Vlad and his brother love theUnitedStates, their adopted
country of 15 years. A GQsubscriber, Vlad has become the quintessential
consumer, finding the latest fashions and wearing them with a zest that is
frightening. Though he babbles on about ties and lapels and designers, this
immigrant GenX'er knows what he's talking about. He knows what impresses the
women at spots like Barfly and Mortons. "I wear HugoBoss, Gucci,
Armani," he notes. "Handmade fucking shoes. The doormen all know me
and my guys. Think we're czechoslovakian filmproducers." But they're not.
Vlad and younger brother Rad steal cars and deliver
them to chop shops - you know, those places that your car enters and never
leaves. After Vlad gets hold of your car, neither you nor anyone else will ever
see it again.
He spends most of his time at work behind the wheel
of his own car, a 7 series BMW. You can see him often, cruising up and down
Wilshire, in and out of parking garages. He's always on the lookout for the
right vehicle, often a latemodel Toyota, Nissan or fourwheeldrive.
Vlad tells me about a recent workday, one that was a
lot like many others. Younger brother Rad is driving. After spotting this
Toyota in a snazzy offgold, they glide past, then go around the block for a
second look, finally deciding that there's too much foottraffic. Heading south
down Centinela into CulverCity, they see the same model in bright green. Pulling
in behind, Rad stays behind the wheel of the Beemer, keeping time while the
stereo pumps out Sublime. Vlad walks around to his BMW's trunk and emerges with
a handheld device that looks like a large walkietalkie. This is actually a
custom alarmdecoder that would cost you close to fivegrand if you knew the guy
who makes them. Needless to say, these are specialtyitems not available at your
local hardwarestore. Vlad flips a switch and within minutes the Toyota's alarm
chirps and the doors unlock. Vlad just loves those caralarms that also
automatically unlock doors. (It's a great convenience both for the car owner
and for him.) From that point it takes less than a minute to slaphammer the
ignition and get rolling.
Vlad fires up a marlborolight as he wends his way
southeast on our lovely freeways to an industrial neighborhood. Along the way,
he resets the radio for tunes more to his liking. And he obeys the speed limit
like a boyscout. As he pulls up before a walledoff yard defended by concertina
wire, he dials a number on his cell phone, then barks: "Open up. Delivery
coming in right now." When the gate closes behind him, the roller doors to
the garage are already open. They too slide shut as he drives in. As soon as
the car stops, jacks are rolling under the frame so the dismantling process can
begin. A crew descends on the car like a junkie on free dope. Doors, rims,
tires, seats, engine, transmission, glass: Nothing goes to waste. These guys
are poetry in motion; an Indy 500 pitcrew couldn't touch these guys for speed
and precision. In under two hours, the entire car will be parts.
The parts are immediately boxed and sent to the
garage or dealer that ordered them: reputable dealers who don't ask unnecessary
questions, and pros who buy parts by the truckload for resale knowing full on
that this shit is smoking hot. Installed in your car and billed to you as new.
Once the disassembly is complete, the only thing remaining is the frame and, in
some cases, the engineblock, because the block itself has IDnumbers so deeply
etched into it that it's more cost effective to buy a trashed block at a
junkyard with clean numbers, then transfer the guts.
But for Vlad and Rad the transaction ends at the
chopshopoffice, where the fridge is full of beer and the walls plastered with
posters of leering women holding power tools like they're sexinstruments. Think
a vibrator works good? Just wait till you try theMakitaSawsAll. Oh baby. Ivan
the Boss kicks back behind his desk. Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue"
booms so loud that it drowns out the impact wrenches. As Vlad enters, Ivan sets
his feet on the floor. "Got a special order in for a '97 'Vette," he
tells Vlad. "Ya want it?" "How much?" "Twenty-five
hundred." The take is tempting, but a custom order demands a lot. First
you have to find exactly the right car to steal, then locate a matching car
that's been totaled so you can transfer all the numbered parts and make sure
the paperwork is impeccable. "Naw, give it to somebody else," says
Vlad. "I can bag five, six Toyotas and Nissans in the time it takes to
track down a 'Vette." Ivan then pulls from his pocket a roll big enough to
gag LindaLovelace and counts out fifteen hundred bucks in various size bills,
whereupon our man Vlad does a recount to make sure he hasn't been shortchanged.
It's nothing personal, because all the guys in this ring are either related or
come from the same town in the old country. Still, when it comes to cash, you
always count it at least twice. Vlad pockets his fees and strolls out through
the front door of the body and fender shop that doubles as Boris'sMidnightAutoSupply.
To call these guys organised would be an overstatement, but they're pretty good
at what they do. Vlad saunters back into the street and climbs into the waiting
BMW, which is now fully registered, insured, legal and absolovely pristine
inside and out. Life in America is beyond a dream come true for Vlad and Rad
and their extended family, it's a regular fairy tale. Even with our drive-by
shootings and high murderrate, crime is not as lethal as where he came from.
I have to be a little vague on Vlad and Rad's
background because it's not every gang of carthieves who are part of a large greek
orthodox family. The kids would be truly shamed, chagrined and dismayed even, to
have the clan's illicit activity exposed.
But aside from protecting the familyname, Vlad is a
confident crook. He started stealing cars "because it's easy. E-A-S-Y.
Easy. When I first got here, my people were into lots of things," he
explains. "Insurancescores, a little drugs, counterfeiting clothes and
watches. When Ivan the Boss started with cars, we could just go rent one,
report it stolen, give it to Ivan. He'd kick with five hundred to a thousand,
depending on the make and so on." Vlad would get the rental with fake IDs
made by "one of our guys." One day, though, he walked into a Hertz
"and one of the chicks there recognised me from renting something a couple
months before using a different name. That's what I get for flirting with all
the women I talk to. I can't help it. They like me. I like them." Anyway,
he beat a fast retreat.
Vlad's accent is growing thicker as we talk at a
local watering hole, he's been downing more than a bit of iced Stoli. But he's
coherent enough to review some tricks of the trade, like his alarmdeactivator,
which he specialordered from a highTech. [Wrong word.] BeverlyHillsshop. Like
many items of merchandise in BeverlyHills, it's an import. This baby was handassembled
in one of the old eastern Bloc nations. It sends out digital codes, just like
the ones people use to turn their car alarms on and off or open their garagedoors.
He may not know your code, but his device will send out hundreds of signals until
it hits the right numbers. Ignitionlocks aren't a problem either: "Just
rip the lock out and start it with a screwdriver." He likes the carracket
because he can steal three or four a day. Sometimes a custom order, but mostly
standard japanese imports and fourwheel drives. "Think about it," he
says. "They're all over the place. I spot what I want, then I stand around
holding a transmitter. I'm not touching the car, not breaking any Law."
When the alarm chirps off, "I'm in the car and gone in under a minute.
Unless I fuck up, speed, fail to signal, run a light, how am I going to get
caught? Huh? Tell me."
I ask him about theClub and LoJack, and he laughs:
"The Club can be drilled or cut, although they're a pain in the ass,"
he admits. "Speed is the thing, and the Club slows you down. I just keep
looking until I find something easy. Why increase your risk factor?" As
for LoJack, "they have to know the car's gone before they can call it in.
By that time it'll be chopped into little teeny pieces and the LoJack
transmitter thrown into a moving garbage truck." If you've got to steal a
car with LoJack, then it helps if you know the driver won't be returning for a
while. The problem is, you don't always know that when you're cruising.
So maybe the racket isn't as eternally foolproof as Vlad claims. I can remember when I had that confidence, that feeling that
I would never fuck up.
Vlad is chainsmoking as we talk, lighting each
cigarette from the butt of the last with fingers slightly yellowed from the
continual smoke. But it doesn't detract from the jewelry on his fingers and
wrists. His hair is cut perfectly, and he changes
clothes two, three, four times a day. [Someone I knew in middleschool.]
The fact is, this is a pretty motherfucker. If it wasn't for the insane energy
coming off him and the manic look in his eyes, he probably could be a model or
something. He smiles: "I can spend a couple grand a week doing nothing.
Clothes, women, my own cars, food. A couple grand easy." Vlad spends a lot
of his free time learning new dancesteps, practicing kickboxing and reading
magazines to make sure he's current with what's up and what's happening.
"Ya gotta stay tan. Always have a tan. If I can't hit the beach or at
least lay out for an hour or two a day, I hit the tanning parlor." His
future plans don't go much beyond tonight. "Going to SkyBar. Want to go?
Bitches for days, hot- and cold-running bitches, man. Check it out. You'll dig
it."
I'm thinking that I probably would, but I turn him
down anyway. I don't got the right clothes.
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