Chapter 240: All You Can Steal

The collector on the rooftop camera covered the cabinet’s serial plate with a sponsor sticker while Bridget’s driver took us towards a charity lunch charging six hundred dollars a head. I was starting to understand why the people discussing hunger looked much happier than the people experiencing it.

Bridget adjusted the chef’s hat above my mask in the service corridor while Lukas picked up a tray. Her invitation allowed culinary entertainment, and she assured me my hat looked professional while refusing to explain why that made her laugh.

"If somebody asks where I trained, I’m saying the zoo and letting you decide whether that’s a restaurant," I told her. She said I should call myself an independent contractor, since that title seemed to excuse almost everything we’d seen lately.

[System: You’ve eaten enough to claim work experience, mate; keep talking until the fairy gets the number, then leave before they ask you to make something you can’t steal. Take it from a koala whose cooking qualifications end at opening a beer beside the barbecue.]

That sounds possible until somebody remembers chefs usually have hands, which may be the least convincing part of this disguise. I followed Bridget onto the terrace, where a glass canopy covered a champagne fountain, a lorry-shaped cake and thirty guests discussing good causes over expensive fish.

We needed the plate photograph, but the charity chairman noticed me before Bridget reached the counter. He tapped his glass, introduced the guest demonstrator and pointed me towards a preparation station while every face turned in our direction.

Thirty rich people waited to applaud a snake holding cutlery, and admitting fraud before receiving a tip seemed disrespectful to every chef who had ever called half a carrot a journey. I picked up the knife beside an already cooked fish and decided my first restaurant deserved a star.

"Today’s dish is locally recovered property, which should be familiar to anyone who has paid for the same thing more than once," I announced. The chairman laughed and praised the idea as sustainable while I cut a portion with a solid smoke tendril.

I gave him half a mouthful with a sauce line I called the struggle of the working man, then watched him praise the empty plate. "The rest costs extra because poverty should leave you wanting more," I explained, and the bastard actually asked for my card.

Across the terrace, Bridget knelt beside the cabinet and lifted the sponsor sticker far enough to photograph the serial. Her coat shifted around her wings, and my interest in her bare shoulder lasted until I discovered sauce dripping off my tail. Seduction apparently needed more supervision than knife work.

[System: Keep your eyes on the job, ya horny shoelace, because the bloke from the tow truck’s coming out of the lift, and he looks like he recognises your customer service.]

If I call him locally sourced and put parsley on his head, will these rich pricks finally agree he’s a problem? The collector spotted Bridget, followed her glance towards me and shouted my description loudly enough to stop three conversations at once.

She stood with the serial photograph already taken while he tried closing the cabinet compartment. Bridget caught his wrist, turned it enough to make him release the handle and stepped clear, but he knocked the phone from her other hand before she could pocket it.

The phone skidded beneath the champagne fountain while the chairman tried calling the whole thing a small disagreement between partners. I looked at the collector’s pleased expression, then at the enormous cake sitting on a trolley beside my station.

[System: Use the bloody cake, mate, with spider boy steering the tray; we can give him a face full of cream without making the fairy regret her choice of lunch date.]

"Lukas, catch the cake tray when I move it, because we’re about to improve the menu in a way the guests can watch," I called. I shoved it from the trolley as his web-lines caught the tray, swinging the lorry-shaped cake straight over the collector’s head.

Icing covered his face while sugar wheels broke against his vest, and one delighted guest stood to applaud what she apparently believed was planned entertainment. Bridget retrieved her phone and sent the photograph while the chairman grabbed for the empty trolley and missed its wheel lock.

The trolley rolled into the champagne fountain, tilting the top tier towards the crowd. I caught the upper frame with two solid tendrils while Lukas webbed the base to the counter, leaving us holding a very expensive problem as champagne poured over the collector’s cake-covered shoulders.

Bridget unplugged the pump before the whole display could empty onto the floor. "That should answer any questions about whether the wealth is reaching the people below it," I said while security arrived to decide which of us belonged in the service lift.

She showed them her invitation, the cabinet’s ownership record and the serial photograph. The venue manager listened much more carefully than the chairman had, then agreed to hold the cabinet for her courier after seeing the supplier’s name on the delivery paperwork.

The collector tried backing away, but Lukas parked the trolley against his shoe and asked whether he wanted help contacting his employer. Bridget kept the security staff busy long enough to record his explanation, which changed three times without becoming more convincing.

The bartender from the service counter found a clean cloth for Bridget’s knee and thanked her for stopping the collectors. His wages depended on the venue staying open, which made the stolen equipment his problem long before either owner admitted it.

"Keep a copy of the delivery sheet for yourself, because the next person claiming a mistake might forget who had to clean it up," I told him. He photographed the page before returning it to the manager.

When the lunch ended, she asked loudly which hungry people would receive the paid catering surplus. The manager approved takeaway boxes before the chairman could invent another answer, so we left with enough food for Nessa’s row and the damaged cake trolley marked for collection.

I was handing out the stolen rich-people lunch when my face appeared beneath a headline about a beast attacking charity workers. Nessa’s new notice closed every stall by morning, and the soup seller beside her asked how many businesses helping me would cost them next.