Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3) (11 page)

“I won’t,” I said.

“But laptop, I can get easy,” Bubu said.

I searched through my archive until I found the list. It was comprehensive, and I needed everything on it for my plan to work. “I just use it for CAD and 3D work,” I said. “And also coding. I could frankly use anything.”

Bubu shook his head, stealing glances at the pretty gypsy girl. She, along with her companions, was causing problems, one of her friends raised his voice at the owner, who had come out of the kitchen and was now herding them out of the place.

“They’re fucking shit, man,” he said, sensing my desire to get up and inject myself in the matter. “I get you a good computer for CAD, bro. Don’t worry. Not this shit. I don’t even give that to my little kid to play Minecraft.”

“I bought it at a cheapie electronics store,” I said, almost apologizing for the machine.

He leaned in and looked at the list.

“This is what,” he said. “Things you need?”

I nodded as he scanned it, his eyes widening in surprise as he reached the end.

“Fuck,” he said. “You have money for this?”

I smiled, “I have money for a MIG, Bubu.”

“And you need warehouse,” he said, recalling one of the items on the list. “How big?”

“I need lots of space, where no one will bother me.”

He thought about that for a while, firing up a cigarette and taking a long drag. The last snippets of the fight between the restaurant owner and the gypsies was playing out with the owner pushing the undesirables out and locking the door, cursing at them in rapid-fire Romanian before returning to the kitchen.

“That part is hard” he said. “Not being bothered, I mean. And a warehouse no good. People will ask questions, police will come by and ask for money.”

“Get me something remote,” I said.

Bubu studied the ember at the end of his cigarette. It flared a bright yellow as he blew softly on it.

“Outside of town,” he said.

“I don’t care where it is.”

Then he looked at me with a wicked smile.

“You want no trouble, right,” he said. “No one around, and a lot of space. For your plan.”

I nodded.

“I’ll get you a castle.”

*              *              *              *

We left Bucharest, heading east, back in the direction I had come. I wanted to ask him what he had in mind, but to be honest, my own was racing with the possibilities.

A castle.

Hell, if I was going to play the part of a villain in hiding, even if it was only for a while and in pretend, then why not some castle hidden away in the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania. When he mentioned the idea, I immediately went for the cliché.

“What about Dracula’s castle?”

Bubu winced as if I had just spit in his face.

“You read the book?”

I nodded, though frankly it had been ages since my junior year of high school.

“Then you know there is no castle.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “The book character is based on a real guy.”

“Yes.”

“Vlad the Impaler,” I said. “Vlad was a real guy in history, right?”

He smiled.

“That castle doesn’t exist, bro. Is a creation by Stoker.”

“Didn’t Vlad have castles?”

Bubu nodded, “Real Vlad had castles, other castles. Not the one in the stupid book. But the ones still up are national…how do you say…treasures?”

“I see.”

“Treasure is not the word,” he went on.

“A monument,” I said. “I understand you.”

“And not for sale,” he added. “I know one you can buy. Cetatea Liteni. It’s citadel on top of a tall mountain. No one gets in or out. Five kilometers from nearest village. It’s what you want.”

I shrugged and sat quietly as he drove.

Bubu didn’t speak either, concentrating on the road. The only thing that mattered to him was the radio, and he changed the station after almost every song, spending forever finding a new one that fit his eclectic tastes, which ranged from local folkloric stuff to dubstep to 50’s Elvis.

We left the city and soon were on a major road heading east, a large hillside forest to each side as the pavement contoured around the landscape winding along deep valleys. I slept for a while, and before nightfall we reached a small roadside gas station just outside a tiny village of twenty buildings that was set on the side of a mountain. The gas station was packed though, with over fifty cars waiting for the lone gas pump.

“You’d figure they would add more pumps,” I said as we waited. All the drivers remained in their cars, as the cold night was harsh. We were climbing up into the mountains and the temperature was falling rapidly. The man at the pump and everyone else outside expelled gouts of breath, so it had to be colder than twenty degrees Fahrenheit. The fumes from the standing cars seeped back into ours through the cracks in the windows and soon I was feeling nauseous from the diesel smoke.

“You wait inside the restaurant,” Bubu said. “I’ll get the gas and join you.”

I nodded and opened the car door, but he reached over and held on to my left forearm.

“Don’t talk to no one, bro,” he said. “I be there in five minutes.”

“I’ll be alright,” I said and left the car, weaving through rows of vehicles waiting to fuel up.

The diner was styled much like a sixties American diner, with a long white Formica countertop and retro swivel stools opposite rows of booths, with similar upholstery on the chairs. Images of the Beatles, Stones, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe were displayed in frames among wall decorations, alongside genuine 33 speed LPs, a black and white checkerboard tile flooring, coke signs and a Betty Boop poster. On the back wall of the counter was a large menu – sponsored by Coke – with the items in Romanian.

I sat at the counter and a pretty girl came over, asking me what I wanted in her language. Looking over, I saw the beer tap handles were local brews, but I recognized the Bucegi brand and remembered how to pronounce it, ordering for Bubu and myself. She poured the drinks, and brought them over as I pretended to peruse the menu. The girl said what must’ve passed for “I’ll give you a few more minutes,” then left.

I took a long drink from my beer and turned, looking out the windows. Bubu was still in the same place, waiting to get fuel. He’d be more than a few minutes at this pace. One of the vehicles in front of him was an ass-drawn wagon that held half-dozen five-gallon jugs. The old man who drove it wore a heavy coat and sat at the bench of his wagon, waiting in the cold as patiently as anyone.

“Jesus,” I muttered turning back to see the waitress. She had a big smile on her face.

“American?”

I nodded.

“I knew it,” she said, in surprisingly good English. “Probably first to this restaurant, ever. And it’s American place. Funny, no?”

I gestured to the menu board, “Is there a burger on that menu?”

The girl giggled, “The first full row is burgers. What kind you like?”

“Four,” I said, and she raised herself straight, not understanding what I was saying.

“You want four burgers,” she said.

I smiled, “And one for my friend who’s getting fuel. Plain is good, just put the sides on the side.”

“Four,” she shook her head, pulling out her pad and taking note.

“Well done,” I said. “Char them up like hockey pucks and I’ll eat them.”

She shook her head, “Well done will give you cancer.”

“Yeah, but that’s how I like them.”

The waitress regarded me for a moment then shook her head. “I bring you medium well,” she said and turned away, moving into the kitchen.

I looked back again and saw that Bubu hadn’t made any progress.

“Great, we’re going to be here all night, with some bloody rare burgers to eat,” I mumbled.

*              *              *              *

Bubu fueled the car and parked, arriving at the table as I finished the last of my burgers. His sat in front of him, devoid of the fries, and a little cold.

“Sorry about the fries,” I said. “I only ordered one fries for me and…” I gestured at the four empty plates, sitting one atop the other in front of me.

“Bro, I don’t eat this,” he said, sitting next to me and sliding his plate forward.

“Sure,” I asked, but I had taken his plate and started digging into the burger before giving him a chance to reply.

He placed my laptop in space the plate had occupied. “You need to talk to me, bro,” he said. “You don’t eat this, okay? I tell you what you can eat.”

“What’s wrong with this,” I said through a mouthful of food. “It’s fucking delicious.”

“It could be dog, rat,” he said, regarding me with distaste. “It could be fucking horse, no one knows.”

“It could be dogshit and if it tastes like this, I’ll eat it.”

“No wonder Americans are all fat,” he said, cracking open the laptop and firing it up, then cursing in Romanian.

“What’s wrong?”

“This laptop sucks. Is slow and it sucks and I hate it.”

I giggled, reaching over for his beer. He threw his shoulder forward, snatching the beer away from me. “This you drink,” he said, sipping at it. “That shit you don’t eat.”

I motioned the waitress for another beer. “What are you looking for there,” I said, gesturing to my laptop.

“I want to light this shit on fire and piss on it, then burn it on fire again,” he said, impatient that the sucker was still booting up. He was right; it was slow, spending almost twenty seconds on the BIOs load screen.

He snapped the keyboard in frustration, “F2 doesn’t do shit. Piece of shit.”

“Be patient, man.”

“I get you a new one tomorrow, okay?”

He was looking at me, so I took another bite from the burger, this one almost like three in one, chewing the food sloppily.

“Fuck,” he said. “I’m going to be sick.”

I smiled, careless of the mashed food in my mouth.

“And we still have three hours until we get there,” he said. “Fucking car will be bad with gas.”

“Three hours?”

He nodded. “We break here for a bit. Maybe two hours, so we get there when it’s morning. Meantime, I want to see your list.”

“For what?”

“I can make a few calls, find out prices for things.”

I smiled, taking another monster bite. He was efficient, I had to give him that. The kid wanted to make his money. I knew he would mark everything up from cost so he could turn a profit. I figured it would still be a lot less than what an equivalent item would cost in the west. In the end, the money was a small matter compared to a chance at ending Haha’s madness. The robot was ruining my already ruined name, and the more time passed, the more insistent that nagging feeling in the back of my mind grew – the feeling that he was coming after me.

Let him.

The computer finally fired up to the operating system and I leaned over, opening the file with all the stuff I needed. He scrolled through it without making a sound, and then looked at me over the monitor’s screen. “This is no problem.”

“Now you see why I was asking about the MRI maching and the MIG,” I said.

He blinked at me, not following. “If a MIG is no problem, none of this stuff will be a problem.”

The waitress delivered my beer, and Bubu spoke a few words to her in Romanian. She smiled at him, nodding curtly before heading back to the bar. “It will take a few days,” he said. “Some stuff takes longer, though, okay? It okay if I write on this file? Make notes, you know?”

“Be my guest,” I said, finishing the burger and licking the juice from my fingers.

“Also, this stuff…” he started, then paused, wincing as I stuck my fingers in my mouth. “Bro, napkin,” he said, sliding his across the table.

“I got one,” I said.

“Americans,” he scoffed. “Anyway, I can get you better for some things,” he said.

“Better?”

The waitress saw me finish and took my plates after handing Bubu his beer. “Another?”

I smiled, “Like two more,” I said.

“See,” she said, “Medium well is better than burnt piece of meat.”

“I learn something new every day,” I said.

“You hear me, bro?”

I looked over, “What do you want to replace.”

“Not replace,” he said. “Get better quality for the same price.” Bubu pointed at the CPUs I had listed. “I can get you fast AMDs, bro, much cheaper and for half the price.”

I put my hand on his shoulder, “Whatever it takes, my man.”

He didn’t like being touched, but said nothing. My list was expensive, and he had yet to see a dime. He took a pull off his beer, his eyes tracking between me and a list of items that could be generously described as eccentric. “Can I ask you something?”

I shrugged, drinking half my beer in one long swallow.