Chapter 4 - Seventeen Million Hungry Witnesses
Walter woke because somebody kicked the sole of his boot.
He opened his eyes to a camera lens.
“Mr. Hayes? Channel Eight. Did you kill your wife?”
The reporter could not have been older than twenty-five.
Walter sat up beneath the freight depot awning and looked past her. Two satellite vans idled on the road. Three people held phones. A man in a baseball cap shouted, “Chef! Make the chicken!”
Walter rubbed his face.
“What time is it?”
“Six eleven.”
“Then you people need hobbies.”
The reporter crouched. “The internet identified you as Walter Hayes, former owner of Hayes & Ember. Records show your restaurant burned in 2000 and your wife died. You were investigated for negligence.”
“Investigated isn’t convicted.”
“Were you responsible?”
Walter stood.
His knees hurt in the cold. He hated that cameras captured things grief used to own privately.
“No.”
“Then why did you disappear?”
Walter looked into the lens. “Because sometimes being innocent doesn’t keep you from losing everything.”
He walked away.
By the time he reached Reed’s Diner, there were sixty people outside.
Daniel had taped printer paper to the window: NO, WALTER IS NOT COOKING BREAKFAST FOR 400 PEOPLE. WE HAVE ONE GRIDDLE.
Emma opened the back door and pulled Walter inside.
“You have seventeen million views.”
Walter removed his coat. “Is that bad?”
“It’s seventeen million.”
“That did not answer the question.”
Daniel handed him coffee. “Depends whether you enjoy strangers accusing you of murder between pancake orders.”
Walter glanced through the blinds.
A line stretched past the pharmacy.
“Why are they here?”
“They want to eat what you made.”
“We don’t have enough chicken.”
“We barely have enough chairs.”
Emma held up a tablet. “Also, people are challenging you.”
“Tell them no.”
“You haven’t heard them.”
“I’ve heard enough people.”
She scrolled. “Ricky Malone. Two-point-three million followers. He says no homeless cook can beat his smash burger.”
Walter sipped coffee.
“No.”
“Barbecue guy from Tennessee.”
“No.”
“Pastry woman from Chicago.”
“No.”
“Logan Pierce says today’s blind rematch is still happening.”
Walter paused.
“Yes.”
Emma grinned. “I knew it.”
At noon, organizers sealed the contest kitchen from public view. Logan and Walter received identical baskets: ground chuck, onions, cheddar, potatoes, pickles, flour, milk, eggs, cabbage, apples, and pantry spices.
The task was simple: burger, side, dessert.
Blind judging.
Logan used an induction burner, a steel plancha, and a smoking gun that filled a glass dome with applewood smoke. Walter examined the same equipment, then selected a cast-iron pan blackened by years of use.
Logan smirked. “Afraid of technology?”
Walter said, “I like technology when it solves a problem.”
“And cast iron solves what?”
“People trying too hard.”
He divided the beef loosely rather than compressing it. He salted only the outside immediately before cooking.
Emma watched through the monitor room.
Daniel asked, “Why not season inside?”
A culinary instructor beside him answered, “Salt inside ground meat can dissolve proteins and make the texture springy, more like sausage.”
Onscreen Walter pressed each beef ball onto the cast iron with a stiff spatula for only the initial contact.
He did not keep pressing.
“People squeeze burgers because they like watching juice leave the food they plan to eat,” Walter said to the camera operator.
He toasted buns in beef fat. He sliced onions paper-thin and griddled them until edges burned sweet. He made a sauce from pickle brine, mustard, mayonnaise, and black pepper.
Then came the strange part.
He grated raw potato, rinsed it until the water ran almost clear, squeezed it dry in a towel, and spread it into an ultra-thin lattice in a second pan.
“What’s that?” the operator asked.
“A potato lace.”
“Fancy name.”
“Cheap potato.”
He cooked it until crisp, then folded it around a small mound of vinegar-dressed cabbage. Crunch over acid over freshness.
For dessert, he cooked apples directly on the induction surface using a shallow stainless pan, controlling the temperature with unusual precision. He caramelized sugar dry, added butter after amber color appeared, then loosened it with a spoonful of hot water.
“Cold water can seize caramel,” he explained. “Hot water behaves better.”
Logan glanced at him. “You really narrate everything now?”
“Kid keeps asking questions.”
“She’s not even in here.”
Walter pointed at the camera. “She’ll watch.”
The dishes went behind a curtain and received letters: A and B.
Margaret Bell, Thomas Greer, and three new judges tasted without knowing whose was whose.
Dish A was elegant: double smash burger, smoked cheddar, onion jam, truffle fries, reconstructed apple tart.
Dish B looked almost embarrassingly simple: crisp-edged burger with onion, sharp cheddar, pickle sauce, potato lace slaw, warm skillet apples.
Margaret bit into B and smiled before she could stop herself.
Thomas noticed.
“Don’t influence us.”
“I didn’t speak.”
“Your face did.”
The votes were four to one.
Dish B won.
When Walter stepped from behind the curtain, Logan stared at the floor.
The crowd outside roared.
Walter walked to him.
“You overworked the meat,” Walter said quietly.
Logan’s head snapped up. “Excuse me?”
“And your smoke hid the beef.”
“You think I want a critique from you?”
“No. But you need one.”
Logan stepped closer. “You’re enjoying this.”
Walter shook his head. “Winning is boring if nobody learns anything.”
Logan shoved past him.
That afternoon the second video went viral faster than the first.
By evening, the diner’s phone would not stop ringing.
A morning show offered Walter five thousand dollars to appear.
A cookware company offered fifty thousand for a sponsorship.
A Las Vegas casino offered him a six-figure guest-chef weekend.
Walter said no to all of them.
Then Emma showed him another video.
A huge man with a red beard stood in front of three smokers beneath a sign reading MALONE’S PIT HOUSE.
“I’m Ricky Malone,” he said. “And I don’t care how many grandmas cry over your gravy. Come to Tennessee. Brisket. Ribs. Chicken. Real fire. No pity votes.”
Walter watched silently.
Ricky held up a check.
“Twenty thousand dollars to any charity you name if you beat me.”
Walter looked at Emma.
She smiled slowly.
“Charity.”
Walter groaned.
Three days later, he was on a bus to Tennessee.
He still refused to fly.
Nobody knew why.
Margaret Bell did.
May you like
The night Hayes & Ember burned, Walter had been scheduled to fly to Paris with Eleanor the next morning.
He had never boarded an airplane again.
