“Since you are the only person from our end, still alive, to have seen the original, it will have to be you, my friend,” Dona Maria said, without any tonal hints that suggested consequences if the dealer did not obey. She wisely husbanded such intimations for those rare times when she might need to be more forceful in her suggestions. Underused they would carry much more weight than otherwise. The dealer, of course, accepted his place in The Society’s food chain. It was for him already a great privilege to be dealing with number one.
Armed with an identity, it was child’s play to quickly track his movements. He traced him to Montreal and he had an address. Dona Maria was delighted and he was soon on his way to Canada.
Since Abelard also knew the dealer by sight he would have to take great care not to be seen, in the event the mystery man turned out to be him. In the woods, at the edge of Mount Royal Park, there was nothing suspicious about a man carrying a camera equipped with telephoto lens. The renovated yellow brick Couvent de Marie Reparatrice, now expensive condominiums, was directly across the road. Each time someone would leave the building, either by car from the parking lot or by foot from the front entrance, the dealer would train his powerful lens and verify whether it was the man he was looking for. It was not long before he spotted Abelard, in black athletic gear, running directly towards him. He was not prepared for that and with as much speed as such a large man could summon he moved his bulk out of Abelard’s path. He could not very well follow him. It would have been absurdly obvious; a corpulent photographer in leather loafers wheezing along Olmsted Road. He would make more appropriate arrangements for the following day.
This time around he was waiting on a mountain bike and had stationed two men, also on bikes, further along the gravel road which ran through the park. The second man saw where he exited the park and was able to follow him to the entrance of a modern office tower. The next morning the dealer was waiting for Abelard to show up at the building and after seeing him disappear through the doors he hurried in and made his way to the security desk, past which Abelard would have had to pass.
“I’m here to see,” he began, searching in his pockets and then his small leather folder. “I know I’ve got it somewhere,” he mumbled and then, “those bicycle messengers should be made to dress more appropriately” he said with some disgust, nodding in Abelard’s direction, who was just moving towards an open elevator door.
“Oh, that would be Mr. Bush, the Senior Vice President of the Pharma division,” the smiling receptionist volunteered.
“Ah here we are, Mr. Caldicott, Omnipex Corporation.”
“I am sorry sir, but you must have the wrong address. This building has no tenants other than the VBI Corporation. What address were you looking for?”
“Is this Peel street?”
“No, you’re on Drummond here. Peel is one over.”
“’I am sorry to have bothered you. Have a good day and thanks.”
He had what he needed.
“Hello, is this Mr. Bush’s office? I would need an appointment with him about the problems your heart drug is causing my clients.”
“I’m sorry sir, but Mr. Bush won’t be available for the next two weeks. He will be traveling.”
At this the dealer’s face betrayed a little disappointment. He then dialed another number.
“I need to know where Bush will be traveling over the next two weeks. And I need to know quickly.”
The clerk, in the VBI travel services office, whose name the dealer had been given by The Society’s local contacts, punched a few keys on his computer and answered, “he’s in Vancouver next week and then he’s at the company’s hunting lodge in the Laurentian Mountains, some big strategy session with the CEO and all the top brass.”
“Good, send the exact location of that lodge to my cell.” The dealer hung up, waited to receive the text message and then dialed a number in Florence.
*
The Perfect Human: An Abelard Chronicles Book Page 43