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  EASY MONEY

  A JOE BECK THRILLER

  ALASTAIR BROWN

  STRADA BOOKS

  EASY MONEY

  A JOE BECK THRILLER

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Strada Books.

  Amazon ebook edition

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Copyright © Alastair Brown, 2019

  Alastair Brown has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual business establishments, actual events, or actual locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without permission in writing of the publisher or author. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, brands, establishments, and institutions referenced in this work of fiction.

  Find out more about Alastair Brown by visiting:

  www.authoralastairbrown.com

  ONE

  The deal was going down at Ernesto's bar on Grand Central Boulevard, sometime between nine-thirty and ten. The seller was somebody unknown, probably a mule working on behalf of a mid-level dealer, but the buyer was Darius Adamczuk. At least, that's what Joe Beck had worked out. And that's why he was on his way there.

  It was the last Sunday before Thanksgiving, nine-fifteen at night, and Joe Beck was in Detroit, Michigan. He had driven into town in a black Chevrolet Camaro, a rental car that he had left parked up by the curb in a pay and display spot outside a shuttered shoe store on Woodward Avenue.

  He was only out of the car a few minutes, walking up the street, maybe only fifty paces away from the corner that led to where he was going, but, already, his lips were blue and his face felt numb. The temperature was bitter. It felt like seventeen below. The air was bone chilling. The cold was biting at his face and ears like it was a starving hound chomping down on big chunk of road kill.

  He was wearing a pair of black boots, dark blue straight-fitting jeans, and a fully-buttoned thick black woolen coat. A thick-looking pair of leather gloves covered his hands, and a black scarf that was streaked with flashes of charcoal grey was tightly wrapped around his neck.

  A blizzard of frosty white snow whipped downward from the heavy night sky. It sucked into eyes and ears and swept across his face like Arctic ocean waves lashing the northern Canadian Tundra. The sidewalk was white, covered with a thick blanket of untouched snow that reflected the glow from the yellow vapour lights above that flanked the road. The snow was fresh, puffy and powdery, and it compacted and crunched under his boots as he moved quickly, purpose in his eyes, eager to get indoors, going over the plan in his mind.

  This one's a smash and grab, he thought. Go in and take him out. Knock his teeth down his throat. Grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him out the door and across the street. Haul his ass all the way down the snowy sidewalk to the third precinct at two-seven-eight-five Grand Central Boulevard. Check him in and fill in some paperwork. And walk back out about ten minutes later, twenty-five thousand dollars richer, with the next wanted shitbag promoted to the top of the hit list.

  Squinting through the blizzard of snow, he saw a row of cars up ahead on his right, parked up by the curb just like his Camaro. Red and blue sedans and black and white SUVs, all with snow-capped roofs, windshields, bonnets and wing mirrors. They’ve obviously been sitting there for a while, he thought, the snow whipping his eyes, a painful grin on his numb face.

  He was right. They had all been parked there since the snow had started earlier that afternoon. All of them, but one. A red Buick LaCrosse with an Ohio license plate. It was a 2005 model, a classic sedan, that was otherwise in good condition, but for a few scrapes on the hood and a long crack on the driver's side wing mirror. It was parked facing north, behind a black Ford. The snow on its roof, rear windshield and trunk was light, maybe only a few centimetres, as if had only just begun to build up.

  There was a woman up ahead standing beside it, by side of the driver's door. She had cupped her right hand over her eyes to shield them from the snow and she was gazing in through its windshield. She looked to be in her early sixties. She had peachy skin, short grey permed hair that was brushed with flashes of blonde, and thick gold-rimmed glasses across her eyes.

  She was relatively small, and round, maybe only five-four, and she cut a plump figure in her uniform: dark heavy duty boots, navy blue pants, a navy blue anorak, and a navy blue peaked cap with a black visor. She was wearing black woolen gloves on her hands and had a grey and black checked scarf wrapped around her neck. In her left hand was a black parking enforcement ticket machine.

  Beck watched her exhale white clouds of warm breath through the bitter winter air and snow as she punched the Buick's details into the machine. Walking closer toward her, he saw the machine spit out a small white ticket from the top. It curled out from its end like a sale receipt from a grocery store's till. He thought nothing of it, and neither did she, because there was nothing to think. It was just another illegally parked car getting another ticket.

  Neither of them knew it was a getaway car.

  She tore the ticket from the roll and drew a transparent plastic bag from the front pocket of her jacket. Quickly slipped the ticket inside the bag, before it got wet or the bag filled up with snow, then sealed it shut by running her right forefinger and thumb along its stick and seal end. She, then, leaned forward and slapped it down on the Buick's front windshield, placing it onto the thin covering of white snow and tucking it underneath its black wiper blade.

  Noticing Beck, another hardened soul braving the grim night conditions, now just a few paces away from her and grimacing against the cold, she smiled. It was more of a grinning-and-bearing-it sort of smile than a pleasant one.

  He nodded his acknowledgement, teeth gritted and a stern look in his eyes, as the freezing snow swept across his face.

  Their interaction was brief, lasting maybe only a second, before it was interrupted by a dirty-looking, uncouth scroat of a man who emerged from a liquor store up ahead on his left, a few paces beyond the Buick's hood, right behind the woman.

  He was small and thin-framed. He was dressed in brown boots, dirty ripped blue jeans and a plain, tired-looking grey t-shirt that was stained with black cigarette burns and brown lager splotches. There was a black ski mask over his face. Only his eyes and lips were visible, the skin around them chalk white. He was carrying a full-looking brown paper bag in his left hand and a blood-stained machete in his right. Its blade curved to a point at its tip and it looked to be about fifteen inches long.

  He paused, briefly, seeing the woman at his vehicle. What the fuck? he thought. Who the fuck’s she? I can't afford a ticket, not here, not tonight. He tossed the brown paper bag to the ground and dived toward her, quickly knocked the peaked cap from her head and snatched her by her hair, then yanked her head backward and did the unthinkable.

  He raised the machete up to her neck and, right in front of Beck's eyes, pressed the cutting edge of its blade against her skin and whipped it backward and to his right, slicing her throat from ear to ear.

  It all happened so fast that the woman didn't even know what had happened. She had saw the tall dark-haired man walking toward her, embracing her grimacing expression through the blizzard of snow, then she felt her hat being knocked off, followed by a sharp, shooting pain tearing through her scalp as somebody tugged on her hair. She felt her head jerk backward and slam against something warm. Somet
hing with a beat. Maybe a somebody’s chest. Then, she felt the sharp and somewhat warm and sticky edge of a blade slice into her neck. And, next thing she knew, she was falling toward the ground.

  She screamed and slumped forward to the cold, snowy sidewalk, landing face down, gagging and choking and twitching in shock, as a torrent of crimson blood spurted from her throat, sloshing the fresh white powdery snow a grisly dark shade of red. The next thing she felt was the last thing she remembered. It was the intense chilling sensation of the snow biting against her face like it was a seething army of termites gnawing through a plank of wood. It burned her nose and mouth and cheeks and chin, biting at every inch of exposed skin. She died right there and then, freezing cold and her face feeling like it was on fire, as she lay face down with her throat cut on the snow by the side of the illegally parked Buick.

  Joe Beck paused as it happened, his eyes open wide and an incredulous look on his icy cold face, unable to believe what he had just witnessed. He stood there, momentarily frozen in time, absorbing what had just gone down right in front him in the middle of the street. He looked at the machete in the guy's right hand. Its blade was streaked with dark red blood. He thought of the image of it slicing the woman's neck like a hot knife going through a block of butter and glanced down at her body lying lifeless not more than a few paces from his feet. He thought of her falling to ground, the blood spurting from her throat, and how she must have felt the chill of the snow on her skin as she died. Then, he looked back up at the guy. And reacted.

  A menacing scowl taking hold of his face, he stepped toward the guy and balled his leather glove-clad left hand into a huge football-sized fist. Swung it back and, then, upward with all the might he could muster and dropped the guy where he stood.

  Just one shot. That was all it took. But it wasn't just any shot. It was a savage uppercut straight to the guy's mouth and nose.

  Beck's fist smashed his teeth and shattered his nose. His face felt like it had been blasted by a sledgehammer. His mask crumpled and his head snapped back. His legs whipped up from underneath his body and he flopped backward. The machete fell from his grip, landing silently on the white powdery snow, smearing it red and orange with blood, as the back of his head smashed hard off the frozen curb. He died on impact. A broken nose and jaw, a fractured skull and a trauma to the brain.

  Beck steadied himself after the scuffle. He sucked quick, deep breaths of the icy air, while looking around and taking stalk of what had just happened, now temporarily feeling immune to the cold. His heart was pumping, the adrenaline howling through his body and the blood screaming through his arteries and veins.

  The female parking attendant was lying face down on the blood-soaked snow a few inches from his feet by the side of the car. Her killer was lying behind her. He was flat out on his back on the sidewalk, adjacent to the gap between the hood of the Buick and the trunk of the black Ford, facing up at the sky. His body was in the shape of an X with his arms and legs spread apart and fully extended and his head dangling over the curb. He wasn't moving. The machete was lying to his right on a blood-stained patch of snow.

  Shit, he thought. He just cut her throat like he was slicing a hock of ham. Right in front of my eyes. Shit. He looks dead. I just reacted like anyone would've. Only hit him once. But the back of his head hit the ground. Hard.

  The snow began to fall heavier, the two bodies and the machete quickly beginning to disappear underneath a thin blanket of frosty white snow. Figuring he was now standing right at the heart of a murder scene, one of the bodies a victim of his own fist, he realized he couldn't hang around, especially not when he had some place else to be. He couldn't afford to get caught up. Not tonight. He glanced around, making sure nobody else was on the street ahead of or behind him and looked up at the corners of the adjacent buildings for cameras facing onto the scene.

  There was nobody there and no visible cameras.

  He glanced down at the bodies once more. And that was when he noticed the brown paper bag. It was lying on the snow, on the road, tucked in by the white, glistening curb just behind the back left wheel of the black Ford, lying a paces beyond the guy’s dead body. Still in a state of fight or flight and not thinking straight, he wondered what it was. He stepped forward and leaned down and lifted it up.

  It felt light, but full. The paper scrunched in his grip. He heard the sound of coins jingling inside. Then, remembered the guy holding it when he came out of the liquor store. That was when he realized what it was. He opened it up and glanced inside.

  It was stuffed with exactly what he thought. Money. Just as he had anticipated. Notes and coins of varying sizes and denominations. All shoved in. Tens, twenties and fifties at the top; quarters, nickels and dimes at the bottom. All in all, maybe three thousand dollars worth of money. Money that was, most likely, from the cash register of the liquor store.

  Thinking that nobody had saw a thing and that it was unlikely that there would be anybody still alive who would miss it, going by the fact the guy had come out the liquor store with the blood-stained blade and nobody had ran out after him, he grinned and unbuttoned his coat. He stuffed the brown paper bag inside, wedging it against his chest, then quickly re-buttoned his coat and moved to walk away. But that was when he heard the crunching sound of footsteps in the snow and the sound of a woman's voice shouting toward him from the other side of the Ford and the Buick.

  "Hey, what's going on over there?" she called.

  He froze on the spot. His heart sank. His insides throbbed. Who was it? What had she saw? Those were the questions that shot through his mind seconds before he turned his head and looked over the Ford's roof.

  There was a woman coming toward him, walking across the street from what looked like a salon on the other side of the road. It was the only establishment that was lit, that looked open. It had a large frosted glass window and a frosted glass door. The sign above both was white with gold writing that said: Angel’s.

  The woman was was tall and slim, maybe five-ten, with blonde hair. She was wearing black Chelsea boots with smart dark pants and a white parka jacket with a black fur-lined hood. It was fully zipped with the hood up over her head. She was holding what looked like a cell phone in her right hand. A white smartphone, as far as he could tell through the white-out of snow.

  "What just happened over there?" she called, stepping closer, taking slow, steady steps through the snow, looking awkward in her heels, careful not to slip or topple over.

  At first, he said nothing. He just stared at her through the blizzard. Thinking. Wondering what she might have seen, worrying about whether or not she saw him lift the brown paper bag of cash. He stepped back down the side of the Buick.

  "Hello?" she called, still walking his way, having crossed the street, now only maybe ten or fifteen paces away. "Can you hear me? What's going on over there?"

  Her face came to the forefront from underneath the white blanket of the blizzard. Her features were small and her skin looked soft. Her eyes were big and brown and appeared to be glowing with life. Her eyelids were tinted with a dark, smoky eye shadow. And her cheeks looked lightly touched with blusher. They were razor sharp, almost like they could be used grate cheese. Her face was striking. And tanned. She was beautiful.

  "Hello?" she called, again, her voice louder than before.

  "I can hear you," he answered, finally, turning around to face her.

  "What's going on?"

  "There's been a murder."

  "Wait. What?" said asked, stopping where she stood, about five paces away on the other side of the Buick.

  He nodded. "Somebody just killed a parking attendant. He came out of the liquor store behind me. Killed her right in front of me."

  "What," she said and stepped closer, but stopped after taking just two steps, now standing by the trunk of the Buick, the woman's body and the crimson patch of snow around her head visible around the side of the car. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Oh, Jesus. What the hell?"

 
Beck nodded, slowly. He pointed to the guy in the ski mask, then at the liquor store. "Yeah. Like I said. This guy just killed her. He came out of the liquor store with a machete. She was ticketing his car. He grabbed a hold of her head and cut her throat."

  The woman said nothing. She stepped forward and looked over the trunk of the car. She saw the guy Beck was talking about lying there on the snow beyond the woman. He was in the shape of an X, a white frosty covering over his body. Then, she saw the machete. It was also lightly covered. She made out the shape of its blade and saw the slick of red underneath the freshly fallen snow. She looked back at the dead parking attendant and, then, at Beck, a mix of shock and questions burning in her big brown eyes.

  "I saw it. It all happened right in front of me," he said.

  She flicked her eyes back to the guy lying on his back on the snow and took a light breath, then looked at the parking attendant and, then, back at Beck. "You said he killed her?”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Then, what happened to him?"

  "He was standing right in front of me with the machete in his hand. I thought I was going to be next, so I just reacted. I hit him."

  She flicked her eyes back to the guy and nodded, slowly. "He isn't moving. Is he..."

  Beck nodded.

  "Oh, Jesus. I'm calling nine-one-one."

  Beck's eyes widened. He couldn't let that happen. He shook his head. "No. You can’t do that. There's nothing they can do."

  She looked back at him, curiously. "What? What do you mean by can’t? How is there nothing they can do?"

  He wiped the snow from the left side of his face and pointed to the parking attendant. "Well, she's dead already. There's nothing they can do to save her." He paused and pointed to the guy. "And so is he. So, they can't damn well come and arrest him. They come out here, all they're going to find is two dead bodies and a machete lying by the side of the road."