Featured image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay

That statement brought a lot of shocked looks. “I told you” I responded, “Henry is not a normal man. He lives to be in the kitchen and his dark side likes killing with food. The only way he would burn through half a million is if he was dropped into New York and told he had to stay there a year. He would stay in a rat trap which didn’t have running hot water just to save the money for really fancy eating. Inside of three months he would be working in one of the kitchens.”

“Oh, yeah” I interrupted myself. “I forgot to tell you, Henry also travels with tools. If you ever saw the movie ‘Burnt’ you saw one master chef willing his knives to a younger chef. Henry travels with his knives. When he isn’t cooking or engaging in his oddities with women, he’s sharpening them. I had to listen to that for a few months driving a big rig.”

“Why were you driving a big rig?” asked Stretch, sounding more interested than shocked.

“Because I can and that was our cover” I responded. “For a few months we were dragging trailers around the country. Thank God no cop ever checked the loads!”

“Hauling drugs?” queried Slim.

“I have no idea. Given what we do I never expected the manifest to match the trailer contents. It would have been a much simpler way to get rid of me. Stick me with a trailer full of horse or cocaine and have the cops take me. Of course, that would lead to questions I might answer.”

“It was weird” I continued. “Henry did three jobs during that time. One one of them I carried his cooking gear and he passed me off as a junior apprentice. I switched into a wait staff outfit to stick a knife in the throat of the target while he took a dump in the men’s room, then switch back to apprentice clothes. Henry was pissed with me over that. He had something special planned. Guess he should have told me. He was in heaven and I hated the place.”

“Anyway…”

“Anyway, about the pump and dump” interjected Giant. “How does one use it to transfer money?”

“I was a bit more interested in the ax Henry has to grind” offered up Stretch. “So was I” stated Slim softly.

“He’s had plenty of time to get even for that” I stated. “I played it well. Managed to slip the knife in the jacket pocket of a secondary target, still with a bit of blood on it. They didn’t specify how to ‘remove’ that target, just that it shouldn’t be around for the next few months until after an election happened. Being locked up for murder was removal enough, especially since he found the knife in his pocket and put his hand on it. A fresh set of prints and the blood of the victim went a long way with the jury. As set-ups go, it couldn’t have worked better if I planned it.”

“You didn’t?” asked Giant.

“Oh, I planned on knifing the guy in the bathroom. What I didn’t plan on was the secondary target passing me in the hall on my way back from the men’s room. A little bump, an unfelt drop, an apology and off to the staff bathroom to change. He was found by security in the bathroom with the knife and, it turns out, they had a bit of history. Didn’t even take a good DA to convict him.”

“Man that’s cold” whispered Stretch.

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