Читать книгу Risen From Prison - Bosco H. C. Poon - Страница 7

Chapter 1

Nightmare

“No, no, NOOOOO … stay away from me!” I screamed, accidentally falling off the couch like a startled cat, but, unlike a cat, I didn’t land on my feet. My shoulder hit the carpet with a thud, and the side of my head followed. “Ouch, that hurt! Whoa … how long have I been sleeping?” I mumbled to myself—still half-asleep. I was drenched in sweat. It was another bad dream. Seems they were coming fast and furious these days, given the mess I had gotten myself tangled in.

I rubbed my forehead and struggled to recall what I had been doing when I fell asleep. Through the crack between the curtains I could see that it was already dark, and judging by where the moon was, I guessed it was about midnight. As I strained to survey the dark empty room—my computer room—I suddenly had a flash of intense memories of all of the things that had happened there. They came like a little slide show.

I remembered our first day in this house. It was just as empty then as it was now and with just as many nail holes in the drywall, dust bunnies on the floor, dead bugs between the windows, and cobwebs in the corners. Piece by piece, my family had cobbled together enough money to furnish the place and make it seem like a home.

In this room I had parked my first desktop computer—the kind that came in a huge case and occupied half of the workspace. I had smoked my first cigarette with my head sticking out the window so my mom wouldn’t bust me. I had my first private guitar lesson, practised for my first public performance, and composed my first song—all of this on the very same wood-framed couch. It was a room of firsts—like a treasure box of my teenagehood. And now, in the same manner I had first seen it, it was empty again. We were moving, and the house was up for sale.

I was enjoying all of these fond memories until I heard a hoarse and emotional voice yelling from the basement: “Help me! Please! Please, let me go! Is anybody up there? Someone, please help!”

All of a sudden, stark reality shattered my reverie, and I recalled exactly why I was here. Oh no! This can’t be happening, I thought. This was way beyond playing Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation or watching Alpha Dog on the big screen.

What a mess, I thought, what a horrible mistake! Some innocent kid was tied up in the basement of my parents’ house. I didn’t know why Blade had picked this guy to kidnap. It seemed more or less random to me.

What have I become? I berated myself. I knew there was a risk that this could all go sideways, but I never dreamed it would end up in a tailspin so quickly. If I recall correctly, it had begun two weeks prior.

_______

With the “For Sale” sign planted on the front lawn, my parents’ house had been vacant for eight weeks. It was built on a hillside at the edge of a neighbourhood called Westwood Plateau, which is in the north end of the city of Coquitlam in British Columbia, Canada. My family had lived here ever since we arrived in Canada from Hong Kong, but we had recently moved to Richmond, BC, a suburb of Vancouver that was a lot closer to the recording studios I was working with. Blade and a few other old schoolmates of mine told me they wanted to “throw a party” and asked if I would let them use the empty house as a venue. I was hesitant, but they kept pressuring me to say yes to the idea. It got more awkward as Blade kept changing the story when it came to the purpose of using my house. I knew something was fishy and tried to avoid his calls. Then he showed up at the front door of my Richmond home.

“Hey, brother, why don’t you pick up my calls?” Blade greeted me with a big smile.

“Hey, man, I’m so busy these days. You are always calling at a bad time. I can’t pick up in the middle of meetings, you know.”

“Well, you’re not in a meeting now, are you?”

“Yeah … I can talk now … What’s up?”

“Yo, listen, I know what you’re thinking, ’cause you know me too well. And you’re right; I need a favour again.”

“Oh man … Again? I knew it!”

“You gotta help your brother out. I’m in some deep sh*t … and you’re the only one that can get me out. A couple weeks back, I was gonna triple my chips at the casino, but man, I lost it all—10Gs, man! I needed it back big time! My girlfriend’s money was in there too. So I talked to my buddy, and he helped me out. He lent me some chips. I went back in. The second round was good, and I made it all back. But gosh, I was too greedy! I just didn’t know when to stop.”

“Come on, don’t tell me you lost it all again!?”

“Yeah, 30Gs including interest, man!”

“No way! You can’t be serious. That’s a car worth of money!”

“I’m dead serious, no joke! And the loan shark doesn’t play around. He sent people to chase after me already. Luckily I’m still on good terms with them, but now I have less than a month to fix this.”

“Your buddy was a loan shark?! Why get yourself into this kinda situation over and over?”

“I know I screwed up again, but man, this is no time for lecturing. I need your help. You don’t wanna see me being chopped in half, do you?

“I ain’t got no 30Gs, man!”

“But you have a house. I’m gonna do a run, just need a place to store the stuff. I’ll be fine after this run. Lend me the house key for a few days, and I’ll make sure to pay you your cut.”

“The house is my parents’, not mine. I can’t just let you use it for a few days.”

“Come on, bro, you wanna see me die? Make up some stories, man. Right, tell them I’m doing a music project and I need the basement to do some recordings. I’ll pay them good rent. Trust me, it’ll work. You’ll get some money to upgrade your wardrobe too. Some new T-shirts and jeans, you know. Just help me, please.”

“Why do you have to put me through this kinda crap? I’m already super stressed. I hate this. Umm … let me see what I can do. I’ll give you a call later.”

“I have your word? Don’t play me, man. Remember, the loan shark is after me. I got no time to waste.”

“You really ain’t making my life easier, man … all right—”

“You’re the best bro ever! What do I do without you? I’ll be waiting for your call. Thanks!”

Looking back, I’m not sure why I even considered helping him out, but I guess I didn’t want to see him being sliced into pieces by the loan shark. So I lied to my parents and got their permission to rent out the house. With an over-occupied mind, I didn’t bother to think what Blade was going to do with the house that could net him 30Gs in a few days. Obviously something illegal. Maybe trunkloads of cigarettes from Mexico. Or boxes of ecstasy from some home lab. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to do him one more favour so that he would leave me alone and keep his troubles away from me. A week later, during a social gathering, I handed over the house key to Blade.

I overheard a conversation about “kidnapping” someone and setting a ransom to generate some quick cash. I had a bad feeling about it, but I was busy writing and producing music, and my time was all occupied. Besides, I didn’t really believe he’d follow through on such a stupid plan.

Little did I know I would regret my deliberate ignorance, because it was about to turn really ugly.

The colours of spring had arrived, and blooms were everywhere. I’d be walking down the street and find myself in a pocket of warm air laced with the beautiful smell of hyacinth. As I strolled around that spring, every time a plane flew overhead I would imagine myself heading out on tour. Some local production houses were hiring my music crew “Syndicate” to perform at local events throughout the coming summer, and two different overseas record labels, EMI and Universal Music Taiwan, were interviewing us about the possibility of an album. It was promising to be the best season yet, and I was really looking forward to the experience. I felt my time had arrived.

There would be no such luck. Although I had caught snippets of ominous-sounding conversations, all along I thought that Blade and his buddies were just blowing smoke. They wouldn’t really do anything that stupid, would they? They’re just trying to get attention from each other, I thought. They had bragged about all kinds of stuff they never had the guts to follow through with … lots of times. Why would this be any different? When they were high they would even plan stunts like you’d see in the movie Jackass or on the TV show The Dudesons—but nothing ever came of it. Besides, there was a lot going on in my world. I had a ton of stuff on my mind and no time to burden myself trying to crawl into their heads. I just hoped that they would stop bothering me after I did them this one favour.

To my surprise, a few days later Blade phoned me. “Hey, Boz, how you doing, bro?” There was no indication of any urgency in the greeting.

“Fine. What do you want? I’m kinda busy right now,” I replied.

“Oh, nothing terribly important … just thought you’d like to know that we’ve got our ‘package’ stored in your basement, that’s all.”

Package? What does he mean, a person? They went through with it? I felt panic rising in my heart. My knees started to shake. With a swallow I took a deep breath and gathered enough composure to ask, “Why … why are you telling me this?” Maybe I was still hoping that this whole thing was just another one of their puerile jokes. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

“Well, you know, it’s like this. We need you to keep your folks away from the house for couple more days. Understand? They can’t go over for any reason. Just make sure of it, okay?”

“What are you trying to say?” I blurted, still not fully accepting what I was hearing.

“You heard me,” he said. “Just come to the house right now and I’ll show you what we mean—in person.”

He didn’t have to say any more. I got it. I was now an accomplice to kidnapping. This was not good.

I was in the studio at the time. One of my music partners shot a glance in my direction as I hung up. They must have seen me going pale or noticed the sweat accumulating on my forehead—and now running down my eyebrows. The look on their faces told me that they knew something was dreadfully wrong. Silently I waited for them to finish the session. I then got in my car, started the engine, and let it idle while I thought about what I should do. Coming after me, Julian knocked on the passenger side window to see if I was all right. I was so confused that I couldn’t even respond. All I cared about at that moment was to get my parents’ house back. I turned to give him a half-hearted smile and a peace sign, then stepped on the gas. That was the last I saw of any of them for a while.

My heart was bouncing around in my chest as I sped out to Coquitlam. Every time I saw a cop car my hands would tremble so terribly I would have to grip the steering wheel just to keep them still. After 40 minutes, I arrived at the house. As I pulled into the driveway Blade was waiting for me at the door, and he immediately stepped outside to greet me. He was flanked by two of his men. One was a tall dark-haired muscular Caucasian wearing black-rimmed glasses, and the other one was a skinny short-haired Asian with the butt of a handgun peering out of his left pocket. I didn’t know either of them, and I didn’t like what I was seeing.

“Ahh, there you are! The MAN is finally here!”

“What’s going on, Blade? This is way beyond what I can handle.”

“What? You want to chicken out now? Relax, buddy, everything is gonna be fine. We’ll get our money, and you’ll get your cut as promised. We won’t hurt him. All we want is cash. That’s all!”

“But Blade, what if—”

“Shh! Help us get this job done, and we’ll all walk away! I need the money! You know that. We’ll get what we want, and you’ll get your house back plus a little bonus in your pocket. It’s a win-win. Now get in the house!” He was getting impatient.

The two men escorted me inside, filling me in on the rest of the plan as we went. I just marched along, silently stunned. They weren’t calm. Everyone involved was very much on edge, like hungry jackals prowling for a meal: aggressive and anxious. It felt like they were going to do anything they needed to. They made it very clear to me that I had no choice but to comply with their wishes.

They spent the ensuing hours on the phone and made arrangements with the other wing of the operation, cussing incessantly, cigarette after cigarette. Blade gave me orders to guard the front door while they took care of business. He also warned me of the consequences if I did anything stupid. The other guys in the room seemed amused by my agitation, snickering and almost looking down their noses at me. Who are these people anyway? Where did Blade find these nutcases?

At about 9:00 p.m. everyone went outside to their vehicles, leaving me alone in the house. Knowing that the victim was in the basement, I decided to hold out as far away from him as I could. So I went upstairs to the old computer room.

Should I untie him and take him to the police station, or should I run out the back door and then call the cops? But what would happen if I left the house? Would they come after me? Maybe they’d come after me and my family too. No matter which way I looked at it, I saw no way out. Ultimately, paralyzed by my fears, I did nothing but lie on the couch, and ever so gradually, I fell asleep.

_______

Why did I get myself involved in this? Was it because I didn’t know how to say no? Probably. But I treasured Blade’s friendship. He’d rescued me from being a nerdy outcast back in high school and his gang members had protected me from bullying. So I had a sense of loyalty to him. Did I need the money? No, not really. My parents had promised to support my musical projects until the end of that year. However, I didn’t mind the prospect of some extra cash. For that matter, it’s not as if Blade didn’t owe me anything. For years I had been lending him money to supply his gambling addiction and wild partying. There were many nights when I handed over my food money for the whole week to get him out of one debt or another. Not even once had he managed to pay me back—at least not in full. To my mind, it would only be fair if I was able to cash in on any windfall that came his way. But I never thought that things could go so wrong.

The next morning I was sent to pick up breakfast at McDonald’s on Barnet Highway in Coquitlam. I used the opportunity to call my Aunt Tina, my mom’s sister-in-law, who also happened to be our realtor. “Auntie, my friends are done using the house. You can go take a look. If you need someone to help clean up, just let me know and I’ll come over.”

“All right, sweetheart, I’ll go check it in a couple of hours. Don’t worry about the cleaning. I can take care of it myself. Thanks for the call. I’ll probably put it back up for showing tomorrow. There’s quite a lineup for it. Say ‘Hi’ to your mom and dad!”

“Sure thing, Auntie. I’ll do that. Talk to you soon.”

I hung up and took a breath. I deliberately lied to my aunt, hoping that she would discover what was going on by going into the house. As a result, Blade would be forced to let his victim go or my aunt would call the police, and the whole thing would fall apart. In retrospect, I placed my aunt in a rather dangerous position. What if the guys hurt her too? I don’t know. I was so exhausted and befuddled, I could not come up with a better plan in the middle of my Egg McMuffin run. I considered it a calculated risk—but it was poorly calculated, and it did not proceed as planned.

Blade apparently managed to stop my aunt right at the front door. Because I had lied to my family, telling them that we were using the empty house as a recording studio, Blade was able to quickly come up with the story that the recording sessions were not done and they needed a couple more days. He also assured her that he would pay her extra rent. To my surprise, my aunt believed the whole thing and said this was not a problem, even apologizing for the miscommunication.

My heart sank as I realized that, one, my plan had entirely failed, and two, I now had to go back to the house and explain to Blade why my aunt had shown up unexpectedly. My cellphone started getting flooded with calls from all of them. When you bat a hornets’ nest, you hear a lot of buzzing. I dragged myself back to the house, hotcakes and sausages in tow. Blade was rightly suspicious that I had sent my aunt over in an attempt to sabotage things, but at length I managed to convince him that it was a coincidence. In any case, I still got a long and threatening lecture about how I must ensure that no one from my family would come by until the ransom was secured or the “package” was moved to another secure location. After that, I was not allowed to leave their sight until the completion of the operation.

I don’t remember the exact sequence of the events that followed because I had only slept a few hours over the course of several days, and I was completely strung out. Blade and the others were demanding $130,000, and evidently there had been some progress in making that transaction happen. Blade commissioned me with cleaning up the basement and wiping everything down with cleaning solutions while they took the victim away and collected the ransom elsewhere. I’m not sure where this was supposed to occur, but it didn’t matter.

Red and blue lights panned outside the house. It was the afternoon of April 10, 2004. With that I knew that this misadventure was over, and I was strangely relieved, but I also knew that I was in a heap of trouble. We were not sophisticated criminals, I have to say, and I suppose that has something to do with how quickly this all came to a screeching halt—that and the fact that 60 police officers had been involved in the investigation. According to the police press release, they had spent $400,000 in overtime monitoring our phone calls. I guess Blade had underestimated the Vancouver Police Department.

As I was being handcuffed by the police, one of the officers informed me that Blade and two others had been apprehended in Vancouver and that more arrests might ensue. The victim had been rescued unharmed and was to be soon released to his family. I was actually happy about this. On the one hand, I was glad to know that he was alive and well, but on the other I was extremely fearful about my own future. Curious neighbours trickled out of their houses one by one. Their lives now seemed attractively boring—the preparation of dinner, the changing of motor oil, the making of tea—interrupted briefly to watch me being thrown into the back of the paddy wagon. I wonder what they were saying. “I told his mom I didn’t like the boys he was hanging around,” or “That’s what the music industry does to people.”

My mom, dad, and aunt were standing in the driveway, all of them sobbing. I’m an only child, and I knew what this was doing to them. I was so ashamed of myself, and I felt absolutely wretched for having dishonoured them so terribly. I didn’t know how I would be able to face anyone I knew ever again. I leaned up against the steel wall of the police van and stared down at my feet. It was a bumpy ride to the station.

Everything I had on my person, including my underwear, was confiscated. In exchange, I got to wear a scratchy white paper jumpsuit and a pair of shoe covers like the ones patients wear in the hospital. Before I was taken to the interrogation room, where I would spend the rest of the evening, two officers fingerprinted me and had me sign a pile of forms. As each of my fingers was pressed into the wet spongy black inkpad and then onto paper, I felt like I was signing my life away. Then, as you see in every crime movie, I was asked to stand against a wall and pose for a mugshot and two profile shots.

I was escorted by two uniformed police officers from the holding cell behind Vancouver Criminal Court on 222 Main Street in Vancouver to the Vancouver Police Department. As I crossed East Cordova Street handcuffed in my white jumpsuit, the homeless folks from the downtown eastside mocked and catcalled me. After entering the VPD building we ascended a long flight of stairs and ended up in a room with one window, one coffee table, and two chairs facing each other. I was left alone in the room for about 20 minutes before an investigator in normal dress walked in.

“Okay, Mr. Poon, I’m going to tell you this straight up. I’m a very experienced investigator. It’s what I do for living. My job here is to get information from you, so that I can report it to my boss. Why don’t we work together, and it’ll make both of our lives easier? After all, it’s getting late. I’m tired, and I’m sure you are too. If you co-operate and tell me the truth, you’ll be home in no time. So let’s not beat around the bush, all right?”

“You’re right. I am extremely tired… What do you mean by I’ll be home in no time?” I hesitated.

“That means if you tell me everything, no lies, no BS, then I can probably get you out of here before this long weekend is finished. Okay? You want to go home, right?”

“Of course I want to go home—”

“I know. I hear you. So why waste more time? Let’s get going!”

At first I thought he was there to help me. He seemed friendly, even gentle, but after a while he changed his approach, becoming more and more aggressive with me, particularly when it didn’t appear that he was getting what he wanted or if he thought I was withholding something from him.

Sitting closer and closer to me, he stared me right in the face and asked the same question the fifth time. “Tell me where you were on the night of April 2. You were at an underground parking lot in Vancouver, right? You and your buddy were looking for someone, right?”

“How many times do I have to repeat myself? I told you already! I was in a recording session at the studio! Go ahead and talk to the guys in my group. Call them.”

“You sure you didn’t get the date mixed up? It was a Friday night. You were at the parking lot. Think again.”

“I’m sure I was at the studio. Call the owner of the studio.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I am!”

“How sure?”

“Very sure!”

“How come you are so sure?”

“Because I was at the studio! How many times do I have to repeat myself?”

The investigator then dropped his pen. “Mr. Poon, you know damn well why you’re here! This is not a random chit-chat. This is something very serious, very very serious! We’ve been after you for a whole week. We have stacks of pictures of you and your buddies. We know everything. So go over it again. Did you kidnap the victim on April 2 at the parking lot?”

He tried to box me into one corner and then into another. If things were not proceeding the way that he liked, he would circle back and start with the same set of questions all over again. You can’t really understand how frustrating this is until you’re in the middle of it, but I guess it must work, because he did not relent.

I had been awake for over 24 hours, my lips were cracking, and my mouth was dry. I knew that however tired I had ever felt in all my life, I had no understanding of “tired” until now. All I wanted was to go home and to collapse into bed, but that wouldn’t happen for a while.

After the questioning ended, I was tossed into a dirty holding cell: three walls of concrete, one steel door, and, naturally, no window. It reminded me of a horror flick called Saw that came out that year. Staring at the light coming from the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling, I wondered how long I would have to stay in there. It was the Easter long weekend, but there would be no celebrating. This was just the beginning of a long, dark nightmare.

“My son, if sinful men entice you, do not give in to them … These men lie in wait for their own blood; they ambush only themselves!”

(Prov. 1:10, 18)