The clean up crew

The dirt

On a mid October night in the Midwestern town of angel hair falls, the sky was displaying bright twinkling stars & a few whiffs of slow drifting clouds. A brisk snow promising breeze meandered through the streets.

At a mid town all night strip mall shoppers were scurrying to and fro from the various stores that populated the mall including a grocery store, gas station and a fast food restaurant.

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At the west end of the mall a different type of financial enterprise was ongoing with a constant stream of dedicated but wary customers. Those customers totally dedicated to the procurement of the product being sold and bartered for at this end of the mall.

To the total dismay and horror of the legitimate vendors that were tied to the mall by lengthy contracts. The trade traffic at the west end of the mall was heavy and constant. Hired security was either bought off or intimidated into silence.

Across from the mall is an old abandoned industrial complex, dark and foreboding but a haven for the local homeless citizens. In this old complex the head of the illegal mall enterprise has his headquarters. This man is called fingers; his gang of dealers is called the overalls, so endowed for their choice of identifying attire.

Back at the mall business is as usual. 10 & 12 year old distributors riding skateboards and roller blades serving product to sellers on a well disguised signal. The sellers were body servicing customers at curb side and throughout the parking lot.

Point intelligence located at all mall entrances prevented the local police from any impromptu raids.

The assault

At the eat entrance to the mall, the unsuspecting gang lookout was being doused with super glue being squirted on him by what he thought was a little old lady just walking by. The more he tried to wipe off the glue the more encumbered he became. Finally he was so totally glued to himself that he became null and void even unable to speak or see.

At the main entrance the lookout stationed here was being circled by two individuals on motorized scooters encasing him with a steady stream of silly putty. As the gangster flailed and struggled he staggered out into the entrance and was hit by an arriving delivery truck.

From around the corner that leads to the rear of the mall a large black van speeds. It pulls uo and onto the curb where the armed gang enforcers are located. Immediately the panels on the side of the van open and two black clad individuals splatter the enforcers with home made napalm ( a mixture of hot grease and cornmeal) the enforcers writhe in pain on the ground as the van heads across the street to gang headquarters.

The skateboarding distributors quickly abandon the scene as assumed that they would. One server is knocked unconscious by a black clad individual striking him with an electric curling iron whirled above her head and flicked out with precision accuracy. Two more severs were stricken down by an individual that somersaulted between them with marble filled stockings in each hand which struck one server at the crest of the vault and the other on the way down. During the assault all of the product customers stood frozen gawking in disbelief at the onslaught. No one thought to call 911.

Over at the abandoned warehouse district the black van pulled up in front of fingers distribution door took a sledge hammer and beat on the door. Out of anger and curiosity on of his henchmen opened the slot.

At that moment a jam was shoved into the opening simultaneously with another hand feeding a hose to the interior of fingers abode. At the other end of the hose one individual placed a funnel while another began pouring a mixture of bleach ammonia and detergent into the hose. The deadly fumes overtook fingers and his lieutenants before they could egress through their floor escape hatch, they passed out. The quartet was found later in the midst of all of their drugs and illegally obtained money taken to a hospital for a long stay under armed guard and then to jail.

All of the black clad and cleverly disguised individuals met and boarded the big black van at the complex entrance then disappeared into the night, headlights out.

Later a large white van was heading down the highway with the words “The clean up crew” and a web address painted on both sides.

Main is the only one syllable state in the USA