CHAPTER THIRTY
Finn
"Hey Kyle?" I called across the restaurant.
My baby-faced general manager appeared out of nowhere with a hugely eager grin on his face. "Yeah boss?" he asked.
I rolled my eyes, sick and tired of his over the top deference. "The wine list needs to go to the printers. I need a list of what we have available for opening night."
Kyle's eyes widened a fraction. "Can I get that to you later, boss? Kind of in the middle of something right now."
I shrugged. "As long as it's today, no problem.
I turned in my chair and leaned over my computer, tapping my pen against my desk.
No. It really did need to be done right now. The printer had a deadline and the last thing we needed was to open without a readable wine list.
I scraped my chair back across the floor. I could do it. Better to have it done and crossed off my list than have to constantly have to double check if Kyle was done yet.
I made my way through the gleaming kitchen. The lowboy refrigerators at each cook's station were being installed today. Jackson hated the time that was wasted by having to walk back to a centrally located walk-in fridge, so he'd designed workstations where each line cook could gather what they needed for the day's service and store it in their own personal refrigerators right at arm's length. It was just one more thing he'd tweaked that made me realize he actually was the genius he claimed to be. It was the kind of shit that made me feel lucky to have him as a business partner.
And hell, a friend too.
Our wine cellar was a state of the art, glass-enclosed room, completely sealed off from the rest of the cellar to maintain the perfect temperature. I hit the code on the keypad and pushed my way inside.
The air was cold and dry and heavy with the scent of the wines. The best smell in the world.
I grabbed my notepad and began ticking off the whites in order from driest to sweetest. The Chardonnays were all in a vertical row along the far wall. Next came the dry Rieslings, a specialty of the area. I ticked down the bottles one at a time... until I got to the place where the Jasper Hill Winery shipment belonged.
"Huh," I said aloud. The bottle I'd been looking for at dinner was still missing. "Guess we haven't found it yet?" I checked my notes. But we'd definitely been charged for it. "Maybe it's misshelved." I slid my finger down the row of Gewürztraminers and paused to flick through my notes again. "There should be twelve," I muttered, flicking back and forth between my inventory notes and the invoices I'd paid.
As I ran my finger down the rows, I saw the same thing for each type of wine. Rieslings, Traminettes, Cabernets and Merlots, even the small selection of ports. All of them were missing one or two bottles.
Not enough that I would have ever noticed unless I'd come down and counted them myself.
Hot blood thundered in my ears and I rushed back upstairs two at a time. "Hey man what's the...?" Jackson's voice faded as I ran into my office and slammed the door.
"Thank you for calling Jasper Hill Winery!" A perky female voice chirped.
"Yes, hi, I need to talk to," I flicked through the order slips. "Mike?"
"Who may I say is calling?"
"This is Finn Walker," I snarled. "The man who is paying him a shitton of money for deliveries he keeps shorting?"
"Um, right away sir," the receptionist quavered.
I tapped my fingers on my desk, aching to wrap them around someone's neck. Fucking cheat thinking he could screw the out of towner. I'd show him what happened when you messed with a guy like me. He'd be fucking lucky to ever get a bottle contract...
"This is Mike," a gruff voice answered.
I swallowed down my murderous thoughts. "Mike. Finn Walker here. Mind explaining why you're fucking me over?"
Mike paused for a long moment. "I'm doing what now?" he finally said.
"Shorting me. On pretty much every delivery. I was just running through my inventory and my stock does not match when you charged me for."
"Oh, it's all there Mr. Walker," Mike broke in. "I'm not sure I know what you're referring too."
"Listen," I snarled, trying and failing to keep my temper in check. "I'm telling you, my general manager checked this inventory in himself." I ran my fingers across my forehead, trying to massage away the tension headache that was starting to bloom. "And about twenty percent of the bottles I ordered are missing from the shipments."
The voice on the other end went silent, and I heard the rifling of papers. "I'm sorry," Mike said. "But I don't see how that's possible."
"It's entirely fucking possible," I exploded. Then I pressed my lips together and counted backwards from ten. "This is ridiculous," I said, sounding, if not feeling calmer. "Not one of the shipments we've received from you have been complete. I'm opening a restaurant in less than two weeks, and I don't have the full wine cellar that we need."
"Everything you ordered has been accounted for," the vineyard owner repeated, testily.
"Look," I finally said through gritted teeth. "I'll make this easy. I'm not accepting today's shipment until you fix this."
"Your general manager signed for it," the vineyard owner said, sounding pretty pissed off himself. "I've got his signature, right here on the slip."
"No, I know that it was signed for," I seethed. "That's not my point. My point is that I'm opening in two weeks, and my wine list has holes in it like Swiss cheese because of these shipping screw ups. Fix it."
Then I slammed down my phone.
I looked up to see Jackson standing there in the doorway, clearly eavesdropping.
I shook my head. "I double and triple checked," I told him.
"I know you did. I saw you losing your goddamned mind," Jackson said, sounding slightly amused.
I glared at him. "This is so fucked."
"You'll figure something out," Jackson said encouragingly.
I threw my hands up. "I've got nothing. We're hemorrhaging money like a leaky faucet, and still we are missing twenty percent of the orders that should be there. I don't know what the hell to think other than this guy screwing with me."
Jackson stood there for a moment, tapping his fingers against my newly installed doorframe. "I have an idea," he said. "Grab your keys."