"A front?" she asked. “It didn’t sound like a front.”
"And that’s exactly what they’ll have wanted,” he said. “You see, guys like that, they're all about fear. What they do is, make a threat to make you afraid of them. Because, once you're afraid of them, they've got you in the palm of their hand. And when people become afraid, most of them do exactly as they ask. But that's the worst thing you can do. Because, once you start paying them, they’ll keep coming back. And, by then, there's no way out. The way they see it, you've paid up before, so you'll do it again. And, if you don't, their threats just get worse."
She nodded.
"I guess, it's a bit like high school bullying. Or prison yard intimidation. Best thing you can do is stand up to them. Show them that you aren't a pushover. That you aren't afraid of them. No matter what. Minute somebody fingers you for a mark and approaches you as one, you look them back dead in the eye and you tell them get out of your way, otherwise you'll beat their ass. Often, they won't expect that. And they won't be prepared for that. So, they'll just move on to someone else. Someone else who’s afraid of them, who'll take their shit.”
“And, if they don't?”
He smiled. “You help them on their way. You beat the shit out of them. That's how you deal with these sorts of situations. That's how you deal with people coming to push you around, making demands and imposing threats. You stand up and put up a fight. And that's what I'm here to do for you."
She nodded, but said nothing. It was almost time.
He glanced up at the clock. Ten o'clock. The men would be here anytime. He nodded toward the white wooden door. "Behind that door, is it an office?"
"No. It's a rest area. It's just a table, a few chairs and a restroom."
"That'll do."
"What for?"
"That's where I'll wait until the men arrive."
She looked him a question, worry in her eyes. She was hoping he would deal with them from the get-go, not leave it to her.
"Psychology," he answered. "And don't worry. I'm right behind you. I wait in there, I'm out of their sight. I'm out of their sight, I'm out of their mind. Which means, I'm out of their expectations. They'll come in and think it's just you and them. And, obviously, they don't see you as a threat. They'll get comfortable. They'll lower their guard. And that's when I'll walk out through that door. They won’t know what’s hit them."
She nodded. It was actually pretty smart.
"Now, when they walk in, I need you act normal. I need you to act like I'm not here. If you can do that, I'll handle the rest. OK?"
"OK," she answered, fidgeting with her hands, opening and closing them and running her thumbs across all of her fingers. Anxious.
He noticed it and smiled and said, "Don't worry, Naomi. Relax. We got this," then slipped through the white open door, leaving it about a centimeter or two ajar behind him.
The three men arrived a few minutes later, shortly after ten o’clock. They stepped into the salon, one by one.
Joe Beck heard the salon’s front door open and the humming sound of outside noise rush inside, followed by the three sets of footsteps. Boots crunching on the linoleum floor. Then, the sound of a man's voice. "OK, bitch, it's time to pay up," one of them said. He sounds Eastern European. Maybe, Russian, Beck thought.
He listened to the salon’s door close and waited long enough for the three men to be deep enough inside that ducking back out the door wasn’t an option. That was when he decided to go in and make his presence known. He opened the back office door and stepped out onto the salon floor.
Naomi was standing behind the L-shaped wooden desk, a frightened look in her eyes. She was looking his way, pressing her lips together, a nervous expression on her face.
“Time to pay...” the guy begun to say, again, then stopped, noticing Beck coming through the door. He looked his way.
The other two men did the same. There was surprise on their faces.
Beck walked along the floor with slow, sure swagger. A confident sign of dominance. He stopped between the three men and Naomi and the cash register, folded his arms across his abdomen and inhaled a deep breath through his nose. Then, exhaled slowly as he flicked his eyes from man to man and looked each one of them dead in the eye with a cold hard stare.
The men were white-skinned with thin, clean-shaven faces and necks tattooed with foreign emblems in green and blue ink. They had short dark hair that was abruptly shaven at the sides and the serious-looking stern-faced appearance of hard-nosed Eastern Europeans. They were each wearing black ribbed puffer jackets, fully zipped, black t-shirts, black relaxed fit jeans and black heavy-duty steel toe-capped boots. Their welts and toes were covered with melting clumps of white snow. They were tall and broad shouldered. Maybe six-two or six-three, just as Naomi had said. And big. Their frames were full. They were only a shade or two smaller than Beck was.
The guy in the middle was the shortest of the three. Maybe six-two and a fraction of a hair. A five o‘clock shadow of stubble shadowed the skin above his upper lip. His right jaw was moving up down like he was chewing on gum and his cheeks were hollower than the other two's. His gum-chewing habit had given his face a thin, gaunt-looking appearance. Beck didn't like him. He cared little for chewing gum.
The guy shifted on his feet and swallowed hard. His jaw stopped moving, presumably after swallowing the gum down. He glanced nervously, at the guy on his right. And, then, at the guy on his left. Sucked in a quick breath and, eventually, asked, "Who the hell are you?"
Beck was right. Eastern European. Russian. He said nothing. He swallowed, calmly, and stared him down. Didn't blink once.
"I ask you question," the guy said to him. "Who the hell are you?"
"Security," Beck answered.
"Security?" the guy asked, his eyebrows narrowed in to the bridge of his nose and a quizzed look came over his face. He said 'security' like it ended with two E's.
Beck said nothing.
The guy glanced at Naomi, then back at Beck. "The bitch, here, don't need security. She pays us protection."
Beck shook his head, slowly. "Not any more she doesn't."
The guy stared at him, lips pursed, not knowing what to say.
So far, Beck had been right about the whole thing. His plan had worked. He had caught them off guard and they didn’t know how to react.
"Who you think you are?" the guy on Beck's left asked him, in a similar-sounding Russian accent, but with a nasally property.
Beck shifted his gaze over to him and flicked his eyes up and down the guy's body. He was the tallest of the three, definitely six-three, and the burliest. He had a thick square jaw with a couple of fresh-looking shaving cuts along the left side of his chin. Blood oozed from the nicks and they followed an irregular, jagged pattern like he had shaved his face with a steak knife. His skin was darker than the other men’s. His hair was dark and tousled. And he had an abrupt hooked nose. Its bridge curved to its tip like the edge of a cliff.
"I already told you," Beck said to him, calmly. "I'm security. And I'm giving you all to the count of three to get yourselves the hell outta here."
"Or what?" the guy in the middle asked.
"One," Beck replied.
The guy sneered at him and glanced at the guy on his left.
"Two."
The guy on his left, Beck's right, was the toughest looking of the three. He stood about six-two and a half. His hair was blonde. He had a bottle green tattoo on his neck in the shape of a snake. He was missing his right eyebrow, the skin burned and sore-looking where it once would have been. He also had a long, thin purple slash down his left cheek, maybe from a scuffle with a blade. He had the hardened look of a man who had spent time inside an abominable Soviet prison. He stepped forward and slipped a steel spear pointed knife that had a seven or eight-inch-long blade from the left sleeve of his jacket.
Beck saw the sharp steel tip slip out from underneath the guy’s sleeve and acted immediately. He quickly balled his fist an
d dropped the guy where he stood. Caught him off guard with a stiff jab before the butt of the knife even got anywhere near the palm of his hand.
The guy’s nose burst on impact. He grunted and collapsed to the floor like he had been smashed with a brick. The knife dropped from his sleeve and bounced off the linoleum floor with a thud.
The other men two watched him go down, disbelief in their eyes. They had never seen him fall so easily. They knew he was one tough son of a bitch and they had seen him take plenty a punch. But, obviously, not one from Joe Beck. They each swallowed, hard, as he lay flat-out on the floor, and flicked their eyes from him to Beck.
"Which one of you is next?" he asked.
They both took two backward paces, scrunched up their faces into venomous scowls and pulled similar knives from the sleeves of their jackets. They guy in the middle slipped it from his right sleeve into his right hand. He was obviously right handed. The guy on the left slipped it from his left sleeve, just like the guy on the right had done. Knives in hand, they moved to lunge toward him.
Naomi gasped. Her eyes were wide with fright.
Beck didn’t even flinch. He quickly reached into the front pocket of his coat and drew his Smith & Wesson. Arced it up through the air and aimed its muzzle right between the middle guy’s eyes.
His eyes widened. Both men stopped where they stood, on the tips of their toes, knives in hand. Their angry scowls turned to pole-axed expressions of shock. They hadn’t expected to be faced with a gun. And not by a guy who looked like he would pull the trigger at a heartbeat’s notice. They swallowed hard and lowered their knives, then stepped backward, almost simultaneously, aghast expressions across their faces, realizing their were underprepared, that they were holding knives at what had quickly become a gun fight.
“The knives,” Beck said to him, flicking his eyes down at their blades. “Toss them.” He nodded toward the linoleum, gesturing where to put them.
The guy on the left complied first. He tossed the knife onto the ground, just as Beck had said. It landed tip-first and punctured a small hole in the linoleum, before falling backward to the ground.
The guy in the middle hesitated. There was still a seething look in his eyes.
Beck pulled a snarling expression and stepped forward, moving the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson closer toward his forehead and looked him in the eye. “Drop it or you die on three.”
The guy tossed the knife. It landed on the floor with a thud, its tip clanking against the other knife’s blade. “You’ll regret this,” he said to Beck.
Beck stepped closer, again, squeezing the Smith & Wesson’s trigger harder than before, maybe only a fraction of an inch left to pull before it would fire a bullet into his brain at about fifteen hundred feet-per-second. “What was that?”
The guy said nothing.
"Just as I thought," Beck said. “Now pick up your shitbag friend and get your asses the hell out of here.”
The guy in the middle didn’t move. He stared back at Beck, venom in his eyes.
The guy on the left did as he instructed. He walked over and lifted the unconscious goon from the floor. His face was a bloodied crimson mass, nothing but blood and pulped flesh where his nose used to be. The guy wrapped his right arm around the guy’s torso and slung the guy’s left arm over his shoulder and helped him back across the floor toward the salon’s door. Blood dripped from the guy's face with each movement.
The guy who was standing in the middle moved his right arm to reach into his pocket, maybe for another knife.
Beck stepped forward and pressed the cold stainless steel muzzle of his Smith & Wesson against his forehead. “Try it.”
The guy stared at him, long and hard. Then, lowered his arm and backed away toward the salon’s open frosted glass door. He sneered at Beck the entire journey, not once taking his eyes off him. His back to the open door, he looked over at Naomi. He stared her in the eye and brought his right hand up to his neck and tore his thumb across his throat and mouthed, “consequences.” Then, ducked out the door to the icy, winter night.
Naomi shivered.
Beck waited a few moments and made sure he was gone. He holstered his Smith & Wesson in his pocket and walked over and closed the door behind them, then turned and walked back toward Naomi, scooping up the men’s knives from the ground, one by one. He dumped them into a trash can beside the last workstation on his right.
"Jesus," she said to him. "That was intense."
Beck shrugged. To him it was just a job that needed doing, all part of another day in the life of.
“What that guy just did, you don’t think he...”
Beck shook his head. “No,” he said, interrupting her before she could say it. “I can tell by the way they came across. They were amateurs. They had knives, not guns, for a start. I’ve seen guys like that in the past. For them, it’s all about an easy score. They’ll pick somebody and bully them into doing exactly as they ask. Minute somebody stands and puts up a fight, they tend to move on. Now, had he mentioned a boss or somebody else higher up the chain, or had they been better equipped, then I would say you should be worried. But, those guys,” he shook his head, again. “I doubt it.”
"OK,” she said. “Because, I really don’t want any more trouble.”
He nodded, thinking that nobody would.
She smiled and said, “thank you.” She said it wholeheartedly, like she really meant it.
He nodded, again.
“No. Really. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
"Don't mention it," he replied.
“Who knows what would have happened had they shown up here and it was just me. I mean, I sure as shit don’t have their four grand. God knows what they might have done to me.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry about that now.”
She nodded and smiled, again. “I feel like I should pay you.”
He shook his head. “That’s not necessary. We made our deal. And I’ve held up my end. Now, it’s up to you to do the same.”
She smiled. “I will.”
“Then, that’s enough for me,” he said and nodded and moved toward the door.
“Hey, where are you going?”
"To find a place to stay the night. You know of any good motels around here?"
“You’re staying around?”
“Yeah. That thing I mentioned at Ernesto’s Bar didn’t pan out as I’d hoped. I figure I’ll have to stay another night. Maybe two.”
“Then, why don’t you stay with me?”
He looked her a question.
She walked toward him. “I wouldn’t feel safe staying alone tonight.”
“Understandable, given the circumstances.”
She put her hand on his right arm and gazed up into his eyes. “Plus, I figure I still owe you and all.”
He thought about it for a beat.
She could see the cogs turning in his mind.
“It’s a king bed. And my apartment offers a breathtaking view of the Detroit River."
He smiled. "OK," he said. "But just for tonight. And, maybe, tomorrow.”
"Of course," she said to him and smiled. "Let me clean this mess up and get my bag and my coat. Do you need a ride?" She stepped through the white wooden door and came back out with a black bucket of water and a cloth.
"No,” he answered. “I’m running a black Chevy Camaro. It’s parked out front. Across the street. I could follow you over, though?"
"Yeah," she replied and quickly wiped the blood from the floor and returned the bucket and cloth back into the back office, where she put on her white parka coat, slipped on a pair of black leather gloves over her hands and lifted her black Michael Kors handbag, then stepped back out into the salon. "OK. Let’s go," she said and gestured toward the salon's glass door.
Beck nodded and walked toward the door and stepped out to the cold night air. Naomi turned off the lights and left behind him. She locked the the door and pointed up the street. “My car�
�s just over there. White Peugeot RCZ. I’ll loop around on Grand Central Boulevard. Meet you on the other side?”
He nodded his agreement and turned and crossed the empty, white snowy street. Unlocked the Camaro and climbed in. He started the ignition and slipped it into gear. The heater switched on and blew out a comforting blast of warm air from the dashboard's vents as the audio system kicked in and a Bruce Springsteen track began playing from where it had left off. He watched Naomi loop around and come toward him in her RCZ, its headlights in full shine, as 'The Boss' blasted out a live rendition of Atlantic City. She was driving slowly, carefully handling the sleek car on the snow. He watched her cruise on past, then he pulled away from the curb and followed behind like they had agreed and headed southbound toward the city.
FOUR
The guy who had stood in the middle in the salon and exited after the other two were out the door had caught up with them out on Woodward Avenue. He slung the beaten guy’s right arm over his shoulder and helped the other guy carry him up the snowy sidewalk and across the street to a black Chevrolet Impala they had left illegally parked up by the curb on the other side of the road. It had dark tinted windows and no license plate. And it was covered in a thin white layer of snow.
The guy who had stood in the middle drew the keys from his pocket, unclicked the locks and opened the back door.
The other guy bundled the beaten goon into the back seat, carefully, while trying to avoid contact with the blood that was dripping from his nose and mouth. He fished a white linen cloth from his pocket and tossed it into the back after him, then shook his head and closed the door, while the other guy climbed into the driver’s seat.
Inside the car, the seats were black leather and the interior was grey. It was a relatively new model. It still had the new car smell. The guy slipped the key into the slot and with a flick of his wrist, the Impala’s engine rumbled to life. The radio came on and the heating kicked in. He turned the radio off as the heater whirred and sent a blast of warm dry air across his face, then flicked the windscreen wipers, wiping the snow from the front and rear windshields.
The other guy got in on the front passenger’s side. He shivered from the cold and blew out his cheeks and looked at the guy in the driving seat.
Easy Money Page 4
