He shrugs.
“They get control of the competitor. If George is the big time dealer we suspect, spending a few million to get effective control of QX4 is nothing.”
“Yes, of course. I never thought of that. To George, risking ten million bucks is zip.”
He thinks about it and I can almost see the cogs and wheels turning over in his head. Something else is brewing up in there. I wonder if he is going to tell me.
He is nodding to himself and taking an infuriatingly long time to speak.
Finally. “He didn’t even risk it,” he says. “You know what? When he found out about Kevin’s illegal testing it was the answer to his prayers: the death knell for QX4. But instead of telling the world, George killed Kevin to keep him quiet, giving himself time to get his money out. And you can bet when he does, he will leak the story and QX4 will be history, no longer competition for the drug trade.”
He’s right. It’s a powerful motive for George to want to kill Kevin.
Cal laughs. “Oh, this guy is going down if I have anything to do with it.”
And if I know Cal, he will.
I can feel events taking motion. I never thought I would say this, but no amount of positive thinking is going to change matters. I have got to get my money out of QX4 before the axe falls.
47
Cal
The report runs to twenty handwritten pages. It has taken me most of the evening to write and it details all that I have learned about George’s trading in QX4 stock, my surveillance of what I am sure is a money laundering operation, and Brad’s and my speculation about George’s other businesses. Inside the report, in plastic sleeves, are the photos I took with his camera.
The report does not mention any names or companies and there is no mention of Kevin’s murder. That will come later.
But is it enough? This is my one shot to put things right and if it fails, I will end up in jail for a very long time and George will get away with murder and fraud and have a lot more money in his pocket. But if I can pull it off, George is the one who will spend most of the rest of his life in prison.
I allow myself to savour the thought for a moment, swill it around on my palette as it were, but the finish is taken off by the impact this will have on Sam. She doesn’t know what George is and she must love him; if she didn’t love him she wouldn’t be with him. It’s not for the money. Oh, I’m sure that she likes having nice things but money has no hold over Sam. And Ellie, what will this do to her? Will having another male ripped from her life ruin her for all her future relationships with men. That worries me a lot. But I can’t let George get away with Kevin’s murder. The thought of Ellie brings a smile to my face and, as I reach for the phone to call her, it rings. On the cheap pay-as-you-go plan, there is no caller ID but I have a good idea who it is, one of those psychic father-daughter things.
“Hello, sweetie.”
“Uh, hello. This is St. Paul’s Hospital calling.” It is a woman’s voice, uncertain; it sounds middle European, Polish maybe. “May I ask who I am speaking to?”
It sounds genuine enough but I’m not altogether sure.
“My name’s Rogan,” I say cautiously.
“We found your number on a piece of paper in the wallet of a patient. The name Cal was also written on the paper.”
With rising alarm, I say, “Yeah, that’s me.”
“The patient is an older man, in his sixties or early seventies. Do you know who that might be?” In the background, I hear a ring, like the sound of an elevator reaching its destination, then a voice paging a Dr. Armin. It really is St. Paul’s.
I stall for time, my thoughts racing. “Was he wearing a long tweed coat that has seen better days and a battered old leather Stetson?”
“I don’t know sir, I didn’t admit him. If you hold, I’ll find out.” The hospital sounds continue in the background. It’s got to be Roy. I feel sick to my stomach. If they are calling me, they don’t know who he is, so he must be unconscious. That can only mean one thing.
“Hello, sir. Yes, he was. Can you tell me his name please, sir?”
“Sure, yes. It’s Roy.”
“And his last name?”
I almost say ‘I don’t know’ but stop myself just in time. If I admit that I don’t know his last name, they will certainly not let me see him or tell me anything about his condition. The first surname that pops into my head is ‘Rogers’ but I can’t say that, so I borrow from Tommy. “Connor, it’s Roy Connor. How badly is he hurt?”
“Are you a relative sir?”
“Yes, I’m his nephew. What ward is he on?” Claiming Roy, the free spirit, as a relative feels odd. But OK. More than OK.
“He’s not. He’s in the operating room. He was badly beaten.”
“Do you know when he will be out of the OR?”
“No sir, I don’t.”
“Where was he brought in from?” I ask.
“He wasn’t. He was found on the sidewalk in front of Emergency, a couple of hours ago.”
I say, “I’ll be right there,” and close the phone.
Those bastards. They’ll stop at nothing to get to me.
The note is phony. Roy may be an old drunk but he has an amazing head for numbers. I am betting he has never written down a phone number in his entire life. Plus he never, ever refers to me as Cal. For some reason known only to him, I will always be Rocky as far as he is concerned. The gang have beaten Roy to within an inch of his life and put that paper in his pocket. Then they dumped him at St. Paul’s and they will be staking out the area, ready to grab me when I show up there.
My options are closing down, blocking me in; I am a spelunker crawling deeper and deeper into a dark, narrowing fissure. I find myself gulping for air. I think of Roy and what has been done to him. This thing of darkness! But Shakespeare is no comfort now.
Roy has always looked after me on the streets; now it falls to me to reciprocate. Of all the things I might do—even though my best laid plans to nail George may gang off to glae—I will choose to do the right thing, though it be folly.
Pausing only to take another hit of Brad’s penicillin—which doesn’t yet seem to be having any effect on the sore on my arm—I pull on my jacket and head out.
48
Cal
Cops spend a lot of time in hospitals. We know the routines. I’m going to make use of those routines to avoid the trap set for me.
I am crouching in the bushes behind St. Paul’s, arrived at by a circuitous route through the west end and across the park at Nelson and Thurlow.
I do not have to wait more than a few minutes. The back door crashes open and two nurses step out. They are discussing a patient, an old man with a twinkle in his eye and roving hands; under other circumstances, that might be Roy. As they walk down the short concrete path to the sidewalk, lighting their cigarettes, I slip through the slowly closing door and let it click shut behind me.
The ER is packed with east side people in all stages of disrepair. When I was in uniform these were the people whom I would have interviewed, consoled or arrested. Now we are ships passing in the night. I go straight to the nurses’ station and address myself to a pleasant-looking Filipina, talking to a colleague sitting in front of a computer terminal. She has a pink ribbon holding her hair in a ponytail.
“Hi, I’m looking for my uncle, Roy Connor. Someone called me about half an hour ago and said that he was in the Operating Room.”
She does not need to check the computer. “Oh yes. He’s just out of the OR now and is in intensive care. I’m glad you’re here. The doctor wants to see you.”
I follow her through the emergency ward, steeling myself for what I am going to see. “How bad is he?” I ask.
“The doctor will give you the details.” An ominous answer.
We go through some double doors. There is a glassed off room with a single bed in it. The shrunken figure on the bed is connected to the surrounding devices by an incomprehensible array of tubes and wires. I li
ck my lips; my mouth has gone dry.
“Is that him?” I ask.
She nods and the gravitas of her expression tells me all the things I do not want to hear.
“Can I go in?”
She nods. “I’ll go and get the doctor.” She reaches out and touches my arm.
My mouth goes dry as I look at him. He is barely recognizable. His mouth is covered by an oxygen mask and his forehead is swathed in a bandage. There are four sets of stitches on various parts of his face, forming bridges between islands of raw skin and black bruises. His left arm is in a fibreglass splint. The machines to which he is connected are hissing and beeping. I move to his right side and take his good hand. It feels cold, colder than it should.
“Hello. I’m Doctor Patel.” He has an air of competence and authority that belies the twenty-three year-old look of his face.
Without letting go of Roy, I extend my other hand to shake his. “I’m Cal Rogan. I’m Roy’s nephew. I’m his only living relative.”
This seems to satisfy him.
“Mr. Rogan, I won’t mince words. Your uncle was very badly beaten, as you can see.”
“But he’s going to be all right.” It’s a statement not a question. Roy is the toughest old bird I have ever known. He has weathered more storms than the good doctor could possibly imagine. I have known him for a lot of years and I am going to know him for a lot more. It may take him a while but he is going to be back on the streets and giving me heck.
His face offers no comfort. “I am afraid that the external wounds are not the concern, here. He was hit repeatedly to the body causing damage to his kidneys and liver, and worse, causing him to have an MI: a heart attack. I mean no disrespect but might I ask if Mr. Connor is uh… a drinking man?”
“Yes. Roy’s an alcoholic. He has been a heavy drinker for at least forty years.”
He nods. “I thought so.” He gestures to me to sit on the chair beside the bed. “You should prepare yourself for the possibility of the worst case scenario; the drinking has obviously weakened his heart. He is sedated now and he should regain consciousness some time tomorrow but it is uncertain whether he will last the next forty-eight hours. I’m sorry.”
I can’t speak. I just nod my thanks. He nods back and leaves.
My emotions are in turmoil. Part of me is devastated by the thought of losing the man who has become my closest friend—I can’t imagine life without Roy—but underneath the fear, a part of me knows, and knows to a certainty, that Roy will beat the odds and prove the doctors wrong. I smile at him and squeeze his hand.
The Filipina nurse comes in. “You can stay here as long as you like,” she says, “but there is a policeman outside who would like to talk to you.”
“Thank you, nurse.” I manage to say.
She turns to leave.
“Nurse,” I ask, “the doctor said that he is sedated, is there any chance that he will wake up before the morning?”
“I doubt it very much,” she says. “He will remain sedated for at least another twelve hours.” She gives a kind smile and leaves.
I check my watch, it is nearly midnight. As much as I want to stay, to be beside him when he wakes, I cannot miss the appointment I have in the morning. It will mark the beginning of the end for George Walsh and, with luck, bring down his gang: the lowlifes who did this to Roy.
I squeeze his hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow Roy,” I whisper, knowing that he will understand, and think I see a shadow of recognition pass over his face. Or is it just my hope-fuelled imagination?
I leave the room and look around. The uniform, whose job it is to interview, console or arrest me, is probably standing on the other side of the double doors leading out of the ICU. In the opposite direction, I see an emergency exit with a crash bar.
I head out into the night, retribution on my mind.
49
Cal
The place is huge. If it were in the city, twenty-five miles to the west of here, it would cover an area eight blocks wide by four deep. The perimeter is over two miles of heavy-grade, chain-link fence topped by tightly rolled razor wire, surrounding its charges. This morning’s thick, grey cloud cover washes out most of the colour, giving the place a harsh, surreal look. Despite its forbidding aspect, this is the best place I could think of for this particular meeting.
There are rows upon rows of old cars, arranged roughly by make, thousands of them. Some are standing, rusting on their wheels; some are in piles, compressing under their own weight; some have been crushed into blocks the size of a file cabinet and piled, like huge Lego pieces, into high walls. Once upon a time, each one of them was the delight of its first owner. Now, imprisoned in this place, they are destroyed dreams.
On this bitterly cold morning, it is the perfect place.
My phone rings.
“We’re at the front gate. Now what?” My heart beats a little faster.
“Park your car and walk in on foot,” I tell them. “Go past the office and head for the back of the lot, towards the big crane with the magnet. When you get there, call me again.” I close the phone, turn and give the thumbs up to Brad sitting in the warmth of the Toyota, outside the fence. He smiles and reciprocates.
I can’t smile. Too much depends on this meeting.
It takes five or six long, dragged out, minutes before my phone rings again.
“OK. We’re standing by the crane.”
“Good. Come round the back of the crane and walk between the rows of Ford Tauruses until you get to the back fence, then turn left.” I close the phone and wait for the men who want to arrest me to come into view. It takes less than a minute.
Stammo is in the lead. I can see the grim smile on his face and the handcuffs in his hand. He hasn’t come here to talk. He is going to take some convincing. I can only hope that Steve, two feet behind him, will be more reasonable but his expression does not give me any comfort. He looks like he is still mad at my escape from him on Monday.
As soon as Stammo sees where I am standing, his face breaks into a scowl and he makes an angry noise in the back of his throat.
I am on the outside of the big-assed fence.
He is on the inside. He looks up at the razor wire; there is no way he can get to me.
He is really pissed. I should not antagonize him but I cannot resist throwing him a happy grin. He marches fast at the fence, grabs it and shakes it in his frustration, glaring at me through the wire.
“You murdering mother-fucker.” His breath steams in the cold air. “Don’t think you can get away with this. We didn’t come here to play some stupid little game. I’m going to take you down for killing Kevin Wallace.”
“Oh, you mean the suicide?” That’s me, innocent.
“Don’t give me that crap, asshole,” he shouts in his frustration.
I cannot resist Macbeth. “Nicky,” I use this form of his first name because I know it irritates him. “That is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Drawing from his own great storehouse of witty quotations and repartee, Stammo says, “Fuck you, Rogan.” He looks up at the razor wire again, spits and lights a cigarette.
Steve’s face is neutral. I guess it is the best I can hope for at this point.
We eye each other through the fence.
I address myself to Steve. “First thing, I want to say that I’m sorry about Monday. Running like that was stupid. I should have just called a lawyer and worked it out with you guys. I wasn’t thinking straight.” It’s BS but it’s what Steve wants to hear.
Stammo is in like Flint. “You weren’t thinking at all, you moron.”
“OK, OK.” I can’t tell if Steve is mad at me or Stammo. “Why are we here, Cal?”
Now for the moment to truth. I rehearsed this speech twenty times in the car coming out here but it still sounds lame to me. My fear of blowing it is in the forefront of my mind.
“When I was still in the department, you and I spent a lot of time going after the dr
ug gangs and we had some real successes. But way more than half the time, their lawyers managed to get the big cases thrown out of court based on some mickey mouse Charter of Rights technicality.” Steve is showing nothing and Stammo is shaking his head.
“Well, I’ve got some evidence that if we follow it up, we can nail an entire gang, including the guy at the top—and I mean the very top—with money laundering. If we get lucky, we can also bust a major drug smuggling and processing operation. We’ll send a bunch of very bad guys to jail.”
Stammo grunts, “Bullshit,” but Steve knows me better.
“What’ve you got?” he asks.
From an inside pocket I take a photocopy of my report, roll it up tightly and push it through the chain-link. Steve unrolls it and starts reading, as he finishes each page he passes it to Stammo. I’m holding my breath and I have to force myself to breathe. I watch their faces and something tells me that they are buying it: the occasional unconscious nod; a lifted eyebrow.
It takes them ten minutes to take it all in.
“There are no names.” Stammo says. There is accusation in his tone.
“What kind of stunt are you trying to pull here, Cal.” The disappointment in Steve’s voice shatters my flimsy hopes.
“Fuck, Steve, let’s go.” Stammo turns to me. “Start running Rogan because as soon as we get back to our car we are coming after you.” He turns and stalks off the way he came.
Steve looks at me and then follows his partner, shaking his head. I am shocked that I have lost all credibility with the one guy on the force whom I thought would listen to me.
“Steve, Nick, wait!” I wanted that to come out confidently but it smells of desperation.
Stammo stops and turns. Steve marches on but, as he passes Stammo, the latter whispers something. Steve shrugs and they turn back.
“Names,” Stammo grunts.
“Sure. If you agree to my terms, I’ll tell you ev—”
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 1, 2 & 3 (Box Set) Page 26
