I do a few more posts and reply to some others and then hand him back the phone. Maybe with Zander safe, I can take some chances. They’re not going to damage me permanently, I’m too valuable to them.
“I’ve used all the pictures,” I say. “We’ll have to go out to take some more.” I try to sound bored with the whole idea.
He puts the phone in his pocket and stands up.
Thank God that’s over. I won’t have to look at his face again until tomorrow.
But he doesn’t go.
He just stands there looking.
He smiles.
In a blur, one hand darts out and grabs my hair. I feel his other hand snatch the towel from my body.
He throws me backwards onto the bed and, as I try to cover myself with my hands, the look on his face tells me this is going to be bad.
29
Adry
There’s a big smile on Nick’s face as I walk into the office. I grin. “Your romantic dinner with Stewart must have gone well,” I say. He grunts and looks embarrassed. I love it.
Lucy is making coffee in the kitchen area. She sings, “Dad and Stewie, sitting in a tree. K I S S I—ˮ
“Alright you guys. If you must know, Stewart solved the Pridmore mystery.” He reacts to our shocked faces by looking smug.
“What?”
“How?”
“Listen and learn,” he says. He just sits there with a smile on his face. It’s his turn to tease us. Finally he says, “It’s just good old-fashioned logic. We’re being scammed and Marly’s being scammed. Both at the same time. Right?”
He’s making us work at it. “Right,” we say in unison.
“The only person who holds a grudge against both of us is Bob Pridmore. Right?”
“Cut to the chase Dad,” Lucy complains.
He laughs. “Pridmore’s old receptionist gives us an address where we can find him. We go there and we find a pathetic drunk who couldn’t plan a piss-up in a brewery.” He looks from one of us to the other. “Therefore…”
“It’s not Bob Pridmore who’s scamming us?” Lucy asks.
“Oh, it’s Pridmore who’s scamming us,” he says.
Then I get it.
“That wasn’t Big Bob we talked to yesterday morning,” I yell.
“Bingo! Last night Stewart showed me a picture of him and his brother. They were like two peas in a pod. That’s when it clicked. The old drunk was Bob’s brother. He sure as hell fooled me until I did some research. His name’s Jeff Pridmore; him and Bob are twins. The mistake we made was when we first suspected Big Bob was behind it all, we didn’t look into what Bob is up to these days. If we had, we would have been ahead of the game.”
“But the receptionist said—ˮ I cut myself off in mid-sentence. “Bob knew we’d suspect him, and that we’d go to his old office to confront him. He must have got her to give us the brother’s address to throw us off the scent.”
Nick nods. “He probably gave his brother a crate of Scotch to get him to go along with it.”
“Sneaky son of a…” I exhale.
Lucy puts coffee in front of us, together with the obligatory plate of chocolate digestives. I swear I’m putting on weight working here. “Was the receptionist lying about him being disbarred too?” I ask around a chocolaty mouthful.
“No,” he says and turns his computer monitor around so we can see it.
It’s a website, all very modern and professional-looking. The company name is Erom Investments Inc. Nick clicks his mouse and there, on the page headed 'Our Team’, is a picture of Bob. I lean forward to squint at the bio. There are a lot of very impressive words in it but lawyer is not among them.
“So we know what he’s doing with the money he scammed from Marly,” I say.
“I guess,” Nick says. “I looked at the website in detail. Part of it is a pitch to companies who are looking for investors and part of it is a pitch to high-net-worth individuals to get them to invest in Erom. I think he has his sights set on bigger money than just the five mil he took from Marly Summers.”
“Is there a company address on the website?” I ask.
“Yep. He’s in Park Place.”
I whistle softly. Park Place is a big step up from his old office.
“Are you guys going to go see him?” Lucy asks.
“Maybe,” Nick says, then adds, “I did some other digging.” He waits with a smile on his face. We both look at him expectantly and he waits until I open my mouth to ask him. He laughs, “Big Bob defended a gang-banger name of Guy Chang. Guess who his boss was?”
Lucy gets it first. “The guy in Millhaven prison who hates Cal and you?”
He nods. “George Walsh. Guy Chang was a big man in his gang. I bet Walsh got his guys to supply Big Bob with the drugs to plant on us. That amount of drugs is penny-ante change to him. He’d be happy to drop a quarter of a million bucks of bad shit on us if it got Rogan into prison. And if they sent Rogan to Millhaven, Walsh would see him dead on his first day there.”
There’s a moment of silence while we absorb it all.
“The point is,” I say, voicing what they must be thinking, “how are we going to prove to the VPD that Big Bob was the one who planted the stuff on us?”
We all lapse into silence again and I take another cookie. My own words have reminded me that if we can’t prove it, this company could be over and Nick and Cal could even end up in jail. The next crime they solve might be who killed who in the prison yard. It must be burning Nick up. Life in prison in a wheelchair doesn’t bear thinking about but I still think about it and I can feel a tear starting to form.
My phone pings.
I quickly brush at my eye and focus on the screen. “There’s an Instagram post from Zelena.” I click through her posts until I get to the reply to Matt Standing. “She says, 'I’m really moved.’ She must be telling us she’s been moved to a new location.”
“We already knew from Cal’s email last night.”
“Has anyone heard from Cal this morning?” I ask.
“No, I’ve been trying to get him every half hour since six o’clock this morning.” Nick pulls out his phone, taps away and I hear the FaceTime ring. It continues for thirty seconds with no response. “Not a good time to flake out on us Rogan,” he grunts, but he’s looking really worried.
I think about Cal’s email. “At least the Gutkowskis got their son back,” I say.
“Yes,” Nick says. “It means I can bill them a progress payment.”
Lucy chuckles and says, “Sometimes I think all you care about is billi—ˮ The look on Nick’s face stops her in her tracks.
“Progress payment,” he repeats, half to himself.
“What?” I ask.
He doesn’t look worried any more, in fact he’s smiling. It’s that smile he gives when he’s got a bad-ass idea. It’s a bit scary but it’s good.
“What?” I say again.
“I know how to solve Marly’s problem with Big Bob and, more to the point, ours too.”
“How?” I ask.
He doesn’t speak but his smile just gets broader.
This time I didn’t have to spar with the receptionist to get to see the real Connor McCoy. Nick and I are sitting in his office enjoying a cup of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted. Nick has explained to him how his brother Roland helped to swindle five million dollars of Marly Summers’ money and how he transported a quarter of a million bucks worth of heroin to our office.
Connor’s face has gone from shocked to appalled to mortified in the space of five minutes.
“I am so sorry, Mr. Stammo,” he says. “Roland has always been one to take the easy way through life and he’s had a couple of minor brushes with the law but this…” He looks really down. “I suppose you’ll have to take it to the police. What’s going to happen to him?”
Nick shrugs. “Well, there’ll be fraud charges of course, transportation of a controlled substance, blackmail maybe. He will definitely face some serious jail time if
convicted.”
Connor puts his hands up and massages his face. “It’ll kill our parents,” he sighs. “Why would he do something like this?”
“He got involved with a couple of bad guys.”
Nick stops and waits. I feel a strong desire to fill the silence but Nick warned me in advance not to say anything. Connor looks from Nick to me and back again and I feel really sorry for the guy but I still keep quiet. I don’t even show him any sympathy in my expression.
“I suppose I’d better get a lawyer for him. I don’t know any criminal lawyers. Is there someone you could recommend?”
Nick waits a beat. He looks off into the distance and grunts “Huh” like he just thought of something. He looks Connor in the face. “You know what,” he says, “maybe, with your help, there’s a way to keep Roland’s name out of all this.”
“I’ll do anything. Anything Mr. Stammo,” Connor almost pleads.
If Nick hadn’t been a cop, he’d have made one hell of a con man.
“Let me run this idea by you,” he says.
Connor McCoy may be CEO of Dark Energy Systems and a powerful man in the world of high tech but Nick has him in the palm of his hand.
Nick thinks Arnold Young may be a harder nut to crack. I’d never heard of him before today. He’s a big-time investor who manages the estate of a rich Vancouver businessman named Wallace and he has referred quite a few rich clients to Stammo Rogan Investigations. Apparently, he also manages a trust fund for Cal. Mr. Wallace set it up for Cal before he died. I’ll bet there’s an interesting story how that all came about. Nick has given me strict instructions not to mention anything about Cal’s drug relapse a year ago after Em’s death. He explained it’s a condition of the trust fund that Cal doesn’t use.
As he strides into the reception area to greet us, the first word that comes into my mind is soldier. He moves like an officer on a parade ground. I was a military brat growing up and would recognize that walk anywhere.
“Mr. Stammo,” he says. “A pleasure to see you again.” He has what sounds to me like an upper-class British accent. He shakes Nick’s hand and they hold on quite a while with eyes locked like there’s some form of contest going on. Finally they let go.
“Thanks for seeing us at such short notice,” Nick says. Arnold just nods, so Nick introduces me.
“Good afternoon Ms. Locke, I’m pleased to meet you.” He extends his hand and I prepare for a vice-grip, but his shake is firm without being painful.
“Pleased to meet you too sir,” I say.
“Please, call me Arnold, everyone does.” Nick also told me he would say that but that I shouldn’t do as suggested.
He leads us down a short corridor to his office. Unlike at Connor McCoy’s office, there is no offer of coffee.
“So what can I do for you Mr. Stammo?” He gets straight down to business.
“About a year ago you referred Marly Summers to us,” Nick says.
“Yes, yes, I remember. Shocking business,” Young says, shaking his head. The first two words come out as 'ers, ers’. Definitely upper-class Brit.
“Ms. Summers has engaged our services again. Her former lawyer has swindled her out of five million dollars.”
His bushy eyebrows go up. “Who’s the lawyer?” he asks.
“A slime bucket named Bob Pridmore.”
“Aaaah. Robert Pridmore Esq. Yes, we’ve met.” From his tone, it was clearly not a good meeting. Good news for us.
“We have come up with a plan to get her money back but in order to do it we are going to need your help.”
“Really?” He thinks it over for a bit. “The late Mr. Wallace had a very satisfactory business relationship with the Summers family, although I do understand that Ms. Summers doesn’t have any contact with Luke Summers, her former brother-in-law.” He intones it to sound like a question but Nick doesn’t rise to the bait.
Young looks off and absently taps his finger on the desk. Tap tap-tap, tap tap-tap, tap tap-tap. There’s some sort of calculation going on in his head. Finally he speaks. “Well… Damsel in distress and all that. What can I do to help Mr. Stammo?”
“Pridmore has started a company called Erom Investments Inc.”
“Never heard of it,” Young grunts.
“I suspect he used the money he conned from Ms. Summers to start it.”
“Huh,” he grunts again.
Nick takes a big breath. “I want you to invest ten million dollars in Erom.”
The eyebrows go through the roof this time.
Talk about getting someone’s undivided attention.
“Do you think it will work Nick?” I ask when the elevator doors are closed behind us.
“If Bob Pridmore’s as greedy as I think he is, he’ll go for it like a seagull at a landfill.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m always right,” he says with a chuckle. “Just ask Rogan.”
The elevator doors open into the parkade. “I’m worried we haven’t heard from Cal,” I say.
“Yeah, I’m a bit pissed off at him. What’s the time?”
I check my watch. It’s a simple thing but I realize it’s something he can’t do while he’s wheeling his chair. “Three-thirty.”
“That’s six-thirty tomorrow morning in Hong Kong. Why don’t you call him.”
I pull out my phone while he operates the lift on his truck. Yesterday, we caught Cal in the shower but today it just rings. It’s not like Cal. I google the Kerry Hotel and get the number. They put me through to his room but it also just rings. I leave a message.
As I climb into Nick’s truck, I get a sinking feeling in my gut.
Something’s not right.
30
Cal
Wednesday
One question pushes its way through the throbbing in my head: how come I’m still alive? It spawns a second one: for how much longer? I force my eyes open. I’m in a room. It’s small. A bit like a hotel room. It’s not fully light, maybe six or seven in the morning. Unless it’s evening and I’ve been unconscious for what... twenty hours? I’m on a bed. It’s clean. It smells nice. A woman’s smell. It reminds me of Tina. I should have gone back to Vancouver when her parents took her back. I feel an overwhelming desire to see her and talk to her and tell her I love her.
“You had a chance to leave Hong Kong.” It feels like he’s reading my thoughts. I try to roll over and face the speaker but my wrist is handcuffed to the bed post. He walks round the bed and into my line of sight. It’s Leo. He smiles, but not in a nice way. “You are dead man now,” he says in his accented English. “Understand?” I do, so I nod. “Good. You can die easy or die hard.” His dead eyes bore into mine but I won’t give him the satisfaction of responding. I stare back. “Only one reason you still alive. One question. Answer question, you die easy. No answer, you die hard.” He sounds like he’s watched too many bad movies. I suppress an insane desire to laugh.
“What’s your question Leo?” I ask.
“How you know we at one-oh-five Temple Street?”
Any desire to laugh drains out of me. If I tell him we’ve been communicating with Zelena via Instagram and that she told us, God knows what he’ll do to her. I rack my brain for an answer, any answer. Nothing comes and he sees my hesitation. He smiles again, reaches down and takes my hand in his. It’s the hand he smashed with the blunt edge of a meat cleaver two nights ago.
“Last chance,” he says.
What can I tell him? The truth will probably be a death sentence for Zelena and for me. There must be some credible lie I can concoct.
I scream in pain as he crushes my hand in his. Bolts of electricity course up and down my arm between hand and brain. I scream again as he bears down and grinds the broken bones together. It feels like my hand has been pierced by knives. It reminds me of… “Henry Wang!” I shriek.
He lets go of my hand. Through my whimpering, I think about the other private detective hired by Aleksander: garrotted and with knives through
the backs of his hands, maggots feasting on him. It’s probably the fate that awaits me.
“What you mean Henry Wang?” Leo asks.
For a lie to be convincing it has to be embedded in truth. “I went to Aleksander Gutkowski’s hotel and went through his suitcases. I found a notebook. It mentioned a private detective, a Mr. Henry Wang.” Now for the lie. “Underneath Mr. Wang’s name and address it said 'Temple Market. 105,’” and back to the truth. “I went to Mr. Wang’s office to find out more but he was dead.”
He takes out his phone. “Which hotel?” he asks.
“The Hilton.” He nods and makes a call. Through the stream of Cantonese I recognize two words: Rogan and Hilton. He’s getting one of his thugs to check with the Hilton, to check I’m telling the truth. Good. He makes a second call. This time the words I recognize are Rogan and Wang. This call is probably to his tame cop Inspector Ho to verify I was at the crime scene. He’s showing no sign of spotting the big weakness in my story: the timing. If he asks me why I waited four days between— Oh crap. I told Ho about our communications with Zelena. If he tells them, we’re sunk.
He puts his phone away and takes a seat near the door.
We wait.
And in the silence the Bard’s word provide no comfort.
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell.
And I worry.
But the wait is not long. The door opens and two very large men walk in. One is large from long hours of dedicated labour in the gym with a stiff cocktail of steroids to top it off. The other is large from long hours of dedicated labour at the dinner table with probably several stiff cocktails to top it off. They confer quietly with Leo and he gives them their orders.
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set) Page 67