“Paula, I think her name is,” Acorn said, reading Jinnah’s thought. “Two of the meanest sharks from the old VSE, the widow of the biggest swindler of them all and they’re at your share launch, mate. You really know how to pull in the players.”
“What the hell are they doing here, for God’s sake?” whispered Jinnah.
“They were spinning me something fierce before you arrived. I suspect they’re here because the press corps are in attendance.”
Jinnah’s eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly.
“Is this about Grant’s story?” he asked, instincts tingling.
“Bingo,” said Acorn. “They say he’s full of shit.”
“Do you think he’s full of shit, Ashley?”
“Ah, who can tell? What do you expect them to say?” Acorn shrugged. “Murder, suicide, what’s the difference? The main thing is to salvage the deal, right? Mourning comes later.”
Before Jinnah could ask for a more lucid explanation, the lights dimmed and a tremendous, rumbling roar echoed through the room. Jinnah felt the vibration of the sound resonate throughout his body, shaking him, making his stomach turn backflips. The din was follow by an explosion of light and motion at the front of the ballroom. Jinnah turned away from the trio and his eyes were assaulted by the image of a huge locomotive twenty feet high steaming straight towards him. Then, a mellow, well-modulated voice floated over top the sound and motion.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Orient Love Express,” it said.
The Orient Love Express was on track. The audio-visual presentation was on a surround-sound screen at a volume little short of ear-splitting. It’s slick look screamed “expensive.” The production on screen was fast-paced, cutting from images of unhappy-looking men and women to charts of birth rates and widening gendergaps in China and Russia. At any other time, Jinnah might have appreciated the production qualities. He should have — he’d paid for them. But he was watching Lavirtue, Paula Schuster and Thompson as best he could as the flickering light from the screen reflected off their faces and seemed to vanish down Thompson’s eye sockets. Lavirtue looked slightly amused, the son of a bitch! Paula Schuster’s face was a mask of indifference, her eyes far away. Thompson, on the other hand was watching intently. Jinnah could almost see him calculating, cross-checking, trying to determine if this share offering was worth it or not. Well, he could wonder — there was no way he wanted this man’s money. Besides, Jinnah had immediately slotted all three people in the triangle as suspects in Sam Schuster’s death and he made it a rule never to accept money from a suspect. Well, more a guideline than a rule, really …
The lights went back up and Sanjit was at the podium, beaming. There was one final surprise. Flanking the president of the Orient Love Express were a dozen very attractive young women and men (Russian women, Chinese men) in tight-fitting, revealing engineer’s uniforms. They were carrying copies of the prospectus.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our hosts and hostesses would be happy to assist you with any inquiries,” said Sanjit as the models fanned out into what, it had to be admitted, was an impressed crowd.
Jinnah too was impressed. And trying to figure out the final bill. But his calculations were interrupted. Acorn was once again at his ear.
“Lavirtue’s the man you want to talk to about the little fracas in your newsroom this morning, mate,” he said. “I’m told he was in the middle of it.”
“Middle of what?” asked Jinnah, not taking his eyes off the troika.
“I have said too much already,” grinned Acorn, running a clenched thumb and forefinger across his mouth and symbolically zipping his lips.
The crowd was starting to fragment into small knots of people (usually with a model at the centre) moving in eddies that carried them in all directions. Jinnah saw Sanjit come down from the platform, beaming and making his way towards him. But Jinnah wanted to talk to Lavirtue and especially Thompson, who were moving in opposite directions: Lavirtue towards the door with Mrs. Schuster in tow, Thompson to the information tables where the brochures and media kits were piled high. Jinnah hesitated — which one first? He decided to kill two birds with one stone and nab Lavirtue and Schuster. But before he could take a step, his way was blocked by the form of a very broad, very bearded man wearing a turban and carrying a notebook.
“Greetings, Mister Jinnah,” said Mister Germal of the Indo-Canadian Community Reporter. “May I ask you a few questions?”
“Not now, Germal,” said Jinnah, pushing past him. “Go ask Sanjit.”
“But Sanjit said —”
“Maybe later,” said Jinnah, diving through a screen of people to relative safety.
Unfortunately, his relative was closing in from the other side. Behind Sanjit trailed a cameraman from one of the local TV stations.
“Hakeem!” Sanjit called, beckoning urgently with a hand. “Hakeem!”
Jinnah frowned. The last thing he wanted right now was to hold Sanjit’s hand during media interviews. On the other hand, the thought of leaving Sanjit alone with Germal was a frightening one. A group of people pushed past Jinnah, forcing him to step further away from the centre of the room and towards the tables.
“Excuse me. Mister Jinnah, I believe?”
Jinnah turned to find himself facing the cratered face of Neil Thompson. He looked into the light-sucking eyes at close range and discovered he was short of breath.
“Yes?” was the best Jinnah could gasp.
“My name is Thompson. Neil Thompson. You tied in with this share offering?”
“Only marginally,” wheezed Jinnah.
There was no doubt about it. Jinnah was having an asthma attack. He cursed to himself and opened his black pouch. Somewhere inside there ought to be his puffer. Thompson continued as Jinnah’s fingers fumbled inside the bag’s dark, jumbled depths.
“Marginal. Margins. It all boils down to those, doesn’t it? What’s your margin of return on investment? What are your marginal costs? What are they, do you know?”
Panicked, Jinnah looked around wildly. Sanjit had been stopped and now was deep in conversation with Germal while the TV cameras rolled. From the look on Sanjit’s face, the interview was not going well. Nor was Jinnah’s search for the puffer. Keys. Combs. God damn it, it must be in here somewhere!
“My cousin Sanjit is actually the president,” Jinnah wheezed. “You must excuse me, I have an asthmatic condition.”
Thompson grunted and abruptly changed the topic.
“Do you know this Gerald Dixon Grant guy?” he said, voice cautious, reserved.
“Works at the same paper,” gasped Jinnah.
“Tell him he’s full of shit, would you?”
Jinnah was tempted to tell Thompson that was a mantra he recited to Grant virtually every day, but it did not do to disparage your colleagues in public.
“He’s an award-winning reporter, Mister Thompson.”
“Yeah? Tell that to Sam Schuster’s murderer.”
Jinnah’s fingers closed around the smooth, cool metal cylinder of his puffer. He squeezed it tight, arm rigid, lungs protesting. He wanted with all his might to bring the device to his lips and inhale the aerosol relief it held, but that would be a greater sign of weakness than him gasping and wheezing. Painful as it was, he decided to tough it out.
“Really?” he said as nonchalantly as he could. “Do you know him? The murderer?
Thompson’s