by Ben Bequer
“It’s all angles and leverage,” I told Petru, slapping him on the arm as the second Range Rover emerged from inside the warehouse, weaving through the dozen or so other cars they had moved to clear a roadway.
Dorin drove up to us and hopped out, leaving the car running.
“Everything is set,” he said walking up to me. “You have cell yet?”
I shook my head, though it was on the day’s agenda.
Dorin produced a smart phone from the inner pocket of his coat and handed it to me.
“Take mine,” he said. “Now I know to get a hold of you, okay?”
I nodded and pocketed the phone.
“And we do more business in a few days, yes?”
“I’ll have Bubu give you the list,” I said. “For now this will do, but yes, in a week or so we’ll be in touch.”
I shook hands with Dorin and Petru, and they returned to the warehouse, where others were already returning the cars to their places.
Bubu was standing next to the loaded Range Rover, looking at the keys in his hands.
I slapped his shoulder, “You okay?”
“I thought you were going to…you know.”
I looked back at the warehouse. The General was standing with Dorin and Petru, looking in our direction as he spoke to them.
“That’s not how I work,” I said. “If you’re with me, then I kill for you. You get me?”
He nodded, unconvinced.
“I’m a super, Bubu. There’s nothing those guys can do to hurt me. And now they know if they hurt you or your family, I come after them.”
Bubu stared at me a second, then looked back at Mihai and his goons.
“That one’s yours, this one’s mine,” I said. “Sounds good?”
“Sounds good.”
“So, what’s next?” I said.
He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Next is a friend of a friend of mine. He’s a computer wholesaler that is kind of a sonofabitch and a thief. This time, ‘Mister Black’, you stay in the car.”
* * * *
I tossed Dorin’s cellphone out the window, following Bubu through town.
We stopped at an electronics store, parking around the back. He went through a back door and came out with two of the employees, each carrying six big cardboard crates full of stuff, including throwaway cellphones and most of the detailed electronics I needed for stage one of the plan.
I could tell Bubu was still shaken by Mihai’s attempt to cut him out of the deal, and the threats that had followed. Our exchanges were short and to the point, and he wouldn’t meet my eye. When I tried to turn the conversation to anything but the business at hand, he deflected, and I took the unsubtle hint.
We made three more stops before Bubu diverted us to a local mall, and asked me to stay put while he checked in with his family. I wasn’t sure about leaving the Range Rover in a mall parking lot, packed full of black market illegal items, but Bubu said the cops wouldn’t care and the thieves would be scared to touch it. I took him at his word, and ate too much of the food court’s crap, then tried to blend in with the crowd. The prices were exorbitant, but everything was marked in the Romanian Leu instead of Euros. When I factored in the exchange rate, most items ended up being cheaper than what they would have been back home.
I found the European version of a GoPro camera in a loud electronics store. It was called a ProGo, but was the exact same product, down to the inclusion of a little tripod. They were going for what amounted to thirty dollars a pop, so I bought twenty of them and made a mental note to have Bubu get a few dozen more. Adding a gyroscopic gimbal and a pivoting servo would make the surveillance drones camera ready. I almost added some cheap monitors to the order, but I didn’t want to lug their bulk around the mall. Installing and cabling the small monitors would have been a hassle anyhow. Better to get a large monitor and write software to do a split screen.
After the electronics store, I perused a couple of clothing stores before finding one where they sold something in my size. I had learned to hem my own clothes a long time ago, but I was shit with a needle, and it was refreshing to find some jeans and shirts in my size. Fate must have been smiling down on me because they also had underwear and socks for me. Sure that all of my luck for the day was extinguished, I felt my stomach rumble and was headed for the food court when one of the new burner phones vibrated in my pocket.
“Done getting laid?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“No, bro,” Bubu said, without laughing. “I made lunch for my wife and son.”
“I’m just kidding, Bubu,” I said. “Look, if this is getting too real for you, I can go talk to your uncle, or whomever. I don’t want to put you out.”
“If I give you an address, can you find it with GPS,” he said.
I scrolled through my smartphone’s apps and tapped on the map application. It opened with a detailed breakdown of Bucharest.
“I should,” I said.
“I text you the address, okay?”
“I’m on my way,” I said, and headed for the parking lot.
* * * *
Bucharest was a radial town, akin to D.C., the streets radiating from the center like spokes on a bicycle’s wheel, but many of the roads were one-way only, or had two-way traffic driving down a single lane. Navigating the city was rough, but the map application was accurate. I ran into traffic crossing into Sector Four, the southeastern section of city while headed east on Strada Luica. It was bumper to bumper, so I turned off and took a right on Rostiori and made a left on Orastie, but also found it locked up.
I was a few block from the address Bubu had texted me, so I found a parking spot for the Range Rover and ran the rest of the way. It was a bar, part of a large conglomerate of buildings. The place was unremarkable, with a glass storefront and a long bar tight against the back wall. Sitting at the bar meant feeling every person pass behind you on their way to the basement stairs.
Bubu waited for me at the entrance, leaning on the narrow curved bar, chatting with the bartender. He saw me through the large window and disengaged from the bartender, coming out into the cold, beckoning me inside. Moments later, we sat on tall barstools with frothy pints of beer before us.
“This shit is good,” he said. “Sip it slow.”
It was, but I was so thirsty, I downed the whole thing in one gulp and ordered another.
“You Americans ruin everything,” he said, his mood considerably lighter than earlier. Maybe he got laid after all.
“Good thing I’m your mute, idiot cousin,” I said as the bartender slid a replacement pint in front of me.
“It was a better cover than Mr. Black,” he said, taking his own advice and sipping the beer. “That guy caused a lot of trouble today.”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” I said, eager to clear the air and move on with the plan. I would only need Bubu for another few days, but I didn’t want to burn any bridges.
“The general wasn’t happy with you.”
“Fuck that guy,” I said, taking time to savor the second beer.
Bubu nodded his approval, and said, “You scared him. He’s not used to being scared. It will make him curious.”
“Well, you know what they say; two men can keep a secret if one is dead.”
“You threatening me,” Bubu said, his jovial tone betrayed by the worry on his face.
“It’s simpler if you know me as Mr. Black.”
Shaking his head, he said, “Simpler for you maybe, but I think it’s time we moved past secret identities. You know my name. You know where I live.” He gestured over his shoulder at the decaying façade of a four story apartment building. The paint was cracked and fading, the sidewalks covered in snow.
I raised my brows in silent question and he answered with a shrug. He had trusted me enough to show me his home, and I was suddenly concerned. The whole point had been to get in and out without leaving a mark, but Bubu was making it personal. It made sense to an extent. It would be nothing for h
im to sell me out, to the General or the authorities. All of the oldest cons opened with turning your target into a friend.
“No, Bubu,” I said. “I think things have gotten a little too intense for you. I need the gear, but keep the Range Rover and we’ll call it even.”
He stood, shaking his head. “Bro, I have to know,” he said, his eyes wide, almost manic as he leaned in uncomfortably close. “I saw you lift the pallet. I saw you push the car.”
“I told you I was a super, Bubu.”
He held a hand out at me, and said, “No bro, not just a super, you’re a villain.”
I kept seated and said, “You sure you want to know who I am? There are consequences.”
He blinked at that, and I gestured for the barstool. He sat, the stool creaking under his weight as he shifted onto the flat seat. I wanted to trust the guy, and I had a good feeling about him. It was time to find out if I’d become a better judge of character. “What would you do for two billion dollars?”
He pursed his lips, but said nothing.
“That’s the price on my head, and that’s just from my enemies. The authorities wouldn’t pay nearly as well, but more than enough to move your family out of this shithole. You could move back to the U.K., find a nice place in London or the countryside. Wherever you want. A guy with your brains could find a decent job, easy. No more taxis, no more muling for your fat asshole uncle. Turn me in and it’s yours.”
Halfway through my speech, he started shaking his head, and when I was done, he said, “Fuck that. You didn’t sell me out to the General. I work for you now,” and then he pitched his voice low, though nobody was within earshot. “Blackjack.”
My lip curled into a snarl and he recoiled slightly. “Bro, I knew it was you at the train station. Your face was all over the news and the internet for a year. Then you walk out of the station with the dark hair and you’re big as an elephant. The thing with the car settled it for me.”
Smoothing my features, I said, “And you’re just saying something now?”
“Bro, being a big guy doesn’t make you a super. Petru is a big guy, and strong, but he could never have carried that pallet. Besides, I needed to be sure.”
“That I wasn’t a psychopath,” I said. The news had a paint by numbers set they used when describing the people they decided were real bad guys. I’d read some of my own press, and it had been brutal.
He nodded, and said, “To be honest, you should sue the media. They made you out to be a terrible person, but you’re not that bad.”
I laughed. I had to. The conversation had edged into the surreal, and my black market contact was trying to make me feel better about myself.
“Hey bro, I didn’t know what to expect, but you don’t threaten me, you pay for everything, you understand how business is done.”
I laughed harder, “I sound like a really good boyfriend.”
“Don’t say shit like that,” he said, growing serious, peering around the bar to see if anyone was listening. “People believe that shit.”
I let the laughter die out and looked around the bar. Nobody was paying attention; the walls weren’t bursting with armored soldiers, supers, or killer rabbits. The television over the bar was showing a soccer match, and we sat there for a few minutes, watching. We both ordered beers, which we drank in silence. Finally, I stood and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Still want to drive to Liteni and help me put together a castle?”
He smiled holding out both hands as if they were arms on a scale, “I don’t know. Help you do some crazy shit, or a billion dollars…hard choice, but fuck it. I’m curious.”
I felt naked as we walked out of the bar, the key to my freedom embodied by a skinny Romanian man who had spent the better part of our association committing crimes in my name. The safe thing would have been to take the wife and kid as collateral. Stow them away in the apartment while the castle went up, make sure he stayed loyal. The problem was that only ended one way, and it wasn’t with a picnic and beers.
No, I would have to take Bubu at his word and trust that I had him pegged right. I didn’t think he wanted the bounty on my head. He believed he was a businessman, beholden to himself and his family. He had balked at the idea that he was stealing from me, but that was a byproduct of how things were done in Romania. It’s not that he was stealing; the money he skimmed was pay for services rendered. He did the job, he got paid. It was hard to argue, especially given the hustle he had consistently shown.
We walked to his Range Rover, parked in a marked space near his building. Two guys huddled near it, cigarette smoke wafting from between them as they shifted from foot to foot to stay warm. They watched us approach, their eyes glued to me, then Bubu said something in Romanian and they left the SUV, meeting us on the sidewalk. Producing a rolled wad of bills held together with a silver money clip, Bubu snapped a couple of bills off and handed them to the men who both nodded and walked off as if nothing had transpired.
“Where did you park,” he said, scanning the two way street for my Range Rover.
“About half a mile back that way,” I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder.
“It’s a good thing you met me,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat. “You’d still be fumbling around that mall looking for a place to eat.”
I climbed into the passenger seat, looking at the old apartment building again. His wife was probably watching television; the kid was playing with toys, maybe napping. I didn’t want to make widow or an orphan, and despite his enthusiasm, Bubu didn’t understand how real a possibility that was. I directed him to the other Range Rover, which he found with ease, illegally parking next to it on the wrong side of a one way street.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said. “But I got it from here. I’ll offload the gear and you can keep the truck.”
“You put one more thing in that car,” he said. “And the wheels are going to come off. Besides, now I get to charge you super villain rates. That’s where the money is.”
“It might not be safe for you.
He snorted dismissively. “Then I get hazard pay. By the time we’re finished, I’ll be rich enough to buy a castle next door to yours.”
“You sure two billion wouldn’t be a better payday?”
“Nah, bro, I’m not that cheap.”
And like that, it was settled.
Chapter Nine
We drove out of town, headed back to Liteni, our only stop was at the roadside diner where I ate six of those delicious medium well burgers, ordering another half dozen for the road. All that remained of the burgers was a greasy pile of wadded wax paper by the time we reached the rental house sometime after midnight. I was exhausted and stiff from being in the same position for the six hour drive.
“Want to offload now?” Bubu said, gesturing to the Range Rovers.
I shrugged, scratching my butt, “What are the chances we’ll get robbed overnight?”
He looked around the small village.
“Like 100%,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, fighting back a yawn. “I’ll drop all this stuff. You go get some rest.”
He dug into his pocket for the key and popped the back hatch of his Range Rover.
“You rest, bro.”
I couldn’t let him out do me, so we unloaded the trucks, placing everything in the largest room downstairs. I covered the windows with dark paper to keep our project from prying eyes, and had a few large tables to get started with. Once everything was inside, we locked the cars, the front door, and Bubu made the rounds checking all the windows, even in the upstairs rooms.
“A little paranoid?”
He grinned, “You don’t know Romania.”
The hard work made us thirsty, so we drank a few cold beers I had stashed in the icebox, looking over all the raw parts and materials that lay in what had been the house’s living room.
“You’re going to make the castle out of this shit,” Bubu said.
“I make a machine that makes
machines that makes many more machines that make the castle.”
He stuck his nose into one of the smaller boxes and pulled out one of the ProGo cameras I had bought at the mall. Bubu held it up, “I’m not even going to ask.”
“After the castle is built, we’ll make security drones and fill the skies with them, Bubu. Each one fitted with a camera so no one can sneak up on us.”
We sat quietly, drinking our beers, until I had a strange thought.
“Hey, this is Wallachia, right?”
He thought for a second, then nodded.
“Wasn’t Dracula from Wallachia?”
“You mean Vlad the third,” he said.
“You know what I mean.”
Bubu shook his head, “Vlad was Prince of Wallachia, but he was born in Transylvania. He ruled from here to other side of Bucharest.”
“Right, so he was prince of all of this,” I said. “And I’m building a castle here. Liteni was probably his castle, right?”
“Off by two hundred years, bro. Read a book.”
I laughed, but went on, “And if I’m building here, then that makes me a modern day Dracula,” I paused, delighted by how uncomfortable the whole conversation made him. Contrary to what he thought, I had read up on the subject.
“If I’m Dracula, then that makes you Igor.”
He thought about it for a moment, “Is Igor the stupid hunchback retard?”
I smiled.
“Fuck you, bro. I was second in my class at university. I took an IQ test and was certified by that group for geniuses. Forget the name.”
“Mensa?”
He nodded once.
“You go to college, bro?”
“For a bit,” I admitted.
“A bit. Does that mean you didn’t finish?”
“No, they threw me out.”
Bubu giggled, “Then don’t call me retard. I’ll be Vlad, and you be Igor. It’s actually Renfield but I doubt you actually read the stupid Stoker book.”
