Hazardous Goods (Arcane Transport) (35 page)

“I’ll come up with a better one for next time. What’s up?”

“Clay asked me to give you a call, see if you can pop in at five? He said the Expo guys called back.”

“Really? Interesting.” Huh. The Global Occult Expo was an annual “multi-denominational” conference and tradeshow – the largest gathering of magic-types in the world. And this year it was being held in Toronto.

Clay and I had heard some rumours that the organizers were having issues with the preferred transport company that the venue had identified. I guess the regular courier wasn’t too thrilled to find out they would be shipping gallon drums of cow blood.

The show was opening a week Thursday – nine days from today – and would run from Thursday to Sunday. Over a hundred exhibitors, speakers from all over and nearly fifteen hundred attendees.

“Any sense as to whether we’ll get the business?”

“Clay seemed to think so. He was going to call you, but he’s been in with the Glen Morrow guys all morning.”

Better him than me. Glen Morrow Funeral Home was one of those customers – Clay called them root canals. Need them, but sure don’t want them.

“Was Harvey able to get a copy of the program guide?”

“He picked up a pack of them. And I pulled the list of exhibitors off the web.”

“Were there many...”

“More than half of them are current customers.” That was why Kara was so indispensible. She had a brain, and wasn’t afraid to use it. “Of the rest, there are a few locals we no longer work with, a couple small accounts you might want to touch base with, twenty Canadian companies with no real presence in Toronto, and the rest are foreign.”

Winning the Expo had been a goal of Clay’s since it was announced a year ago that Toronto was to host it. When he heard the organizers had opted for a traditional courier, he had been crushed. This most recent news, though... I thought maybe the full moon was turning out to be good luck for us, after all.

I’m a foolish, foolish man.

JOHN A. MACKIE is a freelance writer and author. He previously practiced as a lawyer, drafting contracts and serving as a target for his friends’ lawyer jokes. John lives in the outskirts of Toronto with his wife and three children, and is hard at work on the next Arcane Transport Delivery