America 1982

Even when Melonie opened the door to her apartment and saw the familiar furnishings in the living room, she still felt that nothing was real enough.

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 now He was leaning on the desk, flipping through books greedily and taking notes fluently, apparently not paying attention to the sound of his own door.

"How did you do that?" Melonie leaned against the door frame and stared at Tommy's back for a long time. She didn't wake him up until he straightened up and picked up a cigarette to relax.

Tommy Hawke turned his head and looked at Melonie. His aunt's expression seemed to be richer than before. He smiled and said, "Dennis, that guy, told me the result in advance. I didn't expect you." I’ll be back so late, so I’ll have dinner by myself first.”

"I came into contact with 90 pills of prescription drugs, which would not trigger the Controlled Substances Act. Dennis bought 150 pills, but only gave away 25 pills. Plus, as a minor, it did not trigger any mechanism. Three people You handled those drugs, but only one person was responsible. Did you carefully calculate all of this? Even the Holy Cross High School Parents Committee made your calculations?" Melonie asked Tommy Hawke straight to the point.

"Dennis said he knew the students at Holy Cross High School, so I simply asked him to help. I believed him. I'm not very good at pretending to be a bad student, but Dennis was born to look like a bad student." Tommy -Hoke thought for a moment, carefully selected his words and said: "If Dennis hadn't said that he knew the students from Holy Cross High School, I was going to borrow his seventeen-year-old girlfriend and start by chatting up Hugh Spade, but that's another story. A story with roughly the same ending.”

Melonie sighed with a sigh: "You know, I have never seen Hugh Spade look like a weak and helpless tramp. In my impression, he is smart, strong, and enthusiastic. Fierce... Has he changed, or is he simply not as powerful as I thought? Seeing his lost and embarrassed look, the first thought that came to my mind was that I actually liked such an embarrassed man back then."

When Melonie saw the police taking Hugh Spade to the police station again, when the police searched the apartment with a search warrant, they found out all the negatives and photos and promised to store them in the evidence room for testifying in court and would never leak them. , when the lawyer contemptuously told Hugh Spade to be prepared to bear everything, when the guy couldn't even come up with the bail money and had to rely on the single mother who had broken up with him to lend him the bail money for the sake of the child. At that time, the image of the powerful and evil Hugh Spade in her mind completely collapsed.

"Did you know? The book my instructor gave me happened to say that money and violence are the most primitive evils of human beings. No matter how the world progresses or how advanced technology is, these two most primitive desires of human beings will always be the same. It won't change. It's very simple to deal with those opponents. Make good use of these two most primitive desires. Hugh Spade uses violence to awaken the cowardice in you, so you succumb to him out of fear. I do the opposite, I use money. Awakening the greed in his heart, so he will eventually die from money. He is indeed a powerful man, but only to a certain extent. When he is selected by a more powerful opponent and stands in the octagonal cage of money, he is vulnerable Hit." Tommy Hawke stood up, took the coffee cup and walked past Melonie to the living room to make coffee, and said:

"The reason for being vulnerable has nothing to do with being strong or smart, but because of his poverty."

"So, do you want to know...why I came back so late?" Melonie turned around, looked at Tommy Hawke who was putting in coffee powder and hot water, and changed the topic with a smile.

What the big boy just said was too mature, so mature that she couldn't accept it, and she didn't know how to respond. But the feeling of having relatives by her side providing protection at all times made her feel very warm.

Tommy Hawke looked at Melonie with some confusion and asked uncertainly: "Do I need to know?"

"Of course." Melonie said affirmatively, and then took out a bank appointment form from her handbag: "I went to the bank and made an appointment to go through the mortgage process tomorrow."

"But I haven't told you what business I want to do yet, you... Huh~~" Tommy Hawke looked at the appointment form with a surprised look on his face, then looked at Melonie, and then exhaled: " Thank you for your trust, Aunt Melonie."

"So, what's the business?" Melonie walked to Tommy Hawke's side, picked up the coffee cup and spoon and stirred.

"In the cigarette business, there is a tobacco processing ship working day and night on the sea two hundred nautical miles away from us." Tommy glanced at the coffee that Melonie took away, and could only turn around and make another cup for himself. He told Melonie the truth about the news he heard from Will Kendrick.

Hearing that Tommy wanted to use money to buy cigarettes, Melonie's originally gentle expression tightened again: "I remember you said to me that you would not do anything that would violate any American laws. Since when did smuggling of cigarettes start? Is this legal in the United States?”

"This is an issue worth discussing." Tommy Hawk 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 break the law, just like the tobacco processing ship , as long as we stop on the high seas and sell these goods, we are legal, at least we are not violating American law."

Melonie held the coffee and looked at Tommy Hawke intently: "So you think those cigarette dealers will come to buy your markup while the processing ship is anchored in the high seas?"

"No, without the strength of a tobacco company, it is best not to offend the U.S. government. Although the U.S. government does not admit that trading on the high seas is illegal, we are not a tobacco company with strong confidence. The right choice is to put the transaction in a position where we do not dare to complain to the United States. The best choice is of course Canada, so the correct approach is that we buy the goods, go north to Canada, and complete the transaction with the buyer on the high seas near Canada. I have made inquiries in the past few days, because the United States does not Complete abolition of the death penalty. There is a problem with the extradition regulations between Canada and the United States. That is to say, even if we trade with the buyer and the cigarette dealer under our real name, of course this cannot happen. This is just an assumption. It is assumed that the buyer knows our identity, and Canada Later, when they arrested the cigarette dealers and learned that we lived in Warwick, Rhode Island, there was nothing they could do because the U.S. government would not pay attention to their complaints.”

"But... Canadian law... Strictly speaking, you may be violating Canadian law." Melonie opened her mouth, but found that there was nothing to say. Indeed, just like Tommy said, he had already investigated everything. , the smuggling business that American tobacco ships can do to the United States, he, as an American, can also imitate, and replace the other party with Canada, which will never dare to offend the United States.

"Let's talk to the U.S. government. The U.S. government may have violated the laws of many countries, and no country dares to go to war with the United States. This is a world of the jungle. I am an American citizen at the moment. If I have not violated U.S. laws, the U.S. government will punish me. Provide due protection. You know, Aunt Melonie, what we should worry about is not Canada, but another issue. The money earned from smuggling also has to pay taxes to the U.S. government." Tommy Hawk walked in with coffee Own bedroom:

"How should we pay taxes to avoid trouble from the tax department? That is the most powerful institution in the United States and even the world."

Thank you to the leader of the alliance, Nanshan Ljungberg, for your support. I will give you more to express my gratitude.

There will be an extra update tomorrow night for the fourth sister, the alliance leader.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement. This is an American-themed novel that is absurd and full of loopholes. It is actually not as good as everyone said. Maybe it is just that this subject is relatively niche and there are few authors who have written about it, which makes this novel so popular. The book has received everyone's love and favor.

People need to be self-aware, but I am still far from it, and I will continue to work hard.

thank you all.