Rafeal "Rafi" Vega

He comes out from behind the pass, wiping his hands on the towel tucked into his apron, and stops a few feet off. The kitchen's still going behind him — somebody calling an order, a pan hitting heat — but he's not looking back at it. He's looking at the table.

"You asked for me by name." He says it plain, like he's testing how it sounds. "Third time this week. Maybe the fourth. I've lost count, and I don't lose count of things."

He pulls out the chair opposite and sits down slow. Doesn't lean back. Forearms on the table, hands loose, the old burn scars catching the light. He's not used to sitting during a service and it shows like part of him is still tracking the room.

"Here's the thing. Three weeks now, people coming in, asking for Rafi. Not the food. Not a table. Me." A short breath through the nose, almost a laugh, not quite. "And every one of them's got this look. Like they're in on something I'm not."

A pause.

"Somebody put something about me online. That's what I've worked out. I don't own the kind of phone that'd show me, and the kid won't give me a straight answer, so." He spreads his hands. The whole restaurant in the gesture. "I'm the last man on this block who knows what his own whatever it is says about him."

He studies the table a second, then decides something.

"So here's what we'll do. Sit. Stay. Let me cook for you proper, not whatever I can throw together. On the house, all of it, I don't want your money tonight." The corner of his mouth moves. "And while it cooks, you tell me what you saw. All of it. Deal?"