Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

  “Hi Phil.”

  He ushers me into the office and settles me on the sofa. His partner, the taciturn Mr. Lee, is not there. “How’s Tina?” he asks.

  “Her parents have taken her back to Canada. I went to the airport to try and find out which airline they were taking her on but no one would tell me anything. I wasted a good part of the morning there.”

  He walks over to a small fridge. “Maybe that’s better, she’ll be safer in Vancouver.” He takes out two bottles of water and hands me one. His eyes widen. “What happened to your hand?” he asks.

  I tell him about my visit to the Golden Dragon.

  “So the man in the hat, who’s holding Zelena as a prisoner somewhere in Stanley, is an owner of the Golden Dragon and is the best friend of Zelena’s boyfriend?”

  I just nod.

  “Do you think the boyfriend is implicated in her kidnapping?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve met him a couple of times and he seems like a straight-up guy. I don’t want to believe I read him so wrongly but maybe I have. On the way back from the airport, I called him and arranged to meet him at the Kerry this evening. I need to get another read on him.”

  “So you’re planning to stay on the case?” he asks.

  “To tell the truth Phil, I don’t know. A big part of me wants to go back to Vancouver and be with Tina, but I’ve never let a client down before. I emailed my partner to tell Mr. Gutkowski we’re resigning from the case but it just doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “What about your hand?” he asks. “Next time it may be worse.”

  He’s right but he’s just triggered my contrarian gene. I’ve had bad guys gunning for me before and it never stopped me. And I think of Zelena, hanging on to the hope that someone’s coming to rescue her. Tina’s on a plane on her way back to the safety of Vancouver. Phil is a great guy and I’m pretty sure he’s a good detective but…

  I take in a big breath.

  “I’m not going to let Leo or his gang tell me what to do. I’m seeing this thing through.”

  Phil eyes me for a long moment then a big smile breaks over his face. “Good.” He extends his hand. “We’re seeing this thing through.” I reach out my hand to shake and then think better of it. I grab his hand with my left one.

  “Done,” I grin.

  “What’s the next step?” he asks.

  “While I was sitting in the hospital with Tina, I wondered about bringing Inspector Ho up to date. But I don’t have any evidence of where Zelena’s being held. All I have is the photo with her and Leo and the story of what happened at the Golden Dragon. What’s he going to do with that?”

  “You’re right. We need something more solid. What about the boyfriend? When are you meeting him?”

  “I said I’d meet him at five in the bar at the hotel.”

  Phil mulls it over for a while. “Why don’t you get him to meet you in your room. I’ll come with you and, if we have to, we can apply some real pressure on him. Break him if we need to. If he’s involved in this, maybe we can get him to tell us where she’s being held.” I nod. “Meanwhile, I’ll do some research on the Golden Dragon and on Leo. See what I can come up with.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  He checks his watch. It looks like a Rolex but then again we’re in Hong Kong, the home of knock-off designer watches. “I have a lunch appointment with another client.” He looks a bit grim. “And I don’t have any good news for them. While I’m gone, you’re welcome to stay here if you want.”

  “Thanks for the offer but I haven’t had much sleep over the last few days. I think I’ll head back to the Kerry and take a nap.”

  As I leave Phil’s office, I take Harvey Lim’s business card out of my wallet. As I look at his cell number, I get the feeling I’m missing something important. Maybe it will become evident when we speak to him this evening.

  He takes in the room as he enters. It’s probably a lot smaller than his room and I’ll bet his room has a view of the harbour too. He doesn’t seem fazed that Phil Jiang is here. I make the introductions. They sit on the guest chairs and I perch on the corner of the bed, feeling the height disadvantage.

  “Harvey,” I start, “how well do you know Leo?”

  Not the question he was expecting.

  “Leo? Really well. He and I were friends growing up. Since my family moved to Vancouver, we’ve seen less of each other but I always see him when I come over for a visit. Why?”

  “We believe he’s somehow involved in Zelena’s kidnapping.”

  “Kidnapping?! What are you talking about?” he almost shouts.

  “We think she’s being held against her will.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  I don’t want to tell him about how we are able to communicate with Zelena in case he’s in on the kidnapping. Which reminds me I haven’t even told Phil. I must remember to let him know the details.

  “I can’t go into that right now. I just need you to tell us what you know about Leo.”

  “You really think he’s involved?” he asks.

  Phil speaks for the first time. “When you saw the picture of Zelena with Leo why didn’t you tell Cal who he was?”

  He looks from Phil to me and back again. “I was embarrassed. Leo’s a good friend but he can’t keep his hands off beautiful women. I was embarrassed he’d taken Zelena away from me.” He turns to me. “I didn’t want you to think I was…”

  He seems sincere but then again he seemed sincere the last time I talked to him and he lied about not knowing who the man in the hat was. “When we sat in the bar downstairs on Friday evening, you told me you thought someone might have been following you and Zelena on the ferry over to Hong Kong Island. You said it might be the man in the hat. Was that all bullshit too?”

  “Not a hundred percent. I think there was someone following us but it wasn’t Leo.”

  “And you’ve no idea who it was?”

  He just shakes his head.

  “Was Leo ever involved in anything criminal?” Phil asks.

  “No, not directly.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “When Leo started the Golden Dragon, he needed investors. He tried everything to get people he knew to invest in it. I asked my parents but they refused. No one was interested. Anyway, Leo knew some people who ran other nightclubs, people who were not entirely legit. They agreed to invest. Leo won’t talk to me about them, but I have the feeling they’re involved in triads.”

  “Would the IF nightclub be one of the clubs these people run?” Phil asks.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  Phil and I exchange looks. This explains why Leo was at the IF last night.

  “So you think Leo might just be doing what his investors tell him to do?” I ask.

  “It would make sense. Leo’s not a criminal. He would never hurt Zelena himself.”

  I look at Phil again. He gives the slightest of nods.

  I look Harvey in the eye. “You are going to have to take us at our word that Zelena is being held against her will. That said, will you help us find her?”

  “Of course, I’ll do anything I can.”

  “We need you to set up a meeting with Leo,” I say and he agrees without hesitation.

  25

  Zelena

  Today was the worst yet. They hustled me out into the van and took me somewhere for more photos. Then they took me to the client’s house. It was a lovely house but he was horrible. He slapped me and punched me and spat in my face. When he raped me I got a shooting pain, which hasn’t completely gone away. But when they brought me back here, I remembered to look up and I saw the number. When we got back, the old woman in the kitchen said, in her broken English, that the girls always get a day off after a visit to that client. They put me in a better room too. It’s not cold like the other one and it has decent sheets on the bed.

  For once I want Leo to show up. I worked out how to communicate where I am. I remember the first time they t
ook me out for the photographs. They took one with Leo. That was the only time they took the pictures near here. Right afterwards, they hustled me inside. I think I can tell them without him knowing what I’m doing. If I can pull this off, Zander and I could be out of this place before I have to see another client.

  The door bursts open. Is he reading my thoughts?

  He hands me my phone. I open Instagram and comment on a couple of posts. I search for Matt Standing and go to his post with the picture of the album cover 'On Our Way’. I comment, 'Great group. Loved their first hit Behind the Watchman.’ I’m betting my captors don’t follow Swedish Rock Groups that closely. Now to clinch it. I go to Steph’s texts.

  “Enough,” he says. “Post pictures now.”

  My mind revs. Can I put my second message into an Instagram post without it looking obvious? I choose the first picture. It’s of me in front of a restaurant. I put it in a post and start typing. 'Reminds me of the restaurant we went to for my fifteenth birthday. We were 7 15 year-olds.’ I hesitate. How do I add the last word without it being obvious to him?

  Too late. He snatches the phone away from me and taps 'Share.’

  “Enough for tonight,” he grunts. “You sleep now.”

  I have to work out a way to tell them I’m on Temple Street, then they’ll have everything.

  26

  Nick

  I’m not too sure we’re doing the right thing here, baiting the bear in his cage. But the cop in me wants to look him in the eye. As I wheel out of the elevator and into the reception area, I see that everything has changed since the last time I was here a year ago. Everything except the receptionist. She is what my mother would have called brassy. Dyed blonde hair with half an inch of black roots showing, over-made-up and dressed more 'Hastings and Main’ than downtown lawyer’s office. The name plate on the reception desk says her name is Doris Blake. It only takes a second for her to recognize me. The wheelchair gives it away. She looks from me to Adry and back.

  She greets us with, “What do you want?”

  “I want to speak to your boss.”

  A sly smile creeps across her bright red lips. “And which boss would that be?”

  “Pridmore,” I say.

  “Look around you.” I just stare at her. “Go on,” she says. “Just take a look around.”

  I rotate my chair through three hundred and sixty degrees and it clicks. Last year the walls were plastered with pictures of Big Bob posing with all sorts of semi-famous people. Now there are just cheap prints, which look like they were picked up at a thrift store.

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  “At home probably.” Her smile is nasty.

  “And where would that be?”

  Her smile broadens. “Why should I tell you?”

  Damned if I can think of a reason.

  “To avoid being arrested,” Adry says.

  That gets her attention. Way to go, Adry. “What do you mean by that?” Doris says.

  “Mr. Pridmore has been involved in some illegal activities. We are about to inform the RCMP fraud squad about them. If we can’t find Pridmore first, we’re just going to have to send the police here to look for his files.”

  “He moved out a few months back. Got disbarred. Lost everything. There’s none of his stuff here.”

  “You’ll have to explain that to the RCMP when they come to turn this office over.”

  Adry turns to leave and I start to follow her.

  “He lives on Union Street,” Doris says. She grabs a piece of paper and starts writing. “Here’s the address.” She holds out the paper and Adry takes it with a smile.

  She hands it to me. The address is about three blocks from Roland McCoy, the little shit who started all this. I’m guessing that’s not a coincidence.

  I was expecting a gentrified family home, not this. It’s old, small and ugly. There’s no front yard and the front door, without a bell or knocker, opens straight onto the sidewalk. Maybe, in years past, it was a shop of some sort. Adry’s knuckles rap on the peeling maroon paint. After a second rap, the door opens.

  He’s still Big and he’s still Bob but I hardly recognize him. No tie, no suit, no shirt. He’s wearing a grubby tee, track pants and a good three days growth of beard and not in a fashionable way either. He’s lost a lot of muscle tone and replaced it with fat. He’s been on a downhill slope for a while. He looks at Adry with glazed eyes, then his gaze stumbles its way down to me.

  “What do you want?” he grunts. I can smell the stale alcohol on his breath.

  It makes no sense. This sack of shit can’t be the one who conned Marly Summers out of five million bucks and planted a quarter of a million bucks of heroin on us. He’s certainly got the motivation but he’s more washed up than a beached whale. But now we’re here I might as well ask the question.

  “Did you set your boy Lawrence Charles Linsky and his sidekick Roland McCoy on us?”

  “What the fuck are you talkin’ about,” he slurs. “And who the fuck are you?ˮ He blinks his eyes and looks at me for a moment.

  If he doesn’t recognize me, he is so far gone as to be useless to us. Have we got this all wrong? Could it be someone else is behind the scams?

  “Come on Pridmore,” I say. “You know who I am.” He still has a blank look on his face. “Nick Stammo,” I prompt him. Still nothing. He just stares at me, scratching the scar on his temple. “The guy who helped Marly Summers get away from you a year ago.”

  “Marly Summers?” he says. Then some sort of understanding seems to break through his alcoholic haze. “Oh, yeah.” A sly look takes over his face. He chuckles, taps the side of his nose with his finger and slams the door in our faces.

  “What the heck was that all about?” Adry asks.

  “I have absolutely no idea. Something’s wrong here but I don’t know what.”

  Adry’s shout pulls me out of my bad mood. “Zelena’s posted new stuff,” she yells.

  She gets up and puts her laptop on my desk and kneels down beside me. Luce comes in and looks over her shoulder. “Look at this,” Adry says. “She commented on the Matt Standing post. 'Great band. Loved their first hit Behind the Watchman.’ What does that mean?”

  “I can tell you this,’ Lucy says, “The Royal Concept doesn’t have a tune called Behind the Watchman. It’s definitely a message.”

  “She also posted this.” Adry scrolls to a post. “She says, 'Reminds me of the restaurant we went to for my fifteenth birthday. We were 7 15 year olds.’ I wonder if that’s a message too.”

  “We could ask,” Lucy says.

  “How?” Adry and I say together.

  “Call her friend Steph and find out if she remembers Zelena’s fifteenth birthday party. Ask her if seven girls went to a restaurant.”

  Adry jumps up, hugs Lucy and grabs her phone. Right now I’d give anything to jump up and hug Lucy too. I make do with, “Great work, Luce,” and get a big smile back. It’s almost as good.

  Adry makes the call, asks the question, thanks Steph and hangs up. “Zelena didn’t have a fifteenth birthday party. She had mono that year.”

  So it is a message. Zelena sent us two messages.

  “I wonder if ‘7 15’ means a time,” Adry says.

  “Maybe it’s a street address,” Lucy adds.

  “No,” I say. “It would be too obvious. If someone’s watching what she types they would spot that.”

  “If you put the clues together maybe it says she’ll be behind the watchman at seven-fifteen.”

  We sit in silence trying to make sense of it. “Maybe Rogan can figure it out.” I check my computer. “It’s two in the morning over there,” I say. “He can’t take any action on it in the middle of the night. Let’s wait for a few hours before we wake him up.”

  “OK.” Adry sounds disappointed.

  “Good work, you guys,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “We’re going to save this girl for sure.”

  I take a deep breath, which turns into a sigh as I
turn back to my computer.

  “What’s the matter Dad?” Lucy asks.

  “It’s the Pridmore thing. Everything points to him being the one who scammed Marly Summers and us. But the pathetic drunk, who Adry and I visited this morning, couldn’t find his ass with both hands and he definitely wasn’t someone who had five million bucks of Marly’s money in his bank account.”

  She gives me a big smile. “Don’t worry Dad, you’ll sort it all out; you always do. Why don’t you work on some other cases and maybe a solution will pop into your head.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Plus, you’re going to be able to talk to Cal in a few hours. Maybe he’ll have an idea.”

  “Lucy’s right Nick,” Adry says. “Let’s focus on the clients we’ve still got.”

  No man’s a match for a smart woman, so when two smart women agree on something, who am I to disagree?

  I click 'Send’ and the report I spent the last few hours on is on its way to the client. Adry and Lucy were right. Focussing on other clients was a good idea. It’s kind of cleared my mind.

  I check the time. It’s six-thirty in the morning in Hong Kong. “Let’s wake Rogan up,” I say.

  I fire up Skype and start the call. Adry and Lucy come and sit either side of me and Lucy opens a new packet of chocolate digestives. She must have read my mind.

  Rogan’s face pops onto the screen. He’s dripping wet. I grin. “Did I get you out of the shower? Sorry about that,” I say.

  “Yes you did and no you’re not,” he says, wiping his face and hair with a towel.

  “Yeah, well just make sure you don’t drop the phone.”

  “What’s up?” he says.

  I tell him about the encounter with Big Bob.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he says.

  “You better believe it,” I grunt. “The only person who connects us to Marly is Bob Pridmore. If someone is trying to ruin both of us, it’s gotta be him.”

  “Could he have been putting on an act for you guys?”