promoters would do anything to get their names in the paper, wouldn’t they? He looked again at Schuster. Mousy kind of chap but he had a certain gleam in his eyes.
“How did Schuster talk these guys into posing like that, hmm?” he asked.
Grant grinned.
“Schuster had the gift of the gab, Jinnah. He could have talked even you into trusting him with your life savings and, when he lost it, convince you that you were better off without all that money.”
Jinnah whistled. It was virtually impossible for anyone to extort as much as a free coffee out of him, let alone his life’s savings (which were carefully invested in a well-balanced portfolio). Schuster must have had considerable powers of persuasion.
“These two men beside him, who are they?” asked Jinnah.
“Guy on the left is Neil Thompson. The big chap on the right is Cosmo Lavirtue. At the time, they were Schuster’s closest partners,” said Grant.
Jinnah looked carefully at the two men’s faces. They appeared poles apart in their enthusiasm for this stupid publicity stunt, but both had been willing to put up money — lots of money.
“Isn’t this the deal that lost a record amount on the VSE?” he asked.
“On the VSE? Yes. Out of Thompson and Lavirtue’s pockets? Certainly. But somehow, good old Schuster managed to make out just fine,” said Grant with some relish. “There were millions of dollars involved.”
Jinnah sat back in his chair and studied these men carefully.
“Then these two fellows are suspects in Schuster’s slaying, hmm?” he said.
Grant laughed a hollow laugh.
“Jesus, Jinnah! That was nearly twenty years ago! There’s been a lot of water under the bridge and a ton of scams since then! They’d have to take a number.”
“A man is generally murdered by someone he knows, Mister Grant, not by some stranger,” said Jinnah, eyes narrowing. “It is a fact that you should bear in mind.”
The following silence was broken only by the click of the mouse as Church strove to find another, more rewarding image of Schuster. Blacklock decided to reassert himself.
“Mister Grant, I take it Mister Schuster was involved in more than one controversial deal?”
Grant nodded vigorously.
“Always a showman. Look at that stupid Peace River thing. Caught the public’s attention. But in the case of Northern Frontier, the geological reports turned out to be suspect. Schuster said they were within the statistical margin of error, of course.”
“How far off was he?” asked Jinnah.
“The pocket contained less than 5 percent of the amount originally forecast,” said Grant dryly. “And yet, Schuster has made more fortunes — and lost them — than anyone else on the VSE. Right up to Friday, he was still trying to pull off the biggest scam of his career.”
Blacklock raised a heavy eyebrow.
“Indeed? Pray, enlighten me.”
“Imperial Indonesian Petroleum. Schuster had a chance to gain a controlling interest in a one hundred million dollar deal. But at the last minute, he came up just short. He’d asked for an extension, but it was not certain the Jakarta authorities would give it to him. My guess is the deal collapsed, he ran out of time so he called it a life.”
Grant finished. Jinnah had nothing to add. He was still thinking. All eyes were now on Blacklock, who sat playing with a blue grease pencil, absorbed in thought. He reached his decision and began to pronounce like the Oracle of Delphi.
“Mister Church, what is the news hole looking like today?” he asked.
“Not big,” said Church. “But not much else is happening. We could give it story on front keying to a page inside.”
“And what would this page one story say, Mister Jinnah?”
“That Robert Chan is a bloody hero,” said Jinnah. “A dramatic narrative of how an ordinary Vancouver man braved smoke and flames —”
Blacklock once again held up a hand.
“A dramatic narrative? Surely you mean an exclusive first-hand account?”
Jinnah squirmed slightly. He’d been afraid of this.
“Not as such,” he admitted. “The cops won’t let me near Chan.”
Blacklock was smiling. That was a bad sign.
“And in the absence of this interview, what do you propose?”
“We tell it the way it happened according to police sources,” persisted Jinnah. “How the Chans, out for their evening walk by the river, were suddenly terrified by a fiery explosion —”
Jinnah noted that Blacklock was playing with a piece of paper on his desk. He stopped, looking quizzically at his boss.
“Oh, do go on, Mister Jinnah,” said Blacklock. “I find this most compelling.”
“More compelling than the memo on your desk?” Jinnah fired back and immediately regretted opening his mouth.
Blacklock picked up the piece of paper and held it up for all to see. It bore the unmistakable letterhead of the Vancouver Police Department.
“In fact, it is exactly as compelling as the piece of paper on my desk,” said Blacklock coolly. “Almost identical in every detail. Remarkable, given how different crime reporting is from business writing, don’t you think?”
Jinnah cursed himself for not stealing the press release from off the fax machine, as he usually did, before Blacklock could get his hands on it. It never paid to let your boss know as much about a story as you did.
“Listen, I have details that aren’t in that release!” he protested.
“But no interview with the eyewitness?”
“No sir, but —”
“Quite right too,” said Blacklock, putting the press release down on his desk. “The poor man has been through enough already. I won’t have you pestering him.”
“Pestering him!” cried Jinnah. “Since when is investigative journalism called pestering?”
“As of now,” said Blacklock. “This is how I see it: a main story on Schuster on page one written by Grant, keying to page three. What have you got for inside, Grant?”
Grant allowed himself a smug look of triumph as Jinnah fumed in his chair.
“I have his business associates and the securities people on the IIP deal, which looks as if it’s now dead. I also have a top ten list of Schuster’s biggest scams and a nibbly on his vital stats.”
Jinnah was by now in full fury. Bad enough he’d been insulted
