent about makin' sure I'd set aside that 10% in any month that made a profit. But Pauli, years went by and I never heard from Mr. Weber about how to pay him, or asking how things were, nothin'! That silky voice just assured me he'd call me back when it was time. Well... time went by, Dino's needed some repairs, we bought some equipment, and I would just dip into the 10% account and at first I would pay it back as soon as possible, but then it had been more than 10 years and I'd never heard a peep! My black notebook had about 4 pages used and...I stopped bothering to pay it back....”

“Aww.... Dino... What'd ya do, Dino??”

Dino, smiled, looked down at his fingers laced together, looked back up with his eyes swimming. “I got greedy and I messed up a good thing. That's what I did. Apparently, the Estate of the late Mr. Herbert Weber found our little agreement but no sign of any payments made. They got my taxes and charged interest over the 33 years. This building is theirs, my house is theirs, my savings is tapped. I got nuthin' left, Pauli! I'm just glad Margie didn't live to see this day, but I can still hear her telling me 'I told you not to touch that money! I told you he'd come askin' for it one day!'” He chuckled to himself with no mirth.

“They'll keep all the guys on here...even me.” Dino continued, “Just now they take 100% of the profit, they decide how this place is run, and I don't get paid. Not until they collect it all. I don't know what I'm gonna do, Pauli...”

Dino looked frail, the light had gone out. With no kids, this diner was his reason after Margie had died. I had seen him work through rough times, watched him take life's blows; watched him take his wife's car crash square on the jaw, beat his chest and come right to the center of the ring even though his knees wobbled. Now I watched while he sat in his corner; TKO.

He came to live at my place but it wasn't a week before I came home to find him on the floor, on top of the broken TV tray, face down in still warm casserole. He had no light left and no fight.

Dino's was still Dino's till I sold the shop and left the neighborhood to live with my kid in Denver. Danny took over and finished paying Dino's debt. On the day of the last payment Danny burned that old black notebook and bought a bright red one, daring fate to take the diner from him, though the books were on the computer. They hung a picture near the office of Dino and Margie, laughing together in the booth closest to the door, ensuring that it would always be Dino's place.