THE LOAN SHARK...
(begun Thursday 29th December at 11.35pm.)


Whether Chicken a la King had a muttered confab with either his Leader over in Randles Road yesterday, or his Leader's 20-something Lieutenant, is unknown.  What IS known, is that last night's cease-fire (such as it was) is most definitely over, and that by 11pm tonight he was once again hitting my hip as hard as he could.. *nose-run...
There'd been no more than a couple of dips to the lights during the evening, and then one very visible one to my bedside lamp at 8.22pm, not long after I'd gone to bed, so clearly the mischief can be created with or without the dips to the lighting after all... *yawns...
I figure that if he wishes to behave as an Injured Party, I should give him something to feel injured about, and so I set about drawing the curtains closed, here and in my bedroom, and I checked that both the TV and the PC jacks are clear and off.. A small contribution to my Controller's irritation, but well-earned... *teeth....

I don't attempt any stealth as I trundle around making a cup of tea, going to the loo, and bumbling about in general.. Why would I bother?  In this tiny house there were never any bolt-holes in which to hide, so I just enjoy keeping his wirelessed nunu devices on the hop...*grins...  It's now midnight, and the pain that drove me off Cloud 9 is but a distant memory... Wait...

Friday 30th December at 5.30am...

I'd climbed back on board Cloud 9/Hell at midnight and noted the date and time on my nearby pad before reading a chapter on the Kindle.. At 12.17pm I shut up shop and saw with astonishment that the little Casio had shot up from 25.5C to 27.0C in less than twenty minutes!   You're still not convinced that Balliram spends more time in my bed than he does in his own?  *falls over choking...  I figure if you're one that's prone to hating, that's reason alone for Missus C to loathe my guts..
By 5.18am this morning the temperature had dropped to 22.0C, despite both curtains still being closed and the fans off... What can I say?  *shrugs..

I'd written some weeks back of how our Earl's brief in the early days of his recruitment by the telecom's giants and their shadowy colleagues, would've consisted of the fellow going all out to convince the Zone Community that he was a changed man, and that the millions he'd made selling banned substances were now available to help his fellow-man.. *chokes...
His existing Network of ferrets spread across the Zone, and including several grateful Telkom techs employed up at the Overport Depot, would've had orders to report any untoward events back to the Boss..

You lost your husband in a drug-related shootout and had kids to support and didn't know where to turn?  Guess who'd be one of the very first to call you and commiserate, and to offer you financial support with absolutely no strings attached at all?  Guess who'd quietly phish out what the school fees were going to cost, and when you'd approached the School Head he'd said they'd already been paid by a benefactor?  Your old mum had fallen ill and you had no medical aid, and yet out of the blue her doctor's bills had been taken care of... *blinks...
Sure it's all hypothetical, but how could you not end up being eternally grateful for such largesse, when you'd needed it the most?   You required some fairly big money urgently?  Our Earl even has connections up in Dubai, and he can wangle you a 2-year contract that will have you paying off your home, buying a new 4x4, and sending your kids to college, all done legally, so that on your return you can carry on attending your church with your head held high... *winks...
It's not like you'd had a choice at the time, and nor could you possibly be aware that Barnabas was as involved as ever in his drug empire, and that he was set to become the Uberlord of Organised Crime across the Zone as well.... Fark, you owed the dewd bigtime, and if there was EVER anything you could do to repay him, he only need ask....

When the awful truth started filtering out, and it appeared that you'd been taken for nothing more than a handy stooge used by the Druglord to ingratiate himself into the heart of the Zone community, did you recoil in disgust from his continued offers of financial assistance?  Alas, you did not..
Weddings are expensive, and if an offer of aid was made, why would you look a gift horse in the mouth?
The chap has become a bleeding heart philanthropist of the first order, and if it pleases him to help out so many of his fellow community members in their hour of need, there's no way you're going to refuse.. *beams...

If he says he has the connections needed to set your youngster on a glittering political career path, why would you doubt him?  It's not like he's going to tell you of the months and months of plotting and scheming held back in the nineties, that covered the smallest details of the effort that was to be made to win you all over...
Chances are you might not have been such a pushover had you been aware of Barnabas' role in the SBV Heist.. How it had been arranged for a huge part of those missing millions to go towards buying properties across the Zone and installing trusted henchmen in those homes.. Henchmen ordered to sit and wait for Allen Spence and his merry band of pole-scramblers to arrive with the fantastical Surveillance technology...

You're going to tell me that it's no longer a secret that our Earl is the Overseer for the Project here in the Zone? That he's come out since, and admitted it openly, and it hasn't changed your admiration for the chap at all?  As long as those gifts and assistance keep coming, who are you to rock the bloody boat?   You, who insist so earnestly that you can correctly assess a person's character within mere minutes of meeting them, and it would appear in most cases, find them wanting?  *falls over laughing....
So - You're all too keen to believe your Benefactor when he insists that he was as horrified as the next man when someone pointed him to Karl Muller's posts and the implications of the fall-out that was set to cull the Community on a grand scale?

My next guess would be that it was the Druglord himself who arranged for that 2nd Johnny-come-lately satellite dish to be removed from the Raftery/Harris Crescent cellmast...  An act of faith to show that he takes the health warnings seriously, and cares enough to have it taken down?  *snorts... Who was it that reported the first devastating effects achieved by that addition?  Barnabas' own nephew Heslop, installed in the refurbished home on Raftery only yards from the cellmast, that the Druglord purchased some years back?
It's a given that when the first satellite dish was affixed to that mast, dozens of community members were affected by it, but no-one connected the dots at the time, and Earl got away with it....
Alas, I'm laying odds that by the time the second dish was added, Karl Muller had appeared on mybroadband and Earl was forced to pay attention to the horrific results and howls of dismay, and had to have it hastily removed... *spits..

Eish Earl!  Too many of your obedient beneficiaries had taken the trouble of logging on to mybroadband and reading what the Rocket Scientist had to say on the reckless use of microwaves and wireless, for you to simply sweep that one under the carpet... *nods...
At this point may I remind you that despite the lip-service you lot outwardly pay to your Mentor, he continues to order his IT Monkey Balliram to invade YOUR home and privacy randomly, on the off-chance that he'll pick up a conversation that  reveals you have your doubts after all...
If this were to happen, odds are that you'd get a call out of the blue from the Man himself, made on one pretext or another, and if by the end of that call he felt he'd lost your full and grovelling support, you can count on being the recipient of some fairly hectic 'extras' via your powerlines... *winks...

It's as simple as that, hey Earl?  They're all OWNED fair and square, and the examples you've made of me and my friends continue to keep many who might otherwise jib at the thought of such enslavement, firmly in their place with their lips tightly buttoned.... The sight of my large frame reduced to a crippled shuffle goes a fair way to reminding possible dissenters who exactly rules the Zone, does it not?
Have I left anything out young man?  Or have I painted a true picture of your own recruitment and the role you play in this ghastly, yet internationally acclaimed technological experiment?
That you remain to this day a low-life drug-dealing criminal who has stealthily broadened his business interests to include the theft of stolen information and extreme physical violence, to his portfolio, in order to please both yourself and the telecom's giants you regard as your only superiors?  *projectile vomit...

It'll be a cold day in hell before Karl Muller ever gets a straight answer from those involved in this grandiose scheme, as the identical modus operandi will have been followed in each of the Provinces.. The network of those participating has spread so far and wide that he will never know for certain who is friend and who is foe, will he hal? *winks...
Peace julle...

---oOo---

Friday 30th December 2011 at 8.39am.