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“Oh. You’ve told them that then?” Henry chuckled. “Fine. Live off whatever rations you brought. That car shouldn’t leave here again until you are ready to leave for good.”
“Relax” I stated. “You all saw the old Mercedes in the car port when the headlights hit it. That’s a local ride old enough to not have GPS or much other trackable tech. Wait until morning before you boost it from Henry though. Use the laptop to find a place to eat breakfast.”
“You mean he can even poison a couple of eggs?” squeaked Stretch.
“Well, if he has eggs and you are feeling particularly lucky, make use of his kitchen” I responded. Stretch actually got pale.
“Get cleaned up guys” Slim said, catching onto the joke. “Had you been paying attention you would have noticed we passed a place to eat three blocks back and it was open. Just don’t take too long in the shower.”
“Touchy crew you’ve got” Henry said.
“They haven’t lived long enough to adopt my philosophy in life” I responded.
“What philosophy is that?” Giant asked. I could tell he thought it had something to do with money.
“Leave that square case and the big cash bag in the trunk” I said, pointing to the case as I got my stuff out of the trunk.
“I trust you have a decent safe here for my operational funds” I said to Henry.
“One in each bedroom, hotel safes” responded Henry. “Since this is a rental property I had to add that feature. Are you really going hunting tonight?”
“No choice. That place will be found some time tomorrow. You smelled how ripe it was. City could be locked down for a while, at least as far as out of towners without great documentation are concerned. Need to find out what Dimitri is here for without leading him back here. I assume you know where he will be this time of night?”
“Yes” answered Henry. “He hangs out, oddly enough, at the bar I own a big chunk of. I can get you out through the office once you are done. Do try to be kind to the furniture. It doesn’t have a reputation yet and I don’t want it to get one. It’s just a nice place most tourists don’t know about.”
“Tourists don’t but Dimitri does” piped up Slim. “I hope the same company doesn’t own this place too.”
Good, he’s learning.
“No. It doesn’t. I have another business which leases this place out as corporate housing, hence the hotel safe in each bedroom. Not to the heavy partying crowd. They couldn’t afford it. Well, maybe some of those hard rock or gangster rappers could, but it doesn’t have enough bling for them. No pool for roof diving, etc. Mostly VPs and CEOs of corporations down here for business.”
“I wouldn’t worry about a city lock down of any kind though” continued Henry. “Not many here know who I am but they know I own the place and they know my car. Corporate types with enough coin to rent this place haven’t caused a problem here in years.”
“But there have been problems here?” queried Stretch as he returned to the room we were in. How does anyone shower that fast?
“More than five years ago. One of the renters got liquored up at Mardi Gras and somehow almost made it back here in their car. Tore the oil pan out of his car going over the short brick wall around one of the neighbor’s flower gardens. That was when the neighbors learned a company had been leasing this place out for years. A drunk driver doing some property damage in a city that lives and dies by tourism dollars didn’t cause any problems cash couldn’t fix. I just don’t rent the place to anyone under thirty now. You would think thirty grand per month or ten grand per week would keep out people who get that drunk and drive, but, it didn’t. Fucking stock brokers! Never doing business with one again.”
“Odd” chimed in Giant. He always seems to be around when people are talking about money. The fact he stopped talking after that one word caused everyone to slowly look at him.
“You just going to leave that hang in the air lover or are you going to put your teeth back in and finish the sentence?” asked Slim.
“Oh, sorry. Did I say that out loud?” queried Giant.
“You said one word, odd, then it appeared your mental train derailed” I responded.
“I was just remembering Henry saying he learned how to handled money being with you, but you weren’t together that long. Well, not as long as the rental history of the property” Giant responded.
He always paid attention when it came to money.
“My good man, I’ve owned this home for over 30 years. Lived here between contracts, practicing my craft in the kitchen. Nobody living in this city knows me as Henry. I started renting it out quite some time ago, mostly to keep the place occupied and partly for the extra revenue stream the company didn’t know about. Eventually the extra money got big enough I needed to make it work somehow so I bought a chunk of the bar I will be taking Old Timer to later. Then I got wise to the risks of a bar so I set up a paper corporation as best I could then transferred my stake in the bar to that. After working with Old Timer for a while I learned how to really set companies up. Off-shore with seven dead Lithuanians as a board of directors, incorporated in the country with the lowest corporate tax rate.”
I had never seen Henry build up steam during a conversation, but, it was obvious the wheels were spinning faster. The fact he poisoned me the first day we met, yet took the time to glean all of this financial information from me wasn’t escaping my realm of comprehension either.
“Under various nicknames people have for me down here, I became friends with other chefs. Since I can’t be famous I just wanted to cook things a few nights here and there. Most took credit for my creations, I didn’t care. I had always wondered what to do with all of this loot various jobs brought. Nothing like Old Timer. Some of my jobs came with quite a bit of walking around money and I rarely spent any. I couldn’t keep it here what with renting out the place. I started laundering it through the bar as I took a bigger stake in the place.”
“Recently I set up, per Old Timer’s instructions, a fist full of paper businesses, all with legitimate checking accounts. Several of them bought or backed restaurants in this city. Until we started working together though, I never had a brokerage account. Turns out paper shell companies can have them too. Turns out some of these people we are sent to kill, they dramatically impact the price of a stock and we can benefit from that. To me the phrases ‘short selling’ and ‘long position’ were wind past the ears. I’m a chef. I put money in what I knew. I’ve laundered a lot of cash through the bar and restaurants, putting much of it into brokerage accounts which allow check writing privileges. I make some big plays, but not too big, then park the profits in dividend paying stocks which have a long track record of increasing their dividend.”
“Here is what I will share with you. Neither he nor I do this job for money anymore, if either of us ever did. That reminds me,”stated Henry turning to look at me. “If you want to transfer some of your smaller diamonds into more legitimate accounts, I have a person who can do that. Not the big ones mind you, but a good amount of the smaller ones, especially if he can book the purchases as coming from different entities going into different accounts.”
“Good to know” I responded. “No need at the moment though.” It appeared sharing that last little reminder derailed Henry’s through train.
“Is the only way to survive in this business to turn out like you and Henry, Old Timer?” asked Slim as he walked in still drying his hair.
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