Chapter 27
IT’S THE LAW OF THE LAND!
SUPREME COURT DENIES REVIEW OF SISA CHALLENGE
The headline, distributed throughout the towns and cities of the fifteen states of Selegania, was met with different reactions by many individuals, a few of which merit attention.
Senator Hutherton nearly fainted in a state of euphoria and had to read, and then reread more than a dozen times, the propitious title, but only after approaching three random passersby in the street and demanding with a wild look in his eye and an even more unnerving expression on his face that they read the headline, did he allow himself to believe it, after which he shucked off his shoes and went sprinting two miles down the street before he realized that not even the inhuman exaltation, and exorbitant amount of Smokeless Green he had ingested, could contend with the limitations of a body long accustomed to lethargy. Charley horses made his calf muscles feel as though they were about to tear to pieces, and he limped home, a wide smile still plastered on his face.
Senator-attorney Megders felt the impotent rage and overpowering sorrow that his now celebrating counterpart had felt when the news of SISA’s invalidation had occurred many months ago. Although his client still had a trial ahead of him, with the constitutional defense off the table this left only a fact-based defense or negotiating for a plea bargain. The fact he had been arrested by the chief of police himself in the act of selling Smokeless Green from his store made contesting the facts as inviting as a narrow, icy pathway bordered on each side by a black, seemingly bottomless, abyss. And the prospects of obtaining a plea bargain, or even a semblance thereof, from an enraged, embarrassed, vindictive prosecutor’s office were comparable to asking clemency of a man whom one has just seriously wounded in a failed murder attempt and who now stands above his would-be assassin poised to inflict the injury of his choice.
He didn’t know how he would face this client, whom he had met under the unethical pretense of already being his attorney and whom he had dissuaded from accepting a most-lenient plea bargain. When the idea of handing the man several hundred thousand falons as an “I’m sorry” and suggesting he abscond until a circuit court struck down SISA—thereby creating a circuit split and virtually ensuring that the Supreme Court would have to hear the case—the idea did not sound as ridiculous to him as he felt it should have.
Righty Rick’s reaction was one of careful consideration and deep introspection, as he had no immediate cause for either the triumph of Senator Hutherton, or the dismay of Senator Megders, given that this recent event was to him the apotheosis of the proverbial two-edged sword, for this event virtually ensured his chosen career would be ensconced within the domain of the outlaw, yet had SISA been overturned he may have found his meteoric accumulation of wealth to quickly dissipate, no longer propped up by the artificial value arising from his product’s illegality.
The reaction of a perhaps long-forgotten character was of particular importance in the ensuing drama.
The International Businessman Page 29
