Afterward, Samuel asked me to walk with him along the river.
He wore a warmer coat than the one he had worn to breakfast and used a cane on uneven pavement.
He said he had deliberately dressed as he once did when the restaurant was struggling.
He wanted to see how the dining room treated a man who appeared unable to pay.
He admitted that the choice was theatrical and not entirely fair to the people working that morning.
He had intended to observe quietly, buy his meal with money he carried separately, and leave.
When Preston confronted me, Samuel had lost control of his experiment.
“I didn’t plan for you to lose your job,” he said.
I told him the responsibility for firing me belonged to Preston, but I also wanted Samuel to understand what his test had risked.
He nodded and apologized without making excuses.
That mattered because he was not asking me to admire the way he had approached the restaurant.
I asked why he had not spoken to Robert privately before entering.
Samuel said earlier letters had gone unanswered and that Robert’s office had been filtering communications through Leon Farrow.
He wanted Robert to see him directly, beyond the statements of attorneys.
I asked whether he regretted the visit.
He looked toward the water.
“I regret letting an innocent person become the price of being heard,” he replied.
He offered to help cover my lost wages through his personal funds.
I said I appreciated the concern but wanted the employer to correct its own wrongdoing.
Samuel accepted that answer.
We walked back toward the street while buses moved through wet traffic.
I was beginning to see him as a flawed man who cared about justice, not a magical stranger who could solve every problem with a phone call.
That made his friendship more meaningful.
Chapter 22: The Suit Against the Estate
Edwin Pike had died several years before the breakfast incident.
His business entities survived through a complicated estate and a group of successor partnerships.
That fact changed the shape of the investigation because the people now controlling the records were not necessarily the people who created the disputed documents.
A trustee for the estate said Pike had always acted on professional advice.
She insisted the dissolution certificate was valid and warned that the worker claims could bankrupt companies employing innocent people.
Naomi agreed that innocent employees deserved protection, but she disputed the implication that potential harm justified ignoring questionable records.
