It was Tats.
“Mind if I walk you to the edge of town?”
Finding the request a bit odd, and not wanting a large amount of attention drawn to his horseless mode of travel, he was inclined to offer a quick excuse, but his gut quickly told him there was an important reason behind the request.
“Come along,” he said.
They walked in silence for the first dozen yards or so, and Righty noticed Tats look over his shoulder more than once while they strode forward.
“You’re probably wondering why we didn’t demand a bulk discount given that we’re moving such a large amount.”
“It crossed my mind.”
“Well, I want to be straight with you, Mr. Brass. Always.”
Righty looked at him.
Tats then continued. “Well, you see that is a discount. A damn good discount.”
Righty looked at him again questioningly.
“Prices have gone up quite a bit. By the pound, $12,000 is considered competitive. No one would laugh at you for asking $14,000.”
“It sounds like that should help you move this pretty fast then,” Righty said.
“Yes, sir. Too fast maybe.”
Righty looked at him again.
“We’re gonna get some attention from Heavy Sam.”
“Who?”
“Well, let’s just say he controls at least seventy percent of the action in Sivingdel now, and he’s not gonna be too happy to hear that a small outfit like us is moving Green by the pound cheaper than what he can do.”
Righty shot Tats an intense look that showed he was definitely interested in getting more information.
“Heavy Sam doesn’t like competition. He’s sliced many a throat on the way to arriving at seventy percent. He sees any group outside his own as poachers. He believes Sivingdel has a big sign painted on the door saying ‘NO ONE BUT HEAVY SAM SELLS SMOKELESS GREEN HERE.’
“His thugs have taken out rival gangs wholesale. Everything but the southwestern part of the city is firmly under his control, and he’s been creeping our way by the week if not by the day. Frankly, you couldn’t have returned at a better time. We’re in need of leadership.
“The reason we put Scorpion in charge is because we thought he had the guts to defend this last slice of what’s left of the city. He saw you as an—”
Tats paused and gauged Righty’s expression. “Be brutally honest; that’s the only kind of man I trust,” Righty said.
“He saw you as an intruder, maybe even thought you were sent by Heavy Sam. None of that really matters now. Fact is—none of us really liked Scorpion too much anyway. After what happened today, Mr. Brass, believe me—you’re in charge. I just thought you should know what we’re up against. Heavy Sam already has his sights set on us, but after he hears we’re underselling him, we’re gonna have an even bigger target placed on our backs.
“I can’t make any guarantees to you that the day won’t come soon when you’ll walk into the junkyard and find it empty because we’ve been killed or scared away from the business. Or, you just might find some of Sam’s goons there, and even if you manage to get out of there alive, you won’t sell any more product there. They would be signing their own death warrant if they bought from someone outside their organization.”
Righty turned to face Tats. “I appreciate the information. Be careful. I’m gonna think about this.”
Tats didn’t need to be told he had walked with Mr. Brass long enough. He turned to leave somewhat awkwardly, but Righty shot out his hand warmly.
“Thanks,” he said.
Tats nodded and headed back towards his crew.
Chapter 4
Senator Hutherton was furious. Towering above a set of newspaper articles arranged carefully like a deck of cards on the table below him, he read their headlines over and over. While not all that long ago he had stood triumphantly above equally alarming headlines dealing with the very same subject matter, those had brought him delight, while these only brought him fury and vexation.
IS IT REALLY ILLEGAL?
NO LET-UP IN DRUG USE, DESPITE LAW
POLICE SAY ARRESTS RARE, AVAILABILITY AT ALL-TIME HIGH
NO PERCEPTIBLE DECLINE IN USE, EXPERTS OPINE
GREEN-FUELED PARTIES, THE STUFF OF LEGEND
SOME SAY IT’S THE WORKING MAN’S FUEL
Nearly a full year had passed since SISA had gone into effect, and what he had once considered his crowning achievement now felt like his most ignominious failure. In spite of the drug being illegal, it was readily available throughout the country, and as far as the capital city was concerned he didn’t need the avalanche of news articles in front of him to know this.
He had seen so many a passerby casually tap a bit of Green into his palm and sniff it that it now drew no more attention than witnessing a sneeze. At one point, contempt for SISA became so brazen that a few shop owners started selling Smokeless Green openly in their stores, but this had promptly brought arrests and a swift end to such ostentatious flaunting of the law. These well-publicized arrests last month had firmly cemented the venue for transactions of the substance into the realm of the underworld.
But there had been few arrests besides that. The city’s police force was small and restricted mostly to officers patrolling on foot in bright uniform. So long as you weren’t foolish enough to snort up or sell Green in the presence of an officer, you were in little danger of arrest. And as for avoiding the presence of an officer, this was hardly a cat and mouse game—that is, unless the cat were obese and on its deathbed.
A sharp whistle from a lookout could give another lookout the warning to alert the next lookout, and thus, with a dozen or so low-paid, low-skilled ruffians anyone selling this product could ensure himself of a comfortable half-hour or so warning to properly hide the merchandise or get it the hell out of there before a curious patrolman arrived.
But it was the last headline above that troubled Hutherton the most. It had already become common knowledge that many a working man was now using Smokeless Green as a fuel to work twice what he did before. Many lauded this as a potential upside to the drug. After all, some business owners said, “We never used to see them work this way!!”
Senator Hutherton had no qualms with a working man shedding his last ounce of strength every day in an onerous job. Such was the duty of a working man. But what these short-sighted businessmen failed to realize was that their workers were being empowered. Yes, double the hours meant more production for the business. Yes, more production for the business meant more cash flow and ultimately a stronger economy.
But, it also meant something else—a stronger worker. A man with twice the money in his pocket at the end of the day. Sure, most of them would squander it on booze and whores, but even if they drank and screwed to their hearts’ delight, some of that double salary just might have a tendency to stick around in spite of all that recreation. And people with salaries that stick around get ideas. They start to get plans. Foolish plans. Plans like, Honey, do you think little Timmy might like to go to college someday?
Why, I don’t know, Larry. You know we can’t afford something like college.
Well, maybe we can afford it. Now, that I’m getting double pay and all, it seems like maybe the money ought to go to something, doesn’t it?
Oh, Larry, you’re so noble. Of course, we should send Timmy to college. Oh, Larry, I’m so proud of you.
Hey, babe, a working man looks after his own.
Muaa, muaa, muaa, muaaa.
The next thing you know, college-educated Timmy—instead of working a hundred hours a week swinging a hammer, pushing a broom, or lifting lumber the way nature intended—would be entering the world as a businessman.
He could easily imagine little Timmy’s conversation someday at the bar with his fellow social climbers:
Hey, Timmy, business is going so well for you; why don’t you look for a real challenge. Hey, you should run for senator!
Senator? Robbie, what, are you
joking?
Joking? You own a large business, you can afford a campaign, you’ve got lots of contacts, you understand how the economy works. No, I’m not joking!
Senator . . . wow, if only dear dad could see me now. He worked those hundred-hour weeks, put me through college. Hey, that sounds like the beginning of a campaign speech!
You see?!
Cheers!
Hutherton went charging towards the nearest lamp, seized it, and hurled it against the wall, shattering it into pieces. The candle itself providentially tumbled onto a nice marble section of the floor, rather than the carpet he was standing on, which saved him the added vexation of an inferno in his study. He charged after the candle and then began stomping on it. First, with one foot, and then leaping up into the air with both feet and landing on it as if he were a mother kangaroo pouncing on a cobra that had ventured too near her joeys.
“Is everything all right, Lord Hutherton?” Melanie, one of his servants asked.
“SCAT!!” he shouted.
“Yes, Lord Hutherton,” she replied meekly, quitting the room.
He looked up on the wall. There, staring ahead with the contemptuous coldness befitting a gentleman, was his father, his late namesake. Now, he had been a real senator. He had sponsored major legislation throughout his decades’-long career in the senate and handled both senatorial and business opponents alike with the finesse of an expert wrestler dispatching amateurs.
It seemed as if he were now looking down at Senator Hutherton, saying, My stupid son. My stupid, stupid son.
He had suspected there would be a certain amount of black market dealings. He wasn’t so foolish as to think the law would snuff out Smokeless Green as he had just snuffed out his hapless candle. But he had figured the illegality of it would push the price far above what the average working man could afford. He had noticed the price getting higher and higher each time he met with Ambassador Rochten, but the sting to his pocketbook was alleviated by the belief this precious powder was rising out of the reach of the dirty little paws of the working man.
To his great dismay, he soon learned that what was happening was the product was being diluted for the poor. Any line sniffed by a poor man was about one-tenth Smokeless Green and nine-tenths something else, often coffee, from what he had heard. However, since many of them made their first acquaintance with the weaker version of the product, it was that to which they became accustomed and gradually required more of. It didn’t exactly send them flying towards the moon, as did the real thing; but it was still strong enough to make coffee feel like sleeping powder.
He then noticed another headline staring at him. His swift flight to attack the lamp had knocked the newspapers onto the floor and shuffled them considerably. This headline had been buried almost at the back page of today’s newspaper:
SOME SAY VICIOUS UNDERWORLD DEVELOPING DUE TO SISA
He reached for the article greedily, like a man in the desert for newly discovered water, and then began gulping down its contents ravenously with his eyes.
Chapter 5
Senator Megders was currently in his capacity as Edward Megders, Esq. He was walking towards the city jail, as he had a certain person he needed to meet. His first client to help him challenge the constitutionality of SISA. He was breaking a tiny rule, which the geniuses in the local bar administration had cooked up against solicitation. According to them, clients just dropped into your office like magical fruit from the sky, and thus, no attorney would ever have the need to do something so profane as seek out business. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. In recent years, there had been a slight relaxation of the rules, which allowed him to state on the outside of his office what kinds of cases he practiced and whether he carried malpractice insurance, the latter being sure to sweep any reluctant client off his feet.
But even if he had had the good fortune for any of these stupid shop owners arrested for openly selling Smokeless Green right out of their shops to walk by his door and see that he practiced constitutional law, that wouldn’t exactly have been the same thing as a sign saying:
BUSTED FOR SELLING SMOKELESS GREEN? KNOCK ON
THE DOOR. YOU MAY HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSE.
This was uncharted legal territory, and it wasn’t exactly common knowledge that a constitutional defense to a SISA charge had a decent chance of success. Sure, there had been a few articles discussing its constitutionality when it was still a mere bill, but after it had become law few news outlets had touched that aspect of the issue.
Today, at a minimum, he was going to have to violate the ethics rule concerning solicitation and probably tell a few lies to boot.
He opened the door to the administrative area of the jail and approached the front desk.
“Your business, sir?”
He was glad he didn’t recognize this employee. It might make things easier.
“Attorney Megders, ma’am. I’m here to see my client, David Stephenson.”
“Attorney seal.”
Megders extracted a scroll and unrolled it, revealing his name, his good standing with the bar, and a large seal at the bottom from this year.
“To see David Stephenson?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“David Stephenson’s attorney was here yesterday.”
Megders let out a quiet sigh and looked at the employee with a kind but slightly paternal glare that seemed to say, Let me explain to you how this works.
“Ma’am, Mr. Stephenson may have legal counsel on other matters. That is not my concern. What is my concern is seeing my client on the matter for which he has retained me. Now, may I see my client, or do I need to seek an Article 5 injunction ordering you to allow me to meet with my client?”
The employee gulped nervously.
“Back this way,” she said.
She then began leading him down a series of hallways that sloped downwards, bringing them several stories underground, where they kept prisoners charged with serious crimes, which this would certainly qualify for, being a Class B felony.
Megders saw her beginning to approach a particular cell, and he knew this was where things might get really tricky.
“Mr. Stephenson, there’s a man here saying he’s your attorney. I tried to tell him that you already had—”
“I’ll take it from here, ma’am. Client-attorney privilege. Morgan v. Selegania.”
She looked at him with irritated eyes but conceded. She apparently did not care to hear about Morgan v. Selegania, although Megders would have been happy to discuss the labyrinthine Supreme Court case, which—amongst many other things—held that when an attorney was brought to his client’s cell a jailer could not question the prisoner about anything—including the existence of the attorney-client relationship—as this could be interpreted as creating an intimidating atmosphere.
He waited until he heard her footsteps fade away to almost nothing, and then he approached the cell.
A mildly cranky man approached the bars:
“You’re lucky I’m bored to tears. Who the hell are you, and why are you claiming to be my attorney?”
“I feel passionately about your case, and I believe I can win it.”
“That’s what my current attorney said right before I paid him a hefty retainer fee. Yet, here I am rotting away a month later.”
“I won’t be needing a retainer fee.”
“Come again.”
“This is a constitutional matter of tremendous importance, in my opinion. Having the privilege of handling your case would be payment enough.”
“You’ve got my attention.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. Now for me to become your attorney on this matter, I need you to do two things. One, fire your other attorney effective immediately. Two, retain me as your sole attorney on the matter.”
“Not so fast, mister. I don’t know your name. I don’t know your proposed legal strategy. And I don’t know why in the hell I should trust you. Start talking.”
“Fair enoug
h. My name is Edward Megders. I’m a senator.” (Even in the dim light he saw Mr. Stephenson’s eyebrows rise at that tidbit.) “I was one of the chief opponents of SISA. I believe it’s unconstitutional under Article 8, and I believe I can convince the district judge of that. My strategy is to file a writ of habeas corpus to get you out of this hellhole and into court, whereupon I would immediately file a motion to dismiss the charge, based upon SISA being unconstitutional on its face and as applied.
“I would also file a motion for a bail hearing and be prepared to demonstrate that you are neither a flight risk nor a threat to the community. It’s possible you could be out of here within a week.”
The Republic of Selegania Boxed Set: Volumes One through Four Page 40