“Tomorrow is tomorrow. Let’s just take it one step at a time. First, we have to survive this night. That includes you.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“Wherever I have to.”

Olivia nodded. Clearly, Beck was keeping information from her. Was it because he no longer trusted her? Or because he just didn’t have the time to explain things?

It didn’t matter. It sounded like he was getting her out of harm’s way just for tonight. She could deal with that. If she was back tomorrow, she could make this work. She decided to push a little.

“I need to be back here before the market opens tomorrow, James.”

“I understand,” he answered.

He hadn’t quite agreed, but it was the best she was going to get. If she had to, she’d somehow convince Beck. She wasn’t going to lose now.

Just then, Demarco Jones appeared on the second floor, in his usual manner, suddenly, almost as if he’d been there all along.

Beck looked in his direction. Demarco gave him an almost imperceptible shake of his head and sat down on one of the couches at the far end of the loft.

Beck told Olivia, “Better get back on the Crane watch, okay?”

“Sure.”

She headed off to the other end of the loft. Beck went over and joined Demarco.

“Those guys never showed?”

“No. At least not anywhere near where I was watching for them.”

“You check out Kolenka’s building? You cruise by before you came home?”

“Absolutely. And around. And behind. He’s in there. Saw two SUVs outside. Couple of big bodies in the lobby. Has to be more inside. He’s getting ready to make a move.”

“It’ll be tonight.”

“Yep,” said Demarco.

“Get something to eat. And get some sleep if you can.”

Demarco stood up and headed for the dining table. Manny had already put down a plate of food for him.

Beck left Demarco to his steak and headed downstairs. As he walked, he dialed Ricky Bolo’s number.

“Anything?”

“Yeah. We just got down here. I haven’t seen those guys, but the blue Taurus you described is parked over on West Street. So it looks like they are up there with your boyfriend Crane. Unless they know somebody else in this nabe.”

“Pearce ended up home?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. See you at ten o’clock.”

58

Beck shoved his phone in his pocket and continued through the front bar and down the stairs leading into the cellar. He went through the same routine he had before. Walking to the back, moving the shelves, carefully sliding back the plastered plywood cover, and walking through to the basement of the building next door.

As he passed through the opening in the wall, the smell of body odor was palpable. The darkness still impenetrable.

Even though it was cool in the basement, and it had only been about twenty-four hours, his prisoner had started to stink from worry and tension.

Beck stood at the doorway, motionless, waiting in the dark for any sound that his prisoner was awake and moving.

He’d picked up a Maglite they kept hanging on the wall near the entrance and turned it on, aiming it at the floor so he could follow the circle of illumination and still remain concealed by the darkness.

When he arrived at the cell, Beck stopped about five feet away from the iron bars. Slowly he aimed the beam of light into Ahmet Sukol’s small prison cell. He carefully moved the bright light toward the bunk where Sukol lay, and shined the beam on his face.

If Sukol had been sleeping, he wasn’t now. He immediately covered his eyes with the crook of his arm.

Beck waited. And waited.

Finally Sukol broke and said, “I need food. Or are you going to starve me?”

His voice sounded raspy, and he seemed to be slightly out of breath. Like he’d spent a few hours shouting for help. He spoke with a Slavic accent, but his English was good enough to make Beck think he had been in the U.S. for a long time.

“So far, that’s the plan,” said Beck.

“What?”

“Just let you starve to death.”

“You are serious?”

“Of course I’m serious. The easiest thing is to just leave you here in the dark and let what happens, happen.”

“Why not just shoot me?”

“I’m not going to splatter blood all over the place. You can’t believe how hard it is to get all the traces of blood out of a porous surface like that concrete block wall, or the floor. Much easier if I just let you wither away in the dark and die. Then all I have to do is get rid of your body. Plus, by then there’ll be a lot less fat on you.”

Sukol cursed quietly in a Slavic language Beck didn’t understand, and didn’t take much notice of. Beck continued speaking as if talking to himself as much as to the prisoner.

“Not that getting rid of a grown man is all that easy.”

Beck swung the light away from Sukol’s face and aimed it at the large commercial meat grinder in the opposite corner.

“That thing helps. It can grind up a body in about fifteen minutes. I mean, first we have to cut you into pieces, which is a lot more difficult than most imagine. Takes about half an hour. That’s with two guys. We use hacksaws. We don’t use the circular saw on that rack. That thing throws shit everywhere. Blood and bone and flesh. Cleaning that up is impossible.

“We do it by hand. First the arms, they’re pretty easy. Just have to get through the shoulder joints. Then your head. Easy. Legs are a bitch. Big bones up near the hip sockets. Then we still have to cut them at the knee joints. Not easy.

“Then the fucking torso. That’s the hardest part. That’s when you’re tempted to use the electric saw. Got to cut it in sections. All those ribs and the spine, and all the fucking intestines and big organs. But once that’s done, the hard part is over. That damn grinder goes through everything fast: bones, meat, everything. Made in China.”

Beck paused. Waiting to see if the prisoner said anything, but Sukol remained silent, which was fine with Beck.

“We push the paste into heavy-duty twenty-five-pound plastic bags and feed it to a pack of dogs a crazy lady around here keeps. Big mongrels. Pit bulls. Shepherds. Rotties. All mixed up and inbred. Those dogs can eat a couple hundred pounds a week, easy. We burn the bags and you end up as big piles of dog shit.”

Beck paused. Letting the prisoner think about it.

“I suppose once you’re dead, you really don’t care how you end up. I wouldn’t. But some people don’t like the idea of the dogs.”

Beck paused again.

“I admit the dog thing is disgusting. And it takes time. We don’t give her everything at once. We want to make it look like we’ve accumulated restaurant scraps. So, we have to keep the bags in the walk-in refrigerator until she’s done. About three weeks.

“I sometimes wonder if that woman has figured it out. It’s not like we give her a steady supply.

“But like I said, she’s crazy. Nobody can figure out what she’s talking about half the time.”

Beck stopped talking for a while. Feeling the fatigue and stress of the last days coming over him. But he kept the Maglite shining on the meat grinder.

“Cleaning that grinder is no picnic. Doable, but has to be done right. Cold water first. Then laundry detergent. Then ammonia. Then bleach on the concrete surfaces. I think there’s some other stuff the guys use. Enzymes or something to break down the protein. Everything washes down the drain, then we pour a bunch of bleach in the drain to get rid of any blood traces or scraps.

“We don’t keep the hacksaws. They end up in the bay.”

Beck paused, letting the circle of light from the Maglite rest on the floor drain.

“Doing it all down here is safer than hauling you out and dumping you someplace. A lot more work, but way more safe. No chance anybody sees us loading your body into the trunk of a car or something. Most important, zero chance anybody finds a body.”