"A double bourbon, neat," Beck said and lifted his hand off the butt of his gun. He unbuttoned his coat, careful not to let the brown paper bag of cash fall out, and reached in and drew his wallet from the right pocket of his pants. Took a twenty from the bill slot and slapped it down on the counter.
The guy turned around and grabbed a lowball glass from underneath the bar and sat it down on the counter, then lifted a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the middle of a row of liquor bottles that sat on a black wooden shelf about head-height behind the bar. It was sat between a square bottle of Disaronno and a tall, classic-shaped bottle of Lubuski vodka. Unlike the Disaronno, the vodka bottle was rather simple, nondescript. It had a round silver cap and white label with Polish writing. It was sitting a few centimeters forward from the rest of the bottles in the line.
Confirmation he’s been here, Beck thought.
"You said bourbon. Jack OK?" the guy asked as he unscrewed the Jack Daniel’s bottle's cap.
Beck nodded his approval. "Jack's good,” he said and glanced around, again. Black wooden tables, door, row of booths, and an arch through to a hallway to the back of the bar. Signs pointing toward it that said, ‘restrooms.’ Still nothing. Has he gone already?
The guy began to pour his double measure. "I've never seen you around here before. You new in town?"
"Something like that," Beck answered.
The bartender nodded and handed Beck the drink. He, then, re-capped the Jack Daniel’s bottle and placed it back up on the shelf, leaving it sitting a few centimetres in front of the Disaronno. Just like the Lubuski. Then, he turned around and scooped up the twenty dollar bill Beck had laid down on the counter. Checked it against the light for signs of counterfeiting, then turned around and opened a black cash register on the other side of the bar.
Beck took a sip of the bourbon as he watched the guy go through the procedure he had, no doubt, done about a million times. "I'm looking for someone," he said to him.
"Oh, yeah? Who?" the guy asked as he put the twenty into the bill slot and scooped out Beck's change. A ten and four ones.
"Polish guy," Beck answered and stopped to take a sip of bourbon and wait for the guy to turn around.
The guy turned around and laid Beck's change down on the counter in a neat pile. The four ones on top, the ten at the bottom.
Beck continued. "Big and ugly. Six-two. Muscular. Blond haired. Dreadlocks. Black beard. Comes in here every once in a while, as far as I'm aware. Probably drinks Polish vodka." He flicked his eyes down at the empty glass on the bar, then up to the bottle of Lubuski, then back onto the bartender, looking him dead in the eye. "Maybe likes chilli peanuts. Also buys something that goes by the name of 'Pink Magic'."
The guy flicked his eyes down at the glass of vodka and tray of peanuts, but said nothing.
Beck saw it. "You know him?"
"Can't say that I do."
"You know what Pink Magic is?"
The guy shook his head.
"But you've seen it before, right?"
The guy said nothing.
"And you've seen him before, too."
The guy shrugged. "Possibly. You said he comes in here?”
Beck nodded and took a sip of bourbon.
“Well, if he drinks in here, I'll have seen him."
Beck nodded, again. "Last time he would have been here is tonight."
The guy said nothing. He looked uncomfortable. He glanced at the empty glass and tray of peanuts, again.
"Maybe as recent as only just a few minutes ago."
The guy remained silent.
Beck took another sip of bourbon. "He here now?"
Again, the guy said nothing. But he didn't have to. His eyes answered for him.
Beck saw it. He took another sip of the bourbon and flicked his eyes down at the empty glass and the peanuts. "This empty glass, I can tell once was filled with vodka, Polish vodka from that bottle of Lubuski, and the tray of nuts, they his?"
The guy swallowed, hard, then flicked his eyes down at the fourteen dollars sitting on the counter.
Beck drew a fifty from his wallet and laid it down on the counter next to it, keeping his hand across it. "Where is he?"
The guy looked at the money, long and hard, thinking about it, mulling over whether or not he should say, then flicked his eyes toward the corridor on Beck's left at the end of bar. The one that led to the restrooms.
There was a sudden rushing sound of water coming from that direction. The sound of a toilet being flushed.
Beck nodded and slipped the fifty across the counter, then necked the rest of his bourbon. He asked the guy to pour him another and buttoned his coat. Drew his gun from his pocket and walked off through the archway, down the corridor toward the men's room.
It was down the far end of the hall, past the ladies' room and by a red fire exit. The men’s room door was navy blue with the usual male aluminum symbol stuck onto it at about eye-height in the middle. Beck reached out his left hand to push the door open, but the door swung backward before he could touch it and a man stepped out.
He was wearing navy blue jeans and brown dress shoes, a plain white t-shirt and a khaki jacket left open at the zip.
That was all Beck saw before grabbing him by the collar of his t-shirt with his left hand and lifting him up off his feet. He manhandled him across the hall and slammed his back against the wall, then jammed the muzzle of his Smith & Wesson up underneath his left jaw and looked him dead in the eye.
That was when he realized he wasn't the guy he was looking for. The guy had jet black hair and he looked American. He was clean shaven, maybe only six-one and didn't appear to be muscular.
"You the only one in there?" Beck asked asked him, whispering so not to allow anybody else to hear.
At first, the guy said nothing. He didn't know what had hit him. Beck had caught him completely off guard. He just stared back at the massive six-foot-five hulk of a man who was staring him down, his hand wrapped around his throat and jamming a gun under his jaw. There was terror in his eyes and surprise on his face. He wasn’t sure what was the hell was happening.
Beck asked him the question again, jabbing the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson deeper into his neck. "You the only one in there?"
The guy winced in pain. He shook his head.
"The other guy, he blond? Got a black beard? Foreign-looking?"
The guy nodded, pain on his face.
Beck let go of his collar and drew his gun back from his neck. He flicked his head down the corridor toward the bar. "Go on. Get out of here."
The guy coughed and brought his hand up against his neck where Beck's gun had been and moved forward from the wall. He smoothed down his t-shirt and jacket, then took off down the corridor toward the bar.
Beck heard the outsoles of his dress shoes clip-clopping against the bar's hard wooden floor, then the sound of the exit door opening and closing as the guy hurried off into the night. He, then, turned and looked back at the men's room door and sucked a deep breath, thinking Darius Adamczuk was on the other side of it, realizing things were about to get real. He raised his Smith & Wesson and stepped forward, pushing the door open with his left forearm.
The restroom was bright and quiet, the only sounds being a humming buzz from the halogen strip lights that lined the white painted ceiling, and the trickling sound of water running from a tap and flowing off through the pipes in the walls. The walls were white, tiled, and the floor was light grey linoleum. There was a row of white porcelain sinks with chrome taps opposite the door against the back wall. One of the taps was running, a thin stream of cold water trickling into the white porcelain basin and slipping down the plughole. There were mirrors above them. Beck could see the reflection of four unmanned white urinals and their stainless steel piping on the left of the door in the leftmost mirror and a row of three cubicles on the right. All of them looked unoccupied, their doors open and moving back and forth about a centimeter or two at a time under the tremor of the air. Except for o
ne. The disabled cubicle along the right hand wall at the far end.
He walked forward inside, right arm raised and his finger looped through the trigger guard of his Smith & Wesson, ready to fire on first sight. He saw and heard nothing, but it was what he felt that seemed out of place. He felt an icy draft coming from behind the disabled cubicle’s door. The only closed door around. He walked toward it, slowly, carefully, making sure the outsoles of his boots never made a sound.
He past the first cubicle, quickly glancing inside. Nothing. Then, the next, doing the same. Same result. And, then, the next. Again, nothing.
Standing outside the disabled cubicle, the draft became colder and he could hear sounds coming from outside. Snowfall whipping against metal trash cans and squeaks and swooshes, like there were rats somewhere scurrying around and burrowing tunnels through the snow. He could also hear the sound of water from the tap, trickling from its spout, flowing into the sink. The door was locked, its occupancy indicator turned to red.
If Adamczuk is still here, he’s behind that door, Beck thought and took a deep, silent breath. He stepped backward two paces, took another breath and charged at the door, raising his right leg and smashing the outsole of his size fourteen right boot against the part of the door where the mechanism would've been bolted to the wall on the inside side of the cubicle.
The nuts blew from their bolts and the bolts whipped from their holes. The door caved backward into the cubicle and landed on the white tiled floor with a thunderous thud.
Beck quickly swept the inside of the cubicle with his eyes, looking left to right, his arm extended and the muzzle of his gun pointing forward. He saw a white porcelain sink with two chrome taps, the hot water one running, a low-slung white porcelain toilet with a matching built-in cistern, a fully stocked stainless steel standing toilet roll holder with about seven rolls, each stacked one atop the other, a small grey plastic bin that appeared to be missing a liner, then a mirror and silver aluminium hand dryer, and a white plastic paper hand towel dispenser on white tiled wall at the back. The hand dryer kicked in and blew out a blast of hot air. There was no sign of Adamczuk. There was no sign of anybody.
Beck, then, glanced up at the leftmost wall and that's when he saw it. The window was wide open with nothing but the Arctic snowstorm howling on the other side. It swirled down from the sky, pelting the window's pane and frame with frosty little white shavings of snow. He heard the sound of a car's engine rumble to life somewhere in the distance, maybe in the parking lot outside the bar, followed by the car’s wheels screeching to a spin and its engine roaring as the driver gunned it out of dodge.
Shit, he thought, realizing he had missed him. He holstered his gun in the front right pocket of his coat, reached out and grabbed a handful of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and used them to dry the flakes of snow from his hair and coat. Sighed and flushed them down the toilet, then left the restroom.
He returned to the bar unable to help himself thinking what could have been if he hadn't gotten caught up in that scuffle on Woodward Avenue. His second double bourbon was waiting for him on the counter, along with the change from the fourteen bucks. Eight dollars left. A five and three ones. Again, in a neat pile, the bigger bill at the bottom. They were sat beside Adamczuk's empty glass of vodka and half-eaten tray of peanuts.
"You get him?" the barman asked.
“You might want to clear that shit from the bar,” Beck said, shaking his head, then scooped up his eight bucks of change and stuffed it into the front left pocket of his coat.
"Shit happens," the barman said to him and lifted the glass and tray of peanuts and placed them on the other side of the bar and returned to watching the football game.
Beck said nothing.
The Lions scored a touchdown.
"He never said where he was going tonight, did he?"
The barman shook his head and answered without looking away from the TV. "Nope. I don't know shit about him, beside, like you said, he's a fairly big-looking dude who drinks Polish vodka and eats chilli peanuts in here every once in a while."
Beck nodded. "Who also deals drugs and is wanted for murder."
"I wouldn't possibly know anything about that," the barman said, shaking his head.
“What about a bunch of Europeans who come knocking late at night demanding businesses around here pay them four thousand dollars? You know anything about that?”
The guy shook his head, again, without looking away from the screen.
Beck scowled. If the guy knew anything, he was obviously turning a blind eye. He looked at his watch. Nine-fifty. It was time to get going. He didn’t have time to hang around and press him. He quickly necked his second double bourbon and left the bar.
THREE
As Beck looped back around the corner of West Grand Central Boulevard onto Woodward Avenue, the howling Arctic blizzard eased back to nothing more than a gentle flutter of snow. The snow drifted from the sky to the ground like little white feathers. He eased his pace accordingly, to a more leisurely stroll and walked past the red Buick and the two dead bodies he had unsuspectingly left lying in the trunk like there was nothing suspicious about it at all and stopped at the back of his black Camaro. He opened it up and slung the brown paper bag of cash into its trunk, then locked the car and crossed the white, empty street to the salon.
He arrived outside the salon just before nine fifty-five. Just over five minutes earlier than he needed to be there. He always preferred to be early than late. Punctuality, in Beck’s eyes, was important. Unlike most these days, he believed that if you give somebody a time, you stick to it. It was a trait that had been drummed into him from his days on the force and, then, further upheld, even more rigorously, by the strict time schedule enforced by the warden during his stint inside the Nebraska State Penn.
He knocked on the salon's frosted glass door three times, just like he said he would, and waited.
The dark, slender silhouette of the woman emerged through a door by the back wall on the other side of the blinds. She walked toward the front of the salon and stopped behind the door. Unlocked it and opened it up. She caught her breath as the icy cold air crept in the doorframe and swept across her face, then smiled, relieved, at the sight of Joe Beck, the tall, dark and handsome stranger who had come to her aid.
"You came?"
Beck nodded, thinking she looked slightly different to when she was wearing her coat outside in the blizzard. She was wearing a tight-fitting, but elegant cream silk blouse. The top two buttons were undone, exposing her neck and the top of her chest. The shirt enveloped her slender figure like gift in wrapping paper, emphasizing all of her curves in all the right places. Her makeup also looked fresh. And her soft blonde hair hung down over her shoulders. It looked silky smooth and shone under the salon’s lights.
"I told you I would," he said and glanced inside, catching a celestial whiff of the her sweet, fruity perfume. It smelled light and feminine. And fresh, like she had maybe just sprayed a squirt or two a few moments ago.
"Yes. You did," she said and smiled, then stepped back and gestured him to come in with her hand. "Please. Come in."
He glanced at her ring finger. It was tanned, but bare. She wasn't married, which meant he was intrigued. He smiled and stepped inside and took stalk of the salon's interior.
It was clean and spacious. Contemporary and elegant. It was warm and it smelled good. Just like she did. The floor was light grey wood-effect linoleum and the walls were painted cool white. There was a long, low-set glass coffee table straight ahead. Two white pillar candles were sitting on its surface. They were lit. The flames flickered and danced at their tips and sent a light aromatic scent of vanilla swirling around in the salon’s air.
There were two cream leather sofas on his left by the coffee table. The sturdy kind with hard backs and hard arms. They faced onto the back of a row of four white padded leather chairs, on his right, that sat in front of individual white marble workstations.
; Each workstation had a white poly-marble sink below a chrome framed mirror that stretched all the way up to the ceiling. All of the mirrors had been polished to a shine. An array of hairdressing utensils were sitting on each of the workspaces to the right of the sinks. Silver scissors, black clips, dividers and a variety of combs and brushes. All neatly bundled in silver pots beside cans of hairspray, shampoo, conditioner and volumizing mouse, black hair dryers and black spray bottles, which he presumed were filled with water.
There was a white wooden counter up ahead. It was chest high and in the shape of an L, backed into the corner on the left. It had the salon's name stencilled across the front in gold in a Vivaldi font. Angels. A smart, black cash register sat on the white wooden countertop.
Beck turned and smiled. "You got a nice place."
"Thank you," she replied, tension present in her voice. "I've only just opened. Three weeks past Monday."
He nodded. It looked new. It smelled new.
"Can I get you anything?" she asked, sounding nervous, realizing it was nearing ten o’clock. "Water? Coffee?"
He shook his head. "No. Thank you. I'm fine."
"Right," she said and glanced up at a charcoal slate-effect clock high up on the back wall behind the wooden counter. Nine fifty-seven. Three minutes to spare.
"Hey," he said, seeing she was becoming tense. "Relax."
She nodded, but said nothing.
"You never gave me your name."
"It's Naomi."
"Naomi what?"
"Hefter. Naomi Hefter."
Beck stuck out his hand. "Well, Naomi Hefter, I'm Joe Beck."
She smiled and shook it.
Her hand felt warm and clammy. A sign of nerves. He looked into her eyes and smiled. It was a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about a thing," he said. "Everything is going to be fine."
She gave him a look that said she wasn’t so sure.
"I've dealt with people like this before. They barge into a place and push the owner around. Demand money and threaten violence if they don't pay up. It's often all just a front."
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