Unionman

'I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me.' John O'neil had repeated the line so many times that he was almost unaware that he was saying it. The senator had hammered on along this line of questioning for a half hour with the same results. It had been a parade of flashy dressed mobsters, union officials, all repeating the same mantra. He wondered why they even wasted their time with it. The senator knew the questions would elicit the same response by the gangster's but the questions continued. John had found a blank spot on the wall and had been staring at it repeating the same refrain. He was getting irritated by the comitte members dark stares. It helped that he had finished off a fifth of scotch before going in to testify. Most of the comitte members were WASPs of some description most of them well off from middle America, while most of those summouned to testify were urban ethnics of some description Italians, Irish, Jews. John listened as the senator continued to drone on about corruption, vice, and the destruction of this country's values. For John it was ironic considering how many upperworld politicians and law enforcement officals who enabled them to operate. The scotch had started to wear off and there was still several more characters to be called to testify.