Dark Side of the Force Ch. 03

The chronological order of my stories is as follows:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, The Murdered Football Player Series, Case of the Black Widow series, Teresa's Christmas Story, The Case of the Black Badge series, A Case of Revenge series, Trilogy Series.

Dark Side Of The Force, Ch 1-3.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, extreme language, and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial or racist language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

Part 11 - The Race Card (Continued)

The tension in the air was thick as Harold Malone held the black 'A/C repairman' at gunpoint.

"Please, sir," Eugene pleaded, "I was just here to repair your air conditioner. I... I've got kids, sir! I'm just trying to do my job!"

"Shut up, nigger!" Harold Malone exclaimed, his voice ragged. He grabbed Eugene by the back of the collar. "Pick up your fucking toolbox and stand up, slowly." Eugene complied as Malone said "Dear, get the door." Madelyn Malone moved to the door and opened it as Harold Malone pushed Eugene Graham towards the door, the gun still pointed right at Eugene's head.

"Now get the fuck out!" Malone said, raising his leg and shoving Eugene in the ass with his leg, pushing the black man hard out the door. Eugene went sprawling, slamming into the hotel room door across the narrow hall. "If I see you again, nigger, I'll kill you." Malone growled before slamming the door shut.

----

"Whew!" I exhaled. "I hope that wasn't as close as it sounded."

"Me too." said Molly Evans, appalled at what we'd heard over the wire Eugene had been wearing.

Eugene Graham came out of the hotel and to the van. He got in the driver's seat and, per my instruction, drove away quickly without looking back at us.

Back at Headquarters, Graham was furious. "I wanted to kill that son of a bitch, Commander" he exclaimed, unable to hold back any longer. "I almost didn't hold back!"

"You did a great job, Eugene." I said. "I know it was tough for you to endure that, but you kept your cool, and we've got the beginnings to kick Harold Malone to the kerb."

=================

At 6:00pm, still on August 29th, FBI Special Agent In Charge Jack Muscone, SBI Inspector Britt Maxwell, ADA Paulina Patterson, SBI DD Tom Conlan and I were meeting in the Chief Griswold's small conference room. I had ordered Cindy Ross to go home; she didn't seem to want to understand that 'light duty' meant sleeping at home more than being in the Headquarters, so I reinforced the notion at the cost of pissing her off. So be it.

"Okay, we've got this from the wiretap, and it's pretty good." the Chief said. "Malone found the bugs Graham had planted, by the way. Thank God he didn't detect the wire on Graham at the time! Maxwell, what did you get?" Britt told her story.

----

She had arranged a meeting at the State Office Building in the City earlier this morning with SBI Agents Richard Ferrell and Steven Ikea, who wisely brought their lawyers. Britt had had the pleasure of making Ferrell and his lawyer sit and wait by asking only Ikea and his lawyer to come into the conference room where they were meeting. Ikea was still recovering from his injuries and the surgery to repair them, so he wasn't moving too good.

"I'm willing to completely drop the investigation into planting the PEDs," said Inspector Maxwell, "but only under one condition: I want sworn affidavits and recorded testimony from you before you leave this room about Harold Malone's racist activities while on the Town & County Police Force, his discrimination in hiring and promoting, and anything else you know that will pin Harold Malone to the wall like a beetle for actionable racist activities. I also want everything you know about Malone's drug brokering and controlling who sells drugs in your County."

The lawyer tried to bluster, speaking in his deep, sonorous voice, words seeming to flow like liquid from him: "Inspector, we don't think you even have a case against these agents. Why should my client even speak with you now?"

Britt leaned back in her chair, playing it cool as she spoke. "Your client needs to understand that if he does not accept my deal, it's going to be very painful and ugly for him and his partner out there. Within one hour of him leaving this room without giving me what I want, the Governor himself will place Ikea and Ferrell on suspension without pay for the duration of my investigation, which will proceed with all deliberate speed... Oh, you're right, you may get your client off and he might beat the rap, but why go through the hassle... and you, Mr. Ikea, get a little piece of payback for Malone throwing you under the Iron Crowbar's bus. We both get what we want. Or not. It's your call."

Ikea silenced his lawyer and took the deal, not wanting to help Inspector Maxwell nor his County's Police Commander, but seeing this particular opportunity, which would not happen again, to figuratively shove it up Harold Malone's ass. He delivered pages of affidavits as well as testimony that he spoke into the audio recorders...

----

"He didn't have hardly anything on the drug brokering." said Britt as she wrapped up her story. "Apparently Malone neither used him for those activities nor trusted him with that info."

"I suspect that's true." I said. "But you got a lot on the race angle."

"I'm not sure what the discussion is even about." said Paulina. "We're very thin on any drug evidence at all. That could backfire into looking like false accusations for the political purpose of altering the race for Sheriff."

"The drug side is what I came here to talk about." said Jack Muscone. "We're starting to get bits and pieces here and there about Malone being the drug trafficking broker in Town. We've developed some leads associating him with the Oldeeds Organization, and we've been following his connections with the White Supremacy groups and their own drug connections."

Muscone continued: "If you think drugs are the way to go here, I'm prepared to support you by publicly announcing Malone's drug ties and an investigation into them. At the least, it'll cause these guys to cut ties with Malone and leave him stranded."

"What will it do to your building cases against the Oldeeds group and the other groups?" asked the Chief.

"After what happened with Carroll and the Black Badge gang, if they don't know by now that we're after them, then they're really stupid." replied Muscone. "I'm not worried about the consequences of naming Malone as a suspect publicly."

"Jack, I do appreciate your offer, giving us this option at the risk of your Federal investigation." I said, not fooled by Muscone's assurances of no damage to his case. He was showing willingness to take one for the local team, and that was something I was grateful for and would not forget.

"Okay Commander," said the Chief, "welcome to being in charge. It's your call what to do. Do we hit Malone with the race card, and possibly start a race war in the County? Or do we go for the drug conspiracy charges, however thin?"

"We're thin on evidence, but the publicity of the drug investigation alone will shut Malone down in the race." I said. By now the others had figured out the ol' Iron Crowbar's plans to make this Sheriff election go my way. Yes, it was dirty, I was crossing the line to the Dark Side, but it was for the Good of the People of the County, so I reasoned to myself.

"But Paulina is ultimately right, and that means... we have to go 'race'." I said. "But first, I'm going to have to do some things tonight to make sure we don't have start that race war- no, don't ask, this one is 'off the books'. Mr. Muscone, Mr. Conlan, I will call you either late tonight or very early in the morning tomorrow so that you can release your announcements to the press for the 7:00am broadcast. Give me a copy of them before you leave, if you don't mind, so I can give them to Bettina under embargo until tomorrow morning."

"How are you going to get Bettina to go along with this?" asked Paulina Patterson. I just looked at her, my eyes locking with hers. She understood.

Part 12 - The Meetings And The Mating

Captain Harold Malone, on leave from the Town & County Police Department, found himself in Interrogation-A... on the 'perp' side. He was with his Campaign's top lawyer. Confronting him on the other side were FBI Agent Jack Muscone and SBI Deputy Director Tom Conlan. They had just played the audio tape of Malone's assault upon Eugene Graham, who had sworn out a complaint against Malone for the assault with a deadly weapon.

"This is bullshit, and you know it." said Malone. "So where's the Iron Crowbar, this is obviously his doing. Does he not have the guts to face me? He was too much of a coward to run for Sheriff against me. SHOW YOURSELF, YOU COWARD!" Malone yelled.

"He's not here, he's not at the Station." said Muscone. "And he's not your problem, the State and Federal Governments are your problem.

"You're full of shit." said Malone.

"My client is right." said the lawyer. "That audio tape was illegally obtained, there was no probable cause, it's all manufactured, the assault charge is hearsay and that black man's word against my client's, and my client has his wife backing him on on the correct version of events. You really are playing poker with an empty hand here, gentlemen."

"We'll see about that." said Jack Muscone. "And we have the sworn statements of one of your own former officers, and we'll be getting more of those-"

"Ikea? Har har!" laughed Malone. "You mean the disgruntled piece of crap that was suspended and fired? You mean the bozo that got a warrant for a rifle in the Chief's car, a rifle that allegedly killed a man with an 800-yard shot but which turned out to be a shotgun? Har har! Yeah, his word against mine... yeah, the guy who beat up perps in the interrogation rooms, including a woman lawyer, a guy who hit a woman auxiliary police officer in front of the entire TCPD and half the SBI... yeah, please build your case on that dingleberry Steven Ikea's word!"

Deputy Director Conlan looked worried as he looked over at Jack Muscone, but the FBI agent was totally unperturbed. What does he know that we don't? Conlan wondered.

"And before you start the bullshit that I should drop out of the Sheriff's race," said Malone, "don't bother! In fact, if you want to tell me that, have the Iron Crowbar come in and say it himself. Tell him to come in and say it to my face, the God. Damned. Coward!"

"We weren't kidding, he's not here." said Muscone. "And I suspect he'll get around to getting in your face for what you've said about him... in his own good time."

"Harold, we're through here." said the lawyer, standing up. "Unless you're going to arrest my client on this flimsiest of what you pretend is 'evidence' that I've ever seen." Malone also stood up.

"We'll be in touch." said Muscone. "Don't leave Town. Seriously, don't leave the County unless you notify the Police Department of your travel plans and destination." Malone peered at the FBI agent, then stalked out of the room.

----

The little strip mall where Town Fitness Centers is located is shaped like a boomerang. The gym occupies most of the left side and there are some shops and a Subway sandwich shop occupying the rest of the place. Right at the angle of the building, the space was very small and odd, so I rented that for literally $1.00/month, and I sell security and monitoring equipment, the real-deal no-kidding stuff, by appointment only. In the nearly two years of operating, I might have made six sales, but those were pretty lucrative ones. As a result, I have no actual inventory in the building; the stuff on the shelves is empty plastic shells that just look like what I sell.

It was to this location that I had secretly invited two men for a meeting. One of them was the rapper 'T-Square', who was known to lead most of the Black Organized Crime in the Town and County. He was short but powerfully built, having used the Town Fitness Centers frequently. He had a full set of dreadlocks and often wore all white. Tonight he wore all black, so as to better blend in with the night and not be seen talking to a Cracker in a Cracker's place of business.

The other was an older man, who had a quiet way of speaking and pretended to be not very smart... which didn't fool me a bit. He was called 'The Teacher', and he would train people to shoplift stores, especially at the high-end malls, as well as how to steal from homes and businesses. He was smallish in size, but not in stature. His hair was graying but he otherwise looked healthy.

He had pictures of all the plainclothes security agents in the malls, so that his perps could identify them and not be caught by them. He would show his acolytes pictures of every Town & County Police Officer, which nearly got him in trouble when the assassination attempt on me in front of the tailor shop was made. He never actually processed stolen goods, but was like the spider in the center of the web of all things related to black crime in the Town. He had never been arrested.

I was alone in the darkened facility, except for Cindy Ross. I'd gotten back in her good graces by offering her this 'off the record' assignment. She was wearing a 'black' uniform without any sewn-in badge, a baseball cap, and of course she wore light armor under the shirt. She was not yet re-qualified with a gun for police duty, but she had a concealed carry permit and I'd given her written permission to carry in my business facility. She was in a dark room to the side, not easily seen but the visitors would know she was there.

They came in by the back door, as I had invited them to, having driven up in T-Square's armored limo, which would sufficiently protect the President of the USA if he so chose to ride in it. There were several bodyguards, all who remained outside at the front and back doors, and I'm sure there were others around the strip mall.

"Well if it ain't that cracker the Iron Crowbar." said T-Square as he came in. I'd met him and talked to him before, on official police business, though I'd never arrested him. The other man just looked at me with piercing eyes, and I knew that I was meeting a man that through years of experience was at least my equal in observation and deduction.

"Gentlemen, thank you for coming." I said, extending my hand to the two chairs I'd placed to face mine. "Please, have a seat."

"I see you were expecting both of us." said The Teacher in his quiet voice. I'd asked T-Square to bring The Teacher, but did not know if he'd come.

"I was hoping you'd come." I said.

"Mmmm, nice equipment in here." said T-Square, looking around. "I might have to come by here again sometime." He did not mean during legitimate business hours.

"Help yourself, they're plastic shells." I said. "I'm a direct order firm; I just order it and have it shipped to my customers' addresses."

"Smart way to do business." said The Teacher. I noticed that he'd observed the shadow that was Cindy Ross in the doorway to the darkened side room.

"Gentlemen, I won't take any more of your time than I have to." I said. "I asked you here to persuade you to help me stop a race war that Harold Malone and the Media are going to try to gin up. What you may not know is that the State and Feds have formally opened investigations on Harold Malone for racial bias and other race-related issues."

"When did that happen?" The Teacher asked, looking astonished.

"Tomorrow morning." I replied. "Well... the investigations are underway, they're just going to be publicly announced tomorrow."

"That's going to be some heavy shit, Cracker." said T-Square, perhaps involuntarily.

"That is not just some cracker, boy!" chided The Teacher. "That's the Iron Crowbar; he is the real deal in this Town! You pay him respect, boy."

"Yes sir." said T-Square, knowing who was the boss of him. "Sorry about that, I.C."

"No problem, I've been called much worse." I said. "Now Councilman Reginald Lewis will try to start some trouble when the announcements are made- what?" I was stopped as both men began laughing uncontrollably.

"Now that cat," said T-Square, "he does what he's told. He knows what his place is."

"Good." I said. "I hope he'll be told to keep the racial rhetoric down to nothing and not start any shit. I don't need any disturbances or riots or any other crap that I'd have to deal with. Make my job and life easy, and I'll make sure the racist Harold Malone doesn't become Sheriff... if he does, you'll find out what real racial issues are."

"Yes, I.C., we know about that cat Malone. We call him 'Sheets', and I'm sure you can figure out why." said The Teacher. "Now, so that I'm not wasting your time, my only question is: what's in it for us?"

"First of all, T-Square's man T-Mac was arrested for some pretty flimsy shit." I said. Sergeant Sharples had made the arrest of T-Mac on some small charges. "I'm sure that I can get the DA's office to take the view that the taxpayers could be saved the money of a trial for such small stuff."

"Sounds good, man." said T-Square. He was hooked. The Teacher was waiting for more. I gave it to him.

"And I think some of your boys-" I saw the looks on their faces and hastily added "-and by that I mean underage teenagers, so stop looking offended..." They relaxed as I continued: "I think some of their shoplifting charges might be re-examined and let go after I have a talk with the DA's office."

"That's not a lot for what you're asking us." said The Teacher.

"Okay, the only other thing I can offer is that Harold Malone's drug brokering days will be over. No, I'm not going to do what he was doing: I intend to bust every drug user from one punk having one joint of pot to warehouse loads of heroin coming into my County. But there won't be favorites, anymore. Malone was giving the Beanstalk Gang exclusive access; he was giving your guys a real hard time. Now I'll bust your guys' asses if I catch 'em, but now the Beanstalk Gang is going to be getting their smack smacked, too. You'll have open competition from now on. I don't play favorites, and that's all I can promise you."

The Teacher replied "Heh heh, you pretending to be the 'good cop' in all this, but the real 'good cop' in this Town is that medal-winning lady that's watching your back in the other room right now. You're a bad cat, too, I.C., you play as dirty as any of 'em... but at least you're not some jacked-up Klansman like that cat Malone."

We had a deal. The Black Power Brokers left by the back door. After I'd secured the facility and was about to walk Cindy back to the gym, she came out of the dark space and teased me without mercy:

"Good cop." she said as she pointed at herself; "Bad cop." she said, pointing at me.

"You really don't want to get off 'light duty' anytime soon, do you?" I retorted.

"Very bad cop." Cindy said, pointing at me again. Man, I can't wait to get her back full-time, I thought to myself...

----

"It really is a lovely view, Don." Bettina said as she stood on the back deck of The Cabin, admiring the view as she sipped the champagne I'd opened.

It was nearly midnight. The lovely redheaded reporter was wearing a clingy flower-print dress and red high-heel sandals with thin straps. She was looking really hot in my eyes. And adding to it was that I had not had sex in several days, what with Laura recovering from surgery and Molly taking care of kids and being pregnant herself...