Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3) (16 page)

“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 him 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.

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.”

We both laughed, then again returned to our silent vigil over the small city of stacked boxes.

“Sucks to have all this shit here, like this, before you start,” he said, echoing my thoughts.

“You know what Confucius said about starting a long journey,” I said, picking up a small sheet of 1/8
th
inch thick aluminum.

“Something about a single step,” he said.

“So let’s get another pair of beers and start this shit right now,” I said.

*              *              *              *

We worked all night, and on into the morning, putting together the first pieces of the main machine, Seven. Sun broke through the cracks of the covered windows, and without a word he stumbled to his room. I worked through, finishing outer frame, then adding to it, little by little, starting with the supports, then threading the electrical wiring. “Bro!” Bubu said, coming into the lab, startling me.

I was deep in the bowels of the machine, working on one of the tracks. I had a temp bar setup, waiting for the lathe that would allow me to spin a perfectly round tube for the printer head carriage. I couldn’t do things to detail, so I made the temporary holders.

“Holy shit, bro,” he said, his attention spilling past me to the machine. “It’s done, right?”

I sat on the floor, leaning back to get a better perspective on the thing. The frame was complete, the carriages, the servos and motors were ready, and I could see how from a layperson’s point of view it might look done. I didn’t have the extruder made, or the reservoirs for materials, or heaters and mixers to keep the metals liquified. It looked complete, but it was far from done.

“It’s got a ways to go,” I said. “You’re back fast, by the way.”

“Fast,” he laughed. “You know what time it is?”

I looked out the lab door, trying to get a perspective on the time, but the lights were bright in the rest of the house, and the lab had the windows covered.

“Bro, it’s two in the morning,” he said.

I’d spent the whole day on the machine, yet it felt like a few hours and I figured it would have looked like quite a bit of progress to him. The machine was just a base frame when he last saw it and now it was near completion.

“You did a lot,” he said, kneeling beside it and looking through the gaps in the metal and wiring. “Tomorrow, I’ll stay and we can finish it.”

I stood gingerly, pins and needles running up and down my sleeping right leg.

“If you’ve found the rest of what I need, we’re finishing this tonight, Bubu, and this sucker will have our secondary printers ready by tomorrow.”

“That fast?”

“That fast,” I said. “Everything in the car?”

He nodded, leading me out of the house.

“Truck,” he said, showing me the big 21-footer parked outside our house. Bubu walked to the back and threw open the sliding door. Just enough moonlight eked in that I could see why he’d needed a full-sized truck. He’d found an industrial sized lathe, foundry, and forge. Everything was double or triple the size of what I needed.

“Not what you wanted,” he said as I hopped onboard. “I can see your face. You’re not pleased.”

I laughed, “I have a resting bitch face. Don’t ask me to explain.”

“No, no. I think I know what you mean. Like my wife, she’s always like this,” he said and put a grimace on his face, making us both laugh.

He had everything pushed forward against the cab, tied down, so I tore the cable and shifted things around to get a better look. The machine tools were on massive casters so I could roll them around the back of the cab.

“I can take all this shit back, bro,” he said. “I get you what you need.”

“No, this’ll work,” I said.

Bubu jumped on and helped me position the lathe nearest to the door. I had put the machine tools against the sides of the truck, leaving barely enough room for a walking/working space along the middle of the cab. Along the back wall were long sheets of aluminum, ready to be machined into parts.

“We’ll use them right here,” I said.

“That’s no good, bro. I have to take back the truck tomorrow.”

“Buy it.”

I imagine Bubu’s mind raced through all the problems with buying the truck. Maybe it was borrowed, maybe without knowledge of the original owner, and now he was in trouble for it. I didn’t care. “And good job on the machines,” I said. “Bigger means I can do things faster. It’s fine, you did fine.”

“It’s okay?”

“Yeah,” I clapped his shoulder. “You left your Range as collateral for this?”

He nodded severely, letting me know the value of the SUV far exceeded that of the junky old truck.

“You can have the other one,” I said and hopped off the truck. “Now help me find somewhere to tap into.”

“We’re going to work now?” he said, his voice dripping with contempt. “I’ve had a hard day.”

I laughed, looking at the power lines overhead, trying to figure how to steal the power I needed.

“Okay,” I said. “At least make me a pot of coffee before you hit the sack. I’m going to be up all night.”

*              *              *              *

Bubu didn’t sleep, he had a cup of coffee and sat, watching me work while browsing the web. I found a way to tap the power and hoped the local utility wouldn’t come asking about the power drain for a few days, at least long enough for everything to be done. By the time I had plugged all the machines in, it must’ve been four in the morning and the effect of the coffee was fading, so we went into the house and rested.

My energy was still high as I lay down, and I thought my rumbling mind would keep me awake, but I fell asleep instantly. I saw the castle in my dreams, tall and imposing, standing at the top of the hill. Drones buzzed around it like a swarm of wasps, and deadly secrets lurked just beneath its faux stone surface. The perfect deathtrap; but in my dream, my nightmare, the only people I ended up killing were my friends. Superdynamic, Moe, and the rest of Battle, come to bring me to justice, lay broken against the thick walls, their eyes still eerily aware, staring towards me. Apogee lay in a pool of blood, her hair fanned around her head like a corona. I opened my mouth to scream, and there was Haha, his laugh track giggles filling my ears as he ran me through with his katana.

An argument from downstairs roused me just after dawn. I ran downstairs, still naked, and saw Bubu in a furious argument with two men and a woman. One of the guys had a handful of Bubu’s shirt, his other hand clenched into a fist. They were dressed in older style clothing, dark and drab, with non-descript caps and heavy patchwork coats.

“Let go of him,” I said in a voice that split steel.

The woman was older, maybe sixty, but she understood English, translating for the men. Neither of them moved, shocked by my nudity. She spoke again, gesturing wildly with her arms as she yelled at them in her firm, raspy voice. The younger man tightened his grip on Bubu’s shirt, while the elder took a step back and slipped a hand into his coat pocket.

“I’m not going to say it again,” I said, striding towards him.

The younger man let go of Bubu, though he did it slowly, barely aware of the gesture. The other guy took another step back and drew the gun, his eyes hard. The old woman was still yelling at them in their native language, but her voice drowned to a thick squeak when she saw the pistol.

“Go ahead and shoot,” I said. “It’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

He leveled the gun at my face, but I saw his hand shaking. His eyes told the rest of the story. “Last chance to put it down,” I said.

“Bro,” Bubu said, but I smiled, waving him off.

“We come…help,” the older man said, his voice cracking.

Another person came into the room, a younger woman, maybe thirty. She was dressed like the others, with tight cotton leggings, boots, and a heavy winter coat over a colorful blouse. Her long black hair was tied down with a red satin sash, and she stared at me curiously with vibrant doe brown eyes.

“Onas!” she yelled at the guy with the gun. The girl followed that up with a language that was different from Bubu’s, faster and almost breathless. The old man lowered the gun, and I snatched it from his hand, squeezing it in mine, letting the resulting mangled ball of metal fall from my grip.

Bubu came up beside me, smoothing out his shirt, shaking his head in disgust.

“They are gypsies, bro. Tell them to get out.”

“Get out,” I said, but my attention was drawn to the old woman, who had been cooking before the argument. She had scrambled and hard boiled eggs, sausages, bread and coffee ready to serve.

“We come help,” he old man said, but I ignored him, walking over to the meal.

She looked down at me and blushed, muttering something in her tongue to the girl.

“What did she say,” I asked Bubu.

“I don’t speak their shit-language,” he spat.

“What did she say,” I asked of the girl.

The girl smiled, “She made a reference to your male body part,” she said in decent English. “And said that you should put something on.”

I walked toward her, “Male body part? What did she mean?”

Her smiled faded and she looked away, her cheeks turning the same rosy color as the older woman.

“Oh,” I said. “You mean my cock? It bothers you, then,” I said, gesturing at my penis. “That I’m naked.”