Dressed and ready, she padded over to her sofa and drew a bottle of perfume from her handbag. It was glass, clear and filled with a light pink liquid, with a chrome bottle cap. Paul Smith Rose, a light floral scent from a British designer. She uncapped the bottle and sprayed a few celestial squirts into the air around her head, the essence of the perfume covering her hair and neck like the petals and stems of a rose being sprayed with clouds of fresh water by a botanist tending to a garden. She squirted some more onto her left wrist and pressed her wrists together, before smiling, catching the perfume's aroma, and recapping the bottle and putting it back into her handbag.
She lifted her empty latte glass and dirty plate and took them through to the kitchen, leaving them beside the jelly-smeared knife in the sink, then walked back through to the lounge where she lifted her handbag and her car keys, and left her apartment.
She rode the elevator cart down to ground and walked through the lavish lobby with the confident grace of a catwalk model. Her posture was straight, her head slightly angled downward, her eyes focused on the door, her right arm bent, forearm extended outward with the handle of her handbag draped over the inside of her elbow, the heels of her boots gracefully clip-clopping on the hard white marble floor, as she swung her hips gently from side to side, strutting her stuff with long confident strides. She stepped out through the automatic swivelling glass door and shivered in the cold, exhaling warm clouds of breath, and walked down a salted path toward the parking lot and on to her car.
She climbed inside the white RCZ, placed her handbag on the passenger seat next to her and slipped the key into the slot. Took a breath, then turned the key and started its engine. Next, she switched on the heating, then began flicking through the radio stations until her car had completely defrosted and she had found a station playing songs that she liked.
She settled on Sunny Radio, because they were playing the top 100 easiest-to-listen-to love songs. The upbeat lyrics and positive tone helped take her mind off the letter and its demands.
She slipped the RCZ into gear, a forced smile on her face, and drove off out onto a white snowy Orleans Street, listening to Percy Sledge's golden, soulful voice offer up a wonderful rendition about the time when a man loves a woman, ready to help other women look and feel as amazing as they are, but completely unaware that her salon had been reduced to a blackened pile of burnt rubble.
ELEVEN
Arshavin, Salenko and Zurawski stepped back into Vladimir Polanski's underground office of the Magenta nightclub. Arshavin was carrying a bundle of white A4 of papers in his right hand. There were seven sheets of paper, all fanned out in his grip.
"What have you got?" Polanski asked them as they made their way in. He was sitting behind his desk, a full flute of champagne in his right hand, looking to his left, marvelling at the shoals of tropical fish gliding past in the glass tank that ran the length of the wall.
Arshavin stepped forward and laid the papers down on the desk in front of him. "Everything," he said, an emphatic base in his voice, sounding as if he had just uncovered the meaning of life.
Polanski’s eyes followed a small strawberry tetra fish’s journey as it cruised through the water and looped around the corner where the tank ran the length of the wall to the door. His eyes jumped from the fish to Arshavin, then flicked downward to the bundle of papers. He took a sip of champagne and began reading the first sheet.
It was a printout of a newspaper report. A scanned copy of a page from the Michigan Chronicle. It had a small column touting the opening of Angel's Salon on Woodward Avenue alongside a photo of Naomi and her name. One of the three men had drawn a circle around her picture and scored a double underline beneath her name in royal blue ink. Whoever had done it, looked as if he had gone over it a few times.
Polanski stared at her picture, gazing at it as if it was really her and she was there in person. He looked deep into her eyes, and nodded, slowly. "Naomi Hefter," he hissed. "So, you're the one who didn't pay."
"That's right, Boss," Arshavin said to him. "She didn't. But she will, now we know who she is."
Polanski looked up at him and smirked, then turned over to the next sheet of paper.
It was a printed search result from a people search engine named FamilySearch. It looked like a screenshot of a web page. There was a light green logo in the shape of a tree at the top left along with the site's name and a light green navigation bar running left to right. The web page featured a table of information about Naomi in a biographical format.
Arshavin read out the information as Polanski flicked his eyes down the table. "She's twenty-nine years old. Born August tenth, nineteen eighty-six. Right here, in Detroit. Her mother was a woman called Deloris, Deloris Johnstone. And her father was called Tim. Hefter, of course."
Polanski nodded his agreement and licked the tip of his left thumb and turned over to the next sheet. It was another printout of a web page from FamilySearch. This time, featuring information on Deloris Johnstone. She was a New Yorker, born in Queens on July 3, 1960. She died in Detroit just over fifty-three years later, on October 10, 2013.
"Mother died in a car accident," Arshavin said.
Polanski turned over to the next sheet, another FamilySearch printout. This time, about Naomi’s father, Tim Hefter. He was born and bred in Detroit on March 10, 1957 and he died on the same day as her mother.
"And so did her father," Salenko added.
Polanski flicked his eyes up at the three men and looked at them one by one. "Has she got any other family?"
Zurawski, standing on the right, beside Salenko who was standing in the middle of the three, nodded. There was sinister smile on his face and a grim look in his eyes. "Take a look at the next page, Boss."
Polanski grinned and turned over.
The next sheet was another result from FamilySearch. This time, containing information about a Kathleen Westin, nee Hefter.
"Her sister," Zurawski said.
Polanski read the details.
Naomi's sister was thirty-five years old. She was born in Detroit on August 14, 1980. And, just like Naomi, her mother was Deloris Johnstone and her father was Tim Hefter. However, unlike Naomi, there was another man listed on her file. Her spouse. She was married. His name was Wayne Westin.
Polanski nodded slowly, thinking that this would be useful. When it came to squeezing people, he figured it was good to know about their family connections. Often, they would prove invaluable. He knew, all too well, that some people might have the fortitude to withhold information or money when it's just their own safety at risk, but when it comes to the safety of their loved ones, it's often a different story. He glanced up at Arshavin, a grisly look in his eye. "Is there anyone else? Any children, in particular?"
Arshavin shook his head. "No. There was nothing like that on there, Boss."
"Pity," Polanski said. "That would have made things even easier."
Arshavin nodded.
"What else do you have?"
"Her address," Arshavin answered.
Polanski's eyes lit up.
"And her sister's," Salenko added.
"Yes. They're on the last two sheets," Zurawski confirmed.
Polanski lifted his flute of expensive champagne. He took a sip, then sat the flute down on the desk, licked the tip of his left thumb and turned the A4 sheet over.
The next sheet was a printout from the Whitepages website. It was a search result for 'Wayne Westin, Detroit.' It gave his landline number and current address, for a home on Huron River Driver in Flatrock. The printout even showed the house as a little green dot by the riverside on a Google Street map.
Polanski's smiled, again. He looked up at Salenko. "This where the sister lives?"
Salenko nodded. His head bobbed up and down.
"By the river?" Polanski beamed. "Must be some money in the family."
The three men grinned.
"Turn over, though, Boss, and you'll get the one you’re after," Arshavin said to Polanski.
>
He did. But not before taking another sip of champagne. He licked the tip of his left thumb once more and turned over with the delight of a banker opening up his bonus cheque, an eager grin running across his face, ear to ear.
The last sheet was exactly what Arshavin promised. It was another search result from the Whitepages website, this time for a Naomi Hefter. And, just like it had done with her brother-in-law, Wayne, it offered her landline number and her current address: Apartment 5e, 1301 Orleans Street, Detroit, MI. 48207, United States of America. One of the men had circled it in royal blue ink, again going over it a few times for emphasis.
Polanski sat back and inhaled a deep, satisfied lungful breath and smiled with the glee of a man who felt like he had just won the jackpot on a scratch off game. "Good work," he said and lifted his flute of champagne and sniffed its light, floral notes, then knocked back the mouthful that was left. "Very good work."
The men beamed.
Polanski sat the empty flute down on his desk with gentle precision, not even making a sound, and turned the last sheet of paper over onto the others and bundled them into a neat pile.
"What you want us to do, Boss?" Zurawski asked him.
Polanski looked up at him, then at Salenko and, then, at Arshavin, and smiled. "Go get her. Go get me my money."
"What about the sister?" Salenko asked. "Do you want us to grab her, too?"
Polanski shook his head. "No. Leave her, for now," he said. "Focus on the hairdresser. If she doesn't pan out, I'll send Kanchelskis and Kuznetsov after the family."
Arshavin, Salenko and Zurawski nodded their understanding and turned and walked out the door.
TWELVE
After leaving her apartment, Naomi took Lafayette Street toward Greektown and turned north into Downtown Detroit. She cruised past the 36th District Court and slowed to a crawl in the corridor between Ford Field and Comerica Park. Passed over the Fischer Freeway, then turned down Winter Street and cruised past the snowswept front yards of the homes either side before turning onto Woodward Avenue in the shadow of the snowy construction site of what would become the new Detroit Red Wings stadium.
A short drive along Woodward Avenue and a few more lyrics to another soppy love song later, she drove over the top of Edsel Ford Freeway and pulled up to a halt behind a blue Buick at the lights underneath the railway bridge above to the thumping hum of a freight train zipping across the frosty tracks overhead. When it had passed and the lights had changed, traffic began to move. The blue Buick turned left even although the lane it was in was only for making a right or going straight ahead. A few drivers on the other side honked their horns, but Naomi didn't notice. Instead, her eyes were fixed on her salon ahead on the right and her mouth was agape, because it looked like something was very, very wrong.
It was surrounded by steel fences with big white signs warning of danger. The roof was gone and the brickwork outside was crumbling and blackened and scorched, with most of it reduced to rubble.
Her eyes widened and her throat tightened. What the fuck? she thought, doubting her whereabouts, wondering whether or not she was even on the right street, hoping that she wasn’t.
Glancing around as she drove through the intersection with Baltimore Avenue, the blackened fenced off structure drawing near, she noticed the laundrette, the hardware supplies and liquor stores across the street, and realized she was exactly were she was supposed to be.
Her heart sank. She swallowed hard and switched off the radio. Took her foot off the accelerator and slowed her car to a crawl, steering it in against the curb, coming to a halt outside her salon.
Through the fences, she saw her salon was reduced to nothing but a dilapidated blackened heap of scorched hopes and dreams. She saw that the roof was gone and the front wall was missing. Inside the burned structure, she saw her once cream and silver interior fittings, chairs and sofas and decorations, all lying around and piled up in burnt mounds. Everything looked black and crisp and something appeared to still be burning, a thin stream of smoke swirling upward into the air from something in the middle of the pile. It looked unimaginable and unsalvageable, as if everything was practically gone.
A sobering lump filled her throat and she looked around her car, the look of a lost little girl on her face. She was sitting right there beside it, but her salon a few paces away outside and the dashboard and steering wheel and center console right there inside the car suddenly felt like they were a lifetime away.
She sucked in light breaths of the heated air blasting from the Peugeot's dash and repeatedly gulped down dry mouthfuls of nothing, each swallow becoming harder than the last. Chills tingled along her skin and, internally, her chest felt heavy. Looking out the window at the state of her business, it felt like she was lying underneath the crushing weight of a giant rock. Breathing became impossible and a nauseous feeling began to develop in the pit of her stomach.
Staring at its charred remains, she sighed, slowly, thinking about the letter from the bank. The one she had tucked away into the magazine, hoping it would somehow disappear. But it hadn't. It roared to the forefront of her mind, a white sheet of A4 with paragraphs of black text written using long words she had never really heard anybody say, and that she barely understood, along with a big, bold, red number at the top and a great big red dollar symbol at the front. She was in deep, deep trouble. And she knew it. Her face clouded over and her eyes welled up. A tear dripped over her lower right eyelid and slipped down her cheek.
It's gone. It's all gone. My salon, my livelihood, my income, my chances to repay that damn bank. I'm ruined. Fucking ruined. I'm straight up fucked.
She sobbed and thought back to last night. There was no doubt in her mind as who did this. No doubt at all. It was those men. Those dirty foreigners. And there was also no doubt as to who's fault it was. Joe Beck was supposed to help. But, instead, he had only gone and made it worse.
She twisted in her seat and lifted her handbag from the passenger seat beside to her, drew her cell phone and purse out from inside and lifted out Joe Beck's private detective service contact card.
THIRTEEN
Having fought nose-to-tail traffic for much of the forty-four mile journey, Joe Beck pulled into the Hamlin & Hughes parking lot over an hour after leaving Detroit. The accountancy firm operated from a newly-built skyscraper directly across the street from Michigan Stadium, the largest sports stadium by capacity on American soil. The skyscraper was modern, made of glass and steel, and, no doubt, in Beck's mind, offered a spectacular view of the football field down below from the windows along on the top floor.
He imagined watching the Wolverines’ freight train-like tackles, improbable interceptions and emphatic touchdowns as he nosed the black Camaro into a slot two rows back from the skyscraper’s entrance, parking it between a red Ford and a blue Buick, before killing its engine and making his way inside.
A welcoming blast of warm air blew down across his face as he stepped in through the revolving glass door and out of the cold winter air. The reception was large. Open-spaced and bright. The floor was tiled, white, and the walls were smooth, papered with a soft-looking taupe wallpaper. A couple of Japanese fruticosa trees, each about five-foot tall, twisted up the wall on either side of two steel elevator doors up ahead.
A young woman with long blonde hair was sitting behind a white chest-height desk on the right. She was looking at a computer screen. She flicked her eyes up from the display, glanced at Beck and smiled. "May I help you, Sir?" she asked, noticing him walk in and step toward her.
Beck glanced up at the list of companies occupying the building on the stainless steel board behind her head and said, "I need to speak with a man named Jerry McDan who works for Hamlin & Hughes." He spoke slowly and clearly, in an official-sounding capacity. "I believe he may have information that might lead to the apprehension of a man wanted for drug dealing and murder in North Carolina."
The woman's eyes widened, the gravity of what Beck said sinking in. "Oh my. Absolutely.
Are you a police officer?"
"Detective," Beck answered and drew his wallet from his pants and quickly flashed his private detective ID. "Joe Beck."
She glanced at it, briefly, and nodded.
Of course, his credentials weren't official, nor formally registered. But to the untrained eye, they looked convincing enough. It was a white plastic card with a subtle light blue tinge and the words ‘Private Detective’ in bold blue print at the top. A large gold shield with a navy blue eagle that had the letters U and S on either side of its wings and the words ‘United States, Private Detective,’ in small bold navy blue font underneath it sat below the headline, occupying the left of the card. Beck’s sex, hair color, eye color, height, weight, date of birth and place of birth were beside it in the middle, with his photograph and name on the right. An issue date sat centred below it all in thin black text. Although it said, ‘Issue Date,’ it meant nothing. It was just the date he had picked the card up from the guy who sold it to him in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
"Thank you, Mr. Beck," she said. "Now, who was it you said you were looking for again?"
"Jerry McDan," he answered, tucking his ID card back into his wallet, then slipping his wallet back into his pants. "Of Hamlin & Hughes."
"OK," she said and repeated Jerry's name in a slow, inquiring voice, while searching the computer system. She tapped a few keys and clicked the mouse a couple of times. "He works on level fourteen. I believe he's in the office now." She reached down behind the desk and handed Beck a black ring binder folder, a pen and visitor ID pass. "If you could sign in here, then take a seat at the waiting area." She gestured to her left. It was two black leather sofas and a dark wooden coffee table tucked in to the corner where the window met the wall. "I'll buzz him and tell him to come down."
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