America 1982-Chapter 466 - 82: Jeff Is Very Crafty_3

"Why should I go to the Black district... and now, can we go pick up Martin?" Jeff had completely given up on thinking and asked Tommy.

Tommy shook his head, "No, you need to go to Costco first, as Martin’s friend, and compensate for the supermarket’s losses to get a letter of forgiveness from the supermarket, witnessed by cameras and journalists."

...

Martin sat in the interrogation room of the Miami Police Department’s Upper East Side precinct, his eyes nervously watching the police officers in the distinctive blue uniforms of the Miami Police Department move along the corridor through the open blinds.

He had been at the police station for seven hours, and it was in what he considered the most dangerous one.

There are two mutually independent police departments in Miami, one is the MPD, which brought him here, its officers wear blue uniforms, while the other is the Dade County Police Department, MDPD for short, where officers wear brown uniforms.

Martin didn’t understand the purpose of having two police departments in this damned place in Miami, but one thing he knew for sure was that the MPD that had brought him here had a bad reputation in Miami. They were infamous for being unfriendly to Black people, especially skilled at shooting unarmed Black men and then framing the victims as having posed a deadly threat to the police.

In the predominantly Black areas of Little Haiti and Liberty City in North Miami, people were never afraid of the MDPD officers clad in brown uniforms because their law enforcement was relatively mild. However, both communities were terrified whenever the MPD appeared.

The year before he went to try his luck in Los Angeles, there had been a huge scene in Miami where the SWAT team, helicopter squad, and anti-gang task force of the MPD all mobilized to catch two Black car thieves from Little Haiti.

The two car thieves, who had stolen nothing but a used Ford Mercury worth at most seven hundred dollars, were sniped by three marksmen from the MPD’s three departments. They died more tragically than President Kennedy; the car thieves probably died without understanding why stealing a car got them a death worthy of a higher profile than President Kennedy’s.

Equally puzzled that day was a Black drug dealer from Little Haiti, who, thinking the police had come for him, saw no way out and pulled a gun intending to fight his way through, ending up showing the Black citizens of Little Haiti how heavy police firepower could reduce a living person to mush in mere seconds.

Perhaps as a provocation to the Black people of Little Haiti, most of the officers involved that day were Black, especially those who fired the shots, all of whom were Black. These Black officers garnered accolades for killing their own kind, which greatly dissatisfied many from Little Haiti, but they could do nothing about it. They could only pray that in earning their living, they didn’t cross paths with the MPD because when it came to killing Black people, they didn’t hold back.

As Martin sat there, passing the time, the older cop Fitz who had brought him in walked in the room, carrying a steaming cup of coffee and sat opposite Martin at the interrogation table, "Are you sure you don’t want to make a phone call to a lawyer, or to your family, or to the person who instructed you to frame Jeff to come and take you away? The value of the stolen goods is only seven dollars; it’s not a serious crime, and the bail is very low. If you go out and quickly make up the shortfall to the supermarket and apologize, you should be able to easily obtain a letter of forgiveness from them. But if you keep enjoying the free air conditioning here at the police station, Costco and Jeff can arrange lawyers to sue you over your apology and slander. That’s when you’re really in trouble."

"I have nothing to say, officer, it was Jeff who instructed me to steal, and then write letters to his neighbors," Martin took a deep breath and continued, "Jeff is actually very cunning; you see only his facade. Who could know him better than his campaign manager? I understand him more than his wife does. He’s the real mastermind behind all of this."

"His master plan was to offend all his neighbors of many years to gain support from Black and Cuban people?" Fitz took a sip of his coffee and looked at Martin discontentedly, "You’d better tell us who really instructed you to frame Jeff. Confess everything, and you might win Jeff’s forgiveness for framing him. Personally, I’m also curious which Black candidate came up with such a *dumb* scheme. They should target those with a real chance of winning, not... frame a guy like Jeff, whose chances of winning are virtually zero."

Martin scratched his face, awkwardly avoiding Fitz’s gaze, "I got the name wrong, no... I mean, I didn’t expect Jeff’s level of support to be zero."

"So, someone did instruct you, right? You were supposed to frame someone else, but for some reason, the victim ended up being poor Jeff," Fitz said with an ’I knew it’ expression, "I don’t care about politics, but if you want to win Jeff’s forgiveness, you have to tell the truth and confess who made you do all this."

"Jeff Raven was the one who instructed me. He set himself up, angling for sympathy," Martin said after a moment of silence, looking at Fitz earnestly.

"If he were that clever, he wouldn’t entertain the naive thought of going to Washington to tell all of America that he’s a fool," Fitz said emphatically, "And you, if you insist on continuing with this nonsense, the recorder will capture every word you say. These statements will become written evidence of your slandering Jeff Raven, to be presented to the court. I don’t care, whether it’s in the car or here, it doesn’t affect my coffee time. I..."

Before he could finish speaking, another police officer pushed the door open and leaned in to say to him, "Fitz, Jeff Raven has come to take him away, and... he has also brought a letter of forgiveness signed by himself and issued by Costco for Martin Hart."

Fitz paused and looked at his colleague, "No! This Black man is still insisting that it was Jeff who made him steal and send letters to embarrass those neighbors. He doesn’t deserve the forgiveness of that kind-hearted fool Jeff!"

"Jeff insists, and the captain has already agreed. He can leave now," the colleague added.

Fitz turned to Martin, lowering his voice, "Get out of Upper East Side, go back to your Little Haiti, and don’t show up in my district again. If I find out you’re still bothering Jeff, I’ll let the K-9 unit’s hounds bite off your balls, nigga. You’re free to go now."

Martin stood up, moving his numb waist, "Jeff is very cunning, officer. This is all intentional by him, to show how magnanimous he is. It’s he who instructed me to do everything."