Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3) (15 page)

He sat and tossed the note back on the desk, where it landed among a sea of other papers.

“I think; why don’t we do business together? Bubu is right. Money is money.”

“Good,” I said.

He smiled.

“You and me,” he said. “I take care of Bogdan for myself.”

I looked over at Bubu, but he was staring straight ahead, avoiding eye contact. I wondered what was in the cards for him if I agreed. Would the general pay him a finder’s fee or eliminate him? More likely, he’d get a beating before they tossed him back into his cab.

“What’s wrong with Bubu,” I said.

General Mihai shrugged, “I don’t know. He’s young, you know. A kid. I know him since he was a little piece of shit, throwing rocks at Ceausescu’s tanks. Back then I was in Securitate. You know what it is?”

I nodded. It was the former strongman’s secret police. The threat was clear. He and his boys were killers, regardless of his present rank in the modern, non-communist Romanian Air Force.

“Was a good time,” said, smiling as he reminisced. “A man like me, I had many cars, and guards. I was important. Respected. This is right word, respected?”

“Yes.”

“Now things are different. It’s all business, and if you want these things, Mister Black, then I think you deal with me and not ‘Bubu’ over here. I think we say goodbye to our young friend.”

“It’s a deal breaker,” I said, my face devoid of emotion. Mihai wasn’t the only killer in the warehouse.

He didn’t understand, requiring translation from Dorin.

“Deal breaker if no Bogdan?”

I nodded.

Mihai cocked his head, giving me a smile as he reached out with his hands, as if to touch me. “No negotiations?”

“If he goes, I go,” I said, looking over at Bubu, who was so still, he didn’t even seem to breathe. “And more importantly, my money goes.”

“Why so loyal to someone you don’t know,” Dorin said.

I looked over at Dorin, noticing his jacket slid open, the revolver dangling forward in his shoulder rig. I had little to fear from him or his guns, but I had to be careful. If trouble broke out, a stray bullet could hurt Bubu.

“How do you know?”

“What,” Dorin asked.

“That I don’t know him,” I said. “How do you know?”

Dorin smiled, leaning back against the counter, “Bogdan and I are old friends. I’ve never seen you before. You know he has wife and child, right?”

I stood, a gesture so sudden that everyone jumped in surprise.

“Are you threatening him,” I said, then turned back to Mihai. “I think we came to the wrong place.” I came here to do business, and you people are trying to renegotiate on set prices, and threaten the middleman that put us together in the first place. That’s not how I do business. I’m sure there are plenty of people in town that can take my money and give me what I want, without all these fucking games.”

“Wait, friend,” the general said.

“Come on, Bubu,” I said, turning towards the exit. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Bubu stood next to his chair, eyeing the gulf between me and Mihai. The blood had drained from his already pale face, leaving him ashen. Whatever else happened in the next minute, the threat on his family was real.

“Don’t go,” Mihai said hurrying around the desk. “Tell him,” he urged Dorin.

“Don’t go, bro,” Dorin said.

“Don’t go,” Mihai said, grabbing my arm in a light conciliatory gesture. “The thing about Bubu bother you?”

“You threatened his family,” I said.

“We don’t threaten anyone.”

“Forget about it, bro.” Dorin stepped in, with the general they were both pinning me against the desk.

“I don’t do business like this,” I said.

“No, no, no,” the general said, holding on to my arm, pulling me back to the table. “We don’t threaten Bubu.”

“Don’t go,” Dorin said.

“We just spitting it,” Mihai said.

“Spitballing,” Dorin corrected.

“Spitballing,” the general said. “Yes, spitballing.”

“Is okay, bro.”

“We do business,” the general said, shepherding me to the chair. “Much business, then we be friends all day long.”

“For a long time,” Dorin corrected.

“Please accept apology, Mister Black,” Mihai said.

“This is just a misunderstanding,” Dorin said.

“Is just silly misunderstanding,” Mihai said, then he turned to his aide and roared, “Say you’re sorry!”

“I’m sorry,” Dorin said. “I only meant to say that we know each other, Bogdan and I. Since we’re kids, you know? I would never threaten him or his wife.”

Bubu’s face told a different story.

“Please sit and we wait for breakfast and coffee,” the general said, taking his own seat. “We eat eggs and talk of America and you tell us about yourself, no? Then we do business, and because it is beginning of friendship, I give you a discount.”

I nodded and sat down.

We ate, we talked, and I lied about my background, using my brother’s life as a blueprint for the story. I said I was former army – glad that no one asked for specifics – who founded a dot-com company and made a fortune, upon getting out of the military. Now I had my eye set on making a factory to manufacture special parts and components for sale to military markets. The General and Dorin were fascinated by my story and even Petru softened up on the other side of food and coffee.

Two hours later, Petru was escorting us outside as the other boys moved cars around. Petru had several heavy wooden boxes filled with the items on the list that were braced on a wooden pallet. He motioned for me to help him carry it. I figured the whole thing weighed more than he and I could feasibly carry if I was a regular man. The pallet wasn’t just ungainly, it also weighed a ton. We really needed five or six guys to lift it into the back of the Range. As we worked, he faltered and needed a moment to compose himself.

Dealing with the general and his cronies had left me tired and cranky, despite the good food. I was going on four hours of sleep, Sandy’s death was eating at the back of my mind, and I was pissed at the way they treated Bubu. I was marshalling my patience, formulating new reasons not to kill everyone, convincing myself that taking what I needed, and keeping my money was not somehow the most pragmatic option. What I needed was a little exertion.

Waving Petru aside, I bent at the knees and lifted the pallet. It was effortless, and it felt good to use my gifts again. I’d never been clear on whether my intellect was somehow tied to my powers, but there was no doubt my strength was superhuman. It was as much a part of me as my hair or my nose, and I had missed using it. I gently slid the pallet into the back of the Range Rover, the big SUV’s rear wheels sinking a good six inches bearing the weight. I slammed the hatch shut and saw Petru gaping in awe, his wide shoulders heaving as he sucked air. Bubu had seen me as well, but he had a different look on his face. None of our other new friends had been near enough to notice.

“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.