The Box by Jeremy Brown (ebook reader play store txt) 📕

“Tug, he just laughs. Then he jerks up off the concrete ledge like he got hit by lightning and goes, ‘Hey, do you know any farmers?’”

He frowned at Bruder, showing how confused he had been by the question.

“Now, I know some guys who grow a bit of weed, but if I know any real farmers it would be a newsflash to me. But I can tell saying no to Tug will close this road we’re going down, so I tell him ‘Yeah, I know some farmers. What’s up?’ Then he goes, ‘Do you care if some of them get killed?’”

Rison held the beer bottle in both hands and stared past it at the concrete between his sandals, making sure he got the details right.

“The way Tug explained it to me, Romanian organized crime figured out a scam with farming subsidies. You know what those are?”

Bruder said, “The government pays money to farmers to help them grow crops.”

“Right, basically. Sometimes it’s because the land is flooded and they can’t grow anything, or just to keep them in business so we aren’t relying on foreigners for our corn and wheat, you get it. So the Romanians, they find a rural area with a bunch of farms and they move in, then start spreading cash around to the farmers to get them to claim all of their land—whether it’s trees, parking lots, swamps—as farmable. Then the farmers list all that land on their paperwork to the government and get paid more in subsidies.”

Bruder frowned. “A bunch of home-grown farmers jump right into bed with Romanians to screw the government?”

“Well, some of them aren’t so happy with Congress, or the president, or their local hack, or the post office, or whatever. Others, yeah, they have big ‘ol flags waving in their front yards no matter who’s voted in, and they put up a fight, which is why Tug asked me about the killing part. These Romanians, they aren’t shy about getting rough if they have to.”

“So the farmers get paid by the government to farm land that isn’t actually arable.”

“Arable?”

“Farmable.”

“Right, yeah. And Tug said they also get the farmers to double-down on the land they’re already claiming, sometimes getting paid two or three times for the same acreage.”

Bruder said, “Nobody from the government ever comes out and actually looks at these farms?”

“Man, do you know how much farmland is out there? And how many people the government has working in these departments?”

“No, I don’t.”

Rison squinted out at the pool.

“Well, neither do I. But it’s a lot of land and not a lot of people. If Tug is right about it, all these bureaucrats do is push paper around and listen to lobbyists and rubber stamp these claims when they come through and cut the checks once a year.”

“Checks?” Bruder said.

“I know, I know, but don’t worry about that. These farmers like their money in banks or in cash, usually the latter. They go in to look at a new truck and pull out a fat roll and buy it right then and there, cash money. It’s pretty baller, actually. But that’s not the point. The Romanians, they know when the checks are coming, and they make the farmers cash them, then take everything except what the farmer would have coming to them legitimately.”

“So the farmers keep whatever subsidies they should be getting, and the Romanians take the fraud end.”

“Exactly.”

“And that fraud money ends up at fourteen million dollars,” Bruder said.

“Give or take.”

Bruder scanned the pool area, not really looking at anything, just letting his mind work through it.

“The Romanians collect it all at once?”

Rison grinned.

“You’re catching on. I wondered about collecting from the farmers before the Romanians get to them, but it’s too messy. All these people have guns right next to the front door, and all they’d have to do is call around after we left—assuming they didn’t shoot us—and we’d be in it up to our necks. So yeah, you nailed it. The Romanians make the rounds and put the cash, get this, in an old armored car they got their hands on.”

“You’re kidding.”

Rison shook his head.

“I know. These Romanians are crazy, man. From what Tug said, they act like an occupying army out in this little corner of Iowa. I guess the whole scam is something they’ve done back home and around Europe for a while, now they’re trying it here. They load up all the cash and drive it to Chicago and deliver it to the big boss.”

“And the job is to hijack the delivery.”

“Bingo,” Rison said.

“When do the checks go out?”

“In about six weeks.”

Something was gnawing at the edge of Bruder’s thoughts.

He said, “And Tug just came out and told you all of this?”

“Like I said, he lost a lot of money. He was trying to recruit me into giving up these imaginary farmers I knew so he could start his own scam going. Or go tell his cousins about them, who knows. I told him I was going to have to see this thing in person before I went in with him. So he laid it all out, man. We set up a time and place to meet so I could watch it all go down.”

“You’re supposed to meet him when they collect the cash, precisely?”

“Well, not down to the minute. He said we’d meet up, maybe hang out for a few days and drink...Ah, shit, what was it…Rachiu, something like that. Some kind of liquor made out of plums, or pears, or something. He said if I survived, I’d never want to drink anything else.”

Bruder frowned.

“So the Romanians are expecting you to be there? You’re going on the inside?”

Rison shook his head again.

Bruder was getting more skeptical.

He said, “You’re trusting this Tug guy to be your source?”

“No, no way. He’s a walking shitshow. If I went there with him, or if I tried to rely on him for more info, I’d probably end up dead or a hostage or