Continued from: Part #0
Macedonian Community Hall, near the suburb line of Golden Roads & Alegheri
Marjan Manaskovski wiped his thick salt and peppered moustache clear of goulash before taking a swig of his bottle of Bitolsko Pivo to wash it down. He looked at Nezim Zhivijik, his enforcer and message sender who stood before him.
“Well?” he barked as he loaded up another spoonful of the thick red meal.
Nezim, who was called The Jones due to a striking resemblance to soccer player turned actor Vinnie Jones, shrugged nonchalantly. “They have til end of month.”
“Which is two weeks and three days,” added Zoran Kumanovo, Marjan’s 2IC and financial advisor.
“I should put you through meat grinder!” Marjan jabbed his spoon at his underling.
“I told you of the risk and we needed to have that money cleaned due…”
“DON’T TALK!” snapped Marjan slamming his hands on the table sending his lunch everywhere. “WE ARE OUT OF POCKET, ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY SIX MILLION DOLLARS!”
Zoran wiped the specks of goulash off his cheek and waited. After waiting for Marjan to breathe a dozen or so times he began again “It is not my fault he ran a Ponzi scheme on us. But we can recoup some of our losses. The Heisler’s have about forty two million which…”
“IS ONE HUNDRED MILLION SHORT!” yelled Marjan, his face going red. “JONES! TAKE THIS IDIOT AND…”
“COULD I FINISH?!” snapped Zoran. The pair glared at each other. Jones slowly, carefully, walked over to Zoran and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said into his ear.
“Let him finish Jones,” seethed Marjan “I am…curious.”
Zoran looked at his employer, his friend of two decades, and unclenched his fists as he shrugged off the hand. “We have given them til the end of month. Seeing the damage done to their mother and that their father is already in the ground, these little children will pay. And pay. And pay. We can turn a one hundred million dollar hole into a profitable, constant asset. The two girls we can sell, use as leverage over the boys. Besides they don’t just owe us. That Heisler has money from The Quan’s, The Tori’s and god knows who else.”
Marjan rubbed his protruding belly with a thoughtful hand “They work for us to pay back debt.”
“We also take out life insurance policies on them, and when one misbehaves and they will, we kill one to send a message to the others and collect cash. We could own them forever. Hell, we could force them to have children and keep the debt going a generation.”
Marjan waved Jones away as he stepped in and hugged his friend “You really are a sick %^$#!”
“I learnt from the best!” laughed Zoran. “Either way we get our money. Dead people don’t earn.”
“Except Michael Jackson,” added Nezim. The pair of old crooks looked at him strangely. “What? I like his work.”
**
Anton Heisler shook himself as he finished weeing on the headstone of his father. His brother Dalton grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
“Don’t you have any respect?” snapped Dalton. “He’s barely even cold!” Anton sneered, broke out of his younger brothers’ hold and grabbed him by the face just like he use to when they were kids.
“Not after what’s he’s done to us! To mum!” yelled Anton. “Where the &^^$ are we going to get the money from huh? Do you have a secret trust fund, golden boy?”
“It’s more than that,” said Oscar gloomily. “Dad owes those Baltic pricks but the whole scheme is worth about two hundred million.”
“Oh is that all?” scoffed Anton as he threw his brother to the floor.
“Would you three just stop it!” said Lori as she and Fiona joined their siblings at their father’s grave. “Fighting each other won’t help us solve this.”
“You’ve got a solution?” asked Oscar.
The five Heisler children went quiet. A slight wind danced about them.
“We could rob a bank?” suggest Fiona.
“Good idea idiot!” replied Anton “This isn’t the nineteen thirties where they have vaults full of cash! You really are stupid.”
Dalton grabbed Anton by the ear and twisted “Stop being such a *&^&%!” Anton grunted then elbowed his brother in the stomach and they began trading blows.
“STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!” screamed Fiona at the top of her lungs.
Oscar and Lori looked at each other. Out of the five they were the most level headed, even though Oscar was more of a worrier and pessimist. Lori put her fingers in her mouth and whistled like a steam train, the piercing sound ripping across the graveyard. Anton and Dalton paused mid punch.
“There are five of us,” said Lori as she parted her two warring brothers “And we have essentially two weeks to make more money, that short of a &^%$ miracle we’ll never get. We EACH need to make about forty million dollars that will get us out of the hole dad has put us in. But it won’t work unless we work together. Now I’ve got a few plans in mind…”
“And if we liquidate everything we have,” added Oscar “And I mean everything,” He looked directly at Fiona knowing she collected rare Mokepon cards. “I believe we’ve got around forty million.”
“One hundred and sixty million in seventeen days,” said Anton.
“Nine point four mill per day,” said Fiona as she read the answer off her phone. “Ten if you leave my card collection alone.”
“Today we grieve, get stuff in order and then tomorrow we begin Operation Fury,” said Lori.
“Operation Fury?” Dalton scratched his head.
“I got it from an episode of Demon Dog and it sounded cool,” said Lori as she pulled out a bottle of scotch and took a swig “Now let’s have a drink before we begin the most ridiculous thing we’ve ever done.”
“What about the time we filled the first class lounge in Dallas full of glitter and shaving cream?” asked Fiona.
Anton clipped his youngest sister over the back of the head whilst taking the scotch off his other sister. “One hundred and sixty million times worse idiot! Here’s to you dad, you selfish stupid bastard!”
**
Indigo Private Hospital, Central
Aneka Heisler’s eye flickered open. Waves of dulled pain washed over her. She tried to speak but her mouth was dry with the acrid taste of her own dried blood.
“Hello Mrs Heisler,” said an accented voice just out of her eye line.
“W-w-wha..?”
“My name is Zoran. I am going to need you to write down all your access codes, pin numbers and bank accounts you have along with where you keep your title deeds. Because if you don’t…” A large face resembling Vinnie Jones came into her view causing her to gasp. “My large violent associate here is going to more horrible things to you, this time of a sexual nature. Do we understand each other?”
**
To be continued…
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