The Borrowman Cell by Ingrid Betz

Author:Ingrid Betz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inanna Publications
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

15.

THE BIRD IN THE SECRETARY’S OFFICE warbled and chirped. One of those small yellow featherballs with two stick legs attached—a canary, or was that a budgie, Peter Cormier wasn’t sure. He watched it hop fussily from one perch to another in a multi-tiered wooden cage constructed to look like a Chinese pagoda, while he waited for David Chang to see him.

Behind the desk the secretary tapped busily on the keyboard of her computer. Eye candy for sure, thought Peter, transferring his attention from the bird to the woman. With her shiny black hair and dark eyes, she reminded him of the girl in a movie Darlene had once dragged him to see, one with dragons and tigers in it, and people rising light as balloons into the air to skewer their enemies.

“It won’t be much longer,” she said, catching his look with a sideways glance.

“No problem,” he said.

He was amazed, actually, at how quickly events had moved since he’d first set the wheels in motion. Beginning with Kim. It was surprisingly easy: the pharmacist himself started the ball rolling when he remarked on the fact that Marigold was back from her canoe trip. “That’s quite a sunburn she picked up,” he said, peering sympathetically through his bottle-glass lenses over soup and a bagel at Tim’s. “I could have prescribed her something.”

Sunburn wasn’t the half of it, Peter declared and went on to describe in broad strokes what had befallen Marigold up north. From mention of bear cubs being poached to the fact that a Chinese company was involved, it was a simple step further to quiz his friend about the use of bear parts in Chinese medicine. Kim was noticeably uncomfortable with the subject. He toyed with his spoon while he reluctantly listed a number of possibilities: paws, penises, gall bladders, bile. Bile? Peter pricked up his ears.

“I’ve been reading up on bear bile on the internet. It’s big right now, isn’t it?”

Kim nodded. “Although as far as I’m concerned, milking bears for their bile is a primitive practice that should have been outlawed years ago. The ingredients can just as well be produced synthetically.”

Intrigued, Peter listened to confirmation of what he’d read. How bile had gone from being an ancient Chinese eye remedy to use in an increasing array of modern products. It was now showing up in everything from wine to hair shampoo, claiming to invest each with magic properties of health and healing.

“Lucrative, in other words?”

“Highly. Unluckily for bears.”

Peter chewed thoughtfully for a while. Kim’s uncle, he mused out loud, the one who owned a Chinese medicine store in Toronto, he’d stock products containing bile, wouldn’t he? When he could get them, Kim said. Apparently demand often outstripped supply, in spite of the introduction of bear farming to counter the decimation of the Moon Bear population in Asian forests.

“Would the bile of Ontario black bears work as well?”

“No reason why it shouldn’t.” Kim shrugged. “You’re thinking of those cubs?”

“It would explain things. According to the local Mountie, there’s been a noticeable upsurge in live poaching lately.

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