Americans, turned
worthless slum areas into money-making parks, and of course, made sure to put
his name on everything; Mandible Park, Mandible Library, Mandible Police
Station and so on.
And it worked. The people loved
him. He led every 4th of July and Founders Day parade, usually riding in a big
red fire engine. And when the people cheered, they weren’t cheering American
Independence or our city’s founding fathers, they were cheering him.
The only flaw in this idyllic
picture was that the town that loved Tom Mandible was an imperfect town. Crime
was rampant. It wasn’t safe to walk through Mandible Park at night, and you
couldn’t visit certain sections of Mandible Library without getting shot.
So, he decided to single-handedly
clean up the city. He used some of his ill gotten gains to finance his election
to the position of District Attorney. With the millions he had to spend, his
election was a walkover. His honest opponent bribed as many people as he could,
but he never really had a chance. Mandible’s pockets were too deep.
He then used his powerful position
to vigorously prosecute criminals of all kinds, sending them away for long
stretches in prison. He especially enjoyed prosecuting members of the Pellagra
crime family. He couldn’t get them for bribery in his case, because that was a
secret, shh!, but he could get them for everything else they did. And they were
into everything. In one memorable month - February 1941 - they had committed
every crime in the United States.
1941 was an election year in our
city, and with Tom Mandible up for reelection to the D.A. post, both the
criminals and the opposition politicians were howling that he was almost as
crooked as they were, and shouldn’t be reelected. Tom wasn’t worried. He was
the most revered man in the city. No one would believe these slanderous
accusations against him. And he knew his opponents had no proof of his previous
indiscretions. There was proof though.
He had always been a meticulous
man. He kept exact records of everything, including the bribes he had taken. He
had even had forms printed up to make the record keeping easier and more
precise. The forms had blanks for “Amount of Bribe Offered” “Bribee” “Briber”
“Bribe Accepted By”, “Magnitude of Crime” etc. All
carefully filled out. His opponents knew that someone as meticulous as he was
would retain those records, even though they could be a danger to him. They
decided to get their hands on them and expose him.
On the weekend before the
election, the four sneakiest and stupidest members of the Pellagra family broke
into Mandible’s office and hunted for the evidence, looking in the filing
cabinets under “C” for “Crooked politician”, “R” for “Our Agreements”, and “L”
for “What We’re Looking For”. They didn’t find what they were looking for.
When Tom Mandible came in to his
office on Monday morning and saw the whole place trashed, and all the file
cabinets rifled, he immediately realized what had happened and what the
criminals had been looking for. He took the evidence out of the “B” drawer,
toyed with the idea of burning the papers, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
They were all filled out so nice and neat, with no empty blanks or anything. So
he decided to keep them, but to disguise what they were.
He took the papers to an origami
shop and had them fashioned into a figurine of justice holding the scales. They
were then covered with a light coat of gold enamel. You could still see the
words on the folded papers, but no incriminating words were visible unless you
took the figurine apart. There was a sign forbidding that next to the figurine.
He put the completed figurine on
his desk and kept it there for the rest of his life, sometimes toying with it
or having it fight other figurines, but mostly just letting it sit there out in
the open, incriminating as hell. It amused him. Every time someone was in his
office, toying with or
worthless slum areas into money-making parks, and of course, made sure to put
his name on everything; Mandible Park, Mandible Library, Mandible Police
Station and so on.
And it worked. The people loved
him. He led every 4th of July and Founders Day parade, usually riding in a big
red fire engine. And when the people cheered, they weren’t cheering American
Independence or our city’s founding fathers, they were cheering him.
The only flaw in this idyllic
picture was that the town that loved Tom Mandible was an imperfect town. Crime
was rampant. It wasn’t safe to walk through Mandible Park at night, and you
couldn’t visit certain sections of Mandible Library without getting shot.
So, he decided to single-handedly
clean up the city. He used some of his ill gotten gains to finance his election
to the position of District Attorney. With the millions he had to spend, his
election was a walkover. His honest opponent bribed as many people as he could,
but he never really had a chance. Mandible’s pockets were too deep.
He then used his powerful position
to vigorously prosecute criminals of all kinds, sending them away for long
stretches in prison. He especially enjoyed prosecuting members of the Pellagra
crime family. He couldn’t get them for bribery in his case, because that was a
secret, shh!, but he could get them for everything else they did. And they were
into everything. In one memorable month - February 1941 - they had committed
every crime in the United States.
1941 was an election year in our
city, and with Tom Mandible up for reelection to the D.A. post, both the
criminals and the opposition politicians were howling that he was almost as
crooked as they were, and shouldn’t be reelected. Tom wasn’t worried. He was
the most revered man in the city. No one would believe these slanderous
accusations against him. And he knew his opponents had no proof of his previous
indiscretions. There was proof though.
He had always been a meticulous
man. He kept exact records of everything, including the bribes he had taken. He
had even had forms printed up to make the record keeping easier and more
precise. The forms had blanks for “Amount of Bribe Offered” “Bribee” “Briber”
“Bribe Accepted By”, “Magnitude of Crime” etc. All
carefully filled out. His opponents knew that someone as meticulous as he was
would retain those records, even though they could be a danger to him. They
decided to get their hands on them and expose him.
On the weekend before the
election, the four sneakiest and stupidest members of the Pellagra family broke
into Mandible’s office and hunted for the evidence, looking in the filing
cabinets under “C” for “Crooked politician”, “R” for “Our Agreements”, and “L”
for “What We’re Looking For”. They didn’t find what they were looking for.
When Tom Mandible came in to his
office on Monday morning and saw the whole place trashed, and all the file
cabinets rifled, he immediately realized what had happened and what the
criminals had been looking for. He took the evidence out of the “B” drawer,
toyed with the idea of burning the papers, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
They were all filled out so nice and neat, with no empty blanks or anything. So
he decided to keep them, but to disguise what they were.
He took the papers to an origami
shop and had them fashioned into a figurine of justice holding the scales. They
were then covered with a light coat of gold enamel. You could still see the
words on the folded papers, but no incriminating words were visible unless you
took the figurine apart. There was a sign forbidding that next to the figurine.
He put the completed figurine on
his desk and kept it there for the rest of his life, sometimes toying with it
or having it fight other figurines, but mostly just letting it sit there out in
the open, incriminating as hell. It amused him. Every time someone was in his
office, toying with or
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