Crime in the City

Artie the King

- Crime in the City - Chapter One

All persons described are 18 years of age or older. This tale was an entry in a 1000 word serial short story contest. The criminal activity was slightly fictionalized from newspaper (remember them?) accounts. We just "put back" the erotic details left in the editors wastebasket.

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He brushed his lapel, straightened his tie and smiled as he looked at himself in the mirror. Artie Hardeman always dressed sharply, although he preferred that the much younger girls constantly on his arms look like slutty Barbie dolls. Today of all days was no exception, he would not go quietly. His resolution to himself was that come what may he would retain ownership of the Château de Saint-Cloud, his premier strip club.

As federal prosecutors were compiling a ten-count indictment against him and six of his business associates he set to work replacing the gambling machines they had seized. He would never let anyone know they affected him. Then Artie called his wife and told her to file for a divorce. She was a trusted soldier, someone he could count on. Besides, he was her source of income. She would never betray him. He needed the divorce to marry someone less trustworthy.

Artie didn't trust that his girlfriend would have that same loyalty. He thought that if the Feds indicted them all they could drive a wedge between them. He figured the government would be able to get to Lynette. The solution was simple, he and Jeanie would get a divorce, then he would marry Lynette. So, three days after their divorce was finalized, Artie's now ex-wife was on a flight to Las Vegas with Artie, Carol and Lynette.

Artie needed everything to happen as quickly as possible, so he had his secretary Carol make the reservations for the flight, the chapel, the hotel and everything else. The four flew to Nevada, stopping between the airport and the hotel for Artie and Lynette to get married. For the ceremony, Lynette borrowed from Jeanie the same veil she had worn three years earlier when she married Artie. Jeanie and Carol served as witnesses, and took photographs. Then the four business associates spent the night in a suite at the Mirage.

Lynette was tied to the bed first, and Artie watched as Jeanie and then Carol licked and finger fucked her to four orgasms. Then Artie went to work on his new bride as Carol and Jeanie performed cunnilingus on one another. Finally, exhausted they all slept together in the big bed while the smaller room that Carol had reserved for her and Jeanie went completely unused.

The seventy-three-page indictment that prosecutors unveiled against Artie Hardeman, his son, his wife, his ex-wife, the mayor of Towne and the police chief sought the forfeiture of millions of dollars of allegedly illegal income from gambling. It included Artie and Jeanie's homes, businesses, a dozen automobiles and 170 gambling machines.

The racketeering trial unfolded over eleven weeks at the district courthouse. Amid the proceedings, Jack Reid abandoned his candidacy to be state's attorney and began publishing a tabloid newspaper, the Towne Review, that among other things called the assistant U.S. attorney a "strutting, megalomaniacal, mental midget with severe psychological and sexual disorders." A number of published articles alleged that the prosecutor arrived in court stoned, drunk or both.

Artie's son Ron, whose arrest in Hawai'i created the mess in the first place, pleaded guilty to Federal racketeering and drug charges. In exchange for giving testimony against his father he received a 33-month prison sentence. In exchange for testifying against Jack Reid, Jeanie was sentenced to three-years-probation. The chief of police got 37 months for racketeering and extortion. Lynette and the mayor were both acquitted. Hardeman was ordered to pay more than thirteen million dollars in fines and forfeitures. He was also sentenced to five years in federal prison.

The ink had not yet dried on the judge's orders when prosecutors brought a second indictment against the mayor, Reid and U.S. Congressman Peyton Fitzpatrick, charging the three with obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Hardeman's sentence was reduced in exchange for his testimony against Reid, his onetime best friend. The mayor pled guilty to lying 150 times to the two grand juries and was sentenced to time served. Found guilty on four counts, Reid was sentenced to seven years.

When Artie returned to the Château de Saint-Cloud, the strip club that had been the center of his business empire, he quickly found a new girl to take Lynette's place. Daisy, had ostensibly bought the three clubs when Lynette, despite being acquitted, was unable to secure a liquor license. Lynette handled the parking franchise that laundered most of Artie's money.

Hardeman actually served 13 months at "Club Fed," the federal minimum-security facility in Elbe Illinois. When he got out Daisy hooked him up with Monica, a cute waitress who had been in high school while Artie had gotten divorced, convicted and learned how to make a homemade ragu at Elbe.

It was an ideal situation for both of them, Monica the bright, attractive, dyslexic and functionally illiterate girl, who on her wits managed to graduate from high school without ever being diagnosed with a learning disability. Monica, who wanted to go places and have fun and Artie the once and future King of Towne who enjoyed surrounding himself with young strippers and attractive barmaids. Willing girls who would do anything he asked to remain close to the source of power, influence and cash.

And so it went. Because their meetings were forbidden by the terms of their respective terms of probation they were meticulously choreographed by Lynette. Before and after discussing business, Artie was able to partake of his favored form of entertainment. Where he would tie one of his girls down to a bed and have the other girls present take turns making the star of the show a soppy mess. Watching intently as they drove her to orgasm after orgasm until her body was hypersensitized. Then coming in as the final act.

Artie enjoyed watching the attractive young women have sex with one another, and all of his girls were happy to oblige him. To make each other pant and moan before he drove his significantly older, yet still fully functional penis inside of them.