Buffalo Jump (17 page)

When the pain subsided I drove to a diner on the corner of Broadview and Danforth, where the breakfast special was three eggs, a ham steak (sorry, Ma), a whack of home fries, toast and all the coffee my kidneys could float. There weren’t many other customers: just a taxi driver whose cab was parked at a stand outside, and a Goth couple who looked like they were ending their night rather than beginning their day. I dawdled over a second cup of coffee, reading a
Clarion
the cab driver left behind. The Blue Jays had lost in Kansas City—
Kansas City!
— when one of their serial arsonists trotted in from the bullpen, blew a couple of sharp bubbles with his gum, then laid a fat pitch in over the plate that was last seen heading over the fountain in centre field.

After breakfast, I drove back to my building and parked on the street, where it would be harder for marauding mobsters to sabotage my car. I rode up to 17, climbed one flight of stairs and listened at the hall doorway. A quick peek through the window showed no one in the corridor. I slipped into the hall and knocked on Ed Johnston’s door. Ed was an early riser. His unit faced east and he often said he never missed a sunrise. But he didn’t answer the first knock or the second. My first thought was that he was still sleeping; the second that Marco had sent someone to get the film from Ed’s camera. I knocked louder. A moment later, I heard steps coming to the door and was relieved when Ed opened the door. He was dressed and had a mug of coffee in his hand.

“Jonah! You all right? Glad to see you up and around. You scared the hell out of me last night.”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure? That bastard cut you something awful.”

“It looked worse than it was. A few stitches is all.” I felt vulnerable standing out in the hallway, as if any moment the elevator doors would slide open and men with guns would barge out. “Can I come in?”

“Of course, of course. Get you a coffee?”

“One more can’t hurt.” If Percocet was going to constipate me, coffee might prove a valuable ally.

He handed me a mug and led me out to his balcony. The eastern view wasn’t as dramatic as mine: no valley, no downtown skyline, just miles and miles of houses and trees, punctuated by the odd high-rise. But the early sun bathed it all in a golden light, the promise of another day. Another chance to get things right.

“Who were those guys?” Ed asked.

“The less you know, Ed, the better. Trust me. You don’t want to get involved.”

“They don’t scare me.”

“They should. They scare the shit out of me.”

“Are you in trouble, Jonah?”

“No, just picking some up by association.”

“Anything I can do?”

“There is, Mr. Mayor.”

“Shoot.”

“Is there somewhere you can develop that film yourself? Where you’re the only one who sees it?”

“Sure. I belong to an Artscape co-op on King Street. I use a darkroom there in exchange for volunteering.”

“Okay. Develop it today and make one set of prints. But don’t show them to anyone. I mean
anyone.”

“Got it.”

“When you’re done, put the negs and the prints in an envelope with this address on it.” I wrote the name and address of my brother’s law firm. “Mark it to his attention:
urgent, personal and confidential. If anything happens to me, I want you to send it to him.”

“If anything happens—”

“It’s just a precaution. More than likely, I’ll come by your place for them tonight.”

“More than—-Jesus, kid, what did you get yourself into?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, Ed, and I’m not going to.”

“Who the hell is after you?”

I said, “Do this for me and you’ll be giving me all the help I need.”

If only that were true.

I checked under the hood of my car again, then crouched to check under the chassis, getting the same shooting pain in my side for my trouble. There didn’t seem to be a bomb and as it turned out, there didn’t have to be, because as soon as I headed south on Broadview toward the office, a dark green SUV fell into line behind me. Didn’t mean it was following me. Didn’t mean it wasn’t. I started making a series of turns no one with an actual destination would make. East, then north, then east again, then south, then west back to Broadview. The SUV followed.

I waited for a break in traffic and went north again, past the Broadview subway and streetcar terminus. Trying to lose the more powerful SUV on a straight road was a mug’s game, but the Camry would handle quick turns better. I stayed in the left lane as we approached Mortimer so he’d think I was taking Pottery Road down to the Bayview Extension. But as we approached the intersection I checked my side mirrors, saw no one coming up inside, then yanked the wheel to the right and gunned it east on Mortimer. The SUV made the turn too, though not as nimbly, and was half a block behind when I took the first left. I drove through East York as quickly as I dared, taking every turn I could, trying to put a full block between us.
At Sammon Avenue, I rolled through the stop sign and turned right—getting a horn blast and extended middle finger from a woman in a LeSabre who had the right of way. With her between me and the SUV, I floored the Camry, imploring its six cylinders to give it their all. As I approached Pape, the traffic light turned yellow. Then red. I hit my horn and blew through the light, swerving to avoid a van starting through the intersection. Another horn, another finger; another day in the life of Toronto drivers.

When the LeSabre stopped behind me at the light, the SUV had to do the same. I took my first left, then another, doubling back west just as the SUV would be starting to roll east. I took another quick left the wrong way down a curving one-way street and shot down a long mutual drive that led to a garage at the rear of a house in the curve of the crescent. I turned off the engine and sat there breathing hard, my side throbbing from tension, from wrenching the steering wheel side to side. I stared straight ahead at the garage door. Whoever had painted it hadn’t used the right primer. Paint was coming away in curling strips like birchbark.

Then a shadow appeared at my window. Someone knocked on the glass and my gut clenched like a fist. I was belted in, trapped, and in pain. I pictured a pair of thugs standing outside with guns drawn, ready to fire as soon as I rolled my window down. But there was no bulk looming there. Another knock: the sharp rap of a knuckle rather than the pounding of a fist. I powered down the window. A thin sparrow of a woman stood there, wearing a broad-brimmed hat tied around her chin with a flowery kerchief. She wore the kind of wraparound sunglasses older people wear to keep out the glare. She was at least seventy.
Okay, Geller,
I thought,
you can take her.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “This is private property, not some parking lot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was—”

“You came the
wrong
way down a one-way street at high speed. There are children on this street, you know. Elderly people,” she said, clearly not counting herself among them. “The way you people drive, you treat the whole city like your personal racetrack. Killing drivers, pedestrians, bystanders, cyclists, anyone in your way.”

“I was being chased,” I said.

“By who? The police?”

“More of a road rage thing.”

“The way you drive, you probably deserved it.” She held up a gardening trowel in one thin hand. “Now get off my property before I strip your paint job down to the metal.”

I shifted into reverse. I wasn’t so sure I could take her after all.

“
W
hat happened to you?” Clint asked me. I flinched and spilled coffee on my hands and the counter in the office kitchenette. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me and I was jumpy: if the guys in the SUV knew where I lived, they also had to know where I worked.

Clint was looking at the fat lip Ryan had given me during last night’s little sideshow.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “I was accosted.”

“Accosted.”

“Mugged.”

“By who? Mike Tyson?”

“Just a guy.”

“Since when does just a guy get the better of Jonah Geller?”

“He had a friend.”

“So there were two guys.”

“Yes. I didn’t see the other one at first. He came up behind me.”

Clint sighed. “When did it become so easy to lie to me?”

“Clint, it’s nothing, okay? Nothing to do with work. Let it go. Please.”

He poured coffee into his mug and added a splash of skim milk to it. “If this is your way of showing me you’re ready for a
case, you might want to rethink your approach.” He walked out of the kitchenette before I could respond. It was just as well. I had nothing to say but more lies.

Andy Robb was alone in our cube farm, researching the sports memorabilia market in preparation for an undercover job at a firm that was reportedly flooding Toronto with fake sports jerseys, photos and other artifacts.

“Check this out,” Andy said. “Remember Mickey Truman?”

I looked up from MediaTron, where I’d been reading follow-ups on the Kylie Warren shooting. “Sure,” I said. “Played first base for the Blue Jays way back when. Good bat, no glove, as I recall. Moved like an elm tree out there. Should have been a DH.”

“He was killed in a car crash last March, down near Dunedin.”

“I remember. During spring training, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. They brought him back as a hitting instructor.”

“What about him?”

“His rookie card, in mint condition, was going for less than five bucks before he died. Now it’s up over twelve. Two hundred and forty per cent increase, just because he got himself killed. Funny how someone can be worth more dead than alive.”

No it wasn’t, I thought. Not in the least.

Founded largely by Scots, Toronto was once the most homogeneous of cities. A century ago, diversity meant you took your Presbyterianism through the mellowing filter of Andrew Melville instead of straight up from John Knox himself. Today, Toronto is reportedly the most multicultural city in the world, with the greatest number of countries represented among its immigrants and more than a hundred and thirty languages and dialects spoken. Driving west on Bloor near the University of Toronto, looking for a parking spot, I saw people in every skin
tone you could imagine, from blue-black to coffee with double cream to the palest bleached rose. In the hot weather, many were stripped down to T-shirts and tank tops, showing off colourful tattoos and other body art.

Toronto had been so conservative once, so buttoned-down and Victorian. Now the old girl had not only thrown off her crinolines, she’d gone and had her labia pierced.

I finally scored a parking spot west of Spadina and walked back past stores that catered to every aspect of campus, bohemian and eco-vegan life: a copy shop, two sushi joints, a tattoo and piercing parlor, a bookstore catering to spiritual seekers, a cycle repair shop and a store that sold only products made from hemp—except, of course, the combustibles.

The Registered Association of Ontario Pharmacists was in a Georgian mansion on Huron north of Bloor, in a block of mansions that housed medical and therapy practices, embassies, private clubs, galleries and the one true bane of the Annex: fraternity houses. The entrance to the college was framed by a large stone portico with four columns. Tall leaded windows were set in fieldstone bays. Winston Chan greeted me on the ground floor and walked me up a flight of carpeted stairs to his office.

Chan was a heavy man in his forties, with a black brushcut and rosy patches on both cheeks that made him look merry. His office was lined with shelves that contained books, thick binders and stacks of paper. He sat behind his desk and clasped his hands behind his neck; I took the club chair facing him.

“Like I told you on the phone, there are strict limits to what I can tell you,” Chan said.

“I know so little, anything is bound to help.”

He turned his computer monitor out of my line of vision and tapped in a password. “Here we go. You said his name is Silver, eh?”

“Yes. First name Jay.”

“Strange. I don’t have anyone by that name in our registry,” Chan frowned. “There’s a Samuel Jason Silver. Could that be the same?”

“Is he the only Silver you have?”

“Yup. His registered location is the Med-E-Mart on Laird Boulevard in Leaside.”

“He’s the one.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Geller, I’ve just told you pretty much everything I can about him.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Unless he’s been disciplined by the Association in response to an investigation.”

“Can we check?”

“I’m doing it as we speak,” said Chan, the bright blue of his monitor reflected in his wire-rim glasses. “Hmm,” he said after a moment. “Nope, nothing here. Looks like he’s kept his nose clean, as far as we’re concerned.”

“How tight a rein do you keep on your members?”

“Not as tight as I’d like. There are thousands of pharmacies in the province. We can’t inspect them more than once every three years or so, and even then we mainly look at their prescriptions for signs of irregularities. Our mission is to protect public safety; we don’t concern ourselves with business practices or anything like that. Now what’s this about? Has Mr. Silver done something I should be aware of?”

“I don’t know. Between you and me, a threat has been made against him and I’ve been asked to look into it.”

“But not by him.”

“No.”

“Otherwise you’d be asking him these questions, not me.”

“Right.”

“Then on whose behalf are you investigating?”

“A member of the family.” I left out the part about it being a notorious crime family. “Can I ask a hypothetical question?”

“You can always ask,” he said.

“Why would a pharmacist ship goods out of his store instead of taking them in?”

“What kind of goods?”

“Sealed cartons from the manufacturer—enough to fill a cube van.”

Chan mulled that one over. “Well, there are circumstances that would allow for it. Some pharmacies have wholesale licences that permit them to ship quantities of drugs to other pharmacies—if they comply with federal legislation, of course.”