So then James got down on one knee and put his hands on my shoulders and goes, right. This is it, lad. Are ye ready? And even though he had hold of a couple of handfuls of scabs that were in the middle of peeling off, having James hold on to me for a second or two actually felt really, really nice. Like if I stuck with him there was no way anything bad was going to happen, no matter what. Nae bother at all. Then he let go of my shoulders and said, just remember, Norman, head down, eyes front, walk with a purpose. No guts, no glory, eh? When James said guts it sounded like gootz and I’d never been so scared and happy at the same time in my whole entire life.

James said that the thing about a uniform is that when you’re in one people think you belong. So if you do what people are expecting someone who wears that uniform to do, then nobody is going to even look at you twice. At least that was part of what he said when we were sneaking up the back stairs and into the kitchen of the Whiskey-a-Go-Go Gentleman’s Club. The rest I couldn’t really hear, but I got enough to get that because I was dressed like I worked in a kitchen James wanted me to act like I worked in a kitchen. However that was.

I’d never been in a gentleman’s club before or actually even heard of one, come to think of it, so of course that means I’d never been into any kitchens of any gentleman’s clubs, either. But all I know is that place wasn’t like any kitchen I’d ever seen before, which wasn’t many, but still. It looked like it might be bigger than our entire house and even though I had my head right down and I was walking as fast as I could I counted at least five massive stoves.

James had hold of the back of my chef’s jacket and he was pushing me ahead of him, so I couldn’t have stopped walking even if I wanted to, which I definitely didn’t. He was whispering stuff into my ear like, steady, boyo and, steady now, lad and don’t stop now, Norman, ye wee champ, and it was funny because even though it was practically deafening in there with all the yelling and pot banging and dish clattering I could hear him as clear as anything.

We kept walking, and my heart was banging against my chest so hard I could feel the scabs rattling and I was scared it was going to bust me right out of my disguise and rat us out to Slim’s bouncers any minute. James’s hand was still on my back but then he started pushing me to go a bit faster and I could see he was aiming me at two big white doors with little windows in them. I still didn’t know much more about kitchens, because I’d had my head down most of the time, but I did know that looked like a way out.