Table of Contents:

Chapter One: He Blinded me with Science



Chapter Two: An Offer you can't Refuse

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'Lefty' Spumoni was a stocky little man with a hooked nose and small beady eyes that looked right through you. His christened name was actually Angelo, but the moniker Lefty stuck 'cause he was always nice enough to order the left thumb cut off instead of the right. 'Officially' Lefty was the accountant for the Ravioli Family, but in reality he was more of an all round problem solver. Not that he dirtied his own hands mind you, as he always had a couple huge sides of beef in tow to execute his every command.

As Lefty sat in the upstairs office with the President, the plant was dark, the lights were out and the workers had long gone home. It was a quiet, peaceful time of day when the noise of heavy machinery, presses and kilns had finally ceased.

Lefty: "So it's like this, we were happy to underwrite your little business here provided it became a viable operation."

President Ben Dover: "And it has! Here's a copy of the contracts just like you asked for."

Lefty: "That's good, that's good. So what are we looking at here?"

Ben Dover: "As of today we're the exclusive supplier of every puck for the SHL and JHL teams. That's a guaranteed order between three and four hundred thousand pucks every year at fifty bucks a pop!"

Lefty: "So you're looking at upwards of sixteen million a year?"

The President couldn't help grinning with savage delight.

Ben Dover: "Yeah, we sold the leagues on all that natural crap, but with the added synthetics our profits are through the roof!"

With those words, like a big cat preparing to pounce, Lefty ever so slightly leaned forward in his chair.

Lefty: "Yeah, we don't care about your profits. Here's how it's gonna work. Every week we deliver a truckload of cash from our sanitation business. That gives you seven days to process that cash as pension contributions, business expenses or what have you. Seven days later, we collect our cash plus two points as a transaction fee for funding this little operation. Are we clear?"

Ben Dover: "Absolutely, the money will be perfectly clean."

Lefty: "Good. It's your job to make sure this operation runs nice and smooth. We like smooth. Just remember, if you hit any bumps in the road, we'll have to come down here and make an adjustment. And believe me, you don't want us coming down here!"

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To be continued... 

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