Free Enforcer by Travis Hill Page B

unable to do anything but breathe hard and let the tears fall.
    “I am truly sorry, my friend,” Petre said. “If Dracul was with you, I have idea of your… job.” He’d almost said gig but it wasn’t appropriate to make a joke at the moment. “I did not know you worked for Mr. Ojacarcu in that way.”
    “I fucking don’t,” Connor said with anger.
    “I see,” Petre said.
    “Do you? Have you seen what I’ve seen? Do you know what your buddy Dracul does? What he is?”
    “I do,” Petre answered. “I have seen it. I have done it myself.”
    Connor stared at the man, the one Romanian he actually considered his friend. In his drunken mind he wondered if all of them were cold-blooded killers.
    “You’ve been with him when he’s killed someone?” Connor asked.
    “I have. I have killed men with my own hands. Women and children. I am not proud, Connor.”
    “No,” Connor breathed, not wanting to believe that Petre was just as evil as Dracul and Ojacarcu.
    “Yes. I am afraid it is true.”
     
    *****
     
    “I grow up in Arad, in Romania,” Petre said. “We were very poor, my father a builder, my mother a teacher. When I was nine, Securitatea arrested my father for crimes against the state. He belonged to trade union, but Ceausescu accused him and others of distributing propaganda against the Party. He was executed when I was eleven.
    “My mother was arrested months later for being wife of known enemy of the Party. She was accused of same thing. When my mother was taken away, I had nowhere to go. My friend Adrian took me to Rohozeanu , the boss of Arad crime family. They give me job delivering cigarettes and give me food and a bed. Soon I am delivering small packages of cocaine, then collecting money or delivering money to the police and judges for bribes.
    “When I am fifteen, Mr. Rohozeanu makes me lieutenant and gives me four boys to command. Mr. Rohozeanu gives me jobs like ‘burn down this home’ or ‘destroy this store to teach lesson.’ Then jobs turn to ‘kill this man’ or ‘kill this family’ and I do it. I am paid well. I have car, I have guns, I have others below me to command. And I have girls. Many girls.
    “I kill many people. Some I kill personally, others I kill with orders. I am told once in a while to kill child to teach lesson. I did not think about it, I just kill. It is my job. If I do not do job, I am killed. Mr. Rohozeanu, he likes me. Takes me to vacation one day, tells me I am good worker. Gives me more money, more responsibility.”
    “You killed children?” Connor interrupted, his head pounding from the alcohol and screaming at Petre.
    “I did. I am not proud. It was a job. I did my job. Now I am not proud, not happy. Then I did not care. I enjoy it. I am powerful, no one crosses me. I tell myself ‘this person must die, must deserve it, or Mr. Rohozeanu does not tell me to kill’ and I do my job. Even children. My father is criminal. So is my mother. So am I.
    “One day when I am nineteen, General Inspectorate raids one of our headquarters. I think there is no problem, Mr. Rohozeanu pays police and judges. But this is new General Inspectorate. They are helped by American FBI. They arrest corrupt police, a clean up. Then they arrest big names of crime families. Some are lucky, maybe untouchable. I am not lucky.
    “I am sent to Iasi prison in north Romania, near border. It is hard place, but I am Rohozeanu. The General Inspectorate might be clean with FBI help, but Iasi… it is run by the families. Still, it is hard. It is prison. Dangerous, even for me. But I do the time, thinking always that Mr. Rohozeanu will fix it, I will go free. I am told thirty years I will be in prison. Thirty years is long time in Iasi.
    “Mr. Rohozeanu, he has trouble and cannot help us. I wait six years. Six years and two times I am stabbed, but then I am free. A car is waiting for me, and we drive back to Arad, learning all that happened in last six years while I am in Iasi. When I