Chapter 33

Joe and I were stunned. Robin repeated, "Caught in the middle of what?"

Joe said, "We forgot to lock the door. You shouldn't have heard that. Well, there's no sense crying over spilt milk. I assume that you are the young lady in question."

"Yes, I'm Robin Markoff. Now, would you kindly tell me just what I may be involved in?"

"You ladies had best sit down. This is going to take a while." Joe closed and locked the door.

Robin and Shauna took their seats, and I offered them drinks, which they accepted.

"I'm sorry," Shauna said, "Robbie came to town on business. She surprised me, so I thought we'd surprise you. I didn't realize that you were in a conference."

"Of course not, my love," I said, "how were you to know? Anyway, as Joe has said, what's done can't be undone." I turned to Robin. "Shauna already knows some of the things that Joe and I were talking about. She's unfortunately been part of this from the beginning. But there are now new developments. Joe, perhaps you'd better take it from here."

As Joe had predicted, it took quite a while to tell the story. From time to time, Shauna and I joined in, especially concerning the events involving Jean-François Ménard, Shauna's "chance" meeting with the Chinese gangster Joe Wang, and the attempted subornation of both Jean-François and me. When we began talking about Christie Lau's suspected involvement, Robin looked more and more shocked.

She said, "And you think that, because Frank is Christie's cousin, that he may be involved in this mess."

"It certainly looks that way," Joe replied, "and not just because of his relationship to Ms. Lau. There's the matter of his position at Borealis.

Robin looked puzzled, "What does that have to do with it?"

"The RCMP says that Borealis is one of the main players in this sordid business. And according to the RCMP officer in charge of the Jagtar Singh investigation, it's very likely that the bribe money came from Borealis' marketing department. Your friend Frank is head of marketing. It's not likely that such large sums could come out of his budget without his knowledge."

Robin began to cry. Shauna gently patted her hand. Robin looked at us through her tears. She said, "I can't believe that Frank would ever be involved in things like that. You don't know him." She took some tissues from her purse and wiped her eyes.

"No," I said, "I don't know him the way that you do. However, there are things that just don't ring true about him. For instance, here's a minor detail. When I first met him, Frank and I talked motorcycles, among other things. I told him that I'd owned a Triumph Lightning."

"Yeah, I remember." Shauna grinned. "You two guys had a lot of fun topping each other's motorbike stories."

I said, "There's just one problem. The Lightning wasn't a Triumph motorcycle. It was made by BSA. The hot Triumph model was the Bonneville. Any real bike enthusiast would have known that."

The room was quiet for a moment. Then Robin said, "That's a pretty small thing. I don't see what difference it makes. Frank was probably just confused. Or maybe he was just trying to impress my best friend's fiancé."

"Maybe so," I agreed.

Joe took a sip of his Scotch and said quietly, "There's more. There are things that I haven't told Pat yet. Things that I just learned a few minutes ago in a phone conversation with the RCMP inspector in charge of the investigation. Pat only heard my end of the conversation." He took another sip and then looked up at me. "Pat, what was the name of Frank's father's company?"

"I believe he said it was "Low's Markets' or something like that."

"Actually," Joe said, "the stores were called Low's Markets. The name of the company was Midland Grocery, Limited. According to Inspector Robinson, the company was suspected by Scotland Yard of laundering money for a Chinese mob. In fact, Frank's father, Lau Zicheng, or Clifton Low, as he was known, was suspected of being in charge of the British interests of the mob. And the head of that mob was, and still is, his brother, Lau Doming, Christine Lau's father." Joe took another sip and then continued. "One of those interests was Argos Entertainments, Frank's former employer. In effect, it looks as though he just transferred from the English office to the Canadian office." He turned again to Robin. "Ms. Markoff, I'm afraid that your boyfriend may be in this thing up to his neck."

Robin's eyes were again filled with tears. "He's not my boyfriend," she said. She held up her left hand. There was a large diamond on her finger. "He's my fiancé. That's one of the reasons I'm here. I wanted to tell Shauna in person." She sobbed. "God, this isn't working out well at all." She swigged some Scotch. "You can't be right about Frank. He's a sweet, kind, gentle man. And he loves me." She hid her face in her hands and sobbed. Shauna stood and put her arms around Robin.

"Believe me, Robin," I said, "For your sake, I hope that Inspector Robinson is wrong about Frank. But as long ago as last week, the inspector was telling us that the bribes in the Singh affair probably came from the marketing divisions of the corporations involved. That was before he knew that Frank was head of marketing for Borealis. And it was certainly before he knew about Frank's family connections. I'm afraid that it's all adding up."

Robin continued to sob in Shauna's arms. Shauna looked up at me. She asked, "Could you leave us alone for a little while?"

I grabbed a bottle of Scotch, and Joe and I headed for his office.

We sat and drank for a little while. Neither of us said much. There seemed to be nothing to say. After about a half hour, Shauna came in. She knelt in front of me. "I hope you don't mind," she said, "I've invited Robbie to stay with us."

I stroked her cheek. "Of course I don't mind, darling. But, in case you've forgotten, we invited Jean-François to supper tonight."

"Oh, you're right. But that's not a bad thing. J. F. is very charming. Maybe he can help to take Robbie's mind off things."

I thought to myself that, knowing J. F., he'd rather just take off Robbie's things and not bother with her mind. But I kept my thoughts to myself.

Shauna and I collected Robin and headed home. Luckily, we'd come in my car that day. Otherwise, someone would have been sitting in someone else's lap. And Robin's suitcase might not have fit in Shauna's trunk. As it was, we had plenty of room. But there was a rather funereal air in the Lexus. I thought some music might help, so I turned on the stereo and cued up a Chet Baker CD. The first few cuts were fairly cheerful and seemed to lift the girls' spirits a bit. But then Chet began singing My Future Just Passed. It's a lovely romantic ballad, but not what I thought Robin needed. I jumped ahead to the Miles Davis Sketches of Spain album.

"No," Robin said, "please put that back on. It's beautiful. Who's the singer?"

I cued back to the ballad. "His name was Chet Baker. He was one of the most talented jazz musicians of the postwar period. They called him the Prince of Cool Jazz. He was a great trumpet player and, as you can hear, a great singer. He was very handsome. Elvis handsome. In fact, he was seen by Hollywood as the 'jazz Elvis.' Several studios wanted to sign him to movie contracts. But he was also a hopeless junky. He wound up making some forgettable movies in Italy. He had his teeth knocked out by underworld types. He eventually got some false teeth and learned to play the trumpet all over again. He died at fifty-eight, looking eighty-eight. In questionable circumstances."

Robin said, "My God. That's so sad. I remember now. Danny Sullivan mentioned him the night that you and Shauna got engaged."

"You have a very good memory. Do you remember the song that Danny sang that night? Here's how Chet sang it." I cued up My Funny Valentine. Everyone listened in silence. After the song ended, I turned off the stereo. I looked at Shauna. She was crying and smiling at the same time. I took her hand and said, "I love you."

I could hear Robin crying in the back seat. "Oh God," she said, "that's so beautiful. And it's so sad when you know what happened to him."

When we arrived at home, Shauna took Robin to the guest suite on the second floor. I took off my suit, cleaned my face and hands thoroughly to get rid of the last touches of orange make up, and put on a sports shirt and slacks. Then I busied myself with supper preparations. We'd have salmon teriyaki, usually a safe choice, and fairly simple to prepare. I washed the salmon fillets to remove any lingering scales. I was just patting them dry when Shauna came in. She was wearing green slacks and a sweater to match. It looked lovely with her red-blonde hair, and I told her so.

Shauna hugged me from behind as I worked on the salmon. "Thank God for you," she said. "Poor Robbie. It looks as though she's fallen for a real rotter, as my dad would say."

I washed and dried my hands. I turned to take my girl in my arms. "Perhaps she has," I said, "but remember that even mobsters have families. Frank may genuinely love her."

"But what a life," Shauna said. "If what Joe said is true, Frank may go to jail. Maybe for a long time. That's not much of a life for Robbie."

Shauna hugged me tightly. She snuggled against me. There was silence in the kitchen. Then we heard Robin say, "I don't care. No matter what. I love Frank, and I'll be there for him."

For the second time that day, Robin had come into a room at exactly the wrong moment. This was getting to be a habit. Just then, the doorbell rang.

Shauna said, "That'll be J. F. I'll get it." She headed toward the front door.

Robin asked, "Who's J. F.?"

I smiled. "He's Jean-François Ménard, one of my oldest and dearest friends. We mentioned him this afternoon."

Shauna entered the kitchen, followed by J. F. I stared at him. His comb-over was gone. Now his hair was neatly trimmed. He was proudly bald on top. I thought he looked younger. Certainly much less sleazy. I took his hand. "J. F., you look great!"

"You think so, mon ami? Bien sûr, it will take some time for me to become accustomed to it. But you like it?"

"And so do I," Shauna said. "You look really good. Now, let me introduce you to Robin. Robin, this is our dear friend Jean-François. J. F., this is Robin, my roommate in Toronto and my closest friend." I arched an eyebrow. "Except for Pat, of course," she said quickly, smiling.