"Wow. That was quick," Naomi said.
He smiled and handed her the white plastic bag of fake money and envelopes.
"What now?"
He glanced at his watch. It was almost nine o'clock. They had just over three hours left until the exchange. "We go back to your motel room. Take the twenties from the packaging, crush and crease them and stuff them into one of those envelopes. Then, we chill out for a bit before we go to Newark Street at eleven o'clock."
"But the note on the picture said midnight?"
"I know."
"Eleven o'clock is an hour early."
"Exactly. Which gives me more than enough time to case the place and find a vantage point."
"Wait. What do you mean? Won't you be with me?"
"Yes. But not at the actual exchange. The note said you're to go alone. So, that's what you'll do. I'll be there, obviously. But I won't be visible. I'll be in the background, lurking in the shadows."
She pulled an uneasy face.
"It's best that way, that they don't know I'm there."
She said nothing. There was a flash of concern in her eyes.
"Trust me. I've done this before."
"Yeah. And you've said that before, too."
FORTY-FIVE
A few hours later, after stuffing the fake twenties into the brown envelope and drinking about sixteen cups of weak in-room coffee, Beck and Naomi set off for Newark Street in her white RCZ. They took her car because it was better that she appeared to be the only one there. They couldn't have Beck's Camaro anywhere in sight.
The seven mile drive from Dearborn took just under ten minutes and they arrived at eleven-fifteen. Forty-five minutes before they were scheduled to be there. Naomi cruised along Newark Street and sailed through the intersection with Vernor Highway. The derelict shell of Michigan Central Station loomed tall over the elevated train tracks on the left with a menacing, eerie aura.
Driving parallel to the tracks, she headed southeast along the road. There was a red brick wall on the left. It was cracked and broken and lined with graffiti. There was an abandoned building on the right. It was built of brick and painted white. The paint had gone brown with damp and decay. The building's windows had been smashed out and the entire wall from floor to about head height was lined with graffiti. Red, purple, yellow, black and blue slurs, names and gang symbols.
The whole stretch was empty. It felt chilling. There was a macabre tone to the air. The road was white, covered with snow. But broken underneath. The RCZ's wheels bounced in and out of the potholes that lined the road, lurking underneath its frosty white facade. The car's suspension creaked and boinked as it bounced back and forth. The noise of the car was the only sound around.
Up ahead, there was an abandoned food truck. It was sitting tucked in on the left by the side of the road. Once shiny and silver, its body had turned a burning orange and withered with rust. Its windows had been smashed in and its wheels were missing. It was propped up on grey concrete cinder blocks. A thick layer of snow sat atop its roof. A time-faded white sign on the side said, 'Tim's Tequila & Tacos.' It looked as though they hadn't been served in years.
"Pull in here," Beck said.
Naomi slowed the RCZ to a halt about twenty feet from the truck. She steered it off the road and eased the car to a still. It swerved side to side and the snow crunched underneath its tires.
Beck got out and stood by the hood of the car and looked around. He craned his head left and right and nodded, exhaling warm clouds of breath in the frosty night air.
Naomi switched off the RCZ's engine and joined him out on the dark deserted, snowy back street.
"They'll come from the southeast or the northwest," he said, pointing up and down the road.
Naomi nodded. She shivered in the cold and looked around. The place was empty and eerie. Creepy, almost. There was a worried look in her eyes. "I don't like this, Joe."
He sucked a deep, icy breath of the chilling night air. "I don't blame you," he said and walked toward the abandoned food truck, trudging through the snow. It crunched under the outsoles of his boots.
His sentiment did nothing to calm Naomi's nerves. Her mind raced. She thought the worst. What if there's lots of them? What if they don't have him? What if they get us? There's nobody around to see a thing.
Beck looked in through the truck's broken windshield. The seats were fabric, bottle green. They looked damp and the cushions were covered in snow. The dash was the same. Once black, it was now white and frosty. He walked around to the back and tried the door. It was locked. "How long do you think this has been here for?" he asked, walking back around the front.
Naomi said nothing. She was staring down the street in a worried trance.
"Hey, Naomi?"
She snapped out of it and looked his way.
He nodded toward the truck. "How long do you think that's been sitting there for?" he asked.
She shook her head, confused, wondering what he was asking that for. "I don't know. Years?"
Beck nodded. "Probably." He turned around and tried the driver's door. It was locked, too. But the window was missing. He reached in and pulled up the lock knob. The lock unclicked. He pulled his arm back out and opened the door. A thick clump of snow fell out onto his feet. He looked inside. There was nothing of note. He closed the door.
"Why do you think they left it locked up the side of the road?"
She didn't answer. Her mind was elsewhere. She was staring straight ahead at the snowy road, thinking about her son.
"Naomi?"
She looked his way for the second time.
"You OK?"
She shivered. "No. I'm worried, Joe. I got a real bad feeling about this."
Beck walked toward her and smiled, offered her a reassuring look. "Don't be. If it goes the way I'm banking on, it'll be fine."
"I don't know," she said, her teeth now chittering. Freezing.
"Trust me," he said and saw she was cold. "Lets get back in the car. Wait in there. Standing out here in the cold won't help anyone."
Naomi nodded. She turned and walked around the side of the RCZ and got in, closed the door shut and turned the key. The car rumbled to life and the heating kicked in, whirring and blasting warm air from the dash. She tried to turn the dial up, but it was already turned all the way around.
Beck walked over and got in beside her. He scooped up the brown bag of play money from the seat and laid it on his lap.
She said nothing. She bit down on her bottom lip and took a breath and glanced down at the bag, anxiety in her eyes.
The windows steamed up with the change in temperature. One side of the glass hot enough to warm water, the other side cold enough to freeze it to ice.
He could see she was tense, worried. He knew it would cause a problem. The men would see it, too, and they would react accordingly. If this situation was going to have any chance of going smoothly, he needed to calm her. And he knew it.
"Naomi," he said.
She looked around at him.
"It's all going to work out," he said, nodding, and smiled. "Trust me."
She stared at him, somberly, like she didn't share the same confidence.
He pointed out the windshield. "See that food truck over there?"
She looked ahead and nodded.
"That's where I'll be. Around the side you can't see from the road. I'll be right there, only be a few feet away. I'll stand behind it and listen. I'll listen for them pulling in. I'll listen for them them getting out of their car. I'll let them do a little talking. They'll demand you give them the money. All you got to do is give them the envelope and say two words."
She looked round at him.
"Easy money," he answered. "Moment I hear that, I'll come around from the back of the truck and I'll put them down. They won't even know what's hit them. They'll be on the ground before they know what's even happening. It'll be over in seconds. And, then, that's when we'll free your son."
She nodded, slowly, imagini
ng it playing out as Beck said. A glimmer of hope entered her eyes. She managed a half-smile. "You're sure?"
"That's what's going to happen," he said. "Stay positive. And stay focused. It's going to be all right. You're son will be in your arms by the time the night is over. I'll see to that."
She nodded, slowly. "I hope so."
Beck smiled and nodded back. He could see her anxiety was waning. But he needed to keep her talking. The more she talked, the less she over-thought it. And the less she over-thought it, the more likely it was that she was going to hold it together long enough for him to do what had to be done.
"He will. That, I promise you," he said and paused a beat. "Anyway, you mentioned him yesterday, but you didn't say much more. Tell me, what's he like?"
She looked straight ahead and said nothing. A single tear spilled over her right eyelid. It ran down her cheek.
Beck kept quiet, allowing her a moment.
"I don't know," she said, eventually, and looked round at him.
He sucked a breath and looked her a question.
She shook her head. "I gave him away, not long after he was born."
He said nothing.
"When I was having him, six years ago, I was young and stupid. And his Dad was an asshole. I felt like I wasn't ready to raise a kid, you know? I guess I panicked. I made contact with a lady online. When she realized I didn't want him, she said she knew a family who would take him. And she set it all up."
Beck blew out his cheeks. "Wow. That must have been hard?"
She took a deep breath. "Yeah. But that was before he was born. After I gave birth, it was harder. There was a connection there, for sure. A bond you wouldn't understand."
He looked at her.
"A bond only possible between a mother and her child." There were tears in her eyes, tears of regret.
He nodded.
"But the arrangements were made. Everything was set." She wiped the tears from her eyes. "It just made everything a thousand times harder. So much so, I didn't wanna do it. But it had already been set up. And I knew in my heart that I wasn't ready to raise him. I guess, it made me sad in a way."
"So, what happened?"
"A few days after he was born, the lady came and took him away."
"Just like that?"
She nodded, sadly. "Just like that."
"You ever see him again?"
She shook her head. "No. Only in occasional photographs. At the start, the family would take them and the lady mailed them through. But they stopped after his first birthday."
Beck said nothing.
"It was something she did to make sure you knew whoever had your baby was raising them right, you know?"
He nodded.
"There wasn't a day went by where I didn't wonder if I had done the wrong thing. Where I didn't wonder where he was. Or if he was being raised like the little prince he deserved to be."
Beck nodded, again. "Did you ever want to bring him back?"
Naomi wiped more tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and nodded. "Of course. I loved him. He's my son. It's just that, somehow, I thought I would make a bad mom and I wasn't ready to raise him." She paused. "It wasn't until he would've been four-years-old, just over two years ago, that I realized how stupid and immature I had been. That was when it really hammered home that, as his mom, I should've been the one who was there for him. I should've been the one who raised him. But, by then, it was too late. He would've become a sweet little boy, all settled in with his new family."
Beck nodded, slowly. "You mentioned his father?"
She took a moment to answer, looked down into the middle distance beyond the RCZ's dash. It was like the demons of regret were back tormenting her soul. She closed her eyes, slowly, then looked at Beck and sighed, then said, "That asshole's life is over."
"Dead?"
"No. Prison. Ten life sentences."
"What did he do?"
She looked at him with big sad red eyes and sucked a breath.
Beck shook his head. "Jesus."
She nodded.
"Must have been a lot of women."
She nodded, again.
"Wait. Were you?"
She looked down and sucked another deep breath, then nodded for a third time.
Beck felt the anger rise up inside of him. The adrenaline howled through his body. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Tight. The pressure was immense. His jaw vibrated side to side and his knuckles turned white. Guy like that, he'd have snapped his neck in a heartbeat.
"Phew," she exhaled, blowing out her cheeks. "That was a rough ride down memory lane."
Beck allowed himself to relax, gently. He unclenched his fists. Then, looked at his watch. Five minutes left until the men were due to show.
He sucked a deep breath and drew his Smith & Wesson from his pocket and held it in his hand. "Almost time," he said.
Naomi nodded.
"Better go take up position."
She nodded again. Her stomach knotted. She felt nauseous. "Yeah," she breathed.
"Remember, I'll be right there. Listening. Just say the words," he said and opened the door and got out of the car, allowing the brown bag to slip onto the RCZ's leather seat and take his place.
Naomi watched him through the windshield as he craned his head and looked around and walked up the road through the snow, then disappeared behind the side of the abandoned food truck, holding his gun in his right hand.
It wasn't maybe five minutes later that the men arrived. They came from the northwest, in a black sedan. She saw its warm white headlights shining bright over the snow as the vehicle slowly came toward her.
FORTY-SIX
Kanchelskis and Kuznetsov pulled up at midnight, exactly. They came in the black Nissan Altima. Kanchelskis was driving. Kuznetsov was the passenger. They pulled up in the middle of the snowswept road and brought the Altima to a halt by the side of the food truck.
Beck heard its tires crunch over the snow and its brakes squeak as it slipped past and eased to a stop. He heard the men open their doors and step out of the car. One by one. Two doors. Two sets of boots, crunching on the snow. Two men. Then, he heard them bang the car doors shut.
He heard them mutter something to each other in foreign accents. Deep voices. Russian. Then, heard them walk forward a few paces toward Naomi's white RCZ.
She saw them ahead through the windshield. Two huge black silhouettes moving toward her in the bright glow of their car's head beams. Tall and broad shouldered. They moved with the confident swagger of two men with nothing to fear. And they were armed. She saw long-barreled guns in their hands. The kind she recognized from Hollywood action movies. She watched them look left and right and up and down. They craned their heads and looked all around, like they were on lookout for something. Or someone.
Satisfied they were the only ones there, they looked at each other and nodded, then continued toward her car, stopping about fifteen feet from its hood.
She stared at them a long moment, holding the brown envelope tight in her trembling hands. Her palms were sweaty inside her gloves.
The guy on the left waved her toward them.
She gulped and sucked a deep, lungful of air, then switched off her RCZ's headlights and killed its engine.
Beck saw the lights flick off from around the front of the food truck. The bright light faded to a duller darkness, only spared by the head lamps of the men's car.
Inside the RCZ, the whirring sound of the heater died to a chilling silence and the air stopped blowing. Naomi swallowed, again, her throat dry and tight. Then, shaking like a leaf, she opened the door and stepped outside.
"Do you have the money?" the guy on the left asked her. It was Kanchelskis.
Beck heard him speak. It was the deep, billowing voice of a man he estimated to be about six-three and maybe somewhere around two hundred pounds. Big and strong. Formidable.
Naomi nodded, squinting her eyes. She could barely make out his face against the bri
ght headlights in the background. He was white-skinned and wearing dark clothes. "Yes," she whispered, fear in her voice, her pitch all over the place.
"Good," the guy on the right said, Kuznetsov. He was dressed just like the other one and looked the same.
His voice is just as deep and menacing as the other guy's, Beck thought, putting him about the same height, build and nationality, figuring they didn't sound like the kind of men to mess around. Or who would let people just walk away. He grimaced.
"Do you have my son?" Naomi asked them.
She sounded terrified. Beck could hear the fear in her voice. But she was doing well. He willed her on.
Kanchelskis nodded, the head of his big dark silhouette moving back and forth in the light. "He's in the car."
"Can I see him?"
Kuznetsov shook his head, the head of his silhouette moving side to side. Beams of warm white light shone past his cheeks on either side. "Money first."
"Yes. Money first," Kanchelskis added. "Then, you can be with your son."
Naomi glanced down at the brown envelope in her right hand. She breathed quick, light breaths of frosty, night air.
"Come toward us and throw the envelope at our feet," Kuznetsov commanded.
She stared at them, cold and rigid with fear, not knowing whether she was about to take her last steps. Then, she remembered that Joe Beck was only about ten feet away, poised and ready on the other side of the decrepit old truck. She gulped and walked toward them. Her insides were pulsating and her legs were shaking. Her feet slipped on the snow.
Beck listened closely as Naomi stepped forward. Her feet sounded light on the snow. The crunching sounded like a few gentle pats, as if she was touching the snow with the palms of her hands.
She took eight steps.
He estimated she was maybe only five feet away from them and raised his Smith & Wesson up in front of his body and squeezed the trigger, hard. Another centimeter pull and the 9mm round would cannon down its short barrel and blast its way through whatever stood in its way.
"Here it is," she said and tossed it on the ground.
The envelope landed by the men's feet.
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