Page 144 - Just Deserts

Telepax

less trouble with the glasses, which rested, minimally suspended by a
gold chain, on her bosom.
“All right! Look at that, Mr. Swiller: ‘Telepax: Technical
Specifications.’ Almost as thick as a bible. Well, Jimmy found out
from his sister’s cousin’s brother, who is a clerk in the police
department, that Chief Drubble wanted to get this Telepax thing. I
won’t tell you her name—you better believe I won’t!—because she
wants to keep her job. You understand?”
Swiller stared at the document as if it were a poisonous snake.
“Now what would I want with this manual? Just a lot of
scientific gobbledygook. Please take it back.” But his eyes remained
glued to the cover page.
Miss Welby laughed.
“Say, you don’t have to read it cover-to-cover, Councilman. But
Jimmy knows what’s in there, and it’s not what Chief Drubble has
been telling the public. So you can put him on the spot. Maybe this
will cause enough scandal to drive that white supremacist out of
office!”
“Wait a minute.” Swiller started leafing through the book. Several
pages were marked with stick-on tabs. “According to the police
department, this device can sniff out drug dealers and knock them
out without any gunplay or any officers even getting out of their
squad cars. That’s what it does, and that’s all it does. Sounds good to
the oversight committee, and the price we’re paying won’t break the
budget. The chief and his deputy saw it demonstrated, and they say it
will prevent a lot of ugly confrontations and mistaken identities.”
“And you believed him?” Miss Welby’s scorn was palpable.
“Listen up, Councilman: that electronic police dog can’t go after
anything but people of color. Indiscriminately.”
“What?”
“Go on ahead. Read some of that book. It’s a lot of big words, but
it all boils down to this: Telepax is just a new-fangled way for the
police to pick on us. Aim it at a group of people, and it will sort them
out by skin color, nothing else. That’s what we get from all the tax
dollars we gave those defense industries. I don’t understand how they
can get away with it.”

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