It sometimes seemed as if the prize Mircea was aiming for was dangling in front of him, but constantly being yanked away. Ivan and Piotr wanted him to be expand their business into Cyprus by going into Belarus, but now they had a condition. Mircea had to help solve a problem in Ukraine first; some of the workers in their “businesses” were talking with foreign charity activists, and potentially the police.
Mircea didn’t understand this – they paid the local police off regularly to give them free reign. Vinnytsia was remote and uninteresting to most of those foreign busybodies who would come in and lend a sympathetic ear to local whingers. Besides, what human rights infractions were involved? No one was forcing those stupid girls to prostitute themselves. It was tit for tat – they came to be “discovered” and get out Vinnytsia – they knew that wasn’t free. It was the way of the world, and everyone understood.
“Are the police trying to shake us down for more money?” Mircea asked. Piotr shook his head, but not in his usual dismissive way.
“The police aren’t the problem,” he explained. “The Church is getting involved.”
Mircea may have been baptised to appease his ageing grandmother, but he was a true communist at heart. He missed the days of his youth, where there was no Church interference in your business. He screwed up his face, thinking of the recent Catholic paedophilia scandals that were rocking the world. Probably some hypocrite in a collar was getting jealous that he was losing his fresh meat to Mircea and his colleagues. “I didn’t think the Church was interested in girls,” he jeered.
“Of course they are,” Piotr countered. “Girls are mothers of future converts! And think about it – if there’s one thing the Church hates, it’s prostitutes.”
Uncharacteristically, Ivan perked up at this. “What about that story of let he who is without sin cast the first stone?”
Piotr clicked his tongue. “They love ex-prostitutes.,” he clarified. “They like to be the saviours of fallen women everywhere.” And therein lay the problem.
Mircea had no time for theological debate. “Who’s going to the church?” he demanded. “We need to get a better grip on the girls.”
“Obviously.” Piotr was glaring at Mircea from behind those sunglasses. Mircea was thinking fast, knowing how important solving this problem was to his future career. He thought about some Japanese samurai movie he had seen, where the teacher of martial arts stressed that his pupils were not to be afraid of the sword. The master of the arts feared the hand that swung the sword. They could beat the girls for going to the Church, but that would only make the sainted hypocrites seem more appealing in their outreach. To solve this problem, they had to go for the man wielding the sword. They had to take care of the Church.
“We should pay the Church off,” he suggested. “Make generous donations to their building funds.”
Ivan seemed a little cowed in confronting the Catholic Church in Vinnytsia. “You can’t buy the Church!”
“You can buy anyone,” Mircea countered, and he was pleased to see Piotr’s smile. “The Church is no stranger to fiscal scandals. I remember hearing about them selling tickets to heaven not too long ago.”
Piotr laughed huskily. “I like your way of thinking! Maybe we should offer these missionaries free trips to heaven with our girls.”
“Get a picture of one of them with a whore,” Mircea said. “That way, we own them outright.”
Ivan wasn’t grinning with them. “What if they don’t fall for the bait?” he asked. He really seemed to think these Holy Joes were saints. Mircea, however, was a firm believer in the perfidy of man.
“We’ll offer them something else. Every man has his weakness.”
Piotr was looking impressed. “You’re a cold-hearted bastard, aren’t you?”
Mircea met his gaze. “Aren’t you?”
Piotr was a little taken aback by Mircea standing his ground. His smile faltered, then recovered. “All right, then, go and talk to these meddlesome priests. Find out what they want, and what it will cost us. But make sure to drive a hard bargain.”
As if Mircea needed telling. “At your service,” he said, in mock subservience. He could tell Piotr’s eyes were widening behind the sunglasses.
Ivan was still in doubt. “Maybe we should get some indulgences off them, just to be sure.” He folded quickly under Mircea’s and Piotr’s stares, bursting out into laughter that rang out loud and false.