"You the guy?" the guy on the left barked. His voice was deep, booming.
"What guy?" Beck asked.
"The one who disrespected Crystal, who's here demanding to see Vanessa," he snarled.
Beck nodded. "Yeah. That would be me."
"Well, you need to leave. Now," the cornrow-haired guy said.
"I ain't going anywhere, pal," Beck said. "Not until I speak with Vanessa."
"Well, she ain't here," the other guy said. "So, you won't be speaking with her today."
Beck nodded, again. "OK, then, you got her address?"
"Her address?" the guy said, incredulous. "I'm not giving you shit, never mind her address. In fact, you've already pissed me off. And you've disrespected both Shanice and Crystal. So, what I will give you is, to the count of the three to get the hell out of here before we beat your ass."
Ah, so that big black ogre has a name? Beck thought, but said nothing.
A second flashed past.
The guy grew more agitated and started the count. "One."
Beck didn't budge.
Another couple of seconds flashed past.
"Two," the guy said, louder than before.
The guy with the cornrows, standing on the right, bared his teeth and loosened his neck, then cracked his knuckles.
Again, Beck didn't budge. He merely flicked his eyes upward and scanned the corners of the room where the walls met the ceiling, checking for cameras. There were none. He didn't think there would have been, not in a place like this, but he thought he had better make sure.
The guy doing the counting paused on the two a lot longer than he needed to, even though he made the threat, almost like he was apprehensive about what would happen.
Beck looked him straight in the eye. It was a stern stare. "Three," he said to him.
The guy sneered and glanced at the guy on his left and barked, "Jamal, go beat his white ass," gesturing toward Beck.
"With pleasure," the cornrow-haired guy said to him and reached over and lifted a heavy duty wrought iron fire poker from the rack by the fire, then stepped forward toward Beck, a venomous expression on his big gold-toothed ugly face.
Beck stood up from the sofa, as the guy swung the poker back like a baseball bat, and dropped him with one shot. A stiff jab smashing into his Adam’s apple. His throat crumpled on impact. The wrought iron poker fell from his hand, clattering on the hard mahogany floor with a loud metallic clank, and he hit the deck like a ton of bricks, then rolled around painfully clutching his throat.
"A crushed larynx," Beck said to the other guy, placing his size fourteen boot on Jamal's chest. "You need to get him to hospital, but there's only one problem. You're next."
The other guy's eyes widened. He swallowed, hard, but engaged. He stepped forward and swung a left hook at the side of Beck's head.
Beck ducked it and maneuvered behind him, catching him in a sleeper hold, his left arm under the guy's chin, jammed against his throat, and his right hand with a firm grip of his hair.
"Not so big and tough now, are you, DaMarcus?" Beck whispered in his ear.
The guy gargled and squealed.
Beck laughed. "Earlier, I asked you a question," he said. "And, now, I want an answer."
"What?" DaMarcus whimpered.
"Vanessa's address. Tell me where she lives or I'll snap your neck right here."
DaMarcus said nothing.
Beck tightened his sleeper hold and twisted the guy's head, applying even more pressure to his neck and jaw.
"OK, OK," DaMarcus groaned.
"What was that?"
"Let me breath and I'll tell you," he groaned, again.
Beck loosened his grip. "Be quick," he said, grabbing a tighter hold of the guy's hair and yanking his head further backward.
It hurt. He squealed, then told Beck what he needed to know. "Auburn Hills."
Beck yanked his head back further.
DaMarcus yelped in pain. "North of town. Maybe forty minutes drive."
"House number?"
He told him.
"And her real name," Beck said. "I want that too."
"Haughton. Vanessa Haughton," DaMarcus coughed. "Now, please, let me go."
"With pleasure," Beck said and thrust him forward and smashed his face off the hard wooden floor. The guy's teeth contorted. They sliced through his lips, and his nose caved into his cheeks. Blood spurted everywhere and his body fell limp, lying face down on the floor. He wasn't dead, but he was badly injured. That was for damn sure.
The other guy began to stir. He had rolled over onto all fours, face down toward the floor.
Beck turned around and kicked him on the side of the head with a swift punt. The toe of his right boot smashed the side of the guy's skull. The guy slumped to the floor, also limp and unconscious.
Beck, then, glanced around to make sure there was nobody watching and saw the mouth of a glass jar down on a ledge behind the podium. It looked full of dollar bills. He stepped over and reached in and dipped it for the cash. Stuffed what felt like two or three hundred bucks worth of 'tips' into the front right pocket of his coat, thinking it would come in handy, then left the brothel.
TWENTY-FOUR
David Maus was a quite, gentile sort of person. He was hard-working and easy-going, a real gentleman with a penchant for information that was nothing short of impressive and a sense of determination that was admirable. He had been a licensed private investigator and security guard for years, and he was good at his job.
His reach stretched the length of Michigan, but Detroit was his heartland. He worked hand in hand with the Detroit PD more often than anyone could care to count, assisting with everything from tracking down unidentified witnesses to busting down doors with case detectives to scoop up perps.
He was tall and broad shouldered. Six-four as is, six-five with thicker-heeled shoes. He was also heavy. Two hundred and fifty pounds of pure masculine bulk. Not solid muscle like Joe Beck, more like time-toughened flab that was spread proportionately around his body, giving him a thick, even, cushioned physique. Just like Beck, he had short dark hair, green eyes and a masculine face with defined cheeks and a square jaw. However, his chin was freshly shaven. He was wearing a black woolen coat, a black sweater, dark pants and black boots. And there was a black snood wrapped around his neck. On first glance, fully clothed, it would have been easy for someone to mix him up with Joe Beck. He looked almost exactly like him. But he was David Maus, not Joe Beck. And he wasn't anywhere near equipped or ready to handle the hell that was about to reign down his way.
He was sitting behind the wheel of a black Mercedes sedan, drinking a full-fat latte from a thick brown paper cup and chowing down on his third sugar ring of a supermarket box of twelve glazed donuts. A bundle of A4 papers were sitting on the front passenger's seat beside the donut box. The bundle contained information on his latest case.
The top sheet was a photo of a woman somewhere in her mid-thirties, named Arabella Fox. She was slim and pretty with long dark hair and a soft, feminine face. In the photo, she was wearing businesslike dress. A baby blue blouse, a black pencil skirt and a black pair of heels. To the unsuspecting eye, she was just another person working away to get by. But, actually, she was a criminal. And the sheets underneath her picture detailed her infractions.
She was a professional con artist who made her living by pretending to be someone else. She claimed other women's identities and took out lines of credit in their names using falsified documents she had purchased from black markets and the dark web for around fifty to a hundred bucks a pop. And, with the proceeds of her labor, she lived a lavish life filled with parties, champagne and limousine rides with affluent white businessmen who were looking for a bit on the side. All while leaving her victims buried in a worrying myriad of credit card and loan debt they knew nothing about until they began drowning under a barrage of repayment requests for money they had never even borrowed, let alone spent on expensive bottles of Cristal and Armani clothes.
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br /> It hadn’t been easy, but David Maus had found her. Spending countless hours with countless stacks of paperwork, he had uncovered a trail that spanned back for months, going from Montana to North Dakota, then on to Illinois and, recently, back on to Michigan, with Arabella masquerading as Pauline White, Vivian Knox, Francesca Souter, and, recently, as Jasmina Hassan, the poor woman from Detroit who had hired him to find out who was living off her name. Which was why his black Mercedes was sitting parked up by the curb a few blocks down from Arabella's latest abode. A nondescript house she had rented on Fildew Avenue in a quiet suburb of Pontiac, using Jasmina's name.
It was a three bed, two bath timber home sat on about a half-acre of snowswept land. The exterior walls were white. Wooden. It had a black wooden door and double pane windows with black shutters and an apex slate roof. The roof was white, piled high with snow. The upstairs rooms looked small. There were three of of them, all with dormer windows jutting out from the roof.
He was watching and waiting, ready to scoop her up on first sight. She was in there and he knew it. He could see her, naked with a man through the middle window of one of the upstairs bedrooms. He could've easily stormed the place. Bashed down the door and gone in all guns blazing. Knocked the guy's teeth down his throat and dragged her naked ass out the door and down the icy path and slung her into the trunk of his car. That's what Joe Beck would've done, but David Maus wasn't Joe Beck.
The only perspective he knew was the one gained from a lifetime behind a badge. He hadn’t personally connected with those who lived on the other side. He hadn’t served any time. He hadn’t been set up to take a fall. His mind hadn’t been polarized by the true darkness of reality. He hadn’t spent any real personal time with the criminals he pursued, not beyond those final few moments when he scooped them up and slapped on a set of cuffs. He hadn’t been forced to sit with them, night an day, to break bread with them or share a cell with them for most of the day, being made listen to them boast about what they had done. He hadn’t taken the time to understand the macabre emotions lurking behind some of their eyes when they bragged about the horrors they had dished out. He still saw them as people. People who had rights, who had liberties. He was somewhat idealistic in his approach. And he never ever saw the ends as justifying the means. He still appreciated the boundaries between legality and illegality, which is why he thought it was best to sit there and wait.
He knew she would surface at some point. Maybe she would go for a run, or head out to a store to buy something in Jasmina Hassan's name. Didn't matter the reason, but he knew her coming out of that house was inevitable, and that's what he was waiting for. That was when he planned to strike. He would confront her. Call her by her real name. Take out a set of cuffs and place her under a citizen's arrest, then put her in the front of his car and drive her on down to the police station.
But that's not how it happened.
He was one bite away from murdering his third donut when two cars careened around the corner. One up ahead, a black Chevy Impala, coming from Franklin Road. One in the rear view mirror, a black Subaru Impreza with copper wheels, looping around from Wrenn Street and coming from behind.
The black Subaru swerved in and came to a screeching halt, tight up behind his Mercedes, its brakes squealing and its hood almost touching his Mercedes's black trunk, effectively boxing him in against the cream Volvo station wagon that was parked ahead of him on the other end.
The black Impala ahead swerved across the road and pulled in tight by his Mercedes's left side. There was now a car parked in front, a car stopped behind and a car stopped to his left. It all happened in seconds.
His heart began to thump in his chest. He knew what was happening and realized that it wasn’t good. He realized his only way out was to his right. Either mounting the sidewalk in the car and gunning it across somebody's lawn, past their house and onto Friendly Street, or climbing over the center console and jumping out of the passenger's door and hitch-hiking it past the house. But he two very big problems.
First, there was a lamp post on the sidewalk on his right. His Mercedes was in too tight against the white Volvo. And with the lamppost, it made moving it impossible. Which meant his only viable option was to escape on foot. But that's where he had his second problem.
He had been behind the wheel of the Mercedes for hours, since morning. His legs were cramped and his body was stiff. He hadn't drank much water either. He was dehydrated and his muscles were weak. He had almost eaten three donuts and drank a super sized full-fat latte. His stomach was bulging full of stodge. He was in no fit state to run, let alone clamber over the top of a gear stick, a stack of papers and a donut box.
Instead, he sat still and watched on, frozen in fear, as four men jumped out of the cars. One from the car behind. Three from the car to his left. Four big, burly, and menacing-looking Europeans with scowls on their faces and disdain in their eyes. Three with knives in their hands. One of them, the guy from behind, holding a gun. A Walther P99.
He dropped his donut and gulped and pushed the central locking button to lock the car doors as the men crowded around his vehicle. Two on the left and two on the right, his only way out. The locks clicked shut just as one of the men reached for his door handle. The blond guy with the gun. Darius Adamczuk.
He rapped his Walther's muzzle on the window of the driver's door, about six inches from David Maus's face. "Open up, asshole" he said to him.
The hairs on the nape of David Maus's neck stood poker straight and an icy chill shot down his spine. He panicked and let his coffee slip from his hand. The hot milky white liquid sloshed over the rim of the cup and scalded his thigh. He jerked to his left and yelped in pain.
"Open up," Adamczuk said, again.
David Maus reacted on autopilot. He took a deep breath and pushed the button on his door that controlled the window. The window zipped down by about half of an inch. The cold crept in. "Who are you?" he asked, in a quiet-sounding, scared voice. "What's this about?"
"You know damn well who we are and why we're here," Adamczuk sneered, in a thick Polish accent.
"No. I'm sorry. I don't."
"Bullshit. Now, open this door or things will be much, much worse for you."
The other three men stepped forward and started battering at the windows, their knuckles rapping on the glass, and pulling on the other door handles.
David Maus bit down on his bottom lip and raised his hands. There was no way he was opening the door. "Please. I don't know you. And I don't know what you think I've done."
Adamczuk shook his head, then stepped back and nodded to Arshavin.
He stepped backward away from the car and drew a black wrought iron crow bar from his jacket. He swung it backward like a baseball bat, venom hissing from his eyes, and whipped it forward, smashing its tip against the glass.
David Maus's eyes widened like two eggs cracked into a frying pan when he saw him swing it. He threw his hands over his face and turned his head to shield his eyes, but there was nothing he could do. The window shattered on impact. Fragments of glass scattered all over him, into his hair, onto his lap, onto the seat behind him and across the donuts and papers sitting on the passenger side.
The next thing he felt was somebody's fist. Balled and hard and with thick, protruding knuckles that felt like a row of stones. A hook to the left side of his jaw. It dislodged two of his back molars. He felt them bounce around in his mouth, smashing off his teeth, bouncing off the roof of his mouth and coming to a rest on his tongue, blood seeping from the holes.
Then, he felt one of the men's arms go past him as somebody reached in and whipped the keys from the Mercedes' ignition, and next thing he knew, the driver's door was open. That was when he felt the muzzle of a Walther being jammed against the left side of his head and a blade being held across his throat.
It was Arshavin's. He looked David Maus in the eye with a scornful graze. "Unclip your seatbelt and get out here, you piece of shit. You're coming with us and you're
going to pay for disrespecting Mr. Polanski."
"Polanski?" Maus asked, terror in his now mousy voice. "I don't know no Polanski."
Adamczuk shook his head. "No. I'm sure you don't. But he knows of you. Now, get the fuck out of the car, or I'll blow your brains out right here."
Maus didn't want die, so he did as he was told. He unclipped his belt and stepped out of the vehicle. His legs felt heavy and his arms felt stiff. There was a knotted, sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach. He felt faint and weak and nauseous.
Arshavin grinned, then glanced at Zurawski and nodded. "This is him. That’s for sure. This is the guy."
Zurawski walked around the trunk of the Mercedes and flicked his eyes up and down David Maus's frame. At standing height, he was as tall and wide as the guy from the salon, and he looked just about the same. Same dark hair, same face, same green eyes, and he was wearing the same long woolen coat.
"Yeah," he answered. "This is the guy." he balled his fist and planted a hard uppercut into David Maus's gut.
It blew the wind from his lungs. He collapsed forward, coughing, fighting for a breath.
Zurawski, then, hit him again. This time, with a hard hook to the temple.
It knocked Maus to the cold, snowy ground.
Zurawski, then, kicked him, hard, on the ribs with a vicious punt.
Maus groaned and rolled over to his side, holding his hand over his ribs where Zurawski’s boot had blasted them. His head was on the ground, the side of his face and his ear on the ice. It felt cold enough to burn his skin off.
“How does that feel?” Zurawski asked, then kicked his face.
Maus's nose burst open and his front teeth caved into his mouth.
Zurawski sneered at him. "How do you like that, asshole?"
Maus said nothing. He was unable to. He rolled over onto his back, tears in his eyes and a mouth full of teeth and blood, great pain shooting through his body. He had no idea who the men were, or what they were talking about, who this guy was, what they thought he had done, or why they were doing this to him. Everything was a painful, distant blur.
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