“Where’s Joey?” he asked.
“In the bedroom,” I answered.
He seemed relieved.
“So, what can I do for you?” I said.
“We found the body of Mr. Armand Dempiers. He used to be an employee of Bantam Pharmaceuticals Limited.”
“Barnes and Herrera already briefed me on him,” I said.
Beadsworth took a seat and then leaned over towards the bedroom.
“He’s on the computer,” I said.
Beadsworth fixed his tie. “They’ll be performing an autopsy on Mr. Dempiers.” Beadsworth looked nervous. I had never seen him nervous. “Um…we’re waiting for the results…has anyone from the force visited Joey?”
“No, why?” I said.
“Sergeant Aldrich was upset that I requested Joey be put under your supervision.”
“He was? Good. It’s about time the man grows some white hair. I don’t like him.”
“Can I have a word with Joey?” Beadsworth asked.
“Go ahead.”
Beadsworth got up to go over to the room when there was a knock on the door. Beadsworth answered.
Aldrich came in, but no Garnett.
I got up.
I sensed tension between Beadsworth and Aldrich. They exchanged welcomes, which I felt were contrived.
“Officer Rupret,” Aldrich said, with a nod.
I knew he wasn’t here for me so I called out for Joey. He came out of the room looking red-eyed. He’d been staring at the monitor for hours.
Aldrich got right to the point, “We’ve found the body that you mentioned. You were correct. It is why you must tell us more. Time is running out.” He shoved a stack of paper at Joey. “Sign it and you’ll have your protection.”
Joey looked at the bundle. He scanned it and then scribbled his signature. He then gave them an address. “You can find them there.”
“I will have Detective Garnett pick you up tomorrow,” Aldrich said.
Joey shrugged an okay.
Both Aldrich and Beadsworth left.
I lay back on the sofa and Joey sat on the opposite chair.
The ringing of the telephone broke the awkward silence, and I was glad it did.
“Hello,” I answered it.
“Hi, is this Jon Rupret?” said a female voice.
I recognized the voice. It was the woman with the red hair. I immediately felt energized.
“Yes, speaking,” I said, calming myself.
“Hi, we met outside your house…”
“Yes, yes, of course. Did you get your vehicle?”
“Exactly where you said it would be,” she laughed.
I laughed.
Joey quietly picked up a magazine and began flipping the pages.
“How did you get my number?” I asked.
“The phone book.”
Ah, the good old white pages.
“I didn’t get your name?”
“It’s Laura,” she paused. “Um…I didn’t mention it earlier, but I’m here visiting my sister. She lives around the block from your house and…I’ll be leaving for the U.S.”
My heart sank. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes, tomorrow. I was hoping we could meet…maybe over dinner.”
“I don’t know…” I looked across at Joey. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“You can’t even spare an hour?”
I squirmed. I wanted to go. I really did.
“Okay,” I finally said, caving in.
TWENTY-THREE
Ed Burrows found Martin in the makeshift office. Martin didn’t look up; he was busy talking on the phone. Burrows walked back to the door and waited. He looked across to the middle of the warehouse, and saw two people unloading heavy barrels of gelatin from the U-Haul.
A tank of water had already been delivered, along with a truck filled with glycine and sodium hydroxide. Metal containers of dextroamphetamine were going to be delivered later in the day. Caffeine was the easiest component to get, so he wasn’t too worried about it.
Martin was off the phone now.
Burrows walked up to him.
Martin had the What-can-I-do-for-you-now look.
“We still don’t have sodium laurylsulphate,” Burrows said.
“What do we need that for?” Martin said.
Burrows said, “It helps to absorb the drug transmucosally into the mouth, throat and esophagus. Without it the drug is useless.”
Martin went silent, and then said, “You have to realize I don’t have unlimited resources. I can’t just call a company and say ship me a ton of this and a ton of that. Alarms would go off.”
Burrows said nothing.
“All right,” Martin said, waving his hands in the air. “I’ll make some calls.”
It was getting dark when I came out of the bathroom. I had showered and shaved and applied some heavy-duty deodorant. Joey was in the living room watching an old movie. I went into my room and changed into a nice silk shirt, unwrinkled pants, and a dark jacket. I checked myself in the mirror and except for the exposed little bruise on my nose I looked mighty fine.
Joey saw me and said, “You get dressed up to buy groceries?”
I had lied to Joey about meeting Laura. No need to tell him.
“I’m going to drop by a friend,” I said. “He’s not feeling well and all…but I’ll be back in an hour.” I checked my pocket for my cell phone. “You got my number?”
“Yeah,” he got up.
“Don’t open the door or answer the telephone. As far as anyone is concerned you are not here.”
“What if it’s your partner?” he asked.
“Don’t. If no one opens the door he’ll call my cell and I’ll tell him I’m out doing grocery shopping.”
Joey followed me to the door.
I hurried down the stairs, hoping my landlady wouldn’t stop me. I got into the car and drove off.
Joey locked and bolted the door. He turned and leaped back startled. The life-size cutout of Michael Jordan smiled back at him. Joey started to laugh. This was the second time he had been unnerved by it.
He picked up the giant cutout and placed it somewhere away from him. He was already nervous and he didn’t want something over six-and-a-half feet tall silently staring at him. It reminded him too much of Kong.
He then went back to his movie.
We had decided to meet at SonaMahal-an Indian restaurant-not far from my home. I found her sitting at a table near the window. She smiled when she saw me. She was wearing a full black dress and some jewelry around her neck.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long?” I said, taking a seat.
“A few minutes,” she answered. She looked beautiful.
We placed our orders, when I said, “How long have you been staying here in Toronto?”
“Only a few months,” she said. “I work for a consulting firm and one of our clients was interested in establishing a business in Toronto. I came here to see if that was financially viable. We have another client who is interested in expanding his business to Connecticut so…” She paused. “So I have to go down there for a while.”
I moved my head up and down.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I’m in law enforcement,” I said, thinking I shouldn’t have.
“I like a man in uniform,” she said.
Yes. I still had my parking enforcement uniform.
Outside it was nightfall, but the lights from the restaurants illuminated the street.
Our orders came and we started to eat. I had chanamasala, a dish of basmati rice with chickpeas, onion, garlic, and Indian spices, while she had a butter chicken entree of basmati rice with chicken pieces in a rich sauce of tomatoes, cream, butter, garlic, ginger and tandoori spices. Who ever said I couldn’t recite menus?
She swallowed a spoonful of rice and said, “Oh, before I forget, can you excuse me? I just have to make a call.” With that she went outside.
The Sundance sat parked a block away from Greenwood and Gerrard. Suraj was behind the wheel, and Hause in the passenger side. They had seen the black officer come out of the house and drive away.