Taxes are only within machine gun range!

Chapter 89 The Godfather's Two Taboos
Boom boom...

With the car engines roaring, the convoy quickly returned to the vicinity of the grocery store on the old street.

At that moment, the proprietress of the general store was not in the store, but at the door of the tailor shop next door, discussing the matter of borrowing money.

She didn't want to get involved with those predatory loan sharks unless absolutely necessary.

As for whether the police can actually recover the money, she doesn't have high hopes—even if they do, the officers who handled the case were of good character and didn't take much money, so it would probably take at least half a month to get the money.

She didn't have any cash to buy goods, and a lot of the goods on the shelves had been swept away. She couldn't just stop doing business for at least half a month, could she?

So even with the most optimistic expectations in her mind, she still had to borrow money from all over the place to make ends meet.

"The 'Hell Tax Collector's' demeanor just now was a bit too terrifying..." the woman chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Maybe he was just passing by and doing something else?"

It's absolutely impossible for me to use this equipment for just a few dollars.

"Ten dollars is no small sum..." As the woman pondered how to avoid going bankrupt, the tailor shop owner frowned. "I can't give you that much unconditionally. If you really need it urgently, you'll have to pay interest... Let's say 3% interest per month."

If Milton hadn't come and killed that loan shark pimp, deterring many people, even loans between "friends" wouldn't have had such low interest rates.

Just as the woman was about to agree, she suddenly saw the two scary-looking cars driving back from the street corner.

She became even more convinced that the "Hell Tax Collector" must have just happened to be involved in her situation.

Only half an hour has passed. No matter how efficient the police response is, it's impossible to recover the stolen money in such a short time.

It would be a miracle if it could be handed over to an ordinary police officer to handle.

Just as the woman turned her gaze away, intending to continue haggling with the tailor shop owner in hopes of lowering the interest rate further, the two cars suddenly stopped.

Milton jumped out of the car and waved his hand: "You can talk about it later. Let's go back first and talk about the robbery."

The tailor shop owner had an inexplicable fear of Milton, and quickly nodded: "You, you go with the 'Hell Tax Collector' first, we can talk about our business later, I'm not in a hurry!"

The woman seemed a little lost. After returning to the grocery store and shooing her child Neo back to the room, she asked anxiously, "Sir, have you found any clues? Is it going to be very difficult to catch them again?"

If those two robbers from Fan Kang's gang have fled to other places, it's virtually impossible to find them again.

Milton waved his hand and counted out $15 from the stolen money.

"The robbers have been caught, but some of your goods are probably unrecoverable, so we'll use their stolen cash to offset the loss."

"The initial direct loss was assessed at 100 qchar, which is about $13."

"Including indirect losses, I plan to allocate $15 from his stolen money to you as compensation for what they gave you. Is that alright? If there are any problems or other losses, please let me know now. Otherwise, once the case is closed, we will no longer accept any related claims."

Milton spoke quite quickly, as if he were talking about something trivial, as if he had to go home for dinner soon.

A look of confusion flashed across the woman's eyes again—she didn't quite understand what the "Hell Tax Collector" was saying.

What happened in the last hour this evening has completely exceeded the worldview she has built up throughout her life.

If you get robbed, will the police really take action?
Instead of just paying lip service, the police actually launched a large-scale operation and recovered the money.
The money was recovered, and the police not only didn't pocket a portion of it, but they also started calculating some kind of "indirect loss," resulting in them actually paying a little more than they should have?

Milton, growing impatient, urged, "If you think this money isn't enough to cover the losses, just say so. We'll reassess the damage. Don't stay silent; I won't eat you." The woman jumped in fright and shook her head violently, "No, sir... that's enough, really enough! This, this is too much!"

Milton, too lazy to waste words, took out a receipt from his pocket and handed it over along with a $15 bill: "Then count the money. If there are no problems, sign the receipt, and the case is closed."

"Yes, sir... Thank you, thank you so much."

The woman's voice was low as she signed the document with trembling hands. She clutched the money in her palm and then turned to go to the refrigerator to get a few bottles of chilled beer to give to Milton.

This time, she wasn't thinking about using these things to "bribe" them, but rather she genuinely appreciated the hard work of the "hellish tax collectors" and police officers in front of her and felt she should express her gratitude.

"Just remember to pay your taxes on time every month." Milton waved his hand, and before the woman could get the wine, he turned and got into his car, driving away.

The woman, holding a few bottles of beer, stared blankly as Milton's armored car drove away, trying her best to understand Milton's words.

Pay taxes on time every month...

How much tax does her grocery store pay each month?
If paying taxes on time guarantees such protection, and if even a few dollars stolen is recovered by police officers without missing a single penny... then not only in Malacan, but in San Marcos province, and even throughout Guatemala, everyone would beg Milton to collect their taxes.

So paying taxes to Milton really is different from paying protection money to gangsters?
For people who have lived in the town their whole lives and have long considered it normal to be extorted for protection money by the police and gangsters and to occasionally suffer robbery and theft, what has just happened has undoubtedly shaken their worldview.

Yet it doesn't make people feel repulsed.

The owner of the tailor shop next door, seeing the convoy leave, cautiously glanced over and asked, "How did it go? What did the police say? Did they catch the robbers?"

The woman glanced at the banknotes in her hand: "The money has all been returned..."

The tailor shop owner's eyes widened: "This? Everything's been found, and it's only been a short time?!"

Neo, unlike the adults, wasn't surprised. He proudly raised his head and said, "Mom, I've told you before, Commander Milton is a good man. He's different from those Van Conn gang members!"

After shouting, he excitedly rushed back to his room and rolled around on the bed.

Then he opened his old bedside table, took out a very old and tiny plastic toy gun from the drawer, fired two shots at the air in front of him, and imagined the scene of killing gang members.

At the same time, I imitated the "biubiu" sound with my mouth.

Neo mimicked Milton's cold expression, blew on the muzzle of his gun, and said in a chilling voice to the air in front of him, "I have two taboos: first, everyone must pay my taxes; second, no one can harm my taxpayers."

This toy gun was a gift from his father, who worked at the police station, a long time ago. It was destroyed during a mission to wipe out a gang.

This severely damaged the gang, which later gave Fan Kang's gang the opportunity to enter the town.

After exhausting himself, Neo carefully put away his gun and shouted towards the door:

"Mom! I'm going to the Central Church to pray tomorrow, to pray that God will bless Commander Milton!"

"I'm a man, and I want to work under Milton from now on!"

P.S.: There's more, but a little later.

(End of this chapter)