Give

The words he said to everyone he approached:

"Give me what I have asked for. If you don't, I have friends who will come and we will take everything from you. Not only that, we may take other liberties with you, your family and neighbours. You have a choice. Give me what I want or suffer the consequences, and you don't want to suffer the consequences, do you?

Would you like to see what might happen? Here are some properties that my friends have applied their talents to; yours could be the same if you do not give me what I am due"

They had heard stories about him, and he did look big and scary, and he carried a hammer hanging from his belt. That could do some damage. The hammer looked as if it was stained with blood, head and handle, but it was just some red paint. He did frighten them, and they had kids, too.

"If you are thinking of calling the police, I have friends there too, so anything you say will come back on you as slanderous, or is it libellous? It doesn't matter, the police are in my pocket, and so are you, really."

They were scared; if they gave him the money and things he had asked for, they would be OK, but was this the start of something, like a protection racket? They had seen those in TV crime programs, but never thought that it would land on their doorstep.

They looked at him and he at them. He was actually bluffing, but if they did not comply, he would do some damage. It was why he carried the hammer; it made him look dangerous and mad, and had served him well in the past.

Eventually, they gave in and gave him the money and things. He knew that they would tell someone, and his reputation as a hard man would grow. He could do this on his own, and make a lot of money on nothing but his reputation and his non-existent gang of thugs, his "friends" as he called them.

He carried out the same threats in a few cities, and as yet, everyone had given in. He made sure his targets were families, because while you can stand up for yourself, protecting others is far more difficult. No one wants their partners or children threatened or hurt, and so they usually give in fairly quickly.

This is the way the world is now, you can get anything you want without too much effort if you are hard-nosed enough to take it, and you can do it with the help of a threat that only exists in your mind, but soon infiltrates your victims' minds as well.

One call to the police by any of his victims would have put this monstrous thief to rights, but every victim was too scared of what might happen.

And it went on. He grew fat off his ill-got gains, and it seemed like the whole country was his for the taking, and that was how he saw it.

So the violent, threatening "friends" were always brought out along with pictures of their supposed handiwork to cow the victims.

The reality was that he had no friends like that; he just looked threatening and talked the talk very well. People usually gave him what I demanded because they did not want something bad to happen to their house, car, family and themselves. People are often so frightened of what might happen that they give in because they believe it will protect them from something terrible.