Black Scorpion (24 page)

“Too bad Paddy couldn't teach me how to become invisible,” Michael lamented.

“That would've been your next lesson,” Alexander said, never taking his eyes off the various scenes unfolding before them.

“Let me help you, shister.”

The passage of each minute decreased the odds further that the man behind the voice over the phone would magically appear, especially if his presence here yesterday was owed strictly to his pursuit of Scarlett.

“Hey,” a young woman said, approaching their table with her eyes fixed on Michael as if Alexander wasn't even there. “Hey, mister. You American, right?”

She stopped at the table, smelling of too much perfume. Attractive in an earthy sort of way.

“I'm guessing you're Romanian,” Michael said, without saying whether he was American or not.

“You want a date, a good time?”

“I'm a little busy right now.”

“You don't look busy.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

She seemed not to grasp his meaning. “I don't charge you because you so … handsome,” she said, as if searching for a different word. “Come on, what you say?” Her gaze finally fixed on Alexander. Briefly. “I even get your big friend a date, but not free for him.”

“Thank you,” Michael said. “But not tonight.”

“Tomorrow maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“I be here. Same time. I look for you. You look for me, yes?”

Michael nodded, the woman holding her gaze on him as she backpedaled, turning only when she was sucked back into the crowd gathered before the bar.

“Handsome?” Alexander said, shaking his head.

“Don't be jealous.”

Alexander noticed the commotion at the bar first, a clutter of German tourists lined up to take shots of
ţuică,
a Romanian spirit milled from plums. The beefy, bearded bartender was pouring up a storm, adding a hefty glass for himself and proposing a toast loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear.

“To Germany!”

The tourists drank.

“To Romania!”

The tourists drank again.

The bartender came out from behind his station to join the tourists with one of the ceremonial swords in one hand and bottle of
ţuică
in the other, refilling as he moved among them. Light from one of the steel fixtures overhead caught him in its spill, showcasing an upper lip marred by scar tissue that made it look as if a seamstress instead of a doctor had done the stitching.

“To
Vremuri Bune
!” he said, thrusting the curved sword's tip into the air. “Good times
h
 … and my big dick!”

Laughter preceded the drinking this time.

“And to my hometown of S
h
ibiu!”

Michael's breath caught in his throat.

“Let me help you, shister.”

The bartender was toasting again, flirting with a pair of attractive German women, both blonds.

“To all my new brothers
h
…” Then, with a squeeze of one woman's cheek and then the other, “… and s
h
isters!”

*   *   *

The bartender was drunkenly mumbling through a song in Romanian while cleaning the bar after closing time:

Bun îi vinul ghiurghiuliu

Cules toamna prin târziu

Mai pe brumă, mai pe-omăt

Mult mai beu
şi nu mă-mbăt

He felt a cool breeze he recognized from the door opening, but was certain he'd thrown the lock. He moved to check it, passing through the shadows in that section of the bar when he felt an arm close around his throat from behind. His hands flailed desperately, groping for purchase on his assailant, when his air was choked off and the darkness swallowed him.

 

FIFTY-FIVE

B
UN
Ă
Z
IUA,
R
OMANIA

“Who are you?”

The bartender came awake to the awareness that his bound hands were suspended above him, strung by electrical cord that had been looped through the iron casing of an overhead light fixture in the dingy basement of the bar. His ankles were bound by an identical cord, the angle on which he was perched forcing him to crouch in midair over a heavy wooden desk chair. And he was facing a tall figure cloaked in a mask.

“What do you want?” the bartender resumed.

“Neither of those questions are important,” the hooded Alexander said from the shadows cast by the single bulb that spilled mostly downward, capturing his prisoner in the haze of a dull spotlight. Only Alexander's eyes were visible and the dull light played tricks with them, shifting their shade from piercing blue to aquamarine depending on how he was positioned in relation to the dangling bulb. “The important questions are the ones I'm going to ask and you're going to answer. Is that clear?”

“You want to rob me, I have nothing.”

“I'm after answers.”

“About what?”

Instead of responding, Alexander lifted a blade with a sharply curved tip from a nearby table in a gloved hand. “This isn't a toy, though you wouldn't know that from the way you were playing with it. It's called a
rhomphaia
, a sword native to the ancient Thracians. The warriors wielding it were reputed to have impeded the Roman conquest of your country. Its power was such that it could split Roman helmets and shields, leading Emperor Trajan to order extensive modifications to Roman equipment. Its hilt and blade were of equal length, as long as three feet combined. Its uses varied from a slashing motion to hooking shields and opponents.”

From a darkened corner that smelled of must, mold, and rat turds, hidden from view of the bartender, Michael watched Alexander agilely provide a demonstration of the sword, from which he'd removed the handle.

“You know why I'm telling you this?” he continued to the bartender, the sword back at his side.

The bartender shook his head.

“Let me show you.”

Alexander took a single step forward and jammed the sword's exposed tang into the wood of the chair seat so the blade was standing straight up, its tip just below the bartender's buttocks. Then he grabbed hold of the electrical cord strung through the overhead light fixture dangling nearby. Yanked tightly to unlash a simple tie, so his hold was now all that supported the bartender's weight. Then Alexander let out a slight bit of cord, until the tip of the sword blade grazed the bartender's trousers even with his sphincter, drawing a wince from him and then a smirk.

“So you're going to torture me?”

“What's your name?”

“It's
h
been tried before. You s
h
ee my face? S
h
omeone cut my upper lip off onc
h
e to get me to talk. Promis
h
ed he'd do the s
h
ame with my lower one and then move on to my tongue. I told him nothing.”

“What's your name?” Alexander repeated.

“Andrei.”

“I have no interest in your tongue or your lips.” Alexander gave the cord more slack, forcing the bartender upon his toes with a grimace this time. “How long do you think you can stay on your toes, Andrei? Because you'll be on them for as long as it takes to tell me what I want to know. Is my English clear enough for you?”

“Go to fucking hell!”

“I'll take that as a yes
h
,” Alexander said, mimicking the bartender's lisp as he took a step closer to him, still holding the electrical cord. “It will start with your toes cramping, making it impossible to keep balanced on them. The sword will pierce your flesh and you'll start to bleed; just a little at first, but much faster very quickly as the blade enters your insides. I've seen this before, Andrei. It isn't pretty.” Now he took the same step backward. “But cooperate and I'll take up some of the slack. For each question you answer acceptably, there will be less pain. For each one you don't, there will be more blood. Your choice.”

“You're an animal!”

“Who do you work for?”

“I work for no one,” Andrei insisted, lower lip trembling as a sign he was already weakening.

“Black Scorpion,” Alexander said, as if in answer to his own question.

Andrei's eyes started to widen, then stopped suddenly. “What does a bug have to do with anything?”

Alexander sat down in a chair directly in front of the bartender and crossed his legs casually, still holding fast to the cord. “A woman came into your bar yesterday, yes?”

Andrei forced a smile. “Women come into my bar every day.”

“I'm talking about an
American
woman.”

“Fuck you.”

“An American woman came into your bar yesterday,
yes
?”

Silence this time.

“I have all night, Andrei, while you only have a few more minutes before you'll be begging to tell me anything I want to know. Don't wait for the inevitable. Tell me now.”

“Tell you what?”

“About the young woman.”

“Fuck you.”

“You said that already.”

“Fuck you,
ass
h
hole
.”

Alexander weighed the bartender's words calmly. “You know what people do when they're terrified? They act tough, even when they're not. Even when they're cowards. But I don't think you're a coward, Andrei, I just think you're scared.”

“Not of you, shit head!”

“I don't care. Because if you don't tell me what I want to know, you'll die the rat you are, right at home with the others nesting down here. If you talk, you get out of this alive and nobody finds out where I got the answers to my questions.”

The bartender lapsed into silence, seeming to consider Alexander's offer.

“There's no third option, Andrei,” Alexander continued. “You need to choose from those two.”

Andrei swallowed hard, seemed to nod. “I received a call before she arrived.”

“From who?”

The bartender's legs had started to shake. “Pleas
h
e.”

“Answer the question.”

“From s
h
omeone in the s
h
ecret police telling me to watch for s
h
uch a young woman.”

“Secret police.”

“The
S
h
ecuritate
.”

“You're lying. There's no such thing anymore.”

The bartender started to smile, but stopped. “Really? A man can hope I s
h
uppose.”

From his darkened corner, Michael watched Alexander take up some of the slack on the electrical cord strung overhead, the bartender's twisted features relaxing slightly.

“Then we're making progress. This man from the
Securitate
who called you, does he work for Black Scorpion?”

Tears had begun rolling down Andrei's cheeks. “S
h
top, pleas
h
e. They won't just kill me. They'll kill my family, my
children
!” He was choking up now, struggling to speak through the sobs. “You don't know thes
h
e people!”

Alexander rose from his chair and moved closer to the bartender, his black hood swallowing the spill of light that reached it. “You think you're the first man I've tortured? You think I haven't heard all this before? Believe me when I tell you it's going to get worse, much worse. Talk. Tell me everything or you'll wish you were only crying.”

“I can't!”

“Yes, you can. What happened when the young woman came into the bar?”

The bartender was wailing horribly now, struggling to catch his breath and failing miserably.

“Look at me, Andrei.
Look at me!
”

Andrei looked up at that, snot leaking from his nose now.

“Do I look like a man who gives a shit?” Alexander asked him from inside his hood. “Do I look like a man who cares about anything but what I want to find out?
Answer me!”

Andrei just stared at him.

“Your family's not safe from me either. Neither are your friends, your customers, the accountant who does your taxes, and the man who shines your shoes. You hear me? You tell me everything now or you die and then they die. Nod if you understand.”

Andrei nodded again.

“The woman came into the bar.”

Nod.

“You recognized her.”

Nod.

“She went to make a phone call and you followed her.”

A nod so demonstrative this time it shook off some of the tears streaming down the bartender's cheeks.

“Then what?”

“I … took her.”

“Where?”

“To the s
h
tock room here in the bas
h
ement and tied her up. Then I called the colonel from the
S
h
ecuritate
. He mus
h
t have come for her or s
h
ent his men. I never even s
h
aw him. She was there and then she wasn't. That's
h
all.”

Alexander shook his head, slowly. “No, it isn't, because you haven't told us where we can find her now.”

“Becaus
h
e I don't know,
you fuck
!” He was spitting saliva, continuing to drool more out between labored breaths.

Alexander let some of the slack back out of the electrical cord and the bartender's spine snapped erect, his knees quaking horribly now.

“Yes, Andrei, you do.”

“They'll kill me if I tell you!”

“You're trying my patience. We've already been over this. And they're not going to kill you.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because I'm going to kill them, after you tell me where to find the young woman.”