America 1982-Chapter 124 - 36: I Am Excited Now
Garage Number Nine on Freedom Avenue, on Tommy’s desk, lay the complaint silently sent from Lotus Corporation to Actor Corporation.
It stated that they had formally submitted a complaint to the Massachusetts court regarding computer software infringement by Actor Corporation. The court had accepted the case and issued a subpoena.
Receiving this complaint with an enclosed subpoena meant that Actor Corporation had to respond within a thirty-day period. If the court did not receive a response from Actor Corporation within thirty days, it had the right to rule in absentia.
"You didn’t take it this seriously when Lotus Corporation first sent us the lawyer’s letter," said Holly, carrying two cups of coffee over and placing one in front of Tommy.
Tommy picked up the phone and dialed a number, "Charles, it’s Tommy. I’ve received the overdue complaint. I need help from the head office, thank you very much. If you were standing in front of me, you could feel my sincerity. Alright, California, primarily the various Chapters in California, OK."
After hanging up the phone, Tommy took a sip of his coffee, his eyes still quietly observing the complaint. He said, "If I had taken it very seriously the first time and responded earnestly, how could they have sued us? If a lawyer’s letter could frighten people, the United States wouldn’t need such an exaggerated three-tier court system. I’m not legally ignorant; in high school, I often pondered whether or not to go to law school and then become a litigator in the future. But ultimately, the computer field was obviously more attractive, causing me to abandon the dream of becoming a litigator."
"It’s a shame we couldn’t see you become the dapper scoundrel in a suit. I imagined in my mind what you, this guy, would look like as a lawyer. Honestly, you’d look quite handsome, at least more charming to women than your current unkempt appearance," Holly said, not detecting any tension in Tommy’s tone or voice, and felt a little relieved.
Her comment was a test to see if Tommy, who had been so confident before, would panic when the other side actually took action. Clearly, Tommy was performing excellently at the moment, at least better than Holly Kina, because when she received the news, she was so nervous that she sat in the restroom for about half an hour, her mind occupied with thoughts of whether she would be affected if Actor Corporation ultimately lost the case.
Carrying a woman’s suit from the dry cleaners, Susan Curtis walked in from outside, pulled down the garage door halfway for privacy, and began changing out of her T-shirt and jeans into the suit, wearing only her undergarments.
"Didn’t I prepare two sets of office lady outfits for you?" asked Tommy, lifting his head and leaning back in his chair, watching Susan change. "I remember you took one set home yesterday; why did you go to the dry cleaners for this one?"
As Susan put on her white shirt and fastened the buttons, she talked about what seemed like a trivial matter, "Last night, I ran into two cops who were off their faces, then I was forced to provide them with free services in a back alley. Those bastards dirtied my clothes."
"My God..." Holly looked at Susan, shocked, then turned to Tommy, who had no reaction, "Tommy, did you hear what Holly said? We need to do something, she... she was intimidated by the police."
Tommy turned his gaze to Holly, "What we can do is help her rent a place nearby, keep Susan from going back to live in San Jose’s slums. It could spare her all this trouble."
It’s not without reason that California is now called a paradise. The rich call it a vacation paradise. Another name for it is drug heaven. Although a small Cuban cigar is difficult to smuggle into the United States because of the embargo, tons of cocaine are delivered from Mexico to California every day, which then floods into every corner of the United States like coffee, satisfying the needs of the American masses.
Entrepreneurs in California are not just Stanford students and others like them; countless 12 or 13-year-old kids from the slums are also starting their own businesses. With a $200 investment and a car that can make it to the U.S.-Mexico border, congratulations, you can start your own little cocaine convenience store.
As long as they don’t die from turf wars, the business grows like a snowball, from earning a few bucks a day to a few hundred, then to thousands per day.
People from Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and other places even come to California specifically to purchase drugs. The methods of procurement are varied; the most exaggerated example being someone who drove a school bus, loaded with poor kids pretending to be on a school trip, all the way to California. They filled the kids’ backpacks with drugs and then drove back to their states to sell them at high prices.
One of the reasons the drug trade is so thriving, apart from the influx of drugs and all classes of Americans considering consumption a fashion, is the behavior of the California police.
The richer the police officer in charge of the slums, the more blatantly they can extort money from the cocaine stores, bully those poor people. The bigger drug dealers, in order to maintain stability, would voluntarily help the police oppress those being bullied.
Therefore, Susan’s experience of being forced into providing free services for two high cops is regrettably normal for California.
In the eyes of those police officers, the people in the slums are not human; those poor souls don’t even know where to report the abuse. Even if they call 911, there would be friends within the police force to inform them in time, and then all they need to do is find the local thugs in the slums. Those thugs would be very happy to silence the victims completely.
