Burning at the Boss (A Johnny Ravine Mystery)

by Martin Roth

  “Right now your guess is as good as mine.”

  “We do need to find out where the money was going. It would seem that at least some, maybe lots, was going to Go-Go Greene. But this has been going on for twenty years, and Greene told me he’s been a client for less than a year. Would you still have any details of his bank accounts? What about a copy of his will?”

  “I’ve never seen a will. I know that. But I still have a lot of his stuff in a drawer from eleven years ago. Probably there’re some bank account details there. I don’t know if he still has the same accounts.”

  “You wouldn’t want to change your accounts if you have lots of regular donors. That would upset everything. Can you get any bank accounts numbers for me?”

  I waited until she returned. From the living room I could hear monsters dying in agony. “Here’s one of his latest pamphlets. He leaves these at churches, for potential donors. It’s got his bank account number on it. And I checked. You’re right. It’s the same account as before.”

  It was the same pamphlet she had shown me earlier. On the back was a form that could be filled in with donor details, along with instructions for various methods of payment. For bank transfers a Westpac account number was given. “Do you think there might be more accounts?”

  “I do remember that everything seemed to be going through Westpac. And I very, very vaguely remember that there was just one account. It all went through that. But who knows what’s happened recently?”

  “Exactly right. Who knows? Miriam, I want you to phone absolutely everyone you can think of who might know anything about where your father’s money was going. And try to find out which lawyers are handling his will. And anything else you can think of. And carbon offsets. We need to know if something strange is happening with these. Rad In-Your-Face, last night, he seemed to be telling me there might be something fishy going on with these. I feel he knew more than he was prepared to say.”

  I set off back to Yarra Boss. At the office of Go-Go Greene the prim receptionist told me her boss was with a client. But she was sure he could see me when the meeting concluded.

  I looked at the wall holder, offering a series of free pamphlets, spanning a range of green interests. I took one on carbon offsets. “Do you have your money in these?” I asked the receptionist.

  “Oh yes, my husband and I have all our money invested with Go-Go. And we live locally, so we’re in the carbon offset program.”

  “Carbon offset program? It sounds good. Do you think I should be in it?”

  “You do need to own land locally.”

  “What about if you’re renting a cheap apartment in Box Hill?”

  She laughed. “We have plenty of other investments to choose from.” She pointed to the pamphlets. “Take your pick. But that particular one does require you to have land. Around Yarra Boss.”

  I took a copy of each of the other half-dozen pamphlets, and as I did so a young man with long brown hair emerged from Greene’s office. The receptionist disappeared for an instant, then returned and ushered me into the office.

  “The private detective,” said Greene, shaking my hand. He seemed to be wearing the same tweed trousers as on the previous day, although the shirt was now purple. “Solved the crime? Going to gather us all in the drawing room to tell us whodunit?”

  “Still a mystery, I’m afraid. But I do have an interesting lead that has drawn me here.”

  “I’m intrigued. Sit down, Mr Ravine, and speak up.”

  I took a seat, and he also sat back down. “You confirmed that Pastor Reezall was a client. I’d like to confirm something more. That he was investing in the stock market, through your company.”

  He smiled. “You’ve driven to Yarra Boss just to ask me that? A bit of a waste of time, I’m afraid. You know I can’t reveal those details. We’ve already discussed that.”

  “Then can I confirm that this burnt piece of paper is from your company? This receipt for shares.”

  I extracted a charred sliver of paper from a folder and placed it on the desk before him. He examined it briefly, then looked back up at me. “Well played, Mr Ravine. You’re a master. Yes, I can confirm that that is ours. And, as I look at it more closely, I think it might relate to holdings of Jim Reezall.”

  “So he was investing in shares. Through your company.”

  “The evidence certainly suggests that, doesn’t it? Yes, Jim had a stock market account with us. But, in answer to your next question, I cannot disclose more than that. Unless you turn up with more documents, of course.”

  “I might very well do that.”

  He looked at me, apparently unperturbed. “And is that all? I agreed to see you without an appointment. I do have to make some important phone calls, and then I must visit someone.”

  “I’m interested in your carbon offset program. It sounds like a good investment.”

  “It’s a very good investment.”

  “I would like to learn more.”

  “Well, my brochure, which I notice you holding, provides an excellent explanation. Please study it at your leisure.” He stood and extended a hand.

  I paused for a moment, then stood too and shook his hand. “Thank you Mr Greene.”

  I walked to a nearby café and ordered a coffee. Then I took out my cellphone. When matters became complex I had a friend who, like my pastor, had a magical ability to find answers. He was on my speed dial.

  “Rohan Gillbit,” he answered as soon as his phone rang.

  “Johnny Ravine. Busy?”

  “Greetings my private eye friend. Busy? Yes. Too busy to talk to a friend? No.” Rohan was a star journalist at The Age newspaper with an extraordinary ability to track down information that others couldn’t. He had helped me on numerous cases. He spoke in a deep, modulated baritone that made him sound like a radio announcer.

  I explained details of the current case.

  “Pastor Jim Reezall,” he said. “I know the name well, of course. Often in the papers. I may even have interviewed him myself. But I didn’t realize he’d passed on. And that’s fascinating stuff about the money. I’ll certainly see what I can unearth.”

  “What about Go-Go Greene Financial?”

  “That one doesn’t ring bells. But I’ll check them out. Won’t take me long. I can probably talk to you tomorrow. Unless my kids disappear again.”

  “Your kids? Aren’t they in Perth?” I knew that Rohan and his wife had been divorced some years before, and that the wife had taken their two sons with her when she moved to Western Australia.

  “They’ve been spending time with me over the summer holidays. Pretty much against their will. The older one is okay. He’s seventeen and likes sport. But the younger one, Dean, he’s fifteen and is going through a bad patch.”

  “A bad patch?”

  “As in hating the world. And hating your dad. And blaming your dad for the ills of the world. It doesn’t help that I don’t especially care for him. I’ve never pretended to be the world’s best father.”

  “Good luck,” I said. “One more thing—you must have some contacts in the banking world. The Westpac banking world in particular. Someone who can whisper to you a detail of a particular account. Where money is being transferred to, out of that account.”

  “You’re asking for a lot, Johnny. You’re asking for someone to put their job on the line.”

  “Someone’s been murdered. Something strange is happening.” I gave him the account details.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Johnny. I’ll see what I can do.”

  * * *

  At home I looked at Go-Go Greene’s carbon offset pamphlet.

  PLANT TREES AND MAKE MONEY!

  Did you know that responsible individuals, institutions and companies around the world are now paying to offset their carbon dioxide emissions?

  Did you know that planting trees is a highly effective means of absorbing carbon dioxide emissions?

  Here at Go-Go Greene Financial we are offering residents of Yarra Boss
a unique opportunity to make money from planting trees in our Carbon Offset Program.

  Take action NOW!

  Contact our office for more details.

  On the inside pages of the pamphlet was a lot more information on deforestation and global warming, along with charts and a table that allowed you to calculate your carbon footprint.

  It all seemed fairly innocuous. And yet Rad had told me, with a tap to the nose, that perhaps the pastor had learned that something dubious was happening concerning the carbon offset program.

  I looked forward to meeting my journalist friend Rohan the next day.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Come on, mate, let’s go.” Rohan Gillbit arrived looking agitated.

  “Problems?”

  “Dean. My youngest. He’s vanished.”

  “Vanished? You need a private detective. I’ll give you a discount.”

  “Mate, normally I’d be laughing with you, but this is not a joke. Vanished probably isn’t the right word. He ran off. We had a fight—we’ve been fighting most of the three weeks that he’s been in Melbourne—and then he told me to get out of his face and he took off. He’s somewhere here in the city. Almost certainly at a video game parlor. But I have to get him on a plane this afternoon back to Perth. So I need to find him, and then bribe him onto that plane.”

  Rohan was tall and skinny, and whenever we were together I felt as if I were on an excursion with a stand-up comedian, such was his constant repartee. He was also one of Melbourne’s top investigative reporters, with a string of awards to his name. And I had learned that he was eternally modest about his abilities, reluctantly conceding that while he may not be the best journalist in Melbourne he was certainly among the top one or two.

  “What about your other boy?” I enquired.

  “Colin. Oh, he’s fine. He’s back at my house. Also playing video games.”

  “Aren’t they meant to be at school? The new term started a week or so ago, didn’t it?”

  “My ex’s new husband has them in some fancy private school. It seems the higher the fees the less actual time spent in class. But yeah, it is possible that they should have been back last week. I think my ex and her husband were skiing in Europe, and wanted an extra week or so of freedom.”

  “Sorry to hear that. I’m sure raising kids isn’t easy. But my time is pretty tight too.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s just too bad. I’ve got stuff to tell you, but we’re going to have to do it on the move while I check out all the game rooms. I hope you’ve got your handcuffs with you. We might need to make a citizen’s arrest.”

  “Doesn’t he have a cellphone?”

  “Of course he has a cellphone. Have you met a fifteen-year-old boy without a cellphone? But it’s switched off.”

  We started walking down the busy footpath at a rapid clip. I was struggling to keep up with Rohan and his long legs.

  “First off, no scandal on your dead pastor,” he said. In the sweltering mid-morning heat he was sweating and panting. “Nothing. The most famous thing he ever did was getting killed in that fire on Monday night. Otherwise, he was a quote machine. Always obligingly ready to shoot out a statement on gay whales or whatever the media demanded.”

  “And his orphanages?”

  “Nothing in any Australian papers. I even emailed the Singapore bureau. They cover most of South-East Asia. They did a search of their files, which are pretty extensive, apparently, and came up with a big fat zero.”

  “Is that good or bad? No scandal? Or just that he was brilliant at concealing it? Which suggests something major.”

  “Spot on, Johnny lad. In my neck of the woods no news can definitely mean big news. But if Melbourne’s finest investigative reporter and best private eye together can’t find any scandal, well…” He gave an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders. “Then probably none exists.”

  “I hate to contradict genius, but the guy was apparently taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.”

  “Right. Fair point.” He stopped and looked around. We had been walking away from Southern Cross Station towards Collins Street. “I’m pretty sure there’s a place up this lane.” He led me past a pub and a Greek restaurant to a game parlor with multi-colored flashing lights that displayed the name Screaming Lizards.

  We walked inside. I knew such places. When I was assigned to locate missing teenagers I often came to the game parlors. The lights and the harsh noise, the riveting colors, the fast and violent graphics on the huge monitors—whether it was car racing, monster slaying, street fighting or even just tennis—they all helped the dispossessed to escape their deep internal misery.

  We walked up and down the aisles, searching for Rohan’s son. Even at this relatively early hour—it was about ten-thirty—the place had a couple of dozen customers, most of them young.

  “He’s not here,” Rohan shouted to me, and we left.

  “I find that slipping the manager twenty dollars is a useful way of having them phone you when someone you’re looking for does turn up,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, when you have someone paying your expenses you can do that. What was I saying before?” He was now leading me back towards Collins Street.

  “I think I’d just commented that Pastor Reezall seemed to be collecting around a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year.”

  “Right. And I think I probably interrupted at that point because I was too embarrassed to admit that I really have no idea where the money was going.”

  I smiled. “At the moment all the fingers seem to be pointing at Go-Go Greene Financial.”

  “Exactly. And that’s where things get interesting. Go-Go Greene as he calls himself was once Brinsley Greene. Well-known resources cowboy over in Western Australia. Where my kids will be heading tonight, if I can find them.”

  “Resources cowboy?”

  “He had a business called Brinsley Greene Financial. Specializing in buying and selling shares in little resource companies. Gold miners, diamonds, copper, that kind of thing. Western Australia’s got hundreds of these little companies, and if you get your timing right you can make a fortune. He was especially big on margin lending. Do you know about that?”

  “It’s borrowing money to buy shares.”

  “Exactly. It’s not for the faint-hearted. But if your shares go up you can make a lot more profit than if you were only using your own money.”

  “And lose even more on the way down.”

  “Exactly right.”

  “And what’s this about being a cowboy?”

  “He and some of his clients were ramping share prices. Sending out rumors. Using inside information. Whatever it takes to get the price up. These things are very, very hard to prove, but the authorities got enough evidence on him that they were able to take away his license for three years. I think they probably wanted to arrest him, but the evidence wasn’t strong enough. So three years in the sin bin. Not much of a punishment, but better than nothing. So he disappears for three years—goodness knows where he went—and then about four years ago he turns up in Yarra Boss.”

  “With a new name.”

  “A new name and a new business. Now he’s a carbon cowboy.”

  I stared at Rohan. “A what?”

  “What do you know about…? Just a tick, I think there’s a place here. Yes, here it is.”

  We walked into the Burning Violet game parlor. One thing I had learned from a succession of visits to these places was that they were all similar. Again we unsuccessfully traversed the aisles.

  “Come on, man—how many of these places are there?” I asked Rohan once we were back outside in the relative tranquility of the busiest street in the city center. “I’m not following you to all of them. And how come you know where they all are?”

  He smiled grimly. “Some questions are better left unanswered. And to your first question, dozens.”

  “And we’re visiting them all?”

  “He won’t have gone far. Just the ones around h
ere.”

  “But look Rohan. Your boy could have gone to the movies, to a coffee shop, he could be walking around Docklands, who knows? I think we’re on a bit of a…”

  “A wild goose chase. Yes, you’re probably right. And if I didn’t want him so much to be on that plane back to Perth this afternoon then I wouldn’t be bothered.”

  “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” I said. I wasn’t sure at all. “Let’s have a quick coffee.”

  “You might be right. Ten minutes should be enough to tell you all I know, and then I’ll let you go, and I can do another quick walkabout.”

  Coffee outlets in the Melbourne city center were as prevalent as spots on a leopard. We walked into the nearest, a franchise operation that also specialized in muffins and cupcakes.

  “Sorry,” he said as our coffees arrived. “I’m not normally like this, as I think you know. But three weeks with my boys has pretty much turned me into a wreck. I really can’t wait to see the back of them. I’ll be cheering that plane as it takes off for Perth.”

  I looked hard at Rohan. “That is actually quite sad.”

  “You’re absolutely right. It’s something called life. Keeps sneaking up from behind and belting you over the head when you least expect it. Who knew that this is how my marriage and family life would end up? I remember how my wife and I used to take them down to St Kilda beach when they were little. We used to talk about how happy we were. Poor but happy. Now I’m just poor.”

  I poured sugar into my coffee, blew on it and took a quick sip. “You were about to explain to me what a carbon cowboy is.”

  Rohan too drank some of his coffee. “What do you know about green investing?”

  “Look, the financial world isn’t my forte.”

  “This is the big new issue. Don’t tell anyone I said it, but my newspaper The Age is greener than chopped spinach. So you won’t see much appearing right now. It’s still early. But one day there’s going to be a major scandal over green investing. Get this. We’re talking about the big new gold rush of the twenty-first century. With just one difference. There ain’t no gold.”