The Nasty Business of a Bodyguard by Elijah Douresseau (top 10 ebook reader txt) 📗

information. So it did not matter – that he was alive because his food was appreciated. It saved his life.

Maybe the food was warmly appreciated. Adored. That was a sparkly review for Alvin to keep. Not for Matts and the Government to scrutinize until it meant nothing about the chef’s vocation of passion.

As much as Alvin’s cooking kept him from getting blasted into meat goo, it could not have been all there was to his current state of existence. They all would just have to find out together what the chef’s larger role was going to be.

“Where am I going to hide?”

Chapter 8

Alvin could not say exactly what he was doing. Only his boss had some idea, but was given the pretense of some sort of work release.

No more friends. Only acquaintances. Even then, he was supposed to keep his distance. They preferred he did not tell too many people he had to leave. He had no family he knew of. No wife or kids. No grandma. His case for departure was optimal.

The objective of Witness Protection was to make the witness’ life smooth and safe. As long as the criminal in question was at large. So the cook’s current state was going to be his life for a long time. Low profile. To a mundane and quiet degree.

Matts was not bluffing about Alvin’s special attention. He saw it around him 24/7. His bodyguards from a distance. Maybe it was because he knew the context and the stakes. But if they stuck out to Alvin, hiding not too far away – in plain sight – they would likely have been a step too late from blocking whatever hit out on him Coco would have enacted.

Though their last set of words still rang true. His old employer did not wish him harm. At least from her hands.

The circle of old, white bosses – all their constituents were okay with Coco’s abrupt takeover? Even if Alvin was complicit in their murders, who would have believed Alvin was the true killer? So he probably was okay from a revenge pursuit.

He would never forget how tickled Coco was that her master plan, her big joke was on her superior and her subordinate. Two forces that were destined to interact for all time, but were hardly humanized to one another. They just met over the mess the other made, that the second had to clean up.

It was funny, admittedly. Momentarily. For what inner chuckle one would have had at the deep play for humor, it was a headliner comedian’s signature joke in a comedy special – the way Coco laughed about her punchlines. It was mania.

In all likelihood, Jasmin Benjamin – public enemy number one – was fighting for her life. For her new job. If she was smart about it, if she was successful, most went along with her upper management adjustment. Others probably had to be straightened out. Alvin was just a means to the ultimate goal for wrested power. A part of the background that Coco willfully changed out for another.

Why was he still thinking about it? He won, did he not? To the extent of keeping his life. He had the luxury of thinking he was not in any actual danger. It gave him the unique opportunity to choose a side, to discern his true role in all of it.

Matts did suspect Coco to make contact with Alvin soon, in some way.

But the nerve of her.

How could someone weaponize food like that? His food?

Was he so ambitious with his cooking he could not see the grand scheme unfolding the way it did? Trying to impress Coco. Trying to make her weak in the knees for his food every time, was he just as guilty?

He hated that she blurred the art he saw in what people ate. Manufactured an error in its inherent biological progression. But Alvin was pretty sure diabetes and heart disease were still leading causes of death in the nation. There was always some recall on millions of pounds of food, mass produced in sterile factories, to be sold to uninformed customers who were trying to save time in the kitchen.

Lettuce and spinach had killed at least four people so far in the year.

The other cruel joke was Alvin’s new job post. Matts listened to the man’s plea for continuing to cook for others. He was serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at a twenty-four hour diner, in an undisclosed location – in the middle-east of the country. He was making food for a white collar god two months ago, and people in his new place of employment had the audacity to steal silverware and take too many extra napkins home with them because it was cheaper than paying for whole rolls at the store.

The place was a greasy spoon. It induced chronic back pain. The hours and shifts were grueling. And Alvin felt himself get used to it after a short while. No real talent or skill curve for being in the kitchen. It was just a matter of speed.

The service made most customers happy. Working at said, undisclosed restaurant started to make Alvin happy himself. Wherever he served, people had to eat. That would never change. But the brand of gratitude that came with the job, that was what varied.

It was why he went into personal cooking. The relationship he dictated from the stove was always getting people to depend on him to make them and their bellies merry. And if he kept making them blissful in their eating, they would not leave. Like his mom and his grandmother did.

Yes. It was complicated.

As an adult, Alvin was fully aware that accidents happened. In the case of his mom, a terrible, tragic occurrence. He had his contempt for a God who would allow such a thing, but then Alvin’s grandmother stepped in and nurtured him. Showed him another side of a