couldn’t catch in the act was catching them with money they couldn’t explain. When he was young he had left Romania for Hungary, and then gotten to Czechoslovakia with his wife, Marija, early in the brief summer of 1968 that ended when the Russian tanks rolled in to remove the liberal government. It had taken them until 1979 to make it to the United States. Then he had gone to work with a group who smuggled stolen cars from the upper Midwest into Mexico to sell them to Central and South Americans. The buyers were supplied with papers saying they had driven into Mexico and were simply returning home with their cars.
Kapak had started out as a driver for the car thieves, then realized that the Mexican distributor who sold the cars southward was the only irreplaceable person, and made a separate deal with him. Kapak built a second healthy business of his own based on the observation that the one car bringing his four drivers back to the United States was otherwise empty of cargo.
He never got caught for smuggling or car theft or anything else he’d done. He got caught in a tax audit. One day there was a letter from the government telling him to come to a meeting, and a few weeks later there were treasury agents with guns strapped to them tearing his house apart looking for money and evidence of secret bank accounts. He lost everything to them.
To this day, he was sure that some of the cash he had hidden in his house had probably ended up in the pockets of treasury agents. Why should government agents suddenly behave differently than they had for five thousand years just because they were in a new country? He had never counted all the money he had been stuffing behind the insulation in the attic. The agents had taken it to their office to count it and had given him a receipt to sign with a number on it. Of course he had signed. Government agents were all the same, no matter where they lived. If you didn’t sign, more of them came the next time.
So he had lost all his money, his house, his cars. Going to jail for thirteen months had also lost him Marija and the children, John and Sara. Marija had used the time while he was in prison to take up with their neighbor the periodontist, and to write letters to everyone back in Hungary and Romania to tell them he was a criminal and in jail. It was accurate enough and had not startled anybody on his side of the family, but a cousin of hers had written to him to say it had been a shock to some of the people who didn’t know him well.
He had been in love with Marija, a beautiful woman who had put up with quite a bit in private, but who could not stand public embarrassment. He was lucky that he wasn’t deported to Hungary, or Spain, his last stop before America, or even all the way back to his birthplace, Bucharest. He probably would have been, except that the hard-line Communists in charge in those days would have made some kind of political point about the people who left home being degenerates. The American authorities didn’t want that.
Since then he had paid his taxes, tried to comply with all of the small laws, and reserved his risks for the big, profitable infractions. It had worked for a long time, and he didn’t miss the money he had paid for taxes, permits, licenses, and assessments. A government that left people alone most of the time was worth a lot of money.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he stepped into the back hallway outside the office to answer it. “Yes?”
“Mr. Kapak?” It was the voice of Morgan, the manager at Siren. “I thought I should let you know that one of Mr. Rogoso’s people called a minute ago. They said he’s coming here.”
“To Siren?”
“That’s what the guy said. He was conveying the message that Rogoso was on the way.”
“Thanks, Morgan. He probably just wants somebody to know he’s coming so they’ll pay attention to him. I’ll drive over and meet him.”
“Should I get one of the girls to keep him
Kapak had started out as a driver for the car thieves, then realized that the Mexican distributor who sold the cars southward was the only irreplaceable person, and made a separate deal with him. Kapak built a second healthy business of his own based on the observation that the one car bringing his four drivers back to the United States was otherwise empty of cargo.
He never got caught for smuggling or car theft or anything else he’d done. He got caught in a tax audit. One day there was a letter from the government telling him to come to a meeting, and a few weeks later there were treasury agents with guns strapped to them tearing his house apart looking for money and evidence of secret bank accounts. He lost everything to them.
To this day, he was sure that some of the cash he had hidden in his house had probably ended up in the pockets of treasury agents. Why should government agents suddenly behave differently than they had for five thousand years just because they were in a new country? He had never counted all the money he had been stuffing behind the insulation in the attic. The agents had taken it to their office to count it and had given him a receipt to sign with a number on it. Of course he had signed. Government agents were all the same, no matter where they lived. If you didn’t sign, more of them came the next time.
So he had lost all his money, his house, his cars. Going to jail for thirteen months had also lost him Marija and the children, John and Sara. Marija had used the time while he was in prison to take up with their neighbor the periodontist, and to write letters to everyone back in Hungary and Romania to tell them he was a criminal and in jail. It was accurate enough and had not startled anybody on his side of the family, but a cousin of hers had written to him to say it had been a shock to some of the people who didn’t know him well.
He had been in love with Marija, a beautiful woman who had put up with quite a bit in private, but who could not stand public embarrassment. He was lucky that he wasn’t deported to Hungary, or Spain, his last stop before America, or even all the way back to his birthplace, Bucharest. He probably would have been, except that the hard-line Communists in charge in those days would have made some kind of political point about the people who left home being degenerates. The American authorities didn’t want that.
Since then he had paid his taxes, tried to comply with all of the small laws, and reserved his risks for the big, profitable infractions. It had worked for a long time, and he didn’t miss the money he had paid for taxes, permits, licenses, and assessments. A government that left people alone most of the time was worth a lot of money.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he stepped into the back hallway outside the office to answer it. “Yes?”
“Mr. Kapak?” It was the voice of Morgan, the manager at Siren. “I thought I should let you know that one of Mr. Rogoso’s people called a minute ago. They said he’s coming here.”
“To Siren?”
“That’s what the guy said. He was conveying the message that Rogoso was on the way.”
“Thanks, Morgan. He probably just wants somebody to know he’s coming so they’ll pay attention to him. I’ll drive over and meet him.”
“Should I get one of the girls to keep him
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