LITMIR.BIZ

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wide, involuntarily taking in every detail of Thad’s face, from the flat, lifeless look of his eyes to the horrific cuts tracing his cheeks. Sam was still holding Thad’s shoulders, looking down, unbelieving, at the familiar face below. For a moment, there was absolute silence filling Andy’s ears: no sound of cars or ghetto blasters. The world revolved around the axis of the tree and The Corner fell away, insignificant, meaningless in the face of this obscenity. Then Sam screamed. The world returned: a world full of angry horns and screaming people. And police cars. Andy, obeying his ancient instincts, fled, heedless of the perils underfoot, running, running, running, still carrying the horror before him.

      * * *

      “These are not mere playthings we are selling here, my friend. They are a little girl’s dreams.”

      The dream in question sat cradled tenderly in Hakeem Jinnah’s slender brown hands. Nearly two feet tall, she wore a beautiful wedding sari and looked remarkably like a Barbie doll, save that her skin was like coffee and there was a chocolate dot on her forehead. Encased in glass, she was gorgeous, a vision. This was lost on the person on the other end of the phone.

      “Listen buddy,” said Jinnah wriggling his shoulder and chin to get a better grip on the receiver. “These are going to be big sellers, I’m telling you … Okay. Your loss. Sonofabitch!”

      Jinnah carefully placed the glass-cased doll back down on his desk so he could slam the phone down with both hands. Around him, the newsroom droned sluggishly, the ambient noise scarcely louder than the fluorescent lighting’s incessant hum. It was early yet. Deadline was too far away to give anyone but the editor a sense of urgency. It was the perfect morning to mix a little personal business with the pleasure Jinnah took in his work as crime reporter for the Vancouver Tribune. He grabbed his contact book and flipped petulantly through its pages while reaching for his coffee. He sipped. Sickeningly sweet. Four creams and four sugars mixed with just a soupçon of coffee. Perfect.

      “What’s with the doll?”

      Jinnah, nervous by nature, jumped, nearly spilling coffee all over his desk. He spun his chair around to look at the attractive woman in her early twenties standing over him, her red hair glowing faintly like a halo in a stray beam of sunlight that had somehow pierced the gloom. Crystal Wagner, the city desk clerk had, as usual, made her question sound like a derogatory remark. No mere clerk was worthy of giving Jinnah pulmonary embolism. Thanks to Allah, it wasn’t anyone important like that asshole editor, Whiteman. Jinnah took a breath, adjusted his glasses and switched gears from affronted malingerer to frustrated philanderer.

      “Ah, Mademoiselle,” he growled in a voice as dark, low, and sweet as molasses. “You have come to invest, perhaps? Or for something else?”

      Crystal kept her cynical expression intact. Jinnah was an “NBT” — Nothing But Talk. Used to Jinnah’s routine where he affected a French accent, she kept her face a sardonic study. “Skip the Pepé Le Pew act, Hakeem. You trying to get rich again?”

      “Ah, ze lady is playing hard to get,” said Jinnah, taking her hand. “Come, be my partner, and with our riches ve will live in Zanzibar, in splendour.”

      “I thought you were selling little girls’ dreams, not adolescent boys’ fantasies.”

      “Let me show you the reality,” purred Jinnah, running his hand the length of her arm.

      Crystal sighed. If she protested and moved away, Jinnah was likely to start unbuttoning his shirt and show her his “African rug.” If she didn’t, he’d probably do the same thing. She was rescued by an unlikely Lancelot.

      “Really, Hakeem. There is such a thing as sexual harassment!”

      Jinnah tore his unwilling eyes away from Crystal’s fair, freckle-flecked skin and glanced over at the intruder. Ronald Sanderson, his desk mate, was a typical west coaster. Politically correct to a fault. Courteous. Would say “Sorry!” to a mugger. He snorted. “Ronald, Ronald! There is nothing sexual going on here. This is purely platonic harassment.”

      “You can’t just grab your fellow employees and start pawing them,” said Sanderson sternly, reminding Jinnah of a particularly prissy private school prefect.

      “My arm was possessed by demons — I didn’t do it on paw-pose,” Jinnah grinned. “Perhaps this is supernatural harassment, hmm?”

      “Oh, please,” said Crystal, making no effort to extricate her extremities from Jinnah’s clutches.

      “Look, don’t you have any work to do, Hakeem?”

      “Oh, ho!” crowed Jinnah. “And just what is your contribution to the Daily Miracle going to be today, hmm? Another gripping tale of death by mould?”

      Sanderson flushed red. Jinnah always belittled his stories. It was part of the unending feud between general assignment reporters like Ronald, who had to cover everything and anything under the sun, and beat reporters like Hakeem, who were specialists. Jinnah was referring to Sanderson’s front page story, describing how exposure to a rare form of fungus had killed a Vancouver Island man.

      “You’re just jealous because my fungus victim was the line story,” Sanderson said crossly.

      “Ronald, Ronald. If only you had listened to my advice, it would have been a much better story.”

      “Like hell! I will not have you trivializing that poor man’s death!”

      “You yourself said the victim was full of life and an all around good fellow,” Jinnah chided. “Think of the headline: ‘Fungi Kills Fun Guy!’ You’d be famous by now. But you will never drink at the fountain of fame, for you never take my advice.”

      Jinnah braced himself for another self-righteous lecture, but Sanderson had abruptly abandoned his attempt to defend his integrity and Crystal’s honour. He was now shamelessly ogling a little girl’s dreams and his eyes had narrowed in what Jinnah would have considered a shrewd and calculating manner had it been anyone else.

       “Nice doll, Jinnah,” said Sanderson, trying hard to sound nonchalant. “How much you selling them for?”

      Jinnah was so astonished that he released Crystal’s hand. This was totally unlike Sanderson. He’d expected a rebuke from him for conducting personal business on company time, not interest in his product line. His inherent instincts tingling, Jinnah grabbed the doll, hugging it protectively. “She’s not for sale, Ronald!”

      Crystal’s laugh was hard, staccato. “Liar! You and your cousin Sanjit have bought over a thousand of these Barbies —”

      “Not Barbies, Babjis,” Jinnah corrected her. “They’re for personal use. Not for sale.”

      Slightly bewildered, Sanderson looked over to Crystal in a mute appeal for explanation.

      She obliged. “He’s trying to corner the North American market. Says Indo-girls here haven’t had a decent non-white role model since Vanessa Williams —”

      “I meant Michelle Obama!” Jinnah cried, hating how Crystal made him look dated.

      “But how much?” demanded Sanderson.

      “You wanna know the price, go to Jinnah’s website. They’re about $39.95 — right, Hakeem?”

      “In U.S. funds,” said Jinnah stiffly, twisting around and placing the Babji doll under his desk. “Sorry, Ronald. No infidels need apply.”

      Sanderson’s egalitarian protests were pre-empted by a bellow from city desk. Sanderson leapt for his desk. Crystal drifted indifferently towards the coffee machine, leaving Jinnah alone to face the considerable wrath of Nicole “Frosty” Frost, senior assistant city editor in charge of poking indolent crime reporters with a sharp stick.

      “You are supposed to be making calls, not flogging dolls.”

      Jinnah looked at Frosty with a perfectly calm, totally professional exterior. His intestinal tract, however, was being savaged by Sanderson’s deadly fungi. Frosty was in her fifties

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