Beck heard it crunch on the snow. He twisted around the back of the food truck, carefully sweeping his feet through the snow so he didn't make a sound. Last thing he wanted was to alert them to his presence.
"Your easy money," Naomi said.
Kuznetsov looked down at it and grinned and leaned forward to scoop it up.
Kanchelskis never took his eyes off Naomi. He began to raise his gun.
Naomi saw its deathly black muzzle angling upward. She gasped and her eyes widened with fear.
But just as the second word had rolled off her tongue and the guy began to raise his firearm, Beck sprung out from behind the truck. He saw the a black Nissan Altima and backs of two men standing in the car's headlights, then Naomi standing a few paces beyond them.
Both of the men were thickset and dark-haired. Their hair was short, undercut at the sides and swept back with a comb, gelled in place. They were wearing black boots, black pants and black ribbed puffer jackets.
The one on the left was bent forward, his right hand wrapped around the envelope, his left hand holding a Kalashnikov AKM. A modernized version of a the classic Kalashnikov AK-47 Russian assault rifle, capable of discharging a thirty-round magazine in just three seconds, each bullet cannoning from its muzzle at a speed of around two thousand four hundred feet-per-second. A cold, hard killing machine, lethal when used from distances as far away as one thousand feet, that if fired at Naomi from as close a range as he was, would do about as much damage as using a chainsaw at a fencing contest.
Unlike the guy on the left, the guy on the right was standing upright, his gaze fixed on Naomi. But, just like the guy on the left, he was holding another Kalashnikov AKM, this time in his right hand. His arm was moving up through the air and the AKM's muzzle was angling upward from the white, snowy road toward her.
Beck quickly arced the muzzle of his Smith & Wesson through the air and lined it up with the back of the guy's head and pulled the trigger.
Bang.
The gunshot was loud and abrupt. It sounded like the head of a heavy metal hammer being struck against a plank of wood. The noise thundered up and down the empty road.
The guy dropped to the ground like a ton of bricks. His body hit the snow, hard, with a loud, crunching thud. But not before discharging almost all of the AKM's magazine into the snow. The gunfire sounded like a firecracker popping in a cast iron pan.
Naomi dived to the ground.
Kuznetsov jumped up and turned around clutching the brown envelope of what he thought was cold, hard cash in his hand. First, he saw Kanchelskis lying dead on the snow, then he saw Beck standing tall behind their Altima, a pistol in his right hand. He raised his left arm and swung his AKM up through the air. But he never got it up very far.
Beck shot him where he stood. But not on the head. He shot his left shoulder.
The gunshot sounded like a wooden A-board being blown over onto a rocky, cobbled street by a strong gust of wind.
Kuznetsov yelped and bent sideward to his left and dropped the assault rifle from his hand.
Beck shot him, again. Another abrupt bang. This time, though, the bullet tore through his right knee.
Kuznetsov's leg gave way and he caved to the ground. He let go of the brown envelope and brought his legs up to his chest. He writhed around on the snow for a second or two, then painfully reached for the assault rifle that was lying on the snow beside hm.
Beck aimed the Smith & Wesson and pulled the trigger, again. Shot him for a third time.
Another abrupt bang, like a phone book being dropped on a hard wooden floor.
The bullet ripped through his wrist and just about blew his hand clean off. It flopped backward and dangled down his forearm, hanging by a twisted shred of flesh as a stream of thick red blood poured from the wound out onto the snow.
Kuznetsov screamed in horror and pain, then raised his maimed, flapping hand up to his face and groaned in agony, his eyes teary and wide open and agony on his face.
Beck walked over toward him, slowly, ominously, trudging through the snow. He stopped maybe a pace away and watched as Kuznetsov rolled around, screaming. Then, he kicked him in the ribs. It was a crushing blow. There was a loud cracking sound, like his bones had snapped on impact.
Kuznetsov yelped in pain and rolled around on the snow, doubled over in two, holding his right arm across his right side, trying to prevent his hand from breaking off.
Naomi looked away. It was a hellish sight. There was distress on her face.
Beck stepped back and walked around the Altima and looked in the windows. There was no sign of the boy in the front or the back. He walked around to the back of the car and took a quick breath, bracing himself for the worst. Then, opened the trunk.
It was empty. Nothing other than duct tape and rope.
Fuck. They never had the boy at all. At least, not here. What they planned to do was grab Naomi. Maybe, after she gave them the money. Grab her and throw her in the trunk. Tie her up and take her some place to serve her up a grisly demise. But not tonight. Not on my watch, he thought.
Beck closed the trunk and walked back over to the moaning Russian. He was still writhing around, grunting on the ground. Beck pushed him over onto his back with his boot and placed it down, firmly, on his chest.
"The boy's not there. Where is he?"
Naomi stared up at him, her eyes wide and frightened. "What?!"
Beck looked at her and shook his head.
A tear slipped down her left cheek.
Beck shifted some of his weight onto his boot and pressed down hard, crushing the guy's chest and putting immense pressure on his broken ribs.
Kuznetsov screamed from the top of his lungs. But nobody else heard a thing. There was nobody around.
Beck pressed down, harder.
Kuznetsov screamed some more.
"Tell me where he is or I'll keep pressing. Either you talk or your ribs cave in. One or the other. And we got all night."
"Fuck you!" Kuznetsov hissed, the words barely even coming out of his mouth but for saliva dripping down from the edges of his mouth and spit frothing on his lips.
Beck pressed down, again, even harder.
Kuznetsov's screamed like he had never felt pain like it. There was agony in his eyes. They were red and full with tears. His face was beetroot with pressure.
"Tell me," Beck demanded.
Kuznetsov puffed and spat.
Beck shook his head and leaned forward. The force was crushing. The guy's ribs must have felt like pencils being crushed in a cast iron vice. They could've snapped at any moment.
The pain was agonising, but Kuznetsov held firm.
"OK," Beck said and arced the muzzle of his Smith & Wesson between Kuznetsov's legs. He pressed it hard against his groin and squeezed the trigger. "You got three seconds. One."
Kuznetsov exhaled and hissed and spat. His face was turning blue with pressure and pain.
"Two."
Kuznetsov hissed and spat some more, and shook his head.
"Thr..." Beck began to say, when the Kuznetsov's face changed. He was ready to talk.
Beck leaned back and lifted his boot from his chest.
Kuznetsov gasped for breath and hissed, "Ama," pressure subsiding from his bones.
"Ama, what?" Beck snarled and re-aimed the muzzle of his Smith & Wesson back at the guy's groin.
"Amaranth," Kuznetsov whined, barely even able to speak.
"Polanski. He there, too?"
Kuznetsov nodded. He barely moved his head, but it was a nod for sure.
"He with him?"
Kuznetsov nodded, again.
It was as good an answer as Beck would get. He nodded his approval and quickly angled the muzzle of his Smith & Wesson up between Kuznetsov's eyes and, mercilessly, pulled the trigger.
Bang.
The kill shot was thunderous, an abrupt sound that sounded a lot like a car with a carburetor backfiring when the air/fuel mixture is too lean.
Naomi jumped.
Beck looked over at Naomi.
She looked back at him in sheer terror.
He holstered his gun and walked over to her.
She moved back, suddenly afraid.
"It's OK," he said.
She stared at him blankly, thinking what she just saw was not OK.
"Those men deserved that," Beck said, gesturing toward the dead bodies he had left lying on the snow. "And so does Vladimir Polanski. He deserves what's coming to him."
She said nothing. She was just staring at him, a distance in her eyes.
He could see it was time for her to bow out, otherwise she would be a liability. "Naomi!" he shouted.
She caught her breath and swallowed, hard. Focused on him.
"I need you to go back to your motel. Right now. Go there and stay there. I'm going to Amaranth to get your son. I'm going to kill the man who has him. And I'm going to bring your son back to you."
She said nothing.
"Do you understand?"
She nodded.
He gestured toward her car. "Then, go."
She managed a brief half-smile, but backed away. She climbed into her car and turned the key. The engine started and heating came on. She didn't notice. She slipped it into reverse and drove off without putting on any headlights. What she had just witnessed affected her more than she had anticipated it would, and she was in a state of shock.
Beck shook his head as he watched her disappear down Newark Street. She obviously wasn't as prepared as need be for how this was going to go down. He sighed and hoped she would get over it, then turned around and lifted the brown envelope of play money. While worthless to most people, it would've been invaluable to the cops. The DNA they would be able gleam from it probably would've been enough to send the Dollar Tree clerk down for his shooting, as well. He rummaged the two dead Russian's pockets and found an iPhone. He slipped his glove off his hand and started the phone up. He got lucky. It didn't require a PIN. He opened the messages app and scanned them.
There was a thread with a contact named Polanski.
Beck tapped it and read the messages.
The last one said, 'At the location.'
The one before that said, 'Good. Remember, shoot him on sight.'
The one before that said, 'Got the guns. $2300. Serb sends his regards.'
Beck scanned the Russian guy's brutal language and communication style, then typed a likely reply.
'Got her.'
Polanski texted back, instantly.
'And the money?'
Beck replied.
'Got it.'
Polanski asked another question.
'And Joe Beck?'
Beck smirked. Polanski thought he had been taken care of, except he was the one he was talking to. He sent him the reply he wanted.
'Dead. Shot him on sight.'
Polanski messaged back, once more.
'Excellent. Bring the hairdresser to the skybox. We're waiting.'
Beck grinned and typed the confirmation Polanski had expected. 'Yes, Boss.' Then, he stuffed the iPhone into his coat pocket. It had his fingerprint on its screen, so he would dispose of it later, somewhere other than on the scene of two men he gunned down. He slipped his glove back on and walked toward the Altima and opened the driver's door, slung the brown envelope in and climbed inside. Turned off the CD to silence the rabble of somebody murdering an American rock song in a Russian accent, then pushed his foot to the floor and gunned its engine all the way to Amaranth on the other side of town.
FORTY-SEVEN
Vladimir Polanski was up in the skybox at Amaranth. He was relaxing on the black padded leather sofa watching the flashing pink and blue lights illuminate the packed club down below through window. He had a smile on his face, happy that the hairdresser and Joe Beck had been taken care of and that the place was packed to the rafters with people drinking and dancing and buying Adamczuk's drugs. He was holding flute of expensive gold bubbling champagne in his right hand. He sipped it slowly, enjoying its taste and smell and the texture of its bubbles rushing across his tongue.
A baseball bat like the one he had used on the Heaton family at Magenta was sitting beside him on the sofa's leather cushion. It was long and wooden and covered in chips and scrapes, and stained dark with blood, characterized by a history of violence. It was within reaching distance of his left hand.
Josh Hefter was with him. He was still sitting on the chair in the corner, ankles and wrists hurting from having been tightly bound with rope, with duct tape still fastened across his mouth. There was fear on his face and tears in his eyes. He whimpered and cried. The tears ran down his cheeks and soaked into the neck of his sweater.
Polanski drank some more the champagne and turned his head and stared a hole right through him. He laid the flute down on the black and pink marble table on his right and lifted the baseball bat and walked over toward him. Leaned in close and grabbed the back of Josh's neck with his right hand and rested the business end of the bat over the boy's right shoulder.
"Do you know what a baseball feels like when it's cracked against your face?"
Josh squeezed his eyes shut, tight, and sobbed.
Polanski laughed.
"Or what about the river? Have you ever felt ice cold river water rushing across your face and filling your lungs?"
Josh shook his head and cried some more.
"Well, soon, you will," Polanski said and twirled the baseball bat on his shoulder and looked back at the door. "My men are on their way over here now. And they're going to bring a woman in through that door. A woman who thought she didn't have to pay up to do business in my town."
Josh stared at the corner crease between the two walls, intense fear in his eyes, shaking his head. He had no idea what the foreign raging lunatic was on about.
"A woman who you're related to," Polanski added.
Josh's eyes widened. He turned his head and looked up at Polanski.
"A woman who's your birth mom."
Josh said nothing. His crying stopped momentarily.
"That's right. You were adopted. In fact, you were given away. Your mom didn't want you. And that family you've been living with, they're not your real parents."
Josh shook his head in denial. As the thought of what Polanski said sunk in, he scrunched up his face and balled. He cried his little eyes out.
Polanski smiled, grimly. His impression was well made. He whipped the baseball bat from Josh's shoulder and walked over to the sofa. Put the bat down on the leather cushion and lifted his flute of champagne, took a delightful sip and looked at his watch. It was only a matter of time until they arrived.
"Shame you're not going to enjoy the moment you first meet your real mom," he said and drank the rest of the champagne. Little did he know, it was fixing to be his last.
FORTY-EIGHT
Joe Beck slowed the dead Russians’ Altima to crawl heading east along Eight Mile Road. The Amaranth nightclub loomed tall in the distance up ahead on the left across the other side of the road.
It was a large semi-circular glass building clad with pink-tinted steel. It looked more like a velodrome than a nightclub. It looked to be about a hundred feet high and twice as long. About big enough to house an olympic cycling track. It was huge. And it was lit up bright pink and purple by spotlights that shone up from the ground.
Against its derelict surroundings, it was an eyesore. It stuck out against the dated factories and abandoned wooden homes around it like a hammer-stricken thumb, Beck thought and pondered how it was probably built using other people's hard-earned money.
As he drew closer, he saw the place was busy. The parking lot outside was packed. It was full of red, black and white sedans and sports-utilities. He saw people hanging around outside, despite the cold. They were smoking and chatting on cell phones, their faces illuminated by the white and blue screen lights, going back and forth to their cars.
&nbs
p; There was a line of people outside the club. They were standing in double file, men with women, men with men, and women with women. Everybody was dressed to impress. Women in white fur coats over elegant dresses and wearing heels big enough to be able to reach up and touch the sky. Men wearing woolen coats over flash suits and dark stylish shoes.
Two big Eastern European behemoths were stood either side of the door. They were wearing dark heavy duty boots, dark pants, and black ribbed puffer jackets. They had black shades over their eyes, even though it was dark and cold, freezing and snowing, at the end of November. It was obviously for effect. The look complimented the menacing scowls on their faces. They stood curating the crowd, checking people's ID and letting them in. Two at a time, at regular intervals. Two in, two out. That seemed to be the rule.
Beck looked beyond the line and saw the black stretch limousine that Vanessa had mentioned parked up along the back row of parking spots. It took up, maybe, five of them. He figured it was Vladimir Polanski's. That was for damn sure. He smiled, knowing Polanski was in there, waiting, unsuspecting of what he was fixing to do.
But he was also a little worried. He hadn't anticipated there to be so many people. Not on a weeknight. Not in Detroit. He also hadn't anticipated them to be so finely dressed. He would stick out like a sore thumb in his jeans, and he knew it. He had to do something.
He pulled into the parking lot and drove past the crowd. Found what seemed to be the last remaining spot in the lot, one as far away from the door and the crowd as possible, pulled in and waited, his eyes fixed on the rear view mirror.
It didn't take long for him to see what he was looking for.
Four men walked past behind his car. Three of them were smoking. One of them was holding car keys in his hand. Beck saw them dangling from the keychain the guy had looped over his fingertip. He waited until they got to their car, an expensive-looking maroon sedan with dark tinted windows and shiny alloy wheels, parked two down in the row on the other side. He got out of the Altima and walked over.
"Hey," he said.
They turned around and stared his way, silent, looking at him with searching eyes.
"You guys done for the night?"
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