Buffalo jump

CHAPTER 37

We were past Yonge Street and making good time when Jenn called my cell. “Where are you?”

“On the road.”

“On your way in, I hope.”

“Not directly.”

“Are you nuts? Clint’s already mad at you.”

“I’ll be in as soon as I can.”

“Shouldn’t keeping your job be a priority?”

“He’s that pissed?”

“Have you ever seen his betrayed look?”

“Oh, God, not the one where he looks like a hound dog?”

“An abandoned hound that’s been beaten with a stick.”

“I’ll call him,” I said.

“It’s your ass.”

“I know. Listen, how busy are you?”

“Manageable.”

“See what you can find on the Vista Mar group and Steven Stone. Check what year he got his MBA at Western. See if it overlapped with either Jay Silver or Kenneth Page, both spelled the way they sound. And if there’s anything Stone has written in the business school quarterly, download it. I bet it has to do with supply chain improvements or using Internet sales to broaden commercial reach.”

“Aren’t you a biz-head all of a sudden,” Jenn said. “Should we expect a suit and a buzz cut?”

“Not this quarter,” I said.

Backed up to the loading dock at the Med-E-Mart was a half-ton truck. It was twice the capacity of the one I’d seen last time and the same size and model as the two I’d seen parked on the Aspromonte lot-with an empty space between them. I could see at least three men near the rear. We kept driving past a larger loading dock that serviced Silver’s closest neighbour, an office supplies depot. We parked behind a trailer that had been uncoupled from its tractor and left on struts. I sidled up along it, knelt behind a tire bigger than I was, and looked at the dock through my field glasses.

There were four of them. Frank was directing two young men in slacks and nylon sport shirts as they loaded the truck. Claudio was holding himself stiffly with his elbows close to his sides. The eye I had jabbed was a puffed-up red and purple mess.

Not to be uncharitable, but I hoped he felt worse than he looked.

One of the young studs was pushing a mini-forklift loaded with a skid of cartons; the other was bringing cartons out of the store three at a time on a hand truck. The man with the forklift manoeuvred his load to the rear of the truck and used a control on the handle to raise it to eye level. The name Contrex was visible on every carton through a shroud of shrink wrap. He walked the load into the truck, was out of sight for half a minute and came out pulling the empty lift. I had driven trucks the size of this one in Banff. It could hold at least sixteen skids stacked in rows of four, two over two. And since the goods weren’t breakable, dozens of single cartons could be piled on top of and around the skids.

Where was Jay Silver while all this was going on? Inside the store, powerless to stop it from being pillaged? Or somewhere else, unaware of the situation. Maybe unaware, period.

The next skid held cartons labelled CoRex-the name of Canada’s largest manufacturer of generic drugs. As the man steered it toward the truck, his load slid suddenly forward. He probably wasn’t used to handling a lift and hadn’t pushed the forks all the way through to the end of the skid. He used a handbrake to stop the forklift but the load kept going, toppling forward to the concrete floor of the dock. “Fuck!” he yelled-I could lip-read it through the field glasses as well as hear it. The shrink wrap split along one side on impact and the cartons spilled out every which way along the dock. A few fell down to ground level. “Shit!” the man yelled.

The two men were going to have to slug the cases in by hand, and neither Frank nor Claudio looked ready to help. I jogged back to Ryan’s car, hunched over like Groucho Marx.

“Drop me off around the front,” I said. “I’m going inside. I need to see if Silver’s there.”

“And if he’s not?”

“Then I want to see who’s letting these guys clean him out.”

“What if Frank or Claudio sees you?”

“Frank I can take in my sleep, and I think Claudio’s had more than enough of me.”

As soon as I entered the store, I could hear raised voices at the back counter where a dozen people were crowded around a pharmacist, waving slips of paper at him and barking questions. The man was holding up his hands as if to say It’s not my fault.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” he said. “We’re having an inspection and we have to freeze the inventory until it’s complete.”

“Why are they inspecting you?” an older man demanded. “What’s wrong with the place?”

“Nothing, I assure you.”

“I want to speak to the owner.”

“I’m sorry,” the pharmacist said. “He called in sick, of all days.”

“What am I supposed to do?” asked a woman in her seventies, bent over a chrome walker. “I have to take my medicine the same time every day, that’s what they told me. Like clockwork, they said.”

“We’ve arranged for your prescriptions to be filled at Dotson’s, right around the corner on Eglinton.”

“Maybe Eglinton is right around the corner for you. You know how long it takes me?”

She flinched as the man with the hand truck banged in through the doors from the shipping area. He wheeled it over to a room to our right, was gone for a moment, then came back out with three more cases, followed by a tall dark-skinned woman with thick black hair in a braid that fell below her belt.

“That’s the inspector,” the pharmacist said. “If you have any questions, please speak to her. I’ve told you all I know.”

The crowd surged toward the woman, who seemed momentarily startled.

“Why can’t we get our prescriptions?” a man called out.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. Suh, in a rich Brahmin accent. “But regulations specify that no products can be dispensed during an inspection.”

I had spoken to her only once on Winston Chan’s speakerphone, but I knew her voice instantly: Sumita Desai, enforcement officer for the Registered Pharmacists’ Association of Ontario. No wonder nothing had come up in Silver’s last inspection. She was in on it. No red flags went up? No shit.

“Why are they taking all this stuff away?” another man asked. “Is it being recalled?”

“Not at all,” the inspector said. “We are conducting a routine inspection to ensure the safety of all medications and the continued good health of consumers like you. The sooner you allow us to complete it, the sooner business can get back to usual. Shouldn’t be more than an hour or two.”

There was some general grumbling but people started to disperse. “I’ll take you to Dotson’s,” a middle-aged man told the lady in the walker. “My van seats seven if anyone else needs a ride.”

Sumita Desai was heading back to the exit door when I moved into her path. Her hair was a dark glossy marvel, her eyes every bit as black. “Excuse me,” I said. “Can I ask why you’re inspecting these premises?”

“I’m sorry, suh. Our process is completely confidential.”

“I had a prescription filled yesterday,” I said. “How do I know it’s safe?”

“Take it up with your pharmacist,” she said.

“Have you spoken to Mr. Silver today? Informed him about the inspection?”

“He couldn’t be reached,” she said. “I am told he is ill.” Her voice didn’t sound warm and tropical anymore. It was clipped and precise and very, very cold.