She smiled. "So, what are you actually doing in Detroit?"
"Work," he answered and killed the second Bud in one, then swapped it for a full one from the floor.
She thought back to him having mentioned something about drugs. "The drug deal you mentioned, that what you do?" She paused. "Are you a dealer?"
"No."
"Good," she replied, a relieved smile across her face, and took another gulp of the pink, fruity rose wine.
Beck nodded and moved to take a sip of Bud.
"Then, what are you? DEA?"
He paused before he did and shook his head, then took a swig.
"Cop?"
He shook his head, again. "Not anymore."
She took another drink and looked him the question over the top of her wine glass. Her brown eyes were smouldering, but inquisitive, burning with questions.
"Private eye," he answered and took a smooth pull on his third beer.
She pulled an intrigued face and made an interested 'mmm' sound. "So, what is it that you’ve got to do with a drug deal, then?"
"I’m looking for the buyer," he answered and took another drink.
"Right," she said, turning it into a much longer word that it was, emphasizing the I.
"A Polish guy, who goes by the name Darius Adamczuk."
"You get him?"
Beck shook his head. "He was gone by the time I got there."
She frowned.
“Happens.”
"What do you want with him?" she asked and took another drink.
"Money,” he answered and did the same.
She raised her left eyebrow. "Money?"
"Yeah. The reward."
"As in, like, a bounty? For finding him?"
"Yeah. Exactly. The US Marshals have a bounty on his head."
She nodded slowly and took large drink. "Why? What did he do?"
Before Beck could answer, she interrupted. She looked down at her wine glass. It was empty. "Shit. I'm out," she said and stood up. "I'm going for another. I'll bring you more beer."
He glanced down at the two empty bottles and two full bottles on the floor, then made a face and killed the third Bud.
She walked past, taking the empty bottle from his hand. Then, returned maybe a minute later, two more open beers in her left hand and another full glass of wine in her right. She handed him the beers and sat back down on the sofa, this time closer to him than she had been. She took a drink, then said, "Sorry. I asked you what he did, but I never gave you the chance to answer."
Beck shrugged. "Don't worry,” he said and took a sip of his fourth Budweiser. “It was drug trafficking. And murder."
Her eyes widened. "Murder?"
"Yeah. Down in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a hit and run. Back in May. He was behind the wheel of a black Ford Galaxy. He was on his way from a drug deal. But local police had him rumbled. They already had the buyer in custody. He probably got there and saw them, and took off, spooked. He was driving along Berkeley Avenue, approaching the intersection with East Morehead Street. A woman and a child were crossing the road. He was driving like a nutcase, doing eighty in a twenty-five zone. He probably had a trunk full of cocaine. The lights were at red, and he clearly saw them. Footage from the traffic cams confirmed that. But he didn't stop. He didn't even slow down. He just steamed on through. The women went over the car and the child went underneath."
Naomi caught her breath and brought her hand over her mouth. There was a look of shock in her eyes.
Beck nodded, sombrely, and took another drink. "Charlotte PD has been looking for him for months. But they weren't getting anywhere, so they referred it on to the US Marshals. They picked it up last month. Slapped a twenty-five thousand dollar bounty on his head."
Her eyes just about exploded from her head. "Twenty-five grand?"
Beck nodded.
"Jesus. That's a lot," she said.
Beck nodded his agreement and took another drink, his fourth beer now almost gone.
"But if the Charlotte police couldn't find him, how did you trace him here? To Detroit?"
"Because, they didn't know who they were looking for. I did."
Her eyebrows narrowed over her nose. She looked him a question.
"He goes by Darius Adamczuk. But that's not his real name. Down in Carolina, he was Piotr Volonoski. And that's who the police are looking for. Which is why they haven't found him."
She nodded. "How did you get his new name?"
"That wasn't difficult," he said and took another drink of beer, finishing his fourth bottle. "I spoke to a couple of guys down in Charlotte. A couple of guys who knew his business, who he used to identify with. One of them said nothing. But the other one, he talked. He said that Piotr got nervous about the cops, that he was spooked at the thought of them closing in. He said that he was so afraid of spending time behind bars, that he made up the alias and left. Said Piotr became Darius and headed north."
She nodded and drank some more wine, as she listened.
"How come the police didn't speak to them, too?"
Beck said nothing. He let the silence give her the answer.
"Ah."
He swapped his empty fourth for his fifth Budweiser, lifting the next full bottle up from the floor, took a drink and continued. "Anyway, I looked into his background. Compiled a list of everyone he knew in and around North Carolina. There weren't many. But I found out where they all lived and I paid them a visit. None of them admitted to having been in contact with him in the past few months. And nobody seemed to know where he went, except for that one guy. They all said he just up and disappeared. And there were also no signs of him around. No signs of him having shacked up in any of their homes.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, none of the sofas looked like they had been crashed on and there was nothing amiss, as far as I could see. Nothing like an extra dinner plate in the sink compared to the number of people who lived there. That sort of thing. There were also no sounds of anybody's presence in any of their garages, basements or attics. No distant creaks or bumps."
She nodded, taking a drink. "So, what did you do, then?"
"I turned to social media and looked him up. He's on Facebook. But hadn't been no active since May. I checked with his cell company, too. The last call he made was to somebody called Greggs on the twenty-seventh of May. He switched his cell phone off afterward. Maybe took the battery out. It’s gone unused since. Maybe its lying at the bottom of a lake somewhere? Or maybe he dumped it in a trash can? Who knows?"
He paused and took another drink, finishing his fifth Bud. Then, continued. "This guy's smart. Most people on the run aren't. They keep their cell phone on them. Not realizing that police can monitor activity and use signals pinging from nearby cell towers to geo-target where the activity is coming from. And, of course, find out where you are. Either that or they go and post something on social media. Sometimes its a straight up check-in somewhere, other times it's a picture of something. Something that gives a clue to where they are. But not Piotr Volonoski. Moment he became Darius Adamczuk, he went silent."
Naomi drank some more wine, nodding slowly, as she listened.
Beck lifted his sixth beer. He took a half-bottle swig, then continued. "Anyway, cell phone or not, I figured he would’ve needed money to get anywhere. Unless he was to walk. And walking wouldn't get him far. There would be too much risk of being spotted. And he couldn’t walk around all night. So, I checked with his bank, looking for transactions on his accounts. Card payments and ATM withdrawals. Anything that would give a hint to where he could've been at any one point in time."
"Did you find anything?"
Beck shook his head. "No. He emptied his accounts the day he was last seen in Charlotte. And there's been no transactions ever since."
"So, what did you do?"
Beck finished his sixth beer and reached for his seventh. He laid the empty bottle down on the floor and picked up the last full one in the row, then answere
d her question.
"I tracked the guy named 'Greggs' and spoke to him. He knew nothing. Just said that Piotr did call him, but to say goodbye. So, I went back to what the associate of his I had spoke with had said. Figured he must've been telling me the truth after all. And I started focusing on the alias. I checked social media sites for profiles under Darius Adamczuk. There were none. At least, none with a photograph matching the man on the wanted poster. So, I thought about him saying he fled north. I bought a map and traced a likely path. Started with I-77 and followed it north." He paused and took a drink. "But I ran into a bit of trouble around Fort Chiswell, Virginia, where it merges with I-81. I could've went east or west."
"Which way did you go?" she asked, after taking a sip of wine.
"I went west. I stopped at an Exxon gas station about half-way to Wytheville. Went in to gas up. I figured, if he drove this route, he maybe stopped there, too. I took his picture and showed it to a clerk, asked if he remembered seeing the guy. He said he did. He said that he was tall and imposing, that he stood out, because he had long bleached blond dreadlocked hair and a thick, black beard. He said he thought he was maybe a wrestler on the road, that's how he remembered him."
Naomi nodded. She finished the rest of her wine.
Beck necked the rest of his seventh Bud.
She stood up from the sofa, again, empty glass in hand. "You want another?"
He nodded, unable to think of a reason not to. “Sure.”
"I'll bring two. Way you drink them, you'll need an extra one," she said and padded off to the kitchen.
Beck sat in a pleasant silence while he waited on her coming back.
She returned a moment later, another full glass of rose wine in her right hand and another two open Budweisers for Beck in her left. She handed him the beers and sat back down. "So, what happened next?"
He placed one of the Budweisers down on the floor by his left ankle and held onto the other one. "I continued along the interstate toward Wytheville, but cut off back onto I-77, thinking the guy said that he took off north. I stopped off at gas stations, diners and small mom-and-pop convenience stores near the exit slips along the route, at places like Bland, then Rocky Gap. I showed the clerks his photograph and asked if they remembered a guy like him coming in."
She nodded, attentively, and took a drink.
He took another swig of beer, maybe only another gulp left in the bottle, and continued. "Nobody had seen him. So, I continued on. I headed northbound to West Virginia. I got as far as far as the turnpike, still checking with diners, gas stations and convenience stores. Still getting nothing. I kept on going north and ended up at Charleston. I stopped there for longer. I'd been driving for about four hours, two hundred and sixty-five miles. And I figured, if Adamczuk came this way, he would’ve driven the same distance. Thinking he took off in the evening, I figured he maybe stopped off around there for the night."
He paused and killed what was left of his eighth beer and swapped it for his ninth, putting his empty eighth down into the graveyard of empty bottles on the floor. "I checked with everything in town, from hostels to the Knights Inn. I showed the clerks his photograph and asked if they had seen him. And I also asked them to check the guest log for anyone staying there under the name 'Adamczuk' around the end of May."
Naomi took another gulp of wine and smiled. She could tell Beck was passionate about what he did. She could hear it in the way he spoke and she could see it from the spark in his eyes. It was inspiring.
"That's where I got another hit," he added. "He spent a night at a place called the Broadhurst Inn. Stayed in room one-zero-six, but checked out the next morning. That was when I knew I was on the right track. I came back out and cut back onto the interstate and continued north."
Naomi nodded, her head bobbing back and forth, as she followed.
"I got another hit in a place called Ripley. He stopped off at a diner there for breakfast. It was a buffet restaurant that advertised unlimited breakfast for just five bucks."
"That's all right."
“Damn right it is,” Beck said, then continued. "One of the waitresses remembered him. She said he stood out, not only because of the way he looked, but also because of how impatient and rude he was. Said he had her ran off her feet, bringing coffee pot after coffee pot and clearing away plate after plate. Said that he guzzled coffee and eggs like a junkie would shoot up an infinite supply at a crack den." He laughed. "She also said that he asked her where he could buy some toothpaste and deodorant. She said she was as helpful as she could possibly be. Gave him directions to three local stores. And, then, after all that, she said he stood up and walked out. Never even left a tip.”
Naomi scrunched up her face. "Seriously? What kind of asshole actually does that?”
Beck pulled a face and flicked his head to his left and smiled whilst slightly throwing his hands in the air. Then, continued. "Anyway, I checked with the stores she mentioned. But nobody remembered seeing him. Maybe he went dirty? Who knows? I got back on the road and carried on going north, up through Caldwell and Cambridge, then onto New Philadelphia and through to Canton. Eventually, I got to Cleveland. And that's where I figured he was."
Naomi took a drink of wine.
Beck took a sip of beer.
"I checked around town, looking for any traces of him having stayed in cheap motels. But I got nothing. Not a single hit. It was like he hadn't even been there at all."
"So, what did you do?"
"I pulled into a Dunkin Donuts, walked inside and ordered an Americano with cream. Found a table and brought out the map. And I sat and thought about it. I questioned whether he had even been there at all. Then, I wondered if he had, but just passed through. I figured it would be the latter. I looked at the map, thinking he could still be in Ohio. Youngstown, Akron, Canton, maybe Columbus? If not, he could've moved on to Ontario, or Michigan. Maybe Pennsylvania or New York. Like I said, I thought about it and ruled out Canada."
Naomi looked him the question.
"He was a wanted man," Beck answered. "There was no way a guy like that could've crossed the border. At least, not legally, anyway. So, I ruled Ontario out, instead focusing on the US side of the border. That left me with Ohio, Michigan, around the loop of the river, or east to Pennsylvania or New York. I doubled back and checked Youngstown, Akron and Canton. Again, like in Cleveland, I found nothing."
Naomi drank more wine as she listened.
"That left me with Columbus or somewhere else in the surrounding states. The net had become too wide. I needed another angle. So, I thought about what he was involved in down in Charlotte."
"Drugs?"
Beck nodded. "Yeah. I went onto the dark web looking for forums about places where dealers buy and sell drugs.”
"What? Surely they don't just go post that sort of thing online?"
Beck pulled a wry face. "They do.”
Naomi scrunched up her face. It was a disbelieving look.
“Ah, it's not as clear cut as you’re thinking. The dark web is different to the regular internet. It’s the underbelly of the beast that almost nobody ever sees.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a secret online network with only one way in. Only way to access it is via a browser called Tor. And, even then, that's only the start. Finding stuff can often be impossible. There's no effective search engine, nothing like Google. It's akin to finding a web page back in the 1990s. Remember when you had to type words in and stick .com onto the end?"
"Yeah"
"Well, that's what the dark web is like, except virtually all the sites end with .onion, and the URLs are a random scramble of letters and numbers that often bear next to no resemblance to what’s on the sites."
Naomi nodded. It wasn’t as clear cut as she suspected. "How the hell did you find it, then?"
"With a lot of trial and error. A lot of coffee. And a head start,” he said. “I already know some of the URLs for forums about illicit trade. And I’ve got a good mem
ory, so, long scramble or not, I always remember them. I knew where to start."
Naomi nodded slowly, willing him to continue.
He did.
"But knowing where to look is only the first step. These people are smart. And on drug forums, especially so. Each forum has a readable title, usually a code name for a drug. But, then, everything posted on it is often nothing but a scramble of numbers, posting by users under the cover of a variety of different aliases."
Naomi scrunched up her face, again. "Scrambles of numbers?"
"Yeah. To most people, they would mean nothing. But not to the trained eye. And not to the buyers and sellers. To the buyers and sellers, the numbers represent the date and time of the deal and the address it's going down at.” He paused. “And, of course, the price."
"Oh, right. And how do you know all this? Did you just sit and work it all out?"
"Yeah. That’s how I got the next hit. I came across a forum about something called Pink Magic and I saw Adamczuk’s first name next to a post - Darius. He was responding as a buyer. So, I started tracking this drug and went looking deeper and found out the dealing locations. And that's why I came to Detroit.”
“Wow,” Naomi said and took a sip of wine. "How long have you been in town? How long have you been looking for him?"
"Not long. Just since yesterday. I’ve only been on him for the past four days."
She nodded.
"Anyway, again, as with the other places, I checked with cheap motels around town. I got a hit at a place called the Oakwood Motel on Fourteenth Street. Guest logs had him down as having stayed there for five nights into early June. But, then, the trail went dark."
"So, what did you do?"
"I went back to the dark web, to the forums he had been posting on. He had also left twelve responses to what looked like a bunch of different dealers. Each about two weeks apart, all about this Pink Magic. And all of them referencing locations around Detroit. I figured he was obviously still around town, shacked up somewhere. I checked other motels on the outskirts. But I found nothing. I went back to the web and found another site with another Pink Magic post. It looked like a dealer's instruction to a mule. It was a list of names and delivery addresses. 'Darius' was on there. The address was a scramble for an apartment on Alfred Street in the Eastern Market area of the city.”
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