Sanderson lowered his paper and regarded Jinnah with patient exasperation.
“Hakeem, if you weren’t so lazy you would have called up the list yourself and seen he has some angle about a securities investigation into Schuster’s business.”
“Bullshit, Ronald! That’s what it may say on the list, but I know Grant! He’s furious because I bumped him off front! He has something up his sleeve, I know it! ”
“Then why don’t you ask him? You two are supposed to be partners.”
Jinnah shot his colleague a look of utter disgust as he headed for the door.
“I would rather be sealed in a pit of my own filth, Ronald.”
“Where shall I tell them you are, Hakeem?” Sanderson called after him.
Whirling around, Jinnah shouted somewhat melodramatically, “On the trail of a killer, my friend!”
“The man of light and shadows?” Sanderson teased.
Jinnah replied somewhat stiffly with one of his favourite phrases.
“Even a man of light and shadows must undergo trial, Ronald. There is trial by judge, trial by jury, and trial —”
“Yes,” Sanderson interrupted. “And trial by Jinnah.”
With the dramatic effect of his exit ruined, Jinnah scowled and left.
Two minutes later, Blacklock came looking for Jinnah and found Sanderson (whose nearly infallible editor-in-chief radar had, for once, failed him) with his feet up on the desk, reading the newspaper.
“Mister Sanderson!” Blacklock bellowed. “Where is that miscreant Jinnah!”
Sanderson threw down his paper and snapped to attention in a manner that would have done an Armed Forces recruit proud. It did not impress Blacklock one wit.
“I believe he’s out on a story, sir,” said Sanderson, voice tight with fear.
“Where did he claim he was going this time? The airport to greet an arriving terrorist or the Mayo Clinic for treatment?”
“He said something about tracking down a murderer, Mister Blacklock,” said Sanderson, trying to smile and failing miserably.
Blacklock looked at Sanderson as if he were something his cat might have spat up after eating too quickly.
“And just how are you justifying your enormous salary today, Mister Sanderson, other than reading the comics page?” asked Blacklock in that pleasant tone he reserved when about to sever a reporter’s jugular vein.
“I … I was hoping to do a follow-up on my Dumpster Doggie, sir —” Sanderson trembled, feeling like a caterpillar about to be devoured by a rotund praying mantis.
“Forget that!” snapped Blacklock, jaws closing on his prey. “Be in Mister Church’s office in five minutes.”
Sanderson gulped dryly, squirming in Blacklock’s mental grip, feeling his vital fluids of free will and daily assignments being sucked from his body and replaced by the pure adrenaline of fear and dread of a special project.
“Church’s office?” he whispered feebly.
“Yes,” Blacklock smiled, licking his lips, enormously pleased with his feed. “We have a special project that requires your unique talents.”
Blacklock lumbered off, leaving Sanderson to fall back into his chair, helpless as a squashed bug. A special project! His unique talents!
“It cannot, nor shall it come to good,” he said.
Jinnah drove down Oak Street towards South Vancouver, smoking non-stop as he navigated the satellite-guided Love Machine through the traffic. A trick of the light! Smoke and mirrors! Jinnah would prove there had been someone there. He was headed for the crime scene on Marine Drive. Pray God it hasn’t been messed up too badly, he thought. But Jinnah’s musings were interrupted by the ring of his cellphone. Cursing, he struggled to wrench the thing out of his jacket pocket with one hand while maintaining control of the van with the other.
“Y’ello!” he said.
“Jinnah. It is Mister Puri here.”
“Mister Puri!” Jinnah said with mock enthusiasm. “How are you, sir?”
“I am well, God be thanked,” said Puri. “I am at the Punjabi Market.”
Jinnah was no more than five minutes drive from the market. He didn’t hesitate.
“I will meet you there,” he promised.
Jinnah got into the left-hand lane and turned east towards Main Street. The Punjabi Market was the heart of Vancouver’s Little India. It was with no great joy he drove south and east, however. Jinnah was from Africa first and foremost, and he felt vaguely ill at ease in the vibrant heart of the Indo-Canadian community of the West Coast. He was really no more at home here than he was in the European enclave that was the Vancouver newspaper industry. It was his fate, it seemed, to be a man apart in his adopted home. Try as he might, Jinnah could not fit entirely into either world.
He could not fit Mister Puri’s moral scruples into with his own business interests either. The discussion over coffee did not go well from the start.
“How are you today, Mister Puri?” Jinnah asked solicitously as the older man settled into his chair, puffing.
“Troubled, Jinnah, very troubled,” Mister Puri, a devout Hindu, replied, peering at Jinnah over the top of his glasses.
Jinnah swallowed hard and forged ahead.
“Sanjit was telling me you have some concerns over our little share offering. I wish to assure you —”
Mister Puri held up a slender hand, silencing him.
“Jinnah, it is not just I who have reservations. Many respected citizens are concerned that it will reflect badly on the community.”
“In what way?”
“Jinnah, we do not deal in selling women to men. This pyramid scheme of yours —”
“It’s not a pyramid scheme! It’s a multi-level marketing strategy.”
“Ah! I have heard that phrase used before in relation to gold coins. Please explain the difference.”
“A pyramid scheme is where you sell people,” Jinnah said, growing a little impatient. “Multi-leveled marketing is where you sell services. We are selling services.”
Mister Puri leaned forward, his brown, square hat almost in his coffee, and whispered discreetly.
“It is exactly the nature of the services to be sold that concern me,” he hissed.
Jinnah groaned inwardly.
“We are not selling women to men, Mister Puri. We are selling an introduction service to women from Russia who may wish to marry single men from China. There is nothing untoward about it. There are similar schemes in Canada.”
“I believe you, Jinnah, but you know how these things look to people who wish us ill. People in the press, for instance — yourself aside,” Mister Puri said. “May I suggest that you and Sanjit find some other, less venal, investment vehicle.”
Jinnah decided to play what he considered his trump card. He played it badly.
“Listen, Mister Puri, I am in a position to offer you a special price on shares —” he began.
Mister Puri straightened up in his chair, glaring.
“This is not about money, Jinnah! It is about principles! Appearances! Morals!”
“What’s