To Hell in a Handcart. Richard Littlejohn

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Eight

      Ilie Popescu knew the men from Moscow would come looking for him. His father, Marin, had set him up in the car-smuggling business and sent him to Hamburg, where he stole Mercedes, BMWs, Audis and Porsches to order and shipped them to the former Soviet Union. The hard cash he sent back to the Tigani helped finance his father’s other line of business, an organized begging racket across Western Europe.

      At twenty-one, Ilie was an accomplished car thief. It was easy money. In the first six months, Ilie successfully stole and despatched cars worth almost $3 million on the black market. The deal was always cash on delivery.

      On a roll, emboldened by an unblemished track record, Ilie met his Russian contact and explained that in future he would need half the money up front. He had overheads, he explained. There were police officers and port security guards to be paid off.

      The message was relayed to the men in Moscow, who were unhappy about the new terms and conditions. But they trusted Marin Popescu, with whom they had done business for several years since the fall of Communism. They would extend that trust to his son.

      A week later, Ilie received $500,000 in advance of his next consignment, in unmarked, used notes in a leather attaché case, passed to him by his contact in a bar off the Reeperbahn. In return he was handed a list containing the marque and specification of the vehicles he was to supply, some of them destined for clients in the Middle East.

      The deliveries were to be completed within one month. Ilie would receive the balance when the cars arrived in Moscow.

      That gave him plenty of time to party. He was a good-looking boy, lean, about 5ft 9ins, with short, jet-black hair, chocolate-brown eyes and a winning, slightly menacing, smile. In Hamburg, he had developed a taste for expensive clothes, nightclubbing, whores, cocaine and gambling.

      Cocaine and gambling don’t mix. There’s calculated risk and then there’s recklessness. Ilie came down on the recklessness side of the equation. In one week in the casinos, Ilie blew the thick end of $350,000 on the tables, $350,000 the Russians had given him as a down payment.

      So what? Ilie told himself. It doesn’t concern them. They’ll get their cars and I’ll get the balance.

      The cocaine convinced Ilie he was invincible. It also made him sloppy.

      His modus operandi had always been to target vehicles belonging to Hamburg’s high-rollers and wealthy industrialists, importers and exporters. He stole them individually from parking lots and garages, paying off chauffeurs and car park attendants for information and silence.

      Single car thefts attracted little attention from the authorities. The owners were irritated, but insured for full replacement value. Why should they worry?

      Within a fortnight, Ilie had frittered the whole $500,000. He hadn’t stolen a single car for over two weeks, his Russian contact was becoming concerned. Don’t panic, Ilie reassured him. Have I ever let you down?

      That night, his tame policeman, Jurgen Freund, called at his hotel for his regular $10,000 monthly retainer. He found Ilie in bed with two whores. The room was littered with empty bottles – champagne, Polish vodka, scotch. The whores were sharing a substantial joint. Ilie’s eyes were on stalks and his nose was streaming.

      ‘I’ve come for my wages,’ the cop said.

      ‘You’ll have to wait. I don’t have the money right now,’ Ilie replied.

      ‘Not good enough,’ Freund said.

      ‘Hey, СКАЧАТЬ