“Oh,” he says, “okay.”

“Wilks, for god’s sake, loosen up, will you? You’re the fucking executive here. I’m just the washed up bastard who’s filling in the gaps for you,” I tell him. The glory of always being that unassailable character starts losing its luster. “If you’re going to run a kitchen and keep it running, you’re going to need to work on your confidence.”

He lifts his head a little as he walks, but just as quickly lowers it again.

“All right,” he says.

“Okay, we’re coming up to our first stop,” I tell him. “Now, we’re going to go in there and get some fresh monkfish, and whatever he quotes you on price, I want you to talk him down by at least ten percent. I’ll help you a little on this first one, but you’re taking the lead.”

What he doesn’t know is that I’ve done almost all of the shopping for the next day or so, only leaving the items which absolutely must be same-day fresh for him to find his sea legs.

A lot of chefs nowadays like to set up contracts with suppliers that will ship wholesale ingredients right to the restaurant, but it’s a lot better for everyone if you take the time to give a shit what you feed people. Fortunately, Wilks already knows that much.

“Shit,” he says just loudly enough for me to hear. “All right.”

We walk to the fishmonger’s shop and walk up to the counter.

“Ah, Mr. Paulson,” Martin, the sixty-something, perpetually scale-flecked proprietor says. “Come in for to teach the new chef today, huh?”

“You know it,” I tell him. “Don’t go easy on him, Marty. He’s got to learn how to deal with crooks and swindlers like you.”

“With all the fish I give you so cheap, you should be nicer to me, Daniel.”

No, Daniel’s not my name, but for the finest fishmonger in the city, I’m willing to suffer a few small indignities.

Wilks, naturally, is unaware of this.

“I thought your name was Dane,” he says.

Now, Wilks has gone and pissed Martin off.

This was expected.

Most of the time, these people are really easy to work with, once you get to know them. Everyone has bad days, though. In order for those bad days to not transform into profit-margin-killing price hikes, one must learn how to negotiate a sour mood.

“You let him talk this way to me, Daniel?” Martin asks. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

The only difficulty I’m having in this moment is keeping a straight face.

“Don’t piss off the seller,” I tell Wilks, “or it’s caveat emptor to a degree which I seriously doubt you can even imagine.”

“Isn’t it always caveat emptor?” Wilks asks.

“Make the buy,” I mutter and nudge him.

“Why doesn’t he answer?” Martin demands.

I just shrug my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Wilks says. “I must have been mistaken.”

Martin eyes him, but slowly unclenches his fists.

If Wilks knew exactly how ferocious Martin can get, and how close he came to getting his ass kicked by a senior citizen, he probably would have run out of the store screaming.

Never—and I mean never—mess with a fishmonger.

“Eh,” Martin says, “it’s all right. What do you need?”

“What do I need?” Wilks asks me and I’m about ready to kick his ass myself.

“Monkfish,” I tell him.

“Monkfish,” Wilks repeats. “Fresh monkfish.”

“Now you’ve done it,” I mutter in Wilks’s ear as I walk past him for a better view of the action.

“You think I sell anything that’s not fresh?” Martin snaps. “You think I sell garbage?”

“That’s not what I—”

“I build this business from nothing. Everyone who comes in knows I sell the freshest fish in the city. This is why I’ve been here thirty-five years. Why are you so stupid?”

I can’t contain my amusement completely, but I try to keep my snickering at least somewhat quiet.

Wilks hears me well enough, and it’s not doing his confidence any favors. He’s got to come to some sort of détente with Martin, though; otherwise the old fuck won’t sell to him.

This is one of those baby-bird-out-of-the-nest moments. I’ll step in if Martin starts swinging. Other than that, Wilks is very much on his own.

“That’s not what I meant,” Wilks says.

He’s getting frustrated, but he’s not mad yet. The key is in finding just that right dose of anger. It has to be enough to convince Martin to chill the fuck out, but it can’t be so much that it just escalates the situation.

Let’s watch.

“You come in here and tell me that I call my customer the wrong name and you tell me that you want fresh monkfish when there is no other monkfish that I sell!”

Martin’s screaming now, and I’m laughing my balls off.

Wilks tries to reason with him, but he’s not getting through.

And then, like a miracle, it happens.

“Listen, you ornery old prick,” Wilks starts, “you know very well that I wasn’t saying your fish wasn’t fresh, I was just repeating what Dane told me to get when we came in here! Now, you can put it back in your pants and make a sale or you can keep screaming and lose a solid customer! Now, what’s it going to be?”

He hit all the relevant points and, with the exception of insisting the proper form of my name, he didn’t go overboard.

You can’t teach that.

Martin’s face grows a few shades redder, but in the next moment, he’s got Wilks in a bear hug that’s sure to ruin the latter’s nice, clean shirt.

When Martin finally drops the new executive, he turns to me, exclaiming, “This one’s got the eggs! Ha! Reminds me of when you first started coming in here.”

Now, let me make something clear: we are not the only people in the fish market, not by a long shot. Martin’s been in business this long by being the best and every chef who even thinks of working with sea food in this town knows it.

Wilks is going to be fine, although he’s again becoming aware of just how many people have been watching the scene. I can’t be sure, but I could swear I saw some money change hands between customers when Martin picked the poor bastard off his feet.

Martin gives a decent starting price and, like a trooper, Wilks starts talking him down.

My attention is elsewhere, though.

I could swear that I just saw something on the far corner of the market. It was a flash of red hair ducking behind a display.

When nobody comes out, I tell myself I must be imagining things. Why would Wrigley follow me to a fish market?

“Does that sound about right, Paulson?” Wilks asks, apparently not for the first time.

Pulled back from my ginger hallucination, I turn to look at my new boss.

“It’s your deal,” I tell him. “Does it sound about right to you?”

He turns back to Martin and extends his hand. It’s a rookie mistake.

We leave Martin’s shop and I could swear I see that red hair again before we come to our next stop.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover that Wrigley’s stalking me. What I don’t understand, though, is why she’d choose to do it here. Why now?

It occurs to me that I’m trying to assign rationality to someone who may or may not be stalking me, and I give up the futile chore.

“How’d you do?” I ask.

“Were you not paying attention?” Wilks beams. “I talked him down a full twenty percent from his original asking price.”

“Well done,” I tell him and cautiously pat him on the back.

“So, any other lessons before our next stop?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Lesson number five: Whatever you do, do not get on the bad side of a fishmonger.”

His confidence is sufficiently elevated to the point where he’s finally willing to ask the question: “Are all your lessons haikus?”

“I knew I liked you Wilks,” I tell him and we finish off the rest of our daily buys with relative ease.

After everything’s taken care of, I walk the new exec back to his building, giving him further lessons and miscellaneous advice on the way.

“Are you on tonight?” he asks as we approach his building.