CHAPTER TEN
The six men sat on the worn sofa and three chairs in the cramped space of the living room. The fireplace provided less than satisfactory warmth. Several of the men held their full tea glasses in their two hands to help cut the chill in their fingers.
“This damn war is ruining business,” a wire-thin, middle-aged man announced to the group of men who’d assembled at Stefan Radko’s house. “There’s nothing to steal. Kosovars leave all their possessions behind when they flee their homes, but before we have a chance to grab anything, the Serb Army sweeps through. They steal or burn everything. Worse, American bombs scare Serb civilians into staying inside their homes, so even pickpocketing is poor.”
Stefan forced himself to suppress his disgust for this group of men. A bunch of whiners, he thought. Seventy years old and I have more nerve than all of them put together. But he needed them to do his dirty work.
“Okay, have we heard from everyone?” Stefan said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. He looked around the room to make sure he had each person’s attention. “We will shut down our operations for awhile. We cannot take the chance the Serbs will catch – and execute – our people on the street.”
“But Stefan,” one of the men protested, “how do we feed our families?”
“Try honest work!” Stefan snapped. “Or spend some of the money you’ve been hoarding.”
The man’s face went red, but he said nothing.
Stefan stood.
The other men began to leave. He walked them to the front door, giving each one a reassuring pat on the back. After they left, he sat in a chair and rested his head in his hands.
“What’s wrong, O Babo?”
Stefan looked up when his daughter came into the room. “I worried about you, my beautiful, little papusza. How did it go?”
“I am not your little doll anymore, Papa, I am a grown woman,” Miriana said, blushing. She pulled an envelope from inside her blouse and dropped it on the table.
Stefan slit the seal on the envelope and peered inside. “One thousand dollars?”
“As promised.”
“Good job, Miriana. Now tell me what this woman wanted.”
“She wants to know about my work as a drabarni, about my fortune-telling sessions with General Karadjic.”
Stefan nodded encouragingly at his daughter.
Miriana’s voice suddenly broke. “O Babo, she showed me photographs of Gypsies massacred by Karadjic’s soldiers. There were dead bodies everywhere, and Karadjic just stood there by the bodies. O Babo, Karadjic has murdered our people. His men raped our women, killed our children.”
“You listen to me, Miriana,” Stefan said. “Your people, as you put it, are not the sheep Karadjic slaughtered. Your people include your brother Attila, your mother Vanja, and me. No one else counts.”
“But, O Babo–”
“No buts, Miriana. You start worrying about Gypsies who don’t have the sense to run away from the Serb Army and you will wind up dead. You worry only about yourself and your family. Now, tell me about this woman in the park. Who was she?”
“She wasn’t Rom. She looked Serbian, but at the same time there was . . . something about her that made me think she was a western gadji. She had a Belgrade accent, but she was too confident, too aggressive to be from Serbia. I thought about it all the way back from Belgrade. If I had to guess, I would say Amerikanka.”
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EVIL DEEDS
Misteri / ThrillerEvil Deeds is the first in a 4-book series that follows the Danforth family from the kidnapping of their 2-year-old son in Greece in 1971 to present day. The book (and series) is a roller coaster ride of action and suspense. This book, as with all o...
