by P. W. Child
“Greta?” he shouted finally, but nobody answered. “Greta! Are you here?”
“Herr Heller?” he heard a faint muffled voice.
“Yes!” Heinz answered and ran toward the open door where he had heard the child’s voice. When he entered the room, Heinz froze in his tracks, shocked beyond belief. His eyes welled with tears and his great big body shivered as he was met with the ghastly sight of his wife’s corpse on the bed. Her face was warped in terror, eyes staring upward and blood gushed all over her neck and chest. The hemorrhage was caused by a deep dent in her chest and abdomen, the bones crushed inward, under the unbroken skin.
“My god, Greta! What happened to you? Radu!” he called out, and heard the boy’s voice from deep in the closet. As he went to open the closet, he cast a look back at his once beautiful wife. Had he not known better, he would have thought she was crushed by a huge rock. Inside the closet he found a terrified Radu, curled up against the corner. When the boy saw Heinz he jumped up and embraced the big German, crying profusely over the horrible men who killed Greta before he could even show her the woods.
“Who did this, Radu?” Heinz asked furiously. “Tell me!”
“Igor did this. Igor killed his mother! And four German men with guns. They just left, Herr Heller! I heard them say they are going to meet someone at the Botanical Gardens. They will be there soon, I think,” the boy reported, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Let’s go.”
“It is too dangerous! I don’t want you getting hurt,” Heinz said.
“But I know this city like the back of my hand! You would get there a lot faster with me telling you where to go,” Radu urged. Heinz could not deny the child was right.
“We’ll call the police once we get there. If we don’t get them, they’ll get away with this!” Greta’s husband said. He was devastated, but first he had to find out who had been out to kill his wife and adopted son. Now that he knew what kind of organizations she had been involved with, he knew the level of peril he was in.
Radu clutched his German adoptive father’s hand as they rushed to the car. It was all coming together perfect. Now he had someone to take him to the Botanical Gardens where he prompted Igor to go, so that he could obtain the rest of the deck. Not only that; now he even had an old soldier who was determined to protect him at all cost.
Igor walked towards the greenhouse just before 5pm. Straight ahead of him he saw everything in sharp detail while everything else was foggy and didn’t matter anyway. The sky growled as he sat down on the bench, waiting for something he could only construe as an act of intuition. He thought of nothing, cared for nothing, except waiting to know the reason he was brought here. Igor’s free will had been obliterated completely. Although he had most of the deck, he was not the Dealer, he was not chosen by the Black Tarot - therefore he was feeble compared to Radu.
Radu and Heinz emerged from the trees. They had entered form the other side of the park Radu knew well. When they approached Heinz pointed his gun at Igor while he held the boy behind him with a protective hand.
“Don’t move, Igor,” Heinz growled.
“I have no intention to,” the young man replied. When he saw Radu, he handed the boy his coat.
“Radu, go to the car. Here is my phone. Call the police,” Heinz said. The boy obeyed and returned to the car with Igor’s coat on. The oversized coat flapped in the rising wind as he reached the car. He pulled the deck out and it and threw the coat in the backseat.
Back at the greenhouse Heinz held his stepson at gunpoint until the police would get there.
“Where are your men? Where are the men who helped you kill your mother?” Heinz shouted furiously. He watched Igor’s demeanor change gradually as his words penetrated the young man’s waking mind.
“What?” asked Igor with horror in his face. “My mother is dead?” He rose to his feet, but Heinz watched him over the steel barrel, ready to pull the trigger.
“Why would I kill my mother? I have no seen her since Germany, weeks ago, Heinz! I was here with her men to find Sam Cleave. Where is she?” Igor asked, confounded and deeply upset. His hands were shaking as his eyes pinched shut under the flood of tears.
Sam Cleave, the man who has the incriminating evidence against Greta is here, Heinz thought, I could kill him and protect her name, but then I would be no better than her.
“Take me to Sam Cleave. I’ll take care of him,” Heinz said, but in truth he needed to speak to the journalist to get the real story. If Mueller trusted him, then so could Heinz. Igor was delighted to hear that his stepfather wanted to help wipe that slate and brought him to the car.
“That’s him. Get him out!” Igor told his men. They shoved Sam towards Heinz, who in turn took him by the wrist with a powerful grip.
“Thank you. I’ll deal with him after we pick up the evidence…right? Sam Cleave?” he thundered like his father used to, wielding his intimidating power.
“I’ll wait for your call,” Igor said.
As Sam and Heinz walked away, Heinz said, “You are a friend of Herrn Mueller? From Weimar?”
Sam stared at him in astonishment, “Yes! Yes, that man saved my life when these men back there tried to kill me. And you are?”
“I am also a friend of Herrn Mueller, and that is all you need to know for now. Did my wife have those people executed?” Heinz asked as they approached the car.
“Yes, it was Captain von Ban, the man you just saw at Igor’s car. He carried out her order, because the curator on the expedition would not disclose the location of a Nazi treasure she was searching for.
“My god, I cannot believe it. Long ago someone told me she was involved with the Order of the Black Sun, but I beat the shit out of the source instead of listening,” Heinz said.
Sam saw the black cars speed toward the gate of the Botanical Gardens.
“Listen, Interpol is about to arrest you, unless you cut me loose and we act like friends. What do you say?” Sam urged quickly.
Heinz saw the cars stop a distance behind them, barricading the vehicle Igor and the captain were in. Heinz quickly cut Sam’s restraints and the two hurried to the car where Radu was waiting.
“Thanks for the warning,” Heinz nodded. “I believe you know each other?”
Radu and Sam shared a hearty hello and a hug.
“I am so happy to see you are alright, laddie,” Sam smiled. He turned to Heinz and told him to drive before the authorities saw him, then he asked him to head for Baciu to meet up with his friends so that both he and Radu would be out of harm’s way until Igor and his men were behind bars.
When they arrived at the commune, Nina abandoned her restraint for seeing Sam safe.
“Sam!” she shrieked, and she ran straight for him. When she threw her arms around him she ignored the sticky blood staining her shirt.
“Everybody, this is Radu and Heinz Heller,” Sam said as Nina and Mihail’s wife dragged him off to the bathroom to tend to his wound.
“Anton, get the boys and make a fire,” King Iulian ordered from his kitchen table. Vlad, the black mutt jumped at Sam and licked his face while he was waiting for Nina to run some hot water.
“Off! Off you tyke!” Sam protested playfully, pushing the huge beast away.
“Sam, where have you been? What happened? I was beside myself with worry. God, I thought I would never see you again,” she frowned, but she was not her usual reprimanding self. Nina was tearing up with relief that he was back. He pulled her close and they stood in a tight embrace for a long time. Then he told her all that had happened, while Mihail’s wife, Petra and Stefan looked on.
Heinz and Radu were playing with Vlad while they waited for Sam to come back.
“Are we staying here tonight, Herr Heller?” Radu asked.
“I have to take care of my wife’s funeral arrangements. Her body must come back to Germany with us, and I have not spoken to the police yet. You are welcome to stay here with Sam, if you want. Or do you want to come with me?” he asked.
> “I will stay with Sam,” Radu said.
Heinz had a lot of things to sort out ant to make sure his name was not associated with Greta’s and Igor’s misdeeds. And least of all he wanted to be lugged in with the Black Sun and their reckless pursuits for power. After the trip back to Germany there was the autopsy and the opening of Greta’s will to take care of. He was not sure if he should keep Radu, because the boy seemed so at home with the Gypsies and had no desire to live in luxury. He told Sam to call him should the boy decide to return to Germany.
After Sam had told them everything, Petra stood frozen.
“So Igor has the Deck?” she asked, her arms folded as she always stood when she was being serious. Sam nodded. The professor shook her head, “After all I have dragged you all through to get the deck…”
“Hey, you paid us to help you,” Nina reminded her, “So we should feel shite for failing to get the cards.”
“But we know where he is, Petra. I know the lads who have him in custody. I’ll give Paddy a call and ask him to return the stolen property.” Sam winked. Petra patted him on the back and smiled.
“Good old Sam, always ready to make a girl feel better,” she said with innuendo, and pulled Mihail’s wife away to get some drinks.
Radu was home. He loved the people. He loved the elders, who welcomed him without hesitation even knowing that he was the son of the most hated man ever to have lived among them. He wanted to stay in Baciu. Cluj-Napoca was a city, a cold and indifferent place with no empathy for a hungry, destitute boy. There was no way he was going back there. And in Romani culture it was not difficult to wedge into a commune. They were all considered family; here in the place his mother came from, where his father met her.
Mihail watched the young boy all night long. He could not help but find something off about him, but he had nothing to go on.
“He is a child. You cannot judge him by his father’s deeds,” Stefan told Mihail.
“I am not. That’s the thing. It is like looking at an eye,” Mihail said. “But if you cannot see the rest of the face you don’t know what animal it is.”
Across the fire the two stared each other down. Radu was sitting with Sam and Nina, but he saw the look in the mechanic’s eye. He did not trust him. Sam could not call Paddy from Baciu. He had to wait until he could call him from somewhere where he had better cell reception, so he had no idea that Igor did not have the deck anymore.
The following day Professor Petra Kulich, Sam Cleave and Dr. Nina Gould left Romania. They may have left empty handed, but they took with them a new view on physics and the possibilities of teleportation, not to mention a different perception of what people construed as the paranormal or the supernatural.
Petra would not rest until she found the deck and destroyed it, but it had vanished as if Hoia Baciu had swallowed it too. Every time she had the profound reliving of déjà vu, she wondered if it was the work of the devilish cards and their dealer. But their dealer was happily living his youth in Baciu, where he had rediscovered his roots and his family. Now he was exactly where he belonged, in the place where he had been conceived.
Here he would bide his time until he was of age, all the while practicing his story making skill until he was ready to take his power into his own hands, expose his true calling and reinvent the world – his way.
The End
