Free Gibson & Clarke (Failed Justice Series Book 2) by Rick Santini Page A

of his friends for a lousy one hundred dollars. When she arrived at the clinic, she was severely traumatized. Several days later, she recalled the name Tommy Tomatoes. He was the one who worked the neighborhood. She wasn’t sure who Tommy worked for, but it was a start.
    Mei Ling made an appointment with a member of the Manhattan Task Force. The snowball was slowly picking up speed. And names. Mei Ling pressed for more names, more descriptions, more car descriptions, and more license plate numbers. She was not doing this for herself. She was doing it for those that were too weak and too afraid to do it for themselves.
    Whoever is at the top better begin to worry. I will not stop; I will not rest until he suffers like my girls have suffered.
    If nothing else, Mei Ling was determined. She refused to quit. It was a trait she learned many years ago from her older brother.
     
    ***
     
    When is enough enough? I have more money than I could have ever dreamed of. The last shipment was over the top as to quality and quantity. I will never have to work again. But what do I do with it all? Who do I give it to? I have no living relatives.
    Xiang Yeung had had this conversation with himself before. Nothing had changed except the pot kept growing bigger, and his greed had no restraints. He did not know how to quit. And if he did, what would he do then? His only hobby, his only joy was hurting people who disobeyed him. It gave him power, not that he needed more than he already had.
    If my little sister were only alive today, we could travel. We could see all parts of the world. We could relieve the suffering of our people.
    Xiang knew it was all a fantasy. He had checked many years ago. His parents had both died in the plague, and his little sister Mei Ling was taken to a charity ward of a small hospital. The records were long ago destroyed, but he had spent a great deal of time and money to verify there were no little girls that had survived. No, Mei Ling had died thirty-five, forty years ago.
    At my age, with what I have accomplished, it would have been nice to have someone, someone close to share it all with.
    Xiang had no way of knowing that someone was now less than forty-three miles away—with hate in her heart.
     
    ***
     
    At times, most times, power, money, and exuberance led to sloppiness. The farther down the food chain, the sloppier the transactions became. Those who sold the “nickel and dime” bags were making so much money they were no longer careful who they sold it to. That led to arrests. It was easier for the teenage punks to rat on their bosses than sit in jail with no hope of making bail. The task force made it clear: give up a name or two, or rot in jail till you make bail. The judges were now all cooperating, and bail was set unusually high.
    What should have been own recognizance or $5,000 bail was now $25,000. No way could a common street dealer raise that type of cash. The big boys were told be careful. Bail money could easily be traced to the original source, no matter how cleverly it was done. So the normal routine of supplying bail money was no longer in place. There had been a dozen or two arrests at the street level. The teenagers lost their cockiness after three or four days sitting on their asses in jail. They slowly lost their swagger. They began to cooperate. They gave up names in exchange for a quick release from jail.
    That’s how the system worked.
    Although the name Sonny Bananas was never mentioned, by connecting the dots, it was obvious the middle men worked for Sonny or were at least one step closer to him. The real question was, where did Sonny get so much good product, and how much had he scored?
    Rumors flew, but no one had any proof.
    The proof came from the most obvious source of all. The lawyers. The law firm of Gibson and Clarke were handling more and more of the bigger busts. On a few matters, there was a special appearance request by a Jack Renaldo from West Virginia.
    “Isn’t that