“Jesus wept,” Dean said bitterly in my ear.
“You’re looking at some serious trouble right now, Terrell,” Aston said.
“Get the fuck out of there,” Dean told me.
“I can’t just leave.”
“Really?” Dean shouted at me. “Did you try asking that?”
I looked at Aston.
“Can I go now?”
“I don’t think you understand the gravity of your situation, Terrell,” Aston said. “Let me spell it out for you and your lawyer again.”
“Can you go, yes or no?” Dean said. “Ask him, for God’s sake.”
“Yes or no?” I said.
“You can go when we say you can go,” Aston said.
“Okay,” Dean said. “Terrell, from now on, the only sentence that leaves your mouth, the only sentence, is ‘can I go now.’ Understood? Not one other word. Not if he says, just tell me this one thing, not if he says, you need to just fill out this one form, not ever. Okay? Keep your teeth pressed together unless you are asking him if you can go. Understand?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Now give him the phone. If he hangs up, remember what I told you.”
I passed the phone to Aston, who was now smiling like the cat that got the canary. “Dean-o,” he said. Then he waited for a while. “Well, can’t blame me for trying, can you?” Another pause. “Well, I guess that will be for a court to decide. Usually, they don’t blame me for trying either.” Now just a brief hesitation. “You have a nice day.” He hung up.
For a while we looked at each other, and I could tell he was gauging how much more he could get away with.
“Let me just ask you one more thing,” he said. “And then I’ll let you go. What’s the deal with this lockout talk?”
I said nothing.
“Come on now. How do you think this is going to end? You think with all the evidence we’ve got on you, you’re just going to walk away? Terrell, I think you’re just a pawn in all of this. I really do. I think you’re taking orders from your lawyer buddy. I think he treats you like you’re stupid. Well, you know what? Maybe he’s right. Because you’re the one holding the bag here, Terrell. Not him. You’re the one we’ve got the dirt on. And is Dean really looking out for you? Or is he looking out for himself, or for some other people that I don’t know about? Does keeping quiet protect you, or them? Hmm? You start talking now, and we can go easy on you. You clam up, well, the hammer will fall on whoever the hammer can reach. And from where I’m sitting, the closest one is you.”
He might have had me if he’d started with that tack. But I was pissed at him for tricking me. I was as embarrassed as fuck, to tell you the truth. So I heeded Dean’s commandment and said: “Can I go now?”
“Sure you can,” Aston said. “You always could. Have a nice night.”
35
I stood at the corner outside, wondering how I was going to get home, listening to the sounds of people laughing and drinking on the patio across the street. A queasy feeling, like a snake coated in oil turning itself into a knot, was moving through my stomach. Part of me just wanted to take the subway home, but that would only be delaying the inevitable. I called Dean.
“Are you out?” he said.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Okay,” Dean said. “If you see him again, ask if you are under arrest. If so, ask what for. Then call me. All right?”
“I didn’t tell him anything,”
“I bet you told him more than you thought,” Dean said.
“No,” I said. “He asked me what I said to Ha and I wouldn’t tell him.”
“Oh really?” Dean said. “So I guess that means you told him you did visit Ha. That you did talk to him. Maybe even that Ha was yelling at you. Maybe even that it was for an investigation. Right?”
“He knew that already.”
“No,” Dean said. “He pretended like he knew, so you would confirm it.”
“Whatever,” I said. “That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Ha’s wife said Ha told her he was going out to meet me late at night. Why would he say that?”
Dean was losing his patience.
“Why would he say that? Gee, I don’t know. Maybe Aston lied to you. Did that ever occur to you?”
“Cops can’t lie to you.”
“For sure they can,” Dean said. “They do it all the time. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that they can keep pressuring you after you’ve expressed your desire to exercise your right to remain silent. They’ve ruled that confessions prompted by police lies are admissible. But they’ve also consistently ruled that an accused person’s decision to exercise their right to remain silent can’t be held against them in court. It can’t even be mentioned. Terrell, I told you that. Remember? Why didn’t you ask to call me as soon as they picked you up?”
“What the fuck man?” I said. “This is bullshit. It’s not my job to blow off the cops. All right? They’re trying to find out what happened to Ha. They’re the good guys! Why am I trying to hide shit from them, especially when I’ve got Desean following me around?”
“Because if we tell Aston what we know, he’s going to go pick up Vasily and try the same thing with him as he did with you. That’s his shtick and 90% of the time it works. It worked on you. But it won’t work on Vasily. He’ll clam up like nobody’s business. He won’t sit there sweating and making denials. And then he’ll walk out and he’ll be gone.”
“Is this about the girl?” I said.
“What?”
“It is, isn’t it? You want to keep Oksana out of it.”
“Sure,” Dean said. “That’s another thing.”
“Dean, why are you worrying about her more than me?”
There was a pause, and for a moment, I thought I’d gotten through to him. But when he spoke, his voice was strained, and I realized that he was just trying to gather himself:
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he said. “Have a good night.”
Then he hung up.
36
Tom the mercenary was late getting to the meeting, but I had the feeling he’d been watching us for some time. He ordered an herbal tea. I ordered a big fucking Latte, with caramel and chunks of salt. I had a vague sense that I’d earned it. Dean had a black coffee.
“So let me tell you how we can do this,” Dean said. “We’re more than happy to share what we know with you.”
At this I had to bite my tongue. I couldn’t believe we were working with this guy instead of the cops.
“But first you have to tell us what brings you here. Okay? Nothing about who employed you, or whatever, but we really need to know everything you know. Then we’ll do the same. Then maybe we’ll be able to help each other out a bit. I don’t think our goals are mutually exclusive.”
“You boys don’t want to get the police involved?” Tom asked.
“No, not yet,” Dean said. “I think this situation needs a bit of subtlety right now. I don’t want to warn off the people who are responsible for what we’re looking into.”
Tom looked at us carefully, smiling his little Mona Lisa smile.
“And,” Dean continued, “I don’t think your employer wants this shit in the papers either. Am I right?”
Tom didn’t answer that. Instead he said:
“Well, back in late July, I have reason to believe that CQC received a comic that had been very subtly and very thoroughly restored. We’re not talking just a little microtrimming. Someone had taken the item from about a 4.0 to a 9.2. Colored pencils, Japan tape, the whole works. Real professional job. It was the trimming that got caught. CQC has been very sensitive about that kind of thing since 2005.”
“Right,” Dean said.
“Of course, it’s not a crime to submit a restored book,” Tom continued. “The person submitting it might not know it’s restored, or might want it graded even if he does know, although the usual courtesy would be to let CQC know what you’re giving them. But like I said, this was a real profession
al job and so CQC made some routine inquiries of the account holder. The store clerk said he had no idea who submitted it. Never seen the kid before. Paid in cash. No driver’s licence. Phony name on the form.”
“So CQC took note,” Dean said.
“A couple of weeks ago, another restored book comes in,” Tom said. “Same thing. Microtrimming sets off the alarm. The rest of the book is completely redone, but so cleverly that it fooled one of the three graders, even though he was on the lookout for it. Consensus is: this comic was restored by the same individual as the first one. This eventually led to my visit to Peter at Paradise Comics. Peter said you were investigating the death of one of his customers. Boy by the name of Brucie Goldstein, who fit the description of the kid who submitted the first comic. Pete also told us that you submitted that comic immediately after buying it already sealed inside a CQC box.”
“Meaning that the comic had already fooled CQC once. So let me guess. The client hit the roof and you abandoned all subtlety.”
Tom smiled his prissy smile.
“Now tell me your side of the story,” he said, and took out a pad of paper upon which he was apparently going to take notes.
“Well, Brucie died on August 25 by falling off of a bridge,” Dean said. “We searched his room and we find two items of interest: an old-fashioned electronic tracking device and an empty CQC box.”
Dean set it down on the table. Tom checked it out, front and back.
“Detective Comics,” he said.
“Right,” Dean said. “And we ask ourselves: why would he take it out of the box? To resubmit it, we eventually decide. So we look around, we heard about how he submitted it, paid cash, gave a fake name. It came back restored. So we figured, he restored the comic, it didn’t work, he killed himself. Because he needed money, you see. He’d been seeing this Russian escort and he was in love with her and he’d run up a big bill on his credit card.”
Tom nodded.
“But something didn’t jive about that,” Dean said. “Because before he bought the comic, he’d provided Peter with a short list of comics, and we didn’t know why he was interested in those particular comics. And we started to think that maybe all the comics on the list had been submitted to CQC through a store called Over the Boards, a hockey memorabilia store that only had a CQC account for one year. The store is owned by a guy named Derek Ha.”
“Right,” Tom said.
“So what if he had, for some reason, been looking for comics in that particular store? Based on that assumption, we spent the money to buy another comic off Brucie’s list. We resubmitted it, it came back restored. And apparently, according to you, it came back restored the same way as Brucie’s comic.”
“So you think he bought the comic because he knew it was restored? And sent it back to CQC to prove it?” Tom said.
“It’s possible, yes.”
“Why do you think he did that?” Tom said.
“Blackmail,” Dean said.
“You think he was blackmailing Derek Ha?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Dean said. “We know for a fact that one day in August Brucie borrowed a car from his acquaintance of his, and did a quick switch in a parking garage, like he was trying to shake someone who was following him. Also, when Terrell visited Derek Ha to talk about this, Ha started freaking out, saying he couldn’t go through this again, and that we didn’t know what ‘these people’ were capable of. Then he clammed up. The next morning, Derek Ha is found dead after falling off a bridge. The cops picked up Terrell last night and tried to shake some information out of him. The detective let it slip that they’d found a note threatening Derek Ha. They accused Terrell of sending it. But I think that note was left over from the summer. I think Brucie might have sent it. So I had my firm do some property searches, and guess what came up? Derek Ha put a $250,000 mortgage on his house in mid-August. Right after Brucie found out the comic was restored.”
Dean waited for a moment while Tom took all that down.
“Interesting theory,” Tom said. “But how would Brucie have known the comic was restored?”
“Well,” Dean said. “I don’t know. But I spoke to Oksana last night.”
“This is the hooker?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “And here’s the scam she was running. This guy Vasily Bogdanov was one of her customers. On nights the kid wanted to see her, Vasily would hire her for her usual rate of $1,000. Then they would charge the kid $2,000 and split the difference between them. But the weird thing is, this Vasily guy is a Russian NHL agent, and he works with Over The Boards all the time. Getting them signed merchandise.”
Tom was taking notes furiously.
“So this guy Vasily is connected both with Over The Boards and with Brucie,” Dean said. “Our tentative theory is that Vasily was the one to submit the forged comics to CQC through Over The Boards. Then he let his little scam slip to Brucie, boasting about what a big deal he is. And Brucie saw an opportunity. He bought a comic that had been submitted to CQC through Over The Boards. He resubmitted it. This time CQC caught it because they were on the lookout for microtrimming. Then Brucie blackmailed Derek Ha, and he picked up the money. But there was a tracking device in it and they followed him back to his house. They called him up and threatened him. He came out with the money. And then they threw him off the bridge. And then, after we show up at Over The Boards, they did the same thing to Derek Ha.”
“Nice theory,” Tom said. “But you’ve got no proof.”
And he smiled again, that thin, superior smile, like a librarian smiling at a student that had mispronounced a word.
“So that’s where I come in, correct?” Tom said.
“See what you can dig up on this guy,” Dean said. “That’s the deal.”
“I can make inquiries,” Tom said. “The question is, what do you bring to the table? Maybe after this little tete-a-tete, we should just go our separate ways.”
“Simple,” Dean said. “I’m in with Vasily. He’s got me working as his fence.”
To prove this, Dean opened his briefcase and dumped a bunch of iPods onto the table. They were still boxed and shrink-wrapped, but the writing on the boxes was in Spanish.
“I paid $100 each, but no one wants them and I’ve got to blow them out.”
Tom looked at them, his smile gone, and said: “I’ll give you $100 for three.”
“Done.”
“Will you take American?”
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?”
A lot of people watched as this transaction was carried out.
“Anyone else?” Dean asked, and they looked away. He looked back at Tom. “You want to make a move on Vasily, you’re going to need me.”
“Okay,” Tom said. “Well, I think we understand each other.” He sipped his tea and looked at the iPods. “You know what you should do with those, is send them over to our troops in Afghanistan. They’d go wild to get something like that over there.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Those troops need your support,” Tom said. “They’re fighting for our freedom.”
“Duly noted,” Dean said, and stood up. “I’m guessing you know how to get in touch with us. Want to leave a number so we can get in touch with you?”
“Nope,” Tom said.
“Didn’t think so. Think about it bud. I’ve already half-hatched a scheme to bust this dude. But I need your help to make it work.”
Dean motioned to me with his head.
“Come on, let’s go.”
Outside, I said:
“Why didn’t you tell me all your fancy theories?”
“I just did,” he said.
“You told me at the same time as that psycho? I didn’t even say two words in there.”
“Look,” Dean said. “It’s just my theory. Okay?”
“And the less I know, the less I can spill to the cops, is that right?”
“It’s not like that.”
“You don’t trust me!” I said. “Afte
r all this, you don’t trust me. You probably don’t even need me any more now that you’ve got your black ops buddy in there.”
“Fuck Terrell,” Dean said. “Why are you acting like this? You sound like Tina. You’ve done lots for this case. You found the letter, you set up this meeting. God.”
“I just can’t believe how you hide things from me.”
“I’m not hiding things from you,” he said. “I’m just thinking about them.”
“I don’t think you trust me.”
Finally Dean rounded on me.
“I told you not to talk to the cops,” Dean said, “and you talked to the cops.”
“It’s not my …”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses,” Dean said. “It’s fine. Okay? It was a tough situation and I don’t blame you. But this is not going to go down like the thing did in California.”
“You’re blaming that on me?”
“Of course not! Jesus! This isn’t about you Terrell, it’s about me! Okay? You’re fine. You’re doing great. But Tanya was on me, and so is this one, and that means I can’t just hand things off to other people and hope they go okay. All right? And if you want to take that all personally, and say I don’t trust you, well there’s nothing I can do about that.”
He looked anguished. Now I felt guilty, as well as pissed off.
“You’re nuts,” I said. I meant it to sound funny, like a peace offering, but it didn’t.
“Whatever,” he said. “I’ll call you when Tom gets back to me. It won’t be long.”
He turned and walked away. I watched him go. Part of me wanted to run and catch up with him, but I didn’t.
37
When I got back to the office, I got a call from Dean’s home number. I almost didn’t answer it, but it’s not my nature to sulk. I picked it up and said:
“Yo,” I said.
“I’m going to leave Dean,” Tina said. She was sobbing. “I’m going to go back to California. I just wanted to say good bye.”
“What?” I said. “No, Tina. Don’t do this.”
“He was out again last night, investigating, he says.”
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