"The bartender was up here before," Debi wondered. She hitched her belly up on the bar top to peer over. "What a mess!"
"What?" Giles craned over to examine the broken glass and overturned bottles on the other side. "Strange that we didn't hear anything."
"My flowers!" she scrambled over the top to the other side and picked up the broken remains of her bouquet. "Damn, and they were so pretty. Wonder if there was a fight?" She stepped over to the doors that led back into the kitchen. "Hola? Anybody here?"
"Debi --" Giles hurried around the end of the bar and grabbed at her shoulder to forestall her from going in. "Stay there. I'll check."
"Okay," she said with a smile.
Giles eased the door open and edged forward to peer inside. "Hello? Anybody back here?"
"I already said that," Debi said over his shoulder.
"I told you to stay back."
"That was so gallant of you!" she gushed. "None of my other boyfriends ever got protective of me. Although Clyde did give me a baseball bat to take with me that night we heard that guy burgling the downstairs."
"What's going on?" Buffy demanded from behind Debi.
"We don't know." Giles stepped back from the kitchen door. "The wait staff seems to have vanished, although there is a great deal of broken glass behind the bar there. I think there's something -- er somebody -- back in the kitchen."
Buffy eased the door open wider and leaned through, but all that could be seen from here was a jungle of hanging crockery. "I'll go in and see."
"Wait." Giles poked around behind the bar and finally came up with a wooden stick. "Here, take this with you."
"My hero!" Buffy fluttered her eyelashes at him and grabbed the stick. She snapped it in jagged two and slipped through the door.
"She's very good at that, isn't she?" Debi said admiringly.
"Yes, she is," Giles murmured as he craned to try to track Buffy's progress into the kitchen. He glanced back at Debi. "At what, do you mean?"
"At that Ripley I'm-coming to-kick-your-sorry-ass thing. She's the lone gunslinger type, I can tell."
"Stay here," Giles muttered, and slipped through the door.
"What's going on?" Xander said from behind Debi.
"Burglars," she said with satisfaction. "Buffy and Rupert have gone to kick their asses. Stay here and watch my behind."
"What am I all of a sudden, the straight man?" Xander complained, but he did as he'd been told.
Buffy was prodding through rows upon rows of hanging cookware with the jagged end of her stick, but the kitchen was very apparently deserted. Giles stood at her back, the other portion of the stick held at ready as he nervously kept an eye on the rest of the kitchen.
"Well, this is hunky dory." Debi moved to the back grill to flip several rows of scorching tortillas off the heat. "Who's going to make us dinner now?"
"Shhh," Buffy said. "You want to get us killed?"
"By what, a rogue spatula?" Debi picked up the implement and waved it around. "The cooks have split. Probably across the street at Happy Hours."
"Nobody's here, Buffy," Giles let his stick drop.
"Okay, all right, but why the hell did they go? Mom's always good for a twenty percent tip." Buffy stalked to the back exit. The door had been propped open to let in the fresh alley dumpster air. "I have a bad feeling about this." She slipped out the door.
"Debi, stay put or there will be no dessert for you tonight," Giles growled at her.
"But!" Debi said, but he was already out the door after Buffy. "Of all the damned nerve! Thinks he can order me around." Pouting, she pulled herself to perch on the big butcher block table that set at center of the kitchen. "I'll give him dessert, all right!"
"What's happening?" Xander said, pushing through the kitchen door.
"Absolutely nothing," Debi groused. A bin of cheddar cheese sat at her elbow. She started picking through it.
"Figures. I finally get Rupert to take me out on an honest- to-god dinner date, and the restaurant staff takes a hike. Buffy and Rupert are trying to catch them."
Xander moved in for a handful of cheese. "I'd better go help."
"Better not," Debi said, swinging her heels. "They're both in a pissy mood. I can't figure it. He seemed so enthusiastic about dinner earlier. This always happens to me. You're a guy, Mr. Harris. You tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I try a whole different look -- sophisticated dress, salon shampoo -- and my date's still sneaking out the back on me."
"I never saw anything wrong with your shorter dresses," Xander said between stuffing cheese shavings into his mouth. A dreamy look came over his face. "Especially that black leather skirt."
"Which -- the suede or the shiny black?"
"Uhmm," Xander said, his mind still wandering, "the one with the slit. . ."
"Oh that old thing." Debi considered. "You really noticed that one?"
"It wasn't exactly the skirt I noticed. . ." Xander suddenly woke up from whatever fantasy he'd drifted into. "But -- but -- I digress!" he shouted. "What the heck were we talking about anyway?"
"Strategies for Rupert datage?" she suggested.
"What? No! We were? I'd better get back to the table!" Xander turned tail and ran for the dining room door, paused and rushed back for another handful of cheese, then ducked out.
Debi sighed and swung her heels. Now that it was quiet in here, she could hear the muted piped-in strains of a mariachi band. She ran the tempo over her tongue for a moment, before hopping down from her perch. She'd taken a three night tango course last week in anticipation of tonight. She'd never had a cultured date before and had been psyched for a night of honest-to-god dancing. Something with actual steps. In spite of the night's rocky beginning, she still had hopes of ending it tripping the light fantastic with her new honey. Might as well take the opportunity to practice. She looked around and found a suitable broom- partner by the back door.
"Rupert, you look so divine," she said with an airy Audrey Hepburn (she hoped) air. She delicately balanced the broom in front of her and attempted a graceful curtsey.
Brooms basically weren't made to be curtsied to. "Shit!" Debi exclaimed as her partner slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a clatter. She stared at it and started to giggle. "My date has swooned from the power of my beauty. Wake up, Rupert!" She bent to pull the broom to its feet.
"Dysentery?" somebody said behind her. Debi whirled, letting her partner drop to the ground again.
A short, pudgy, and pasty but red-faced man stood watching her from the alley door. He was glaring at her from between wireless bifocals and spiny eyebrows. He carried a heavy clipboard, which he held in front of his chest like a shield. "Dysentery: Leads to diarrhea leading to acute dehydration. In its early stages causing disorientation and fainting spells," the man said primly. He made a ticking sound with his teeth. "Carsons. City Health Department. This is a surprise inspection."
"You don't have to bother," Debi told him. "I've only had one cold this entire year."
He frowned. "Levity is not going to help your case any, Miss. Neither will I fall for that hundred dollar bill in the alley trick again. I suggest that whenever your staff returns from whatever pestilential bolthole they've fled to, you advise them of the fruitlessness of trying to put off the Inevitable."
"Wha --?" Debi said, staring at the little brush of hair beneath his nose. Either the man had a really pathetic mustache or an overblown case of nose hair. The mouth beneath the tuft grimaced. His teeth were small, white, and slightly pointed. She tore her gaze away. "Oh! You don't understand. I'm not --"
"Yes yes. I've heard that one before too," he sneered. Debi tried to edge back to the interior doors, but he lunged forward and latched onto her arm with a cold little hand. "Let's start with the ovens, shall we?" He dragged her over. "Build up of greasy dirt on the overhead fans. Oh look at this. Insect incrustations in the grease." He clicked his teeth again.
"Euwww," said Debi.
"Precisely." Still keeping an iron grip on her arm, he leaned down to peer at the floor by the stove then plucked a Q-tip from his breast pocket and ran it along the base. "What do you call that?" He held the Q-tip up inches from her nose.
"Umm. Dirt?" She tried to cringe away, but his fingers dug hard into her arm.
His upper lip curled. "Roach droppings."
"Euww!"
"Roaches are prime carriers this seasons of rhiginistus, vepheral epidermal bufitis, and scabies," he said, and shoved the door to the ovens open. A blast of heat hit Debi in the face, making her eyes itch. "What do you cook in here?"
"Food?" she tried.
Carsons' smile was razor-thin. "Funny girl." He whipped out a plastic-wrapped cooking thermometer from his coat pocket, tore open the wrapper with his teeth, and tossed the implement inside. "Shall we see what temperature you're cooking your 'food' at?"
"Listen," Debi said. "I don't really --"
Carsons snorted. "Of course you don't. Pretty little thing like you? You know I could shut this place down with what I have right now?"
"Oh well." Debi pried at his hand.
"I have, however, a great deal of discretion in deciding how much leeway to give you in correcting these violations." He leaned in, flashing her all of his horrible little teeth. His breath smelled like eucalyptus. "I'm much more likely to cut slack to people I like." His fingers grappled with her ass.
"Stop that!" She shoved at the health inspector's hand. "I'm warning you, my boyfriend's nickname is 'Ripper'!"
"His real name proclaims his loser status, no doubt," Carsons sneered.
"Does not." Debi kneed him in the balls and broke away to make a dash for the back door. "Rupert!" she yelled out into the alley.
Carsons grabbed her around the waist and jerked her back into his rubbery arms. "That's one violation of the city's noise ordinance. Keep it up, young lady. This is going to cost you."
Debi flailed around to snatch at some utensils that hung over the sink. "What's the going price for a fork up your hairy nose?"
"Excrement!" he yelped and dropped her to pull at the barbecue fork embedded in his hand. "Unsterilized eating utensils in a flesh wound! Fifty-three percent chance of rotting infection! Filthy unspayed bitch!
"When Rupert gets back he's going to smash your face for that!" Debi snatched up the broom and swung. It clattered into an overhang of heavy skillets, sending them all to the floor. One of them hit rim-on his foot, and Carsons shrieked "Unsecured cookware! Gangrene! Criminal penalties!"
He snatched at her, but Debi danced back out of the way and took another swing with the broom. That one connected with a satisfying thwack. "I hope you get a rotten headache!" she yelled at him. "I hope you get a big ugly bruise on the end of your nose! I hope you get a bloody nose!"
"No!" Carsons shrieked. "No bleeding in food preparation areas!" He scrambled away, his hands flung up over his head.
"Bloody nose! Snot! Phlegm! Boogers!" Debi yelled at him as she pressed her attack.
In the middle of his frenzied retreat, the health inspector tripped over his own feet and tumbled out the back door into the alley. Debi waited for him with her broom at ready. Still no sound, either of return or retreat. "Mr. Carsons?" she called out uneasily. "Not that I care or anything because you're a shit, but -- you okay?"
No answer, but she heard a slight rustle. "Damn Debi, you've gone and done it again," she said to herself. She stepped over a heap of fallen cookery and leaned out the back door. "Mr. Carsons?"
A figure appeared very suddenly on her left. "He's taken a walk, pet."