Story idea subplot...

Belle and Maria are a couple of confidence artists who hook up with the main character, Gus, to get his extensive 401(k) retirement holdings, a scheme they cooked up after the 72(t) law was put in place.

Gus met Belle through a mutual email friend. After email exchanges between the two of them, Belle figures out that Gus has a load of financial holdings and is looking for a way to convert the holdings out of 401(k) without substantial penalties.

Belle discusses her new email friend with her best friend, Maria. They decide to introduce Maria to Gus. They email him a cock-and-bull story about themselves as neighbors in Stuy Town, when in fact Belle and Maria had met as prisoners on Rikers Island when they were juvenile delinquents. Through the years their crimes increased in complexity and they spent some time in jail for money laundering, where Belle met her husband, "Don Juan" Pompilian.

Belle emails Gus a story about her husband dying and the fact that she is a financial investor who can help Gus arrange his finances, despite her need to focus on her husband's medication.

Meanwhile, Don sets up a shadow company that appears it can handle the conversion of 401(k) accounts to 72(t), when in fact all he plans to do is convert Gus' 401(k) directly into cash for Don, Belle and Maria to split.

After the transaction is completed, Belle informs Gus that her husband has died and she's going to fulfill his wish to have his ashes buried on the Black Sea, not far from where Don's family is from in Romania.

Gus spends weeks trying to contact Belle and Maria to find out the status of his 401(k) conversion to no avail. He discovers he's been duped and goes to Romania in search of the sheisters, following a cold trail that placed them in Constanta.

From there, he travels to the Trans-Siberian Railway, where the main plot continues...