Jerry stared at him in disbelief, his eyes wide and his mouth agape.
Beck saw the question in his eyes. "You heard of him?”
Jerry said nothing.
"Yeah. I thought so. He was once a person of interest in a Charlotte murder case. But he was...non-cooperative. One of the boys thought he might have been involved. We went over to his house and picked him up. Drove him out to the forest and marched him barefooted over rocks and sharp branches for about a mile, maybe two, then we ordered him to stop and made him undress. We tied him to a tree, Jerry, deep in the heart of Nantahala. Then, we asked him the same questions we had asked in the interrogation room. But, again, he wouldn't talk. So, my partner, guy named Ricksen, he looked around and found a rock. A big, heavy fucking rock. We asked Mr. Grant the questions, again. Told him what would happen if he didn't give us satisfactory answers."
Jerry stared at Beck, his eyes like alien saucers.
Beck continued.
"He never gave us satisfactory answers, Jerry. So, Ricksen smashed his kneecaps. His left, first, then, his his right. And I asked him the questions one more time. But he was in too much pain to answer. He just cried and groaned. We knew he was involved. But we also knew he wasn’t a talker. So, Ricksen and I left him be. We walked back to the car and just drove off."
Jerry sat there, swallowing hard, dry mouthfuls, his eyes red and teary and wide, looking like they were going to explode from his head.
Beck continued. "He was found weeks later, a thousand hornet stings all over his body and his hands and feet gone. They were reduced to nothing but grisly bitten stumps. And his intestines had been torn out by a bear. They figure the bear was what killed him. But that came after everything else. You see, make no mistake, Jerry, when it comes to getting a wanted man off the streets, there are cops who do things the nice way. And, then, there are cops who do things the effective way. What sort of cop do you think you're looking at?"
Jerry still said absolutely nothing. He was staring at Beck, his mouth wide open and an intense look of fear in his eyes.
"Now, going back to your wife. I found you no problem. All I gotta do is find her, too. And that would be easy. We already have your name. All I have to do is search Michigan marriage records. With the police’s resources at my fingertips, I get her name about a minute later. Then, I do a little digging, check IRS tax records, and find out where she works. Head down there by what? Lunchtime? Tell her your dirty little secret. Then, what do you think happens?"
Jerry remained silent, frozen in fear.
"I'll tell you what happens, Jerry. By five o'clock tonight, your clothes will be lying on your front lawn and you'll have the start of an expensive divorce on your hands. Better start thinking about putting those apartments on the market and getting yourself a good attorney, Jerry. Because, you'll need one."
Finally, Jerry said something. "She wouldn't believe you."
"Maybe not," Beck said. "But would she still believe in you?"
He said nothing.
"Jerry?"
"OK. What do you want?"
"I already told you. I want to find Darius Adamczuk and get him off the street."
"I already told you, I don't know where he is."
"Maybe not. But, maybe, this Vanessa knows something. So, tell me where to find her and I'll be out of your hair. All of your past transgressions stay between you and I."
Jerry sucked a breath and nodded, then the told Beck where to find her.
"Gentleman's club named Diamond Dolls."
"That a boy, Jerry," Beck said. "Now, where's that?"
"Over in Detroit. Woodward Avenue."
Beck nodded and made a mental note, then thanked him for his time. He told him he would show himself out and that he would be in touch if the police needed anything else, but made sure to say the recording of their conversation would be kept, just in case it ever became needed.
After leaving a shell-shocked Jerry McDan sitting in the conference room, Beck took fourteen flights of stairs back down to the reception, dropped the visitor's pass off with the girl at the desk and signed himself out. Then, made his way back out to his black Camaro, unlocked it and climbed in.
He stuck the key in the ignition and fired up the engine and sat in silence, listening to the heating whirring from the vents on its dashboard, a smile on his face. He had taken a risk driving out to Ann Arbor, rolling the dice on the landlord, and pretending to be a cop from North Carolina. But it had paid off. Big time. He had managed to identify another key person of interest. An escort by the name of Vanessa who works at gentlemen's club name Diamond Dolls on Detroit's Woodward Avenue, who knew Darius Adamczuk. He brought up Diamond Dolls’ location on the satnav and slipped the car into gear.
That was when his cell phone began vibrating with an incoming call.
FOURTEEN
Beck felt the vibration in his pocket. He drew his cell phone from his coat and glanced at its screen.
It was lit up green with a telephone number across it in white. Eleven digits long. An incoming call from a number he didn't recognize. Which, most likely, meant it was a call from a potential client.
He swiped the green 'accept' icon to the right and answered the call.
"Joe Beck. Private eye. Talk to me."
"It's all your fault," a woman snapped on the other end of the line. She sounded aggressive.
"What the? Who?" Beck asked, startled, wondering who it was and what on earth she was talking about.
"It's your fucking fault," she yelled.
He paused a beat, realizing he recognized the voice. She sounded familiar, like somebody he knew. He racked his mind, thinking who it could be, going through every woman he had met in the last few months. One, in particular, popped into his mind. One he had only just met.
"Naomi?”
"It was those men from last night. Those fucking Europeans," she replied.
“What’s happened?”
"They said there would be consequences. And, now, they've gone and done it."
"Done what? Gone and done what?"
"They've burned my fucking salon straight to the fucking ground!"
Beck closed his eyes and sighed.
"I'm completely screwed," she added. "And it's all your fucking fault!"
He remained silent, reflecting on what she had just told him, processing exactly what she was saying. He didn't dare tell her that he thought she was overreacting. That it was just a building with some fixtures and fittings that are, ultimately, replaceable. Instead, he focused on the underlying meaning of what she had just said.
"I’m sorry, Naomi. But what do you mean by 'completely screwed'?"
"Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do? I can't afford to take another loan. I can’t afford not to have my salon. I'm up to my eyes already. I'm fucked. I'm absolutely fucked.”
Beck grimaced as he listened. The image of the letter he saw sitting on her side table in her lounge the night before popped into his mind. From what she was saying, he was right. It was a final demand notice for something she had obviously fallen behind on. A loan. A credit card. Something.
"You shouldn't have hit that guy," she added. "You obviously just pissed them off. And, now, look what they've done." She said and began to sob. "I'm left with nothing. Fucking nothing, Joe. I'm completely fucking ruined.”
"Don't you have insurance?" he asked her, sounding as hopeful as he possibly could.
"Insurance? Insurance? No. I've not got fucking insurance. I can't afford to have fucking insurance," she screamed. "And you were supposed to help. Not make things fucking worse. I'm calling the cops, Joe, and I'm telling them everything."
"You can't," he fired back, concern in his voice.
"Just watch me. Minute I hang up, I'm calling them."
"Don’t be fucking stupid. You do that and you're in just as much shit as I am."
“Oh yeah? And how’s that?”
"The minute you put your cell phone away last night, you got yours
elf involved."
She went silent.
"You call and tell them what happened. In fact, you give them a play-by-play. Minute they find out that you not only saw what happened last night and didn’t call it in, but that you also had me do a security job for you and, then, took me back to your apartment, you'll be dragged into a whole world of shit you don't have the shoes for."
She screamed into the phone. "You asshole. You fucking asshole." Then, broke down and wept into the phone line for the next few minutes.
Beck allowed her time to cry. Then, eventually, he said her name in a soft-sounding, helpful voice.
"Naomi?"
She sniffled, but said nothing.
"I can fix this."
She remained silent, sobbing, but attentive like she was listening. She had no other choice.
"I can fix this," he said, again. "But I'll need you to trust me. Can you do that?"
She said nothing.
"I'll also need you to tell me how bad it is."
She went completely quiet.
"It's OK, Naomi. You can tell me.”
She remained silent.
"It's OK, Naomi," he said, again. "If I’m going to give you the help you need, I need to know how bad it is."
She sighed and blew out her cheeks and answered his question in a bitter-sounding voice. "I already told you. They've burned my salon to the ground. It's nothing but fucking rubble. Completely and utterly gone."
"No," Beck replied. "Not the salon. The debt."
There was an abrupt silence.
Beck said nothing. He needed her to talk and he had said all he could at this point to make that happen. Remaining silent is the best route toward her opening up, he thought, realizing that she called him and not anybody else. Not the cops. Not nobody. Him. Which meant she called him for a reason. But he needed her to work herself up to telling him, herself.
A few more seconds ticked past. Then, eventually, Naomi spoke.
"What debt?" she asked, in a quiet-sounding voice.
"You said it yourself," Beck replied, immediately. "You don't have any money and you're up to your eyes." He paused, again, thinking about what he was about to say. "And I saw the envelope last night. The one on the table by the side of the sofa."
"What envelope?" she asked, denial in her voice.
“Naomi, cut the shit. I saw it. The final demand notice," he replied.
She breathed out, slowly, into the speaker, then paused for a long beat. "Ah, Jesus. Fuck. It's bad. OK? Fuck." There was frustration in her voice.
Beck nodded as she spoke. "OK. How bad? How much?"
She swallowed, hard. "Over one hundred and thirty-four thousand."
"Jesus," he said, under his breath, shaking his head. He remembered her mentioning the apartment was a rental, which meant the loan wasn't a mortgage. "What's it for? Is it a business loan? For the salon?"
"Yes," she wept. "But business hasn't been as high as I was expecting. Not like I had planned for, anyway. The money just isn't coming in. I missed the first payment. And I was struggling to make the next one." She paused. "Now, I've no chance of ever making it."
"Jesus," Beck said, again, this time loud enough for her to hear.
"I know," she wept. "I was struggling to barely even cover my damn rent, never mind the loan, let alone pay a group of European assholes four thousand dollars I don't even have. And, now, my only asset is gone. I'm broke and I really don't know what I'm going to do. I'm screwed. I'm completely fucking screwed."
"You're not screwed," Beck said.
"How am I not?" she asked him. "I'm over a hundred and thirty-four grand in the red with not a hope in hell of paying it. I’m out of a job. And I’ve no business.”
“Can’t you find a job somewhere else around Detroit?”
“Are you joking? Have you seen this place? The way things are here, there’s no chance. I'm fucked."
"No. You're not," Beck said. "Because, like I said, I'm going to help you. I'm going to make this right."
"How?" she asked him. "Tell me how? What can you possibly do that's going to fix this?"
"Well, for a start, I'm going to track them down and I'm going to make them pay for what they've done."
"What good will that do? It doesn't change the fact my salon is gone and I'm maxed out up to my eyes. Does it?"
"Let me worry about that. I'll fix this. I got you deeper into this mess and I'll get you out of it. That I can promise you," Beck replied. "But, first, I need you to do something."
Silence.
"I need you to go some place safe. Right now."
"What? Why?"
"Because, we don’t know who these men are. And even though they torched the place, they might still be out there, looking for you," Beck answered.
"Jesus," she said. "You don't think...?"
He said nothing.
"Fuck. Fuck. How can this possibility get any worse?"
"Just trust me. It seems a lot worse than I first thought. The ones who do this, they usually don't stop at your property. They usually keep on. Until..." he said, but paused.
"Until what?"
He hesitated.
"Until what, Joe?"
"Until you pay them what they think you owe. Or until they think you're dead."
She fell to a grim silence.
Beck continued. "Now, we don't know that for sure, but you can't go taking any chances. Not when your life's possibly at stake."
"Oh fuck. Oh fuck," she said, panic in her voice. "Where should I go? Home? To my sister's? Where? When?"
"No," Beck answered. "Nowhere like that. In fact, if you've got a sister, tell her to leave town for a few days."
"What?"
"Just do it. She'll thank you later. And, once you've done that, get yourself out of sight. Go some place where they wouldn't think to look for you. Right away."
"Like where?" she asked.
Beck thought fast. “A motel would be a good start. One where they don't take card or ask for ID."
"And where am I supposed to find that?"
"Google it. Cheap motels around Detroit. Pick one and go."
She said nothing.
He continued. "And, when you get there, make sure to check in under a false name. Pay by cash. And, whatever you do, don't talk to anybody. Don't make any calls or send any text messages. Oh, and, for God's sake, don't post anything on social media. Don't do anything that might reveal any details about who you are to anybody you don't know or where you are to anybody else you do know. Just go, sit tight and wait."
"I don't know, Joe. I don't fucking like this. Not one single bit. You had better come through with whatever you're planning to do."
"Just do it. And message me on this number once you're there. I promise you, Naomi, I'll fix this," he said and ended the call.
FIFTEEN
Vladimir Polanski was sitting behind his desk in the office of Magenta. His cell phone vibrated on the desk’s rose gold metal surface. It was an incoming call from Trudeaux. He lifted it and swiped to answer the call.
“I’ve found an opportunity to clear the stockpile,” Trudeaux said.
“Go on.”
“It involves spending one hundred and two thousand dollars.”
Polanski paused and looked off to his right at a few fish slipping past in the tank, then asked, “On what?”
“Acquiring a portfolio of self-serve cash operated car washes that belonged to a small chain that recently went bankrupt.”
“Why did it go bankrupt?”
“Because they couldn’t service their debt. The owners missed a payment and the bank called in the loan. They couldn’t pay it, so the bank foreclosed.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Six. All in and around Wayne County. The bank is selling them at a knock-down price. Seventeen thousand per outlet. We can get the lot or we can get them individually.”
Polanski breathed into the mouthpiece. One hundred and two thousand dollars was a lot of mo
ney, an amount he wasn’t going to just readily hand over. But the stockpile of cash weighed on his mind. “What sort of return would they produce?”
“Well, each outlet has five washing stations and charges five dollars per wash. So, at around five minutes per wash, they’d make one thousand eight hundred dollars per hour. Of course, that assumes maximum use, which is unrealistic. So, on a fifty percent run rate, we could feasibly push through nine hundred an hour. That works out to be twenty-one thousand six hundred dollars a day. At that rate, the one point nine million stockpile would be taken care of in just three months. And after that, the possibilities are endless.”
Polanski grinned. “I like the sound of that.”
“Just say the word, Boss, and I’ll make it happen. I’ll schedule a meeting with the bank this afternoon to sign the deal. Then, the paperwork will go through lawyers and the ownership change will be filed with the county. They’ll yours before the end of the day. And I’ll have them up and running next week, by Wednesday or Thursday, at the latest. A good clean and a lick of paint, they’ll be good to go.”
“Make it happen, Trudeaux.”
“I will. I’ll call the bank and tell them you’re in.”
“Well done. Now, how are things looking with the nightclubs? Have you managed to convince the contractors to bring the opening dates forward?”
“Yes. Three out of four are handled, Boss. They said they’ll lay on overtime, make their crew would work nights and weekends to get it done. They’ve committed to handing over the keys by mid-December. We should have the clubs open about a week before Christmas.”
Three out of four was good. But not good enough. Polanski wanted a clean sweep.
“Who pushed back?”
“McGrath.”
Jim McGrath was a construction manager who was well respected in and around Wayne County. He owned a turnkey construction company that specialized in building and opening new hospitality and entertainment venues, mostly around Detroit. He was a family man and a devout Christian who had never smoked or never drank. Not even once. In fact, he had never indulged in anything unwholesome in his life. Not even once.
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