The Server's Tip

“Megan, table four. Let’s go,” Adam ordered in his typical, demanding tone. With her back to him, she rolled her eyes and walked away without saying a word.

Two gentlemen sat across from one another at table four. Wearing a black leather jacket unzipped, the one on the left appeared to be in his early 30s. About twenty years older than him, the other man on the right was dressed in a suit with dark hair slicked back. He lectured the younger man with a sly smirk. This should be a good tip, Megan thought to herself.

“… but that’s why we trust you. And you didn’t let us down, right?” Megan caught the older man saying to the younger as she approached the table. The elder’s dark hair was obviously dyed and poorly done.

“Hi gentlemen, what could I get started for you?” Megan asked.

“Just bring two coffees for now,” the older man offered a quick glance and grin before turning back to his partner. The younger man did not even look up at her. His right leg jittered under the table and eyes wide open displayed an intense demeanor towards his companion. High tension lingered in the air.

“Sure thing, I’ll bring coffee right out.” She walked back towards the kitchen to grab the hot coffee pot.

Megan stopped and checked her phone before rushing back to the table to give her guests a minute to look at the menu. Josh texted her but as she unlocked her phone to respond Adam walked past with a cold stare. Such a pleasant place to work, she thought.

Grabbing the coffee pot, the server walked back over to the table and overhead the old man once again.

“Did they suffer? Or was it quick-“ the young man jolted upright in his seat, staring at her at her as she approached. The older man leaned back from his intense lean across the table into a relaxed his position at the conclusion of his question.

“Here you are, two coffees. Cream and sugar are there on the table. Anything else I can get started for you?” Megan asked. A fake work smile attempted to conceal a case of mild nerves at what she thought she overheard. Megan then pulled out her little black server notebook and pen.

The young man looked to be in a slight panic while slick-black hair was not phased at all. “Eggs Benedict,” ordered the latter. His creepy smile complimented by a used car-salesman intimidation vibe made her cringe.

“Biscuits and gravy for me, miss,” the younger man’s voice was a bit shaky and higher than she expected from the bearded man. Expression full of unease, his eyes full wide looked back at her for the first time.

“I’ll, um, get those in right away,” the server replied and walked back to the kitchen.

“Eggs Benedict, and biscuits and gravy,” Megan shouted to the cooks while scribbling the order on a page from her notebook and hanging it on the ticket holder.

She couldn’t resist what she overheard and peered back over to the pair of patrons, one of three tables occupied in the entire diner this mid-Tuesday morning. The young man was incredibly uncomfortable being lectured by the slick, well-dressed older man. Was he in trouble? Is this a gangster? What am I witnessing? Her curiosity could not be contained standing being the counter watching from across the diner, failing to read flapping lips.

With a clean rag from the busser’s bin, she walked to a table nearby and began to wipe it down. The attempt to eavesdrop their conversation succeeded with little regard from them. The old suit paused, then continued with a softer tone. It was hard to make out what was being said from three tables away. A quick wipe down and Megan moved a table closer.

The older man’s softened voice continued, “…and we appreciate it. Payment is not exactly… no more need…” Megan could hear bits and pieces, though it was not all clear. She pulled out the chairs and began to wipe them down too, turning to catch the discussion from another angle.

“It’s all here,” the old man said while reaching into his suite pocket. His hand reemerged with something dark and placed it on the table between them. “You will have to do a little work, but it is untraceable.”

Megan’s heart skipped a beat and she slammed the chair into the table harder than intended. That caused enough attention to stop their conversation. She gave the table one last wipe as if too focused on her task to notice their talk.

With a quick smile and eyes down, the waitress walked past them. A quick glance on the walk past them caught a little black notebook placed near the edge of the table between the two men. Megan rushed back to the kitchen to catch her breath. The racing of her heart drowned out any clear thoughts she might have had. Something was not right; she could feel it. Something eerily disingenuous about the entire scenario did not sit well with the young server.

‘It’s all here,’ she recounted him saying. ‘Untraceable.’ What does that mean? Why would that be necessary? ‘Did they suffer,’ she remembered the round of conversation that had piqued her interest. Something in Megan shifted. Her fascination overtook every thought.

“Order up,” the chef called out before hitting the bell twice. “Eggs Benedict, biscuits and gravy.”

Before the ringing stopped rattling in her head, an idea came to mind. Without thinking twice about it, she moved into action. From her apron pocket she pulled out her little server notebook in her right hand then grabbed the plates, still grasping her waitress wallet between pinky, ring finger and palm.

The plan overtook her. Only the drum of her beating heart echoed between her ears upon the approach. Young beard’s leg still jittered to her left, and Slick Rick continued yapping away on her right.

At her last step before the table, Megan tripped, spilling the food all over the table and men before her. The table caught the brunt of it, but she made sure to aim the biscuits and gravy in the older man’s direction with some success. The plates remained in her hands yet their contents were scattered on table and suit alike.

“Are you kidding me!?” the man yelled, throwing up his arms. He looked down in disgust at his meal now accessorizing his suit. Whatever tension was previously occupying the room would soon be filled with rage. The room went dead silent, watching the situation unfold.

“I’m so sorry!” Megan cried, setting the plates down on the table along with her black server book. Her placement of her waitress notebook half covered the little black notebook the suited man brought with him. She grabbed napkin from the table and began to dab at the man’s suit jacket, now dripping with gravy.

“Are you stupid?” the man spat, furiously. He pushed his chair back and began to pick the food off his jacket, flinging it to the table. “Don’t touch me. Get me something to clean this up.”

“Yes of course sir, I am very sorry. I will get a wet towel right away,” she reassured the distraught and distracted man with stains on his suite jacket. She glanced back at the bearded man who seemed more concerned with old suit’s anger than anything else, frozen like a deer in the headlights.

Megan stacked the mostly empty plates from the table and grabbed little black notebook that sat under her server notebook in a quick sleight of hand, tucking it into her apron as she nearly sprinted to the kitchen.

Turning the corner behind cover of the kitchen wall, she dropped the plates at the sink and ran into the employee bathroom, locking the door behind her.

Without hesitation, she opened the little black notebook and laid her eyes on the pages. Top to bottom of the first four pages were lines of handwritten symbols and words arranged in patterns. Parenthesis, colons, and back-slashes scattered the page with words and numbers filled between. ‘UNLOCK’ here and ‘SEARCH’ there, ‘INSERT CODE’ at another spot. Although she did not know what it meant, she knew exactly what it was and who could help her.

Megan pulled out her phone, snapped photos of the pages and the lines therein, and sent them all to her brother Josh. A text message followed, ‘Josh what is this? What does it mean?’ Before the text fully sent, she called her brother right away. If anyone could help her, it was a computer programmer of her own blood.

“What’s up, Megan?” he answered.

“Josh, I need you to look at the texts I sent you. What does this mean?”

“Is everything okay-“

“Yes, just look at what I sent you!” Megan pressed her brother.

“Okay, let me look.” Clicks from the screen of the phone on the other end of the line stopped and he replied, “Where did you get this?... Woah, Megan. Where did you find this?”

“I don’t have time to explain right now Josh, just tell me what it is!”

“Okay, it’s coding that looks to uncover or dissect… no it’s directs,” he paused then gasped.

“What is it?”

“Look halfway down page three. Do you see the series of symbols followed by the word ‘CRYPTO’ then a series of numbers and more coding? Megan, this is instructions to uncover and receive a form of Cryptocurrency stored in the cloud, in someone’s database. How did you find this?” Josh had clear excitement in his voice followed by concern and confusion. “Megan, aren’t you at work? How did you come across this?”

“Look, I can’t really explain it,” she lowered her voice. “I am waiting on a table of two guys and something is not right with them. They are into something, a crime or a gang or something just bad, I can sense it. This was the form of payment from one to the other and I just took it.” At that moment, Megan realized how crazy the situation really was. She backed against the wall and she sank down to the floor.

“You stole this from suspicious people at the diner? Megan, are you crazy? How do you think any of this would be okay? Are you in danger?” Josh’s concern only fueled Megan’s panic.

“I don’t know! I wasn’t thinking! I mean they clearly are not good people and I thought-“

“You thought to rip these people off? You need to return this to them right now!”

“I can’t, Josh just listen. He said it was not traceable.”

“Who said this? Do you hear yourself? You are talking about stealing from obviously sketchy people carrying around hand-written code leading to stored cryptocurrency as payment for some sort of crime! Have you lost your mind?”

Her head was spinning. She gripped the black leather book with both hands tight. “They aren’t good people, Josh. I can feel it. Why should they reward themselves? I hold the key in my hands…” A long pause lasted for what seemed like eternity. With eyes closed now, tears began streaking down one cheek and she felt the weight of her decisions taking over.

A deep sigh came across the other end of the line. “They left this wide open,” Josh replied calmly. Her eyes flashed open.

“What does that mean?” Megan shot back, sitting straight up now.

“They made it fairly simple. Anyone with basic programming skills can access this. If I create a fake file to collect the currency, then make a few transfers, I can easily obtain this without the current holder knowing where it went. These are all of the pages, right?”

“Yes, yes I took pictures of all the pages,” she sat up in excitement.

“Are you in any danger? Can you still return the book safely?” Josh asked his sister.

“I may be able to, yes.”

“Okay here is what I want you to do. Towards the bottom of the second page, there is a row of numbers. Make all the threes into eights. You have a black pen on you, right? To match the notes?”

“Yes,” said Megan, scrambling in her apron for a pen. She set the notebook down and held the cover page open with her elbow, her hand holding the phone to her ear.

“That should throw them for a loop. But I can have this done in no time. Just return the notebook Megan, and please be safe. Text me as soon as you are safe,” Josh said.

“I will,” Megan replied before hanging up the phone. Pen in hand and notebook spread on the sink counter, she carefully completed the task and made each of the threes into eights.

A knock on the bathroom door rang out three times. “Megan, you in there?” Adam asked through the door with an annoyed tone.

“Be right out,” she uttered, jamming phone and notebook into her apron. A glance in the mirror caught sight of a streak of mascara running down her cheek. She left it there hoping to aid her cause.

Megan opened the door to Adam hovering over her, infuriated. “What’s wrong with you? You spill food all over a customer then hide in the bathroom?” Adam laid into her.

“I was embarrassed! The whole diner was staring at me, I felt like such a fool!” she cried. The mascara played its part.

“Get out there and help clean up. He is out there cursing up a storm. I have to give away two meals for this,” Adam badgered.

Megan walked back through the kitchen and grabbed another wet rag from the busser’s bin. Turning the corner, she could see the two men standing there with a busboy wiping the table down.

The older gentleman stared at Megan on her approach, her waitress notebook in his hand. The look on his face was no less red than when she left him. Megan felt a knee almost give out on the walk over, Adam right on her heels.

“Did you take my notebook from this table?” The suited man pointed at Megan with her waitress wallet. The stains on his jacket and pants were padded wet in attempt to remove them.

She stopped a few steps away from him, almost certain the man could hear her heart beating through her chest. “No sir, I grabbed my serving notebook,” she lied innocently, reaching in her apron. She pulled out the little black notebook and examined it for a moment, painting a look of surprise on her face. “This isn-“ The man snatched it out of her hands before she could finish her sentence. Megan took a step back in shock.

He examined the first four pages as though to make sure the coding was all there intact. Her legs were shaking behind her apron. He won’t notice. He won’t notice, she thought to herself. The man slammed the notebook closed and raised his glare to meet hers. Cold, angry eyes stared her down as hers held back tears of fear.

The man tossed Megan’s server notebook at her feet with a look of disgust on his face, then looked around the diner to see the other guests still watching the scene unfold.

Megan bent down to pick it up, and said softly, “I apologize for the mess and the mix-up. I was terribly embarrassed by the spill and hastily grabbed what I thought was my server wallet.” The man turned away and sat back down, ignoring the girl. “I ran off to cry in the bathro-“

“Enough,” the man cut her off. He scooted his chair back into the table and sipped from his coffee mug.

“Sir, I will get you and your friend any meal you like on the house along with a $100 gift card. I am very sorry for this situation,” Adam chimed in.

“We will need more coffee and the same as we ordered before. Add two sides of bacon,” the man said without raising his eyes to them. “And have another server bring it out.”

“I will bring it to you myself,” Adam concluded before turning to Megan with a scolding look. “Go clean yourself up,” Adam ordered. She obeyed willingly.

When Megan returned to the employee bathroom, she immediately pulled out her phone and texted Josh. ‘Safe but probably lost my job.’

He texted back right away. ‘Cover files made. Need a little more time.’

Megan put the phone down on the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. Dark hair, dark eyeliner and a dark streak of mascara running down her face. She could not believe what she just went through and did not know she possessed the type of courage to make such bold decisions. She gave herself a mischievous smile in the reflection.

She returned to the kitchen and peered over to the tables. The men were still seated, drinking coffee with little discussion. The older man’s face still held a fierce disposition. He did not look around the room or anywhere else except his coffee and the bearded man seated across from him.

With no other tables to tend to, Megan paced back and forth in the kitchen’s back hall waiting for a text from Josh to come through. Minutes went by, then almost a half hour. Her thoughts refused to stand still in the slowness of the shift. Recomposing herself was difficult during the wait for the men to leave and word from Josh.

Then it finally came; a text that read, ‘You aren’t going to believe this.’ The message was followed up with a screenshot of a graph. At the top of the screen, it said ‘Crypto-Market’ and below the graph was a red bar that said ‘SELL.’

As she tried to interpret the graph and all the numbers below it, another screenshot came through. A transaction summary showing the value of five Crypto Currency coins traded for $20,000. $20,000! Megan’s heart skipped a beat. Am I reading this correctly?

Josh sent a follow up text. ‘There were five coins stored. I gained access to them, moved files around and sold them off right away. The market value is currently $4,000 per coin Megan! That’s $20 grand!’ Josh wrote. ‘It is sitting in my account. I can’t even believe this.’

A feeling of relief overwhelmed her. She leaned back against the nearest wall and sank down to her butt, releasing a child-like laugh. Her head was in a daze after all she went through. Fear, panic, and adrenaline all fled her body. She was beside herself with jubilation.

Adam walked into the kitchen a moment later. Megan didn’t bother to get up.

“They are gone. And so are you, Megan. Pack your stuff and get out,” the manager said with a malicious grin.

Megan smiled back and asked, “Did they leave me a tip?”