Read Detroit Combat for Free Online Page A

paternal IRS man. He would accuse people of tax fraud—everyone thinks they’re guilty of tax fraud—and then he would pretend to be sympathetic about their circumstances. For a cash contribution to his favorite charity—himself—Goldblatz would agree to overlook their offense. It was a good racket, because he made the people he conned believe that, by bribing him, they had become accessories to a crime. And they sure as hell weren’t going to turn themselves in.”
    â€œPretty smart.”
    â€œOh, yeah, he was shrewd. But, like I said, he was real slime.”
    â€œThere are a lot of con men around, Paul.”
    â€œNot like Goldblatz. He was not only a con man, he was a kink. One of the real sickos.”
    â€œYou’re telling me? I saw the bastard in action.”
    â€œBut you didn’t see him in high gear. Goldblatz had been directing porno movies for years. He liked rough stuff. It helped him get his rocks off. But he liked something a lot more than violence.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah. Goldblatz was a child molester, Hawk. Calling him a rapist would be more accurate. He was never sent up for it, but he was arrested three times. Twice the parents of the children refused to allow their kids to testify. The third time, the kid went into a catatonic retreat, like a zombie, and there were no other witnesses. Goldblatz’s defense attorney tore the case to shreds in the chambers. Goldblatz never even spent a day in court, let alone jail.”
    â€œI’m suddenly real sorry I wasn’t the one who blew him away. I had the chance. I decided to give him a break. And I’m real sorry I didn’t take care of his friends too. I’ve met a lot of twisted folks in my time, but these people were beyond belief. We’re talking certifiable. Did you get a make on any of them?”
    â€œNo. Wish we had. They had cleared out by the time we got our people there. They took everything that might have given us some clue to their identity. All they left was a couple of empty beds, some movie lights, and Goldblatz’s corpse. We’ve had the place dusted for prints. But so far Goldblatz is the only one we have on record. I’m surprised they had time to get the cameras out. We got there quick.”
    â€œThey seemed to be pretty well organized. But then, most big-profit crime is well organized. Did your people find out anything about this woman called Queen Faith?”
    McCarthy swirled his glass of scotch; the amber liquid became a violent whirlpool. “First of all, I’d heard her name before you mentioned it to me. As you know, Detective White and I and some others have been working on this case for the last six months in our spare time. All we knew was that women from the suburb of Marlow West were disappearing—we had no idea where they were being taken or why. For all we knew, a serial murderer was at work. So, to give ourselves an efficient modus operandi, we came up with a variety of motives for why someone would want to undertake a fairly large-scale kidnapping operation. By narrowing down those motives, we could make our investigation more efficient …” McCarthy chuckled and sipped his drink. “… and that’s real important when you’re doing that investigating on your days off.”
    â€œIt sounds to me like Detroit has its share of very smart and very dedicated cops, Detective McCarthy.”
    â€œThere’s no amount of flattery that’s going to make me pick up the check tonight.”
    â€œI had to try.”
    Both men laughed. “Okay,” McCarthy continued, “where was I? Oh, yeah: how I heard about this creature known as Queen Faith. One of the motives we came up with was kidnapping for the purposes of forced participation in pornography. Of course, until you stumbled on Brenda Paulie, Hawk, we had no idea that that is what they were doing. Anyway, Detective White and I checked