Kanchelskis draw a knife from his pocket, too, and walked toward the bathroom. He wrapped his hand around the stainless steel handle and slowly eased it downward.
The door clicked open.
He raised his knife and stepped inside.
The bathroom was cold and bright. But clear. He found nothing but a small corner glass shower cubicle, a white ceramic sink, a dirty white toilet and a couple of white fraying towels sitting on a white wooden shelf off to the side of the shower. He stepped back out and looked at Kuznetsov and shook his head. "Nothing. She must have left the light on."
Kuznetsov grimaced and lowered his knife, adopting a more relaxed stance.
Kanchelskis looked around the room and stuffed his knife back into his jacket pocket, then pulled out his cell phone. Some sort of old Motorola that didn't require a pin to unlock. He opened his contacts list and called Polanski.
"Boss," he said. "We're at the motel. Room twenty-one. Ambassador Inn. Just like you said. But she's not here. We think we just missed her."
"Shit," Polanski said. "Did you see her leave? Did you see a car? Anything at all?"
"No. The room door was locked and the parking lot was empty when we got here."
"OK, then, it's time to default plan B," Polanski replied. "I want you to drive up to Lansing. There's a trailer park there named Rotunda. In trailer forty-four seventeen, there should be a boy. He should be six-years-old and have blond hair. He's her son. I want you to grab him and bring him to the skybox at Amaranth."
"Yes, Boss," Kanchelskis said. "And if we run into anybody else in the trailer?"
"Kill them," Polanski said and ended the call.
Kanchelskis looked at Kuznetsov. "Change of plan," he said to him and tucked his cell phone back into his jacket and drew the keys to the Altima from his pants. "The target is now a boy at a trailer park in Lansing."
Kuznetsov gave him a curious look.
"The woman's son. Boss wants him brought to Amaranth."
Kuznetsov grinned and tucked away his knife. "Let's go get him."
TWENTY-NINE
Beck pulled up outside Vanessa Haughton's home in Auburn Hills. It was bigger than he anticipated. Set over two stories, it was spacious with rooms on either side of a central white PVC front door. It had a charcoal grey slate roof and a red brick facade, and boasted an integrated double garage with a white vinyl door off to the left. All in all, it looked expensive. The lawn was vast and open and white, and the concrete drive was piled with snow that had been ploughed to either side.
Beck killed the Camaro's engine, pulled the key from the slot and stepped outside. The air was just as cold as it had been in Detroit, if not colder. It felt like maybe fifteen below zero. He exhaled warm white clouds of breath as he walked into her yard and up the snow driveway, slowly making his way to the front door. He climbed the three red brick steps and stepped under the cover of the high red brick porch that offered shelter from the elements. Paused for a second and rang the doorbell.
It made a low ding-dong sound on the other side of the door.
Vanessa answered a few moments later. She was a fairly young-looking woman with long black hair tied back in a pony tail, maybe only twenty-five years old, and was about five-foot-eight or five-foot-nine, perfect height. She had bronze tanned skin, the kind that’s colored with a UV light, and a soft, feminine face. It looked as though she was getting ready and had just done her makeup.
She was wearing a seductive pink silk nightdress that stopped just below her hips. It offered about as much cover a belt. She was barefooted with long tanned legs that ran all the way up to her neat tapered waist. And her bust was unbelievable. Maybe the best Joe Beck had ever seen. Big and full and round. Her breasts looked like two bronze watermelons tightly pushed together. Obviously fake. But easily a pair of double D's, maybe even triple. She looked like a Victoria’s Secret Angel, except better.
He could understand why the other stripper, Crystal, was a little bitter. Of course, she was beautiful in her own right, but when compared with Vanessa, it was like hyena being put up against a lioness.
“Can I help you?” Vanessa asked him.
"I take it you’re Vanessa?" he replied.
She looked up at his face, then flicked her eyes down over his clothes, looking for a logo or some other distinguishing marking on his coat that would confirm whether or not he was a door-to-door salesman.
She saw nothing.
She glanced down at his hands, looking for a package, wondering if he was a private courier with something from eBay or Amazon. Seeing nothing, she pulled a suspecting face. "Who the hell are you?"
"Doesn't matter who I am."
His answer seemed to startle her. Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you at my door? What do you want?"
"I spoke nicely to DaMarcus and Jamal," he answered. "I'm just a guy who's looking for a few moments of your time."
Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows narrowed over her nose and an unamused scowl swept across her beautiful face. "Did those assholes give out my home address?" she fumed. "I don't do house calls," she added and moved to close the door.
"Wait," Beck said. "You must've misunderstood. I'm not here for sex."
She paused, curiosity in her eyes, her right hand still behind the door. "Then, what the hell are you here for?"
"Information."
“Information?” she asked.
He nodded.
“About what?”
"About somebody I'm told that you know."
She reopened the door. "Who?"
"Polish guy. Goes by the name Darius Adamczuk. And deals a drug called Pink Magic."
Her eyes widened. She shook her head. "If you're a cop, I got nothing to say," she said and moved to close the door, again.
Beck put his hand on the frame and stopped her from doing so.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Looking for a wanted man,” he replied. “I'm not a cop. And you've nothing to worry about. But I’m tracking this guy on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service and, since I hear you know him, I need to ask you a few questions."
"I'm not interested. Now, get the fuck away from my house, or I'm calling the cops."
"Vanessa, I just need to ask you a few questions. You could have information that leads to finding him."
"Not interested," she said, abruptly, and closed the door over.
It was, maybe, an inch away from closing when Beck shouted, "OK. I'll pay you."
She reopened the door, the question in her eyes.
"A hundred bucks?" he asked.
She said nothing. She stood, staring at him, thinking about it.
"I'll only need a few moments of your time."
“And you think that’s worth a hundred bucks?”
He shrugged.
She tutted and shook her head. "My hourly rate is three hundred."
"An hour?" Beck asked. "It won't take that long."
She nodded. "OK, then, one hundred a question."
"One hundred a question?" Beck asked, incredulous. "You want me to pay you a hundred bucks a question?"
"Well, it depends on how badly you want this information. But yeah. One hundred a question or I close this door," she said.
He paused a beat and thought about it. Compared with her first quote of three hundred an hour, one hundred a question was a raw deal. He would maybe need to ask her as much as eight or nine questions to get anything tangible. He thought about the twenty-five thousand dollar bounty on Adamczuk's head. Eight or nine hundred bucks seemed like chump change compared with the bounty. It would be speculating to accumulate, he reasoned, then agreed.
"OK, then, one hundred a question it is."
"Information and that's it, right?" she asked, looking for some reassurance.
He nodded. "Like I said, that's all I'm here for."
"OK, then, you can come in," she said and gestured him to step inside.
He did.
The inside of the home was every
bit as nice as it the outside. The ceiling was high and entrance hall was bright and warm and clean, and it smelled of vanilla and sandalwood. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling high above his head. There was a door on the left. It led to some sort of small windowed room, as far as he could tell from the outside. An office, he figured. There was a wooden staircase after the door. The stairs curved round to the second floor. On the right was an open archway that led through to a lounge. It had a cream carpet and white leather sofa. It looked nice.
Vanessa led him to the far end of the hall, padding across the light wooden floor into the kitchen where she stopped beside a filter pot of coffee that was sitting brewing on the hotplate of a stainless steel machine sitting on the black granite countertop at the back of the room. They say the kitchen is the centerpiece of a home, and this one was no different. It was lavish.
"You drink coffee?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Want one before you start?"
"Sure,” he replied and smiled and removed his gloves.
"Cream? Sugar?"
"Just cream," he answered, shaking his head, once.
She lifted two round black mugs from an eye-level white wooden cupboard above the coffee machine and placed them down on the countertop. Lifted the pot of coffee and poured it into the two cups, before adding cream from the fridge to both, then a cube of brown sugar from the cupboard to one of the mugs. She handed the unsweetened one to Beck.
He took a sip. It was good. Strong and full bodied, and caramel-colored. Just the way he liked it. He made a satisfied sound. "This coffee's good," he said and took another sip.
She smiled. "OK. I don’t have all day. So, shoot," she said and drink some coffee before lifting her cell phone from the countertop and glancing at her messages.
Beck took another sip and waited a beat, then began.
"Darius Adamczuk," he said, loudly, to get her attention. "I'm told you knew him."
She looked up from the phone. "Who told you that?"
"Guy named Jerry McDan."
She scrunched up her face and squinted her eyes like she was trying to think of him. Then, shook her head and took another sip of coffee.
"Accountant from Ann Arbor. Short grey hair, tanned, slim, weasel.”
“Ah,” she said and flicked her head backward, barely recalling who he was. Then, glanced back at her cell phone.
"Yeah. I didn't like him either," Beck said and took a drink.
Vanessa nodded and took another sip of coffee. She laid her cell phone down on the counter by the coffee machine. "OK. Let's go through to the conservatory, grab a seat and get comfortable, so we can rattle through this," she said and led him through a set of French doors at the far end of the kitchen to a conservatory at the back of the home.
In the conservatory, the floor was wood-effect linoleum. There was a black glass coffee table in the middle with two black leather sofas beside it. Around them were wall-to-ceiling windows that offered a view of a white, snowswept garden and frozen pond out back.
Vanessa laid her coffee mug down on the table and sat down on the sofa facing onto the kitchen.
Sex obviously pays, Beck thought, glancing around and looking out the window, before taking a seat on the sofa facing the iced-over pond.
"OK. Darius Adamczuk," he said. "How do you know him?"
"That the first hundred bucks," she said.
Beck nodded.
She moved to answer, but a sudden, loud bark interrupted her.
"Ruff!"
It came from upstairs. It was menacing and aggressive, the sound of a dog that had just woken from a bliss afternoon slumber and caught the scent of a stranger in its house.
It barked, again. This time, louder than before. "Ruff!"
Beck glanced at Vanessa, his eyes wide, suddenly filled with concern. He had been bitten by a dog before. On his left leg, when he was a boy. "You never said you had a dog."
"You never asked."
The dog came bounding down the stairs, its paws padding on the wood as it descended the steps.
Beck could hear the pitter-pattering thudding as it came down and drew near. He leaned forward, ready to move. He reached down to his right ankle and slipped his hand up under the bottom cuff of his jeans. Wrapped his palm around the butt of Smith & Wesson HRT boot knife he kept in a holster strapped around the crus of his leg. It was his fallback option, for when his gun was out of reach, or for the times where what he needed to do required silence and precision. Or for when an attacker got too close or was too quick to be able to draw and raise a gun, line up the target and pull the trigger.
The barking got louder and the paw prints sounded heaver as the dog drew closer. It was now maybe only a few feet away, coming down the hall on the other side of the kitchen. The palms of Beck’s hands turned clammy.
As he moved to pull the knife, the dog stepped into the room. It looked like a Bocker, a cross between a Beagle and a Cocker Spaniel. It was small and cute. Maybe the height of a coffee table. It had big brown eyes, a wet, round nose and small, dainty paws. Its coat wasn't short, nor long. It was white with patches of light brown. And its hair was a perfect length, recently cut and maybe only about a few centimeters long, although slightly curly and thicker at its hind legs and tail. Its tail was wagging back and forth, and it had a sky blue collar around its neck with a thin steel tag in the shape of a bone dangling from the middle. It said its name, 'Rocco.'
The dog looked at Beck, the stranger sitting on the sofa, and barked, then lunged toward him, his jaws open. But it wasn't a vicious lunge. Instead, it was a playful dive. His tongue was out and there was an inviting, happy look in his eyes. He landed on Beck's lap and brought his snout to his face, and licked him a warm, soppy 'hello,' then turned around and sat down on his lap facing Vanessa, his owner.
Beck exhaled a relieved breath and relaxed. The dog was lovely. Maybe the nicest he had ever seen. He wrapped his hands around him and tickled his belly and stroked his head.
Rocco seemed to love every moment of it. He puffed and panted and licked Beck's hands and wrists, then curled up in a ball and snuggled in to a light sleep on his lap.
Vanessa laughed. "See. Nothing to worry about."
Beck smiled, although it was a slightly fearful grin. "I was bitten, once."
"Yeah, but not by a little fella like him."
He looked down at him and smiled. "No. Definitely not by one like him. Anyway, back to Darius Adamczuk. How do you know him?"
She paused, briefly, then answered. "I fucked him a couple of times," she said with an admirable frankness.
Beck nodded slowly. "OK. That makes sense. How did you meet him?"
"In the club."
"The club?"
"Yeah. Amaranth. I was an exotic dancer before moving on to work for DaMarcus and Jamal. I was part of what Mr. Polanski deemed to be entertainment."
Beck’s face changed. "Wait. Did you say Polanski?"
"Yeah."
He nodded, slowly. Her answer changed everything. “OK. OK. What do you know about him?”
“I thought this was about Adamczuk?”
“It is.”
“Then, why do you want to know about Polanski?”
Beck pulled a half-smile. “Humor me.”
"Fair enough," Vanessa said, pulling a face. "He's Polish. Rather eccentric. He's got a thirst for the finer things in life. Expensive suits, flashy watches, top class champagne, classical music and limousines. And he also has this weird obsession with the color pink. He owns two nightclubs in Detroit. Amaranth and Magenta. Both have pink interiors.” She shook her head. “But the nightclub business isn't all he's into. That I can tell you, for sure."
Beck nodded slowly as she spoke, listening to what she was saying. Processing the information. He hadn’t anticipated a connection between Adamczuk and the men who’d tried to extort Naomi Hefter out of four thousand dollars and burned her salon to the ground. But, now, he knew there was. And he was really getting something.
"I know," he said. "I spoke to a guy earlier. He said he had wound up on his bad side a few years back."
Vanessa nodded. "Yeah. I heard about that happening to people a couple of times. Not often. Maybe once or twice. But that was enough. It was always about money. And when it comes to money, he's got a real sadistic side." She shivered.
Beck nodded. "Yeah. As far as I hear. Anyway, Adamczuk, how did you get in touch with him?"
"One night, he came up between acts. Said he was a dealer, that I looked like a lady who enjoyed a good thrill.” She flicked him a suggestive glance. “He said he would hook me up. Gave me a sample. And I gave him my number."
"Let me guess. Pink Magic?"
She nodded.
"What is it?"
"Ecstasy. Good fucking ecstasy. Pink fucking ecstasy."
Rocco wriggled around on Beck’s lap, then looked up and barked. He hopped off onto the floor and padded through to the kitchen looking for something to eat or drink.
Beck's eyes followed him. He smiled, then looked back at Vanessa and nodded. What she had said made sense. "OK. And when did you last see or hear from him?"
She paused and ran her hand over her long thick dark hair while she thought about it. "Ehm, a few weeks after I left. Must have been six, maybe seven weeks ago?"
"And you've not been in contact with him since?"
"No. Not since I stopped using. Well, actually, I did get in touch after that. Once. But not since I put him in touch with Polanski."
"What do you mean?"
She took a deep breath and drank some coffee. "They were both looking to expand their businesses. Adamczuk was looking for a venue. Polanski was looking for a new income stream."
"And you know all this because?"
She moved to answer.
Beck held up his hand. He knew what she was going to say. "Let me guess, you fucked Polanski for a period, too?"
"That's two questions right there."
Beck nodded.
"Yeah. I did."
"And, then, you stopped. And that's the reason why he let you go. You didn't just leave."
She nodded. "It wasn't enjoyable."
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