The outraged drys began to apply more pressure on Ottawa. A Presbyterian minister, back from a visit to the Canadian troops in England, declared that innocent boys were being “debauched by British booze, and by the immoral filth of London.” The Reverend Sidney Lambert sniffed even more iniquity at home. “I would rather Germany wins this war,” he said, “than see these get-rich-quick liquor men rule and damn the young men of Canada.”
In 1917 the Gurskys were struck not one, but two blows. Ottawa introduced income tax, a nuisance that Bernard chose to ignore. Then, on Christmas eve, the importation of intoxicating liquors over two-and-a-half-percent proof was banned until after the war’s end by an Order-in-Council. Only three months later, in March 1918, another Order-in-Council abolished interprovincial trafficking in liquor.
Morrie’s memoir of the years that followed was uncommonly evasive, even for him, but, surprisingly, also a touch poetic. “This is no tale of woe,” he wrote, “but as we climbed out of the prairie of toils into the garden of plenty, enjoying our first tasty chunks out of the roast beef of life, Solomon and Bernard began to quarrel bitterly, and I had to intervene more than once. It was in that acid soil that seeds of my future nervous breakdown were planted.”
Solomon came home in the spring of 1918, wearing a flying-officer’s uniform, favouring his left leg, and sporting the first of his malacca canes. Bernard sat down with him and laid out all that he had accomplished during his absence. The family holdings, he said, now included nine hotels and two mail-order houses, one in a small town in Ontario and the other in Montreal, and then he looked up, hungering for praise, entitled to it, but gaining only an impatient nod. “Okay,” Bernard roared, “you want me to give it to you straight? In spite of my working sixteen hours a day, since the introduction of the new laws, the mail-order houses aren’t worth a dry fart. And you know what those fucken hotels are good for now? A fire. Insurance money.”
Solomon sent for copies of the Orders-in-Council, studied them in bed, and the next morning summoned Bernard and Morrie. “We’re going into the wholesale drug business,” he said.
Wearing his uniform, Solomon took the Manitoba Liberal party bagman to dinner at The Victory Hotel.
“How I envy you,” the bagman said. “I was desperate to join my regiment, but the prime minister insisted I could do more for the war effort in Ottawa.”
A girl was provided for the bagman, a considerable tribute was paid, and the necessary licence was forthcoming. An abandoned warehouse was acquired and The Royal Pure Drug Company of Canada was born. Within weeks it was producing Ginger Spit, Dandy Bracer, Dr. Isaac Grant’s Liver & Kidney Cure, Raven Cough Brew, and Tip-Top Fixer among other elixirs. The brew was blended by pouring sugar, molasses, tobacco juice, blue stone and raw alcohol into washtubs and letting it sit overnight. In the morning, once drowned rats had been scooped out with a fishing net, the solution was stirred with an oar, strained, tinted different colours, and bottled.
Then Solomon discovered another loophole in the law. Given a drug licence, a wholesaler could import real whisky from Scotland without limit, providing it was stored in a bonded warehouse, imported for re-export. Another girl was washed and scented for the bagman, more money was fed into the voracious maw of the Liberal party machine, and warehouses were promptly bought in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. Railroad carloads of whisky were imported from Scotland.
And then Solomon had another idea. “Why are we selling other people’s booze when we could make our own?”
Morrie was sent out to buy mixing vats and bottling equipment, and Solomon set to designing labels and commissioning a printer to produce them. Highland Cream, Crofter’s Delight, Bonnie Brew, Pride of the Highlands, Balmoral Malt, Vat Inverness, Ivanhoe Special Brand. Bernard, armed with a book he had stolen from the library, insisted that he be put in charge of the blending that was to be done in one-thousand-gallon redwood vats and Solomon, amused, agreed to it. But the initial carload of 65 overproof ethyl alcohol shipped to the Winnipeg warehouse presented them with a conundrum, and it was only the first of many carloads expected. If the overproof were to be used in the making of beverage alcohol it would be subject to a tax of $2.40 a gallon, but if, on the other hand, it was to be used to make vinegar the excise tax would be only 27¢ a gallon. Lloyd Corbett, the obese, affable Winnipeg customs agent, explained the problem.
“What time is it, my good friend?” Bernard asked.
“Eleven twenty-three.”
“Come,” Bernard said, and taking him by the arm he led him to the window and pointed at the big, endlessly blue prairie sky. “I tell you what, I’m such a crazy fool, I’m willing to bet you a thousand dollars it rains before noon.”
Lloyd Corbett sat down again, sorting out his genitals, and then lit his pipe. “Jeez, Bernie, I’m crazier than you are. I’ll bet you two thousand dollars and give you until one o’clock before the first drop falls.”
While they waited, Bernard fished a bottle of Scotch out of his desk drawer and poured Corbett a large shot. Among them, it was never too early.
“I’m retiring next month. Going to settle in Victoria. Had enough of these damn winters.”
“Will Frobisher be taking your place?” Bernard asked, suddenly alert.
“Nope. He’s going to Ottawa. They’ve already sent in a new fella. Just a kid. His name’s Smith. Bertram Smith.”
“Well, let me have his address and I’ll send him a case of Johnny Walker Red to welcome him into town.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Bernie, if I was you.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“Smith’s a teetotaller.”
“Married?”
“Nope.”
“I bet I’ve got just the girl for him.”
“He’s a regular church-goer, Bernie. A troop leader with the Boy Scouts.”
Three weeks passed before Bert Smith made his first appearance at the warehouse. At first glance, Bernard took him for another unemployed farm boy looking for a day’s work, he walked so softly and seemed so unsure of himself. Smith was scrawny, dry brown hair parted in the middle, pale as a plucked chicken, grey eyes with pupils like nailheads, blade of a nose blackhead peppery, hardly any lips, just a line there clamped shut, and a receding chin. His suit, too large for him, was neatly pressed and his black leather shoes shone. Once he introduced himself, Bernard grasped why he kept his mouth shut so tight. His crowded teeth were not so much irregular as running off in every which direction, the puffy gums an angry red. And his breath came hot and smelly. “I’m the new customs agent,” Smith said.
“It’s very thoughtful of you to come by to say hello. What do you say we grab a coffee and a blueberry pie at The Regent?”
They sat together in a booth.
“Where are you from?”
“Saskatoon.”
“Isn’t that my favourite town?”
“I came to inquire about the four carloads of bonded whisky you’ve got lying on a railroad siding.”
“You got a hero, Bert? Jesus aside.”
“Jesus was not a hero, Mr. Gursky. He is our Saviour.”
“Goddamn right he is. I meant no disrespect.”
“Those who do not accept him can never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Or the Manitoba Club, you little rat, Bernard thought, but never mind. “Risky risky,” he said, “that’s life. And death too, if I take your point correctly.”
“Yes.”
“Me, my hero is Baden-Powell. You know, the best years of my life were in the Boy Scouts and it really pains me that the troops here haven’t got a proper meeting hall. We’d like to contribute to that, the Gurskys, and we’d be honoured if you served as treasurer, taking charge of the funds at the committee’s disposal.”