Carl and Rambis were taken aside by the police for questioning. The police said they received information that two people had found stolen items in the storage unit they had won.
Carl was fuming—he wanted to pull someone into the hot water as well and shouted, "Not only do our units contain stolen goods, that Chinese guy's unit has them as well!"
Facing the questioning look from the police, Li Du calmly replied, "I give up the ownership of this unit. You can seize it—I'll fully cooperate with the police."
The unit is full of trash anyway, he thought, it will be better if the police are willing to take it over.
Li's cooperative attitude sat nicely with the police, but it was impossible for them to seize and confiscate storage units without court approval.
But when the police investigated the identity of the lessee, they confirmed the units had belonged to a lessee who was a thief that had been caught. They had reasons to suspect that the units might have been used to hide the stolen items.
The two police officers were at a loss. They did not know what to do.
Li Du advised the officers, "Maybe you can do this: you apply for the unit seizure first, followed by conducting a search of the units. If stolen goods are found, you confiscate them. If there aren't any stolen goods, then you return the unit."
A tough-looking black police officer's eyes lit up and said, "Good idea, we'll immediately apply for the seizure papers."
Carl became agitated and shouted, "No, we only have the rights to the units for 24 hours. Your seizure has to be shorter than 24 hours!"
He could not bear to give up the Spirit of Ecstasy ornament when he saw Li Du's full cooperation with the police. It made him believe that the hood ornament was inside his units, and he did not want it confiscated.
However the police did not bother with his protests; they called back to the station to get their colleagues to help communicate and get the seizure papers approved by the court. They sealed the units on the spot.
Carl went to talk to the storage company personnel and asked anxiously, "Hey friend, the units have been seized by the police, what should we do?"
The sales manager of the storage company looked rigid and had a businesslike expression. "The unit now belongs to you," replied the manager. "You have to negotiate with the police."
Carl said helplessly, "That d*mn yellow skin caused this! Friend, I want to ask for an extension of the unit recovery time."
The sales manager declined immediately: "I'm sorry, this is not allowed. According to the rules, the storage units have to be recovered by the company after 24 hours."
Carl yelled in anger, "But the units are sealed, we can't get anything out of them!"
The manager spread out his hands helplessly. "I sympathize with you very much, but I have to follow the rules and policies. May God bless you!"
Carl was desperate, he was in trouble: he had paid for three storage units and he could get nothing out of them. He could not even get the trash inside, let alone the Spirit of Ecstasy!
The storage company had previously been unaware of the existence of the Spirit of Ecstasy. The manager had flatly refused Carl's request for a time extension because the company wanted to try their luck to see if they had a chance to get the hood ornament.
Needless to say, Carl was a formidable treasure hunter in regards to information.
He had secretly found information about the owner of the storage units, then analyzed what the owner did in the past to estimate the type and identity of goods in the units.
Every treasure hunter who had a firm foothold in the storage auction industry was unique. Hans, for example, was familiar with the geography and customs of the United States, and his judgment was pretty good. But he was just average in the industry.
Not that he was incompetent, but the opponents were too strong!
The sales manager had hoped that the police would be unable to find the Spirit of Ecstasy statue in the storage units so that when the seizure expired, he could bring people in to search.
Carl was so overwhelmed by his loss that he stormed away to find Li Du and shouted, "Hey, jerk, look what you've done!"
Li Du gave him a cold glance and said, "What have we done? We cooperated with the police investigation, which is what good citizens should do, isn't it?"
Carl said with great resentment, "What f*cking good citizen? My units, my hood ornament—it's all gone because of you!"
Li Du replied, "Can you really blame me?"
"You gave the police the f*cking idea!" Carl was going crazy.
Li Du reasoned, "Yeah but why did I advise the police? Because they were going to take me away for an investigation. And why did the police want to take me away? Because an idiot reported me!"
Those words left Carl speechless; his lips twitched, his hands trembled, and he almost fainted with anger.
The surrounding treasure hunters gloated:
"Carl, this is your own doing. You should not have reported Big Li."
"He shouldn't have gone against Big Li. Ever since Big Li entered this industry, who has ever managed to deceive him?"
"This fella is formidable and powerful—don't mess with him. My brothers, he can't be messed with!"
Li Du and Hans left the place. There was nothing else they needed to do there.
Hans gave Li Du a thumbs-up. "Those people are right: you can't be messed with. You're too bad*ss, bud."
Li Du shrugged. "I have a saying back at home: 'If others leave me alone, I'll leave them alone, but the ones who mess with me will pay, no matter where they are!'"
It was not his concern whether Carl and Rambis made or lost money. He was only concerned with earning money from storage auctions.
The rest of the unit contained only trash, which was troublesome to deal with. Not only would Godzilla and Big Quinn need to move the trash, but they would also need to go to the dump.
Sending trash to the dump require a sum of money as well.
Moreover, the Iron Knight's trailer was just not big enough. The amount of trash in the unit was monstrous. If it filled up all the space in the Iron Knight, and if they won some units in the Silent Auction, they would need to rent some trucks, which was another sum of money to fork out.
The units were now under the care of the police; when the seizure expired, the units would go back to the storage company, which didn't need to involve them. To them, this incident had actually helped them save money and effort.
Looking at the distant view of Hellcat, a treasure hunter said in an envious tone, "Big Li and Big Fox must have made lots of money. They just bought the Iron Knight recently and now they bought the Hellcat. How much is that?"
"They're in the Hundred Thousand Club now. The money to buy those vehicles is just a small amount to them."
"That's too powerful. I'm really envious of them."
Rambis cautiously looked over at Carl. "Bro, what do we do now?"
Carl stared at him, his eyes burning with fury. "You still have the nerve to ask me?! This is all because of you, and you ask me what to do? If it weren't for you shooting your mouth off... d*mn it! D*mn it!"
He was too angry to say another word.
What Li Du and Hans had heard was correct. Both of them had left Arizona for New Mexico.
They had come back because the four storage units that they had been keeping tabs on would be auctioned off. They had wanted to make a sum of money by keeping it on the down-low.
In the end, they didn't earn any money but instead spent a few thousand dollars bidding for the units. In addition, there were the toll charges, and the amount of time they had spent getting here, which was a considerable amount as well.
Carl's heart ached at that thought. He really couldn't take it lying down and bellowed, "We can't just let them off like that—we have to find someone to teach these two sons of b*tches a lesson!"
"They have a very strong mover." Rambis touched his ribs, and his body seemed to ache at the thought of the thugs they had sought last time mercilessly beating him up.
Carl curled his lips into a sneer. "It doesn't matter. There's only one mover. This time, we'll find those who are fearless!"