FOE Family First Chapter 27 Business
Even when Melonie opened the door to her apartment and saw the familiar furnishings in the living room, she still felt like nothing was real.
She took off her high heels, walked to Tommy Hawke's half-open bedroom, and looked inside. Tommy Hawke, the real owner of the sharp and meticulous brain praised by Andy Nelson, was leaning over the desk, greedily flipping through books and taking notes fluently. He obviously didn't notice the sound of her entering the room.
"How did you do it?" Melonie leaned against the door frame and stared at Tommy's back for a long time, until he straightened up, picked up a cigarette and prepared to relax, then she spoke to wake him up.
Tommy Hawke turned his head and looked at Melonie. His aunt's expression seemed to be more expressive than before. He smiled and said, "Dennis has already told me the result. I didn't expect you to come back so late, so I had dinner first."
"I came into contact with 90 prescription pills, which would not trigger the Controlled Substances Act. Dennis bought 150 pills, but only gave away 25, and as he was a minor, no mechanism was triggered. Three people handled those drugs, but only one was held responsible. Have you calculated all of this carefully? Even the Holy Cross High School Parents' Committee was your calculation?" Melanie asked Tommy Hawke directly.
"Dennis said he knew a student from Holy Cross High School, so I just asked him to help. I believe him. I'm not good at pretending to be a bad student, but Dennis was born to look like a bad student." Tommy Hawke thought for a moment and chose his words . "If Dennis didn't say he knew a student from Holy Cross High School, I would have borrowed his 17-year-old girlfriend and started by chatting up Hugh Spade. But that's another story, but the ending is roughly the same."
Melonie sighed and said, "You know, I've never seen Hugh Spade look like a weak and helpless tramp. In my impression, he was smart, strong, passionate, and fierce... Has he changed, or is he not as strong as I thought? When I saw his lost and embarrassed look, the first thought that came to my mind was, how could I have liked such an embarrassed man back then."
When Melanie saw the police taking Hugh Spade to the police station again, when the police searched the apartment with a search warrant, seized all the negatives and photos and promised to store them in the evidence room for use in court testimony and never leak them, when the lawyer contemptuously told Hugh Spade to be prepared to take responsibility for everything, when that guy couldn't even come up with the bail and had to rely on the single mother who had broken up with him to lend him the down payment for the bail for the sake of her child, her impression of the powerful, evil Hugh Spade completely collapsed.
"You know what? The book my instructor gave me just said that money and violence are the most primitive bad qualities of human beings. No matter how the world progresses or how advanced technology is, these two most primitive desires of human beings will not change. It's very simple to deal with those opponents. You just need to skillfully use these two most primitive desires. Hugh Spade uses violence to awaken your inner cowardice, so you succumb to him out of fear. I do the opposite. I use money to awaken his inner greed, so he will eventually die of money. He is indeed a strong man, but only within a certain range. When he is chosen by a stronger opponent and stands in the octagonal cage of money, he is vulnerable." Tommy Hawke stood up, walked past Melonie with a coffee cup to the living room to make coffee, and said:
"The reason why he is vulnerable has nothing to do with his strength or intelligence, but because of his poverty."
"So, do you want to know... why I came back so late?" Melanie turned around, looked at Tommy Hawke who was putting coffee powder and hot water in it, and changed the subject with a smile.
The words that the big boy just said were too mature, so mature that she couldn't accept it and didn't know how to respond. However, the feeling of having a loved one by her side to provide protection at any time made her feel very warm.
Tommy Hawke looked at Melonie in confusion and asked uncertainly, "Do I need to know?"
"Of course." Melonie said affirmatively, and then took out a bank appointment slip from her handbag: "I went to the bank and made an appointment to go through the mortgage procedure tomorrow."
"But I haven't told you what business I'm going to do, you... Huh~~~~" Tommy Hawke looked at the appointment form in surprise, then looked at Melonie, and then exhaled: "Thank you for your trust, Aunt Melonie."
"So, what's the business?" Melanie walked over to Tommy Hawke, picked up the coffee cup and spoon and stirred it.
"Cigarette business. Right now, two hundred nautical miles away from us, there is a tobacco processing ship working day and night." Tommy glanced at the coffee that Melonie had taken away, and could only turn around to make another cup for himself. By the way, he told Melonie the news he had heard from Will Kendrick truthfully.
Hearing that Tommy wanted to use money to buy cigarettes, Melonie's face, which had been relaxed, became tense again: "I remember you told me that you would not do anything that violates any American law. Since when did smuggling cigarettes become legal in the United States?"
"This is a very worthy issue to discuss ." Tommy Hawke took a sip of coffee and said to Melonie, "As long as we don't sell these cigarettes in the United States, we will not be breaking the law. Just like that tobacco processing ship, as long as we stop on the high seas to sell these goods, we are legal, at least we have not violated American law."
Melonie looked at Tommy Hawke steadily as she held her coffee. "So you think the cigarette dealers will buy your marked-up goods while the processing ship is anchored on the high seas?"
"No, without the strength of a tobacco company, it is best not to offend the US government. Although the US government does not admit that trading on the high seas is illegal, we are not a tobacco company with strong financial strength. The correct choice should be to place the transaction in a soft egg country that dare not complain to the United States. The best choice is, of course, Canada, so the correct approach is for us to buy the goods, go north to Canada, and complete the transaction with the buyer on the high seas near Canada. I have checked in the past few days. Because the United States has not completely abolished the death penalty, there are problems with the extradition regulations between Canada and the United States. In other words, even if we trade with buyers and tobacco dealers under our real names, of course this is impossible. This is just a hypothesis. Suppose the buyer knows our identity, and Canada later arrests the tobacco dealer and learns that we live in Warwick, Rhode Island, they can do nothing because the US government will not pay attention to their complaints."
"But... Canadian law... Strictly speaking, what you are doing may violate Canadian law." Melanie opened her mouth, but found that there was nothing to say. It was just like Tommy said, he had already found out everything. The American tobacco ships could do smuggling business to the United States, and he, as an American, could also follow suit, and replace the other party with Canada, which would never dare to offend the United States.
"Maybe you can tell the US government that it may have violated the laws of many countries, and no country dares to go to war with the US. This is a world where the strong prey on the weak. I am an American citizen now, and I have not violated any American law. The US government should provide me with due protection. You know, Aunt Melonie, it's not Canada that should be worried about, but another problem. The money earned from smuggling must also be taxed to the US government." Tommy Hawke walked into his bedroom with a cup of coffee:
"How should we pay taxes and avoid trouble with the tax department? That is the most powerful institution in the United States and even the world."
