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
