LaRue rubbed his eyes as he stepped off the plane. He had landed in Al-Bayda Airport several times. The country of Yemen was a sewer and he hated travelling here.

He caught his reflection in the men’s room mirror. His blondish-red hair had been dyed black, his gray eyes now brown. He had grown tired of this play acting. The disguises, the aliases, the different accents. He loved the killing, the shot of adrenaline, the look in the eyes as the life leaves, never got old.

            He was here one final time. ‘Tommy’s final assignment,’ he thought. Tommy’s face drifted in front of him. ‘I would kill you slowly if you were here,’ he said softly. ‘You dragged me into this . .this . .” he gestured to the disguise he wore, “this acting shit.”

He got into the nondistinctive sand-colored sedan and started pointing angrily at the figure in the mirror. The cigar that he kept stashed in his right jacket sleeve slid down into his hand. “You lied to me that night. I can forgive that. Men lie to strangers every day.” He opened the glove box, there was an manilla envelope. On top of the envelope was an untraceable 9mm handgun. To the right of the envelope sat 24 inches of rope, coiled. LaRue toyed with the handgun before slipping it into his inside pocket. The envelope contained the details of the ‘event.’

            “You refer to these jobs as ‘events,’ Tommy had said on his second assignment.

            “Why?” he had asked. Although he would come to follow Tommy’s orders unquestioningly, early on he would ask a few.

            “You never know who’s listening. It could be one of the agents, Chefs you know, or complete strangers. No one would question it if you were planning an event.”

            LaRue stared at the 8 x 10 inside the envelope. He was a Middle-Eastern man who appeared to be in his mid-30’s. LaRue would never know his name, just as he never knew the names of the other fifty nine he had killed. Nor did LaRue know why this man was to die. Again, no questions. The only information he had on event number sixty was the place where he was to be.

               Just as a chef can prepare the same food multiple ways, LaRue could murder someone in a variety of ways. As a young culinary student, he had learned about Mise En Place. “Mise en place, my little empty-headed ˈidēəts, is a French term that means ‘everything in its place,’” he could still hear Chef Robert L. North say. Chef North was constantly insulting them in foreign languages. He would be visited by an older LaRue years later, an event even Tommy knew nothing about. LaRue carries his own poisonous version of mise en place into his events. It contains different poisons he has discovered over the previous twenty years.                Even though he and Emily live together, mornings before an event LaRue made it a point to cut off contact with everyone. This morning was no different. He knew his assignment and tools would be waiting for him, so he would leave with no more on these mornings than he would typically. Mornings before an event, he sat alone in the dark, remembering. Every face, every manner of death he would reflect on, enjoying each one again as if the first time. Because of this, each morning took a little longer than the previous one.               The other thing that didn’t change was, after his time of reflection, he would turn on the light and leave a note for Emily. The one this more simply said, ‘check the edits on the new book. See if the layout on the new menu looks right. You always go with me. I love you Doc.’                Upon arriving at the locations of his victims, LaRue always had a variety of ways to kill his victims. He always carried a weapon, sometimes a handgun, sometimes a rifle that can be broken down quickly. He sometimes used his aforementioned mise en place. But his favorite would always be the coil of rope that lay in the glove box.                “I can still see the last moments of everyone I used the cord on,” he had told Tommy. “The light slowly fades, the last flicker of life and then darkness.”               “LaRue, you make me really proud,” Tommy said with a huge smile. The two killers sat on the patio of Tommy home. LaRue had his bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon, Tommy stuck to his Glenlivet scotch. Both men had their hand rolled cigars.                LaRue and Tommy had these meetings whenever Tommy thought it necessary. The agent walked a fine line. He had to appear to care about the Chef, thus they had to meet often enough to give the appearance of warmth and family. However, he needed to also keep enough distance that if Chef’s alternative career was discovered, it couldn’t be traced back to him.               “I still prefer my Anna,” Tommy said, patting the Glock in his side holster. “I don’t need that connection that you do. I have a job to do, nothing more.” He refilled his glass. “Why do you think you need that connection?” Tommy smirked. He had had this conversation with LaRue before. It fascinated him that someone who had over three dozen murders still had a need for that intimate connection.               “You should have been a shrink, Tommy,” LaRue said, with a sigh. They’ve had this conversation many times before. This was one of the few times LaRue had the distinct impression that Tommy was laughing at him.               “I told you Chef, I couldn’t take the pay cut.” One of the few stipulations LaRue had only put on Tommy was to call him Chef.                “You prefer Anna. I prefer another way,” was the only answer he would ever give.                LaRue reflected on the file he had received from McCoy, and about a life without Tommy. He stared into the mirror; the image changed from his own to Tommy.                 “Hello, Chef.”               “You bastard. I’m in this because of you.”               “You’re welcome.” Tommy did a little bow. “You admitted that this career, the life of a killer, gave you more excitement than that of a celebrity chef. You’re on a first name basis with presidents, your restaurants all have pages of patrons waiting to get in and spend their money, your TV show has made you a millionaire many times over and those stupid cookbooks you write are best sellers. Yet it’s the life of make believe and killing that you prefer. So for that, you’re welcome.”               “But you killed Amie. Then you conned me, just a kid.”               “My first instinct was to kill you. Get over that self-righteous streak. You weren’t the first, you weren’t the last. Grow up, Chef. You have an event to complete.”               That night a second-class dignitary was killed. Few details were ever known, although many suspected it was a professional. Some even suggested, quietly, that it had the markings of an American secret agent.

            LaRue sat in his office twenty two hours later. Well, ‘office’ was a liberal use of the word.  It had begun life as a storage room under the stairs. He had moved an old computer in there and a small cabinet because he had no other corner to sit and think. To the small desk, he had, as a laugh, added a large cutting board to extend the writing surface. It was here that he had created the menus for each of his restaurants. It was here he had created his cookbooks, and it was here he had prepared for each event Tommy had given him. Therefore, it was understandable that it was here that he sat as he decided what direction his life would take without Tommy.

            “I am forty-four years old. I have been in the ‘employ’ of Tommy for more than half my life. In his right hand was the crank from an antique eggbeater. The crank was the one item he had left from Grandpa Lou. Grandpa Lou was the reason he had first thought becoming a chef.

            “Are you a chef, Grandpa?”

            “Oh shoot kiddo, I ain’t no chef. I’m barely a cook. I started cookin’ when Ma died. I was seven, but Papa needed help.”

            LaRue remembered this conversation and had thought about it many times. He was twelve and had just gotten suspended again. His parents had given up on him and the sheriff was just waiting until he was eighteen so he could put ‘that trash in jail where he belongs.’ The only person he had left was Grandpa Lou.

            They were in that kitchen with the worn-out linoleum, the faded green paint, and the 1950’s icebox. He watched as Grandpa made his ‘World Famous Chicken, Sausage and Potato Gumbo.’ Grandpa Lou had made it for him many times, and even today, after eating in every city in the world, it was still LaRue’s favorite dish.

            “After Ma died, I never really had a future, D. I was only seven, but I knew I would end up in a place like this.” He cooked in silence.

            LaRue felt sorry for Grandpa Lou. He knew he could have done so much. LaRue also knew that he, probably, just a bad a kid as everyone said he was.

            Knowing what he was thinking, Grandpa Lou broke the silence. “We must all make up our own minds who we are. I told you I knew at seven I would end up here. I was okay with that. You will only wind up in jail if you make up your mind to be there.”

            “Where do you think I’ll end up, Grandpa?”

            “D., you could go in a lot of ways. You love cookin’, you could own a restaurant one day. You have a hecka big imagination, you might be a writer.” He stopped and looked at the boy. “But D., you also has anger things in you. Not tellin’ you it’ll go away, ‘cause it ain’t gonna do. That means you has to learn how to control it.”

            LaRue remembered their meal later that night as well.

            “D., you is almost fourteen. By the time I was fourteen I had a gal pregnant. I figger you’re as much a man as I was. So I want to tell you something you don’t know.”

            “I shot a kid not long after I turned fourteen. He was the boyfriend of the pregnant gal.” Grandpa Lou started to laugh, “you might say he didn’t like me huntin’ on his place.”

            I knew what he meant even as a virgin. I thought it was funny and I giggled.  

            “My daddy was a worthless sum of bitch. He didn’t know nothin’ ‘cept the bottle in front of him. Didn’t care to know nothin’ else neither. He was the only folks I had, so prison seemed to be an improvement.”