At Sharkey's Nose

 283.

Collectively we decide to sweeten the pot. If the greed factor isn't enough surely the golden opportunity to inflict more pain and suffering on people of color is. One would think that after a century of progress, social growth and escalating tolerance, that race relations in the US would be on the antebellum upswing. It isn't. One could make the case that it has, in fact, taking a nasty turn south. As in deep South. Where the alligators grow so mean.

Just the hint that the meeting might contain some relationship to one of the many fledgling off-shoots of the Klan, enough to tickle the funny bone of any closeted and sheeted white supremacist, would surely manufacture sufficient consent to turn a John Hancock into a James Crow. The racist, hypocrite, bigot bastard Senator from South Carolina is in our cross-hairs as the target of the Mongoose TOM operation.

Davis, back to his disguise as entrepreneur deluxe Sharkey, has a meeting with his mark Alex Goldson, newly installed CEO of a Vegas casino enterprise with a long and reciprocal history with the Senator. Millions of laundered dollars have flown from the desert cash oasis to the Senators lush villa in Charleston, South Carolina. The two criminal enterprises are, as the saying goes, tied at the hip. Sharkey pitches the idea using a three point plan: Money, Power, Politics. The objective is to get the two parasites together on the same stage, to discuss - and agree to - the funding of a Wall Street sting, one promising a payout of millions to each party. Thusly compromised with video evidence of their plan, they are busted and escorted to court for a quick, but prolific and humiliating sentence of, hopefully twenty years or so.

"What do we need him for?" Asks Goldson, "why not go it alone and keep the take in-house?"

Sharkey, on the spot, has his response ready in a New York minute but, like any actor worth his weight in fool's gold, takes his sweet Texas in time getting there.

"Simple, we feel having his political clout on our side, and literally beholden to us, sets the stage for legal and political cover. It's like taking the president of the bank you are about to rob, out to lunch."

Goldson sits patiently listening to the sales pitch. He is no dummy and immediately recognizes the huge potential of having a US Senator on the payroll.

Sharkey piles it on sensing a deal about to close, "Consider the financial trickle down of legislation bringing a one-percent tax break to your net-net. I have seen your books and by my estimation that alone would be worth close to another mil annually. All legal."

Lastly, as close, Sharkey whispers, "Not to mention the furthering of the white agenda movement the Senator is so fond of. What are your primary demographics? You two could have some serious clout in a partnership sympathetic to that cause. Care to see Nevada a deeper shade of red?"

Goldson is silent. Davis, as Sharkey, hopes he hasn't taken a step too far.  

At last he speaks, "All this sounds like it's too good to be true," he admits, "But we've seen your work, so let's take the chance. I like the odds. And one more thing," he adds cavalierly, "should anything backfire from this moment forward I am holding you responsible, if you know what I mean."

He delivers the last line with his right thumb cocking an imaginary pistol, the business end of which is pointed menacingly at Sharkey's nose.