"They'll be up and running, fully operational by next week," Trudeaux added.
"Excellent," Polanski answered and glanced at his watch. "Now, we have a very important guest coming soon. He's due to arrive within the hour. I'm going up to the skybox to wait for him. Bring a bottle of Vintage Brut. And a bucket of ice. I think a celebration is in order."
"Yes, Boss. With two flutes?"
Polanski just looked at him. He shook his head, slowly. There was a twisted grin on his face. "Just the one."
Trudeaux nodded. He knew what his employer meant. "Of course. Anything else?"
Polanski thought a beat. "Yes. Get Arshavin, Salenko and Zurawski, and send them up. There's a job I have for them to do." He looked at his watch again. "But take your time. Let's wait until our guest arrives and welcome him in style," he said, an evil delight flickering in his eyes.
THIRTY-FIVE
They drove in near silence for the best part of twenty-five minutes, southbound on I-75, Beck listening to Harper and Strand shooting the shit and solving the world's problems. They spoke in nearly inaudible voices, obviously conscious of his presence and not wanting him to hear their business, making what they were saying was no much louder than a series of whispers. But he did.
He learned that Harper had given up smoking and that he was trying to live a healthier life, because of a health scare. Something to do with a clogged artery. He also learned that Strand had a much more cavalier outlook on the world, believing that time was for enjoying. He overheard that his eldest son was in his freshmen year at college, and discovered that both men had a dislike for blacks, browns, yellows, and pretty much anyone else who wasn't white-skinned and American. Not a view that Joe Beck concurred with.
After a while, Harper glanced up at Beck's reflection in the rear view mirror. "You still alive back there? You haven't said a word this whole time."
Beck flicked his eyes up at the reflection of the guy's forehead and eyes in the mirror through the black mesh bulkhead. He said nothing. He didn't have to. His face said it all.
"Bet you wish you could just break out of those cuffs and open that door. Don't you?" Strand asked and laughed.
Beck smirked. He had already tried to. He had tried to pull his hands apart. But the cuffs were locked tight. Too tight. And the chain linking between them was solid.
"Yeah, there's only one place you're going tonight," Harper added. "And you’re not gonna enjoy it."
Beck made no response.
They drove the remaining distance in an ominous silence, Harper’s threat hanging in the air, only interrupted by the whirring sound of the heating blasting through the vents and the crunching humming noise the Dodge Charger's tires made as they rolled along the empty white snowswept interstate.
After cutting off the freeway onto Huron River Drive and heading east and turning onto Fort Road, they pulled into the parking lot of the Rockwood Police Station. It was a red brick building just off the main road. It had shiny reflective glass windows that had a one-way mirror effect. The parking lot was virtually empty. There were only five other vehicles, all of them parked up in spots by the front door. Three of them were civilian cars, two white sport-utilities and a maroon sedan. The other two were black Dodge Chargers, police cruisers the very same as the one Beck, Harper and Strand were in.
Harper eased the cruiser across the frozen, twinkling concrete lot and nosed it into a spot on the left of the other two similar cars by the station house front door.
The lights were on inside and Beck could see somebody standing waiting for him on the other side of the door. It was a man, who was wearing a white shirt with a brown necktie and a pair of beige pants. His arms were by his side, his hands dipped into the pockets of his pants, as far as Beck could tell from the peachy, white and brown smudge he could see through the station house's frosted glass doors.
Harper killed the cruiser's engine, unclipped his belt and stepped outside to the cold. Strand did the same.
Beck watched them through the windows. Both men approached the door on his left and drew their M&P45s from their waist belts, then Strand opened the back door. The icy air charged inside like a dog darting from a trap and swept across Beck's face like a wet morning washcloth. Harper poked his gun in the door, bringing its muzzle to a rest against Beck's temple. It felt cold and round and hard.
"Out," he barked.
Beck stared straight ahead, not even batting an eyelid. Not moving at all.
"Did you not hear me?" Harper asked. "You suddenly gone deaf or something?" he snarled and jabbed Beck's head with the M&P45's muzzle.
Beck turned his head and looked Harper in the eye. The muzzle of the M&P45 was now pressed against his forehead. "Oh, I heard you," he replied. "Loud and clear. I just chose to ignore you, because I think you're an asshole."
Harper sneered at him, annoyed, unable to believe his brashness despite him being handcuffed and in the back of the car with a gun held against his head. "Asshole? How about I blow your brains out right here? All over the back of this car. Then, you'll see what kind of asshole I really am."
"Hold it, Harper," Strand said. "Malenko said we're to bring him in, not kill him."
Who's Malenko? Beck wondered. But the name was lost on him. He figured, though, if he was a betting man, odds were that's who was waiting for him inside the police station. But why?
Strand pushed Harper aside and leaned in the door. "He told you get out," he said to Beck. "So, let's make this as easy as possible for all of us. What dya say?"
Beck thought about it for a moment and nodded. "Fine. But, only because you asked nicely." He said to him and swung his legs around and stepped out of the car. He sucked an icy breath of air and stood up straight to stretch off the stiffness of the drive. He looked each man in the eye, towering over them.
"OK. Now, walk," Strand said and beckoned Beck with his gun, while nodding once in the direction of the station house doors. They were big and thick, and looked like they were made of toughened glass, probably bulletproof.
Beck looked at him and smiled, then flicked his eyes over Strand’s right shoulder to the frosted glass doors and walked forward toward them and the smudgy outline of the guy standing on the other side.
Harper closer the Dodge Charger's door and they both followed behind Beck, Strand with the muzzle of his gun jammed against Beck's back and Harper with his jammed against into Beck's right side. They marched him in through the doors.
The station house was warm, but not inviting. It was painted taupe with a thin navy blue carpet. There were four wooden desks in the middle of the room with a wooden kitchen cabinet fixed to the back wall.
The desks were were a mess. They were piled high with stationery and fanned stacks of white paper files. Reports for everything from petty crimes, like speeding fines and lapsed parking tickets to more serious offences, like assault, judging by the white handwritten labels slapped on the top. Interestingly, there were no other cops sitting at them. It wasn't even five o'clock at night, but almost everyone seemed to be gone.
A steel air pot sat on top of the cabinet, as did some whitener and a stack of white styrofoam cups. It was the usual free weak coffee found in all police stations. But, still, it was caffeinated and it smelled good.
The walls were lined with photographs of policemen posing with handcuffed perps or holding a variety of guns. Beck counted twenty pictures. Each just as over-the-top and grandiose as the others. He also saw five grey steel doors around the room. Three on the left. One in the middle. One on the right. He wondered what was behind them. But it was the man standing in the middle of the room, waiting on him, that caught his attention.
He looked older than the other two cops. Maybe fifty-eight, Beck figured from his apple-shaped frame, his light grey hair and tanned, wrinkled face. He was dressed like a squad captain or a chief. He was wearing light brown suit pants and a white shirt with a thick brown tie. There was a thin gold tie bar clipped to his tie, and he had a pair of chocolate brown
loafers on his feet.
Beck caught a whiff of his cologne. It was strong and musky. He guessed the guy was the one they called Malenko. "You must be Malenko?"
"Chief Malenko," the guy said, correcting him. "And you must be Joe Beck?" He spoke with the gravity of a man in charge.
"That's right. You the one who's sent everyone away early? Like you've something to hide?"
Malenko made a face, impassive. He ignored Beck's question. "You're an interesting man, Joe. Actually, you mind if I call you Joe?"
Beck nodded.
"I'll call you it, anyway. Yes, interesting, indeed. A former police officer, turned felon."
"A former police officer set up for a crime I didn't commit," Beck said, correcting him.
"Whatever," Malenko said. "Doesn't matter the circumstances, just what the record says."
"The record that's bullshit."
Malenko smirked.
"A felon released from jail who became a private eye through a back door. That’s right. I know the state of Nebraska rejected your applications. I know you crossed the state line and started up in South Dakota, where you don’t need a license.”
Beck said nothing.
“You’re nothing more than an unlicensed vigilante. An uncouth rogue who promotes himself as America's Unlicensed Private Detective. Yes, I looked on your website. All red, white and fucking blue. Bet that gets a rise out of the people who hire you?"
Beck smiled.
"But you're not only an unlicensed rogue, you're also a marked man. Which is exactly why you're here. See, you're not really under arrest in a normal sense. Oh, no.”
Beck grimaced. He had realized what was going on.
Malenko looked at Harper and Strand. "I presume you searched him. Did you find anything?”
Harper nodded. He drew Beck’s things from his pockets, his Smith & Wesson 5906, his HRT Boot Knife, his gloves, wallet and his car keys, and he held them out for Malenko to see.
Malenko flicked his grey, absent eyes over them and nodded, slowly. “Throw it all in the trash and take him to the holding cells."
Harper nodded and walked over and dumped Beck's possessions into a grey plastic bin down by the side of the wooden counter on the back wall. The knife, gun and wallet ruffled the empty bin liner. His keys clanked against the knife's steel blade. His gloves flopped in, quietly.
Strand jabbed the muzzle of his M&P45 into Beck's gut and marched him past the empty desks and through the second door on the right. Harper followed behind, his M&P45 in hand.
Malenko called after Beck. "Use the next few hours wisely, Joe. Because, they're fixing to be your last," he said and slipped a sleek black cell phone from his pants.
Beck said nothing. He knew what was likely to come, but his mind was elsewhere, busy trying to think of a way out of this one.
On the other side of the door was a long, dark corridor. It was dimly lit to a dirty orange glow by rusted pendulum lights that hung down from the ceiling. There walls on either side were grey concrete. They were unpainted. On either side, every eight feet, there was a barred steel door. Maybe twelve in total. Six on either side. They were lined up so that they didn't directly face onto each other.
Harper and Strand pushed Beck into the second last jail cell on the right, removed the handcuffs from his wrists, then pulled the door shut. They didn't lock it, because they didn't have to. It was weighted. It automatically locked on closing and it was only capable of being opened from the outside.
His wrists raw and sore, chafed from the rubbing of the steel of the cuffs. He squeezed them tight with his hands, left first, then right, and looked around, taking stalk of his new, but familiar surroundings.
Grey concrete floor. Grey concrete walls. Matching ceiling. Bright white debossed strip light sunk into it. No window. Steel framed single bed by the left wall. Galvanized steel bucket by the back right corner.
The lip of the steel bucket was coated in green grime and the inside was discolored and rusted from piss. He wondered how many other men had been here before, knowing fine well he was in a much more difficult position than every single one of them. He knew what was coming. It was obvious from the start. And only a matter of time. Yet, he still hadn't thought of a viable way out. A sense of alarm crept into his mind.
THIRTY-SIX
For Josh Hefter, the ninety mile journey from Lansing to Detroit was harrowing. He was locked in the trunk of the Altima. Tied up and afraid. Cold and alone. He felt every movement of the car, every jerk, every bump, every stop, every swerve. And he heard nothing but the sounds of the road. Engines revving, brakes binding and snow crunching underneath the vehicle's tires.
For Kanchelskis and Kuznetsov, the trip was fairly pleasant. They sat in the comfort of the front, relaxing on the black fabric seats, heating whirring and blowing warm air out over their faces. They drank some coffee from brown paper cups, having stopped off for it at a garage outside of Lansing, chatted for a bit and listened to the radio for the rest of the way.
The journey took just over an hour and a half, most of it spent on the freeway, the rest on the highway. They followed I-69 eastbound before exiting onto the John C Lodge Freeway and cruising for another couple of miles toward the exit slip that led onto a service road that eventually fed Eight Mile Road. On Eight Mile Road, they continued east, cruising along the highway at a steady fifty-five miles-per-hour for another eight miles before pulling into the Amaranth parking lot.
Kanchelskis drove across to the end of the white glistening lot, no other vehicles around them, except for Vladimir Polanski's long black limousine that was sitting parked across a few bays at the far end. He backed the Altima down a loading bay that separated the side of the nightclub from an old, empty and crumbling red brick office block it backed onto and killed the Nissan's engine.
Both men sat in silence for a short moment listening to the car's heat shield crackle before stepping out of the car. The air was freezing. Bitter. The stretched off the journey’s stiffness that had built up in their joints and walked around the back of the car, exhaling warm white clouds of breath, and opened the trunk.
Josh saw the waning afternoon light rush in across his face. Then, he felt the chill of the outside air on his skin and saw the two men's big ugly faces.
Kanchelskis reached in grabbed him by his sweater. "Out," he snarled and hauled him from the trunk like a rag doll and dumped him on the frozen concrete.
He howled, feeling the cold on his skin and hands.
Kuznetsov closed the trunk, then grabbed Josh by his right arm and dragged him into the bowels of the nightclub through a grey rear fire door that faced onto the middle of the loading bay.
Josh whimpered and cried. Sore and afraid. He was absolutely terrified.
They dragged him down a narrow corridor of white walls and a grey linoleum floor and bundled him into an elevator cart and rode it upward to the upper level.
About ten seconds later, the elevator bell pinged and the doors slid open. Kanchelskis grabbed Josh by the neck of his sweater and dragged him out of the elevator cart across another, more lavish black-carpeted and pink-walled corridor and through an open black wooden door that led to the nightclub's skybox.
The skybox was elaborate. It had the features of a corporate executive box found at many sports stadiums, accented with eccentric pink flashes typical of Polanski. The walls were pink and lined with abstract art depicting sharp-edged shapes. Squares, diamonds and triangles, in shades of pink and white on dark, grey and black backgrounds. A thick black carpet covered the floor. Two black padded leather sofas sat on top of it alongside a suite of black and pink marble furnishings. Side tables sat on either side of each sofa and a long, rectangular coffee table sat in front of them in the middle of the room. A silver bucket sat on top of the coffee table. It was filled with ice and an open champagne bottle stuck out of the top. It was glass, green with a thick yellow label. A thin white vapor eddied from its mouth, swirling up into the air.
Polanski
was there. He was standing at the other side of the room, looking down through the one way window at the empty nightclub below, holding a flute of the champagne in his hand.
"Boss," Kanchelskis said, dumping Josh onto the seat cushion of the black leather sofa. "Meet the boy you asked us to grab."
Polanski turned around and flicked his eyes up and down his little frame, his arms and legs tied together with rope and a strip of tape slapped across his lips. He smiled a wolfish grin and said his name. "Josh."
Josh stared up at him, his eyes wide and teary.
Polanski took a sip of the champagne and walked over. He grabbed Josh by his chin and pushed his head back into the back cushion and stared deep into his eyes.
Josh whimpered and cried.
"I've been expecting you," Polanski said to him and looked over at Kanchelskis and Kuznetsov and nodded. "Good work, boys."
They nodded back.
Polanski took another sip of champagne and looked over to the corner of the room. There was a black wooden dining chair set up. It was sitting facing the corner that joined the pink walls and had a roll of brown duct tape sitting on the cushion. He pointed toward it. "Dump him over there," he said to the two men. "Strap him down, then take off out of here."
The two men nodded their acknowledgement and grabbed Josh by his underarms. They lifted him from the sofa and carried him across the skybox's black carpeted floor to the corner of the room and dumped him onto the chair. Kanchelskis, having lifted the roll of duct tape, peeled the tape from the roll and wrapped it around his body three times, before giving it a pull to test its strength and breaking the tape from the roll.
Vladimir Polanski smiled his approval.
Kanchelskis and Kuznetsov nodded their acknowledgement and stepped out the door. As they did, Arshavin, Salenko and Zurawski stepped in.
"Boss," Arshavin said to Polanski, greeting him upon entering. "Trudeaux said you wanted to see us. Said you had a something for us to handle?"
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