Volume 3: My days in a college fraternity Chapter 124 Warm Hug
In the bay area of Warwick, Rhode Island, there is a deep beach surrounded by simple wire, with a wooden sign at the door: Hawke Shipbreaking Yard.
In addition to these words, there are also some graffiti that are obviously written by a child.
At this moment in the shipbreaking yard, Colin Hawke, shirtless and sweating profusely, was cutting a steel plate with a cutting machine. Not far away, several of his capable subordinates and laid-off workers were dismantling other parts.
Only when the steel plate was split in two did Colin drop his tools, shake his messy wet hair, and stand up to check the work efficiency of his old buddies: "Maureen! Pick up those screws! OK? Ten screws are enough to exchange for a glass of beer! The screws you ignore every time are enough for our group to drink in the pub for a month!"
"Her! Separate the radio and the lightbulb from the rest of the gear! The scrap dealer won't give us a damned extra! Fix the lightbulb and radio and sell them to some nigger on the second-hand market! Make some extra money!"
Seeing his men all raised their middle fingers to show respect, Father Colin nodded with satisfaction: "You all need to learn from Wilson! As long as I am still here, Wilson will always be the best employee of Hawke's Shipbreaking Yard. Look at Wilson, it is obviously a fishing boat , but he can always thoughtfully dismantle one and a half of it! This is why he always earns the most salary every week! Which boss doesn't like Wilson!"
"If you like him, it means that the entire Warwick scrap car parking lot hates Wilson. You can actually dismantle the scrap ship bought by the Hawke Shipbreaking Yard to find fucking car scraps." Ashley's father Hull said with a smile: "The most exaggerated time was when I dismantled three fucking car gearboxes and five car horns on a fishing boat."
Father Colin took out a cigarette and lit it. "Old man, this is called extra value. Who said that car parts cannot be installed on the ship?"
"Ding ding ding~~Ding ding ding~~" Colin's pager on his waist rang. He looked down and shouted proudly to everyone, "My dear son Tommy has sent me another caring message from far away California."
He walked into an office that was converted from a scrapped RV, and directly dragged the landline to the beach by the telephone line. He called back the number in front of everyone, and deliberately provoked these guys: "Are you envious? My son wants to report his recent scientific research results at the university to me. Listen carefully, this is the closest you will ever get to knowledge!"
"My dear son, are you okay? We really want to... What?" After Colin answered the phone, his voice was originally proud, but soon turned into doubt:
"You mean someone is going to cause me trouble? Not trouble? An investigation? An investigation is fucking trouble to me! There's no difference!"
"What the hell did you do, son? Are you studying in California or working as a dealer in California?"
When the other workers heard what Colin said, they immediately stopped working and gathered around. Wilson was holding a beer in his hand. "I told you long ago that Tommy couldn't go to college. In fact, he's doing pretty well in the drug business in California. I have a relative who runs a convenience store in New York. Let him ship the goods over. We..."
"Shut up!" Colin suddenly covered the receiver and yelled at Wilson with a ferocious look. Then he glanced at these old friends fiercely and continued to say into the receiver: "Are you saying that the other lawyer will send someone to cause trouble for me, Tony, Ashley, and even Bethea?"
Seeing Colin's expression and hearing what he said, several old friends turned around and picked up various large tools. Ashley's father, Hull, even walked out of the office holding a shotgun.
Soon, Colin hung up the phone, spit out the cigarette in his mouth, and looked at several people: "First of all, my son is still a college student, not a fucking drug dealer, but he is now facing the same problem as drug dealers, that is, he has been sued in court. In order to investigate and collect evidence or some other bullshit procedures, the other party's lawyer is likely to send people to Warwick City to find out all the news about him and the Hawke family. So, first, you'd better completely forget about this trivial matter of smuggling cigarettes. Second, I'm going to see Tommy's high school principal now. Third, you wait here for the lawyer Tommy helps us find."
"What the hell are you doing meeting the principal?" Green asked in confusion.
"I'm going to have him write some lines praising Tommy, and then have you and the guys on the block recite them, understand? You'd better worship my son the same way the world worshipped Jesus." Colin said:
"Maureen, go call Herberts and tell him to get in touch with his son Dennis and reconcile the lines! The same goes for Mr. Marvell!"
When Colin was helping a few old friends assign tasks, a luxury car stopped outside the shipbreaking yard and several people looked towards the luxury car.
"The investigating lawyer you mentioned is coming so quickly?"
"Andy Nelson, who is Mr. Colin? Tommy should have told you that you have to listen to me during this period of time. So, can that gentleman put down his gun?" Lawyer Andy, who once helped Tommy's aunt Melonie send her ex-boyfriend to prison, got out of the car and saw a group of burly men with fierce faces carrying various tools that were definitely not ordinary tools and a shotgun, staring at him fiercely, so he went straight to the point and spoke loudly.
Wilson looked at the car behind Andy and said, "One of you guys can get this idiot out of the way. Just give me five minutes and I can remove the five tires from that car and install them on our boat. They look really nice."
"This guy is in league with us, Wilson, calm down." Father Colin patted Wilson on the shoulder. "When the other party shows up, don't even mention the fucking tires. You can install all the parts of their cars on our scrap ship and sell them to scrap buyers. In such a difficult time, I can still hear employees like you thinking about the factory's profits. It really warms my heart. I'll treat you to beer tonight."
"So should we listen to you, or to this guy who looks rich and deserves a beating?" Morin asked in confusion, scratching his bald head.
Colin sighed: "My son wants us to listen to some advice from this professional, but I am Tommy's father, as a father, I have to have some..."
"Very good, shut up, Colin, we know the answer." Hull interrupted Colin, turned around with his shotgun, and said to the others: "Tommy said not to listen to his father, but to listen to this Andy Nelson."
…
late at night.
Susan Curtis was once again awakened by the strong light that suddenly shone into the bedroom. She sat up in bed, shielding her eyes from the strong light coming in from the window with her hands, and glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was just one o'clock in the morning.
Even though the curtains were drawn on the windows, they were completely unable to block the strong light coming in from the special flashlight.
"Damn bastards! Fuck!" Susan walked to the window, opened the curtains, and looked out. Sure enough, there were two figures holding high-powered flashlights standing across the street.
There have been some new changes in her and Mark's lives in the past two days. Although Tommy had said before that once a case enters the second stage, large companies will often use any means to investigate and collect evidence, or even force certain people they think may be key enough to cooperate, but listening to Tommy's words is obviously not as intuitive as experiencing it personally.
Ever since the detective started the so-called investigation and evidence collection, she and Mark began this extremely uncomfortable life. First, they followed her 24 hours a day, then they carefully searched through the garbage thrown out by Actor Company and her own residence, and then they shone strong light on her in the middle of the night to affect her sleep, and suddenly called her and asked her choose to cooperate with them and serve as their witness to testify against Actor Company in exchange for peace.
"All you can do is stand across the street? Do you want to come in and play with me?" Susan opened the window and yelled at the two faces of the two men across the street who were wearing windbreakers and caps and whose faces could not be seen at all. "You two are the worst men I have ever met. You know where the door is, but you just wait outside with that thing in your hand!"
This level of harassment is nothing to Susan Curtis. Her life now is much better than when she was in the slums of San Jose. Before in the slums of San Jose, let alone the strong light, if you couldn't hear gunshots next door or on the street in the middle of the night for three consecutive days a week, what you should worry about is not the improvement of public security, but problems with your hearing.
After closing the window and pulling the curtains again, Susan picked up the water cup on the bedside table, walked out of the bedroom in her pajamas, and knocked twice on the door of the other bedroom where Mark Warren lived. She drank a sip of water and asked, "Are you okay? Mark?"
Mark's voice sounded, not in the bedroom, but on the sofa in the living room of this apartment: "I'm here, Susan."
"You haven't slept yet?" Susan turned her head and saw Mark sitting on the sofa. She simply turned on the light in the living room, and then saw Mark sitting on the sofa in pajamas with a grim look on his face.
Mark looked at the coffee table in front of him, on which was a pizza box. “Before I changed into my pajamas and was ready to go to bed, someone knocked on the door and brought it.”
"What's this?" Susan walked over and opened the pizza box. There was no pizza inside, but there was a videotape and a note that said, "Stand up and cooperate with the court."
Looking closely, there is an address written on it. Obviously, it is the address of Mark's family.
The other party investigated Mark's background thoroughly.
Mark stared blankly at the video in the pizza box. "I told my family before that I studied at a community college and now I'm a data engineer at a software company. I enjoy company benefits, health insurance, and a pension. They are very happy and proud of me."
"So, you want to testify for Lotus? And bite back at Actor, the company that changed your destiny?" Susan sat on the sofa next to Mark, turned her head to look at him and asked.
Mark covered his head and said in a low voice: "I don't want my family to know about my stupid past. Maybe I can try to meet with them? But I will never reveal Actor Company..."
Before Mark could finish speaking, Susan poured the glass of water in her hand directly over Mark's head.
Mark was stimulated by the cold water. He raised his head suddenly, wiped the water stains with his hands in a panic, and looked at Susan angrily: "What the hell are you doing?"
"I think you need to calm down, Mark." Susan stared at him straight in the eyes:
"Your family knows about your past, and you have us by your side to encourage and comfort you, but if you cooperate with them, we will become your enemies. Not only will your family know about your past, but I guarantee that you will be left with nothing. Do you believe that those people outside will give you a warm hug after getting the information they want?"
