Mrado walked up to Radovan’s house.
The house: a long one-story, almost four thousand square feet. White walls and a flat roof with black panels. Door and window frames in dark wood. Well-groomed garden during the summer. Fuchsias, perennials, rhododendrons. Now on their way to the inevitable fall brown. The property was surrounded by a wooden fence about five feet tall. Roses grew along the inner periphery. It looked peaceful, boring, and harmless from the outside. Mrado knew that it was heavily guarded from the inside.
“ Dobre dosao, come on in, Mrado.”
Stefanovic, Rado’s jack-of-all-trades, opened the door. Led Mrado through the house.
Radovan was seated in a leather armchair in the library. Dapper as always. Dark blue blazer. Light-colored corduroys. Well coiffed. The furrows/scars on his face spelled out the word respect.
Dark wallpaper. Tall as well as short bookcases along the walls. On the walls, above the shelves: framed maps, paintings, and religious icons. Europe and the Balkans. Lovely Donau. The Battle of Kosovo Polje. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. History’s heroes. Portraits of Karayorye. The Holy Sava. Most of all-maps of Serbia-Montenegro.
Stefanovic left them alone.
Radovan, in Serbian: “Welcome.”
“The pleasure is all mine. We don’t see each other that often.” Mrado remained standing.
“Have a seat, for Christ’s sake. No, we don’t see each other that often. I guess that’s for the best. But we talk on the phone.”
“Of course. As often as you like.”
“Mrado, let’s skip the pleasantries. You know me-I express myself plainly. No frills. That doesn’t mean it’s personal. I think you know how I feel about what happened at Kvarnen.”
“I think I do.”
“A total clusterfuck. Shit like that just can’t happen. I trust you, and you’ve made a fool of yourself. Now the whole situation’s hysterical. Do you understand what the hell you’ve done? The blowback could be war.”
“I’m incredibly sorry, Rado. I misjudged the situation. I take full responsibility for what happened.”
In Mrado’s head: The whole shit show was really Patrik’s fault. But there’s no point in blaming others. If you’re in charge, you’re responsible.
Radovan said, “Well, you fuckin’ better. Anything else would be crazy. You know our situation. That skinhead you used, Patrik, was convicted of aggravated assault. He can’t call or write when he wants. No information goes in or out. We don’t know shit about what he’s saying about us in there. You can’t trust just anyone. For your sake, you better hope the fucker’s no canary. For our sake, too.”
“I think it’s cool.”
“You’ve done good all these years. And now this? Why didn’t you stop that unprofessional skin faggot? The police can crack that guy easier than an egg in a frying pan. What’s more? Hells Angels, Bandidos, Boman, or someone else can flip their shit. The relations between the factions in this city are tense enough as is. Things can’t get worse.”
Mrado was usually Mr. Hard Ass. But Rado was the kind of man that people, even the Yugo Mafia, lowered their voices around and avoided eye contact with. Mrado felt the worry grow in the pit of his stomach. Radovan was really angry. Pulsating thought: Can’t fuck up my relationship with Radovan. Repeat: Can’t fuck up my relationship with Radovan.
On the other hand, Mrado more than pulled his weight. Worked the coat checks, racketeering, and more. Remembered the time under Dragan Joksovic, when he and Rado’d been equals. Colleagues in Jokso’s monopoly of violence. Now Radovan was sitting there saying that he’d “done good all these years.” What bullshit. Radovan was the one who’d done good under Jokso. It was repulsive: Radovan was playing God.
What’s more: Mrado’s cut these days wasn’t big enough. Rado let him in on too little. Most important, too little of the profits. As if they didn’t have a past. As if R.’d always been at the top of the ladder.
But now he had to grovel pretty. Think constructively. Come up with solutions. Subtle mood fixers.
“Rado, Patrik’s good. On my honor. Yeah, he’s a hothead, still too impulsive, but he’s no rat. He’s cool. He knows the rules. I’m not worried about that.”
“That’s good news. But we could be in shit up to our knees all the same. Patrik’s dumb. The guy needs Google Maps to find his own dick. There’re a couple possible scenarios. The first is that the pigs press the skinhead till he serves our asses on a plate. Then they’re gonna start the world’s biggest fucking investigation, cops swarming every bar we’ve got stakes in. Maybe we’ll have to shut down a whole lot of our businesses, pull out. Another scenario is that HA, Goran Boman, or someone else flips ’cause the strategy we’ve been pushing on the coat-check front’s too heavy on the artillery. We don’t want to make the situation any worse than it is, Mrado, and you, of all people, know that. Four of our guys went down in the last round. And let’s not even get into what happened to you. I know war. All of me’s a fucking war. You know the balance-after Jokso, no one’s allowed to be king. Between us, Mrado, they can forget about it. But this is no time to rock the boat.”
“A good analysis, Rado. As always. Allow me to offer some additional ideas. Want to hear them?”
“Absolutely. That’s also why we’re getting together now. What’re you thinking?”
“Patrik knows the drill. Knows our code. Rats catch cold. Only a couple days ago, he saw what happened to a dude at the gym who was acting up. And that was no little guy, either. The skinhead gets it. If he snitches, he won’t live long enough to make it to the joint’s unguarded urinals and back. Trust me, I know a lot of people who’ve been taken down in the Tidaholm pen. But that won’t happen, him snitching.”
Mrado’d been thinking. Loaded up on ideas. Helicopter perspective. Big-picture perspective. Future perspective. Possibility. Expansion flexibility. Radovan wanted to be king. He had potential. At the same time-Mrado wanted to bring up his cut of the coat-check business.
“We can’t lose the coat checks. Since we put it in high gear last year, that business has yielded around three hundred thousand per month in the winter season and just under one hundred fifty thousand per month in the summer. We’ve got about twenty places. The more places we can control, the more people’ll get used to paying a fee. Finally, every little shit pub in this city’ll be able to charge people something to check their stuff. The crux is what we do with the gold. The coat checks are perfect. We operate cash only. Big Brother doesn’t have a chance in hell to calculate our revenue. All salaries are under the table. The places themselves don’t declare a cent anyway.”
Radovan smiled. He loved cash talk. Squinted. Brought out paper and pen. Calculator. He already knew the numbers. He already knew the advantages. He already knew the money had to be laundered. But Mrado knew that Radovan liked to hear what Radovan already knew.
“It works well, Mrado. I agree, we’ve got laundry issues right now. We need to get rid of the money somewhere. Clara’s and Diamond can’t swallow the kind of sums the coat-check business brings in. We need more companies. In a way, it’s a luxury problem. Sign that business is booming.”
Mrado replied, “Video-rental stores would work, I think. Big Brother can never find out how many movies we actually rent out. We’ll inflate the returns as much as we want. I can do it. I’ve done it before. If it gets messy after all and the state starts getting suspicious, someone else’s head’ll fall. A straw man.”
“Right on. Who?”
“Someone with no folding history. Not a total tool, but someone who doesn’t have a lot to lose, either. I’ll get on it. But the fall guy doesn’t really protect if Big Bro wants the laundry money back. Mostly protects against bankruptcy if we get hit with fat tax debt or something. But you don’t want to get your name dirty with suspicious bankruptcies that’ll nix your trade license. This’ll be perfect.”