I popped my head into Jack Kay’s office at Apotex in the early fall of 2018, looking for a detail to help flesh out what seemed an apocryphal story: That murdered billionaire inventor/businessman Barry Sherman had driven a series of rusty, poorly maintained convertibles. Kay had been generous with his time, tutoring me about pharmaceuticals on Saturday afternoons, bringing me into the world he and Sherman shared for 35 years.
Looking up from what had been Sherman’s desk, Kay, muscled and lean from daily 6 a.m. workouts, was unusually frosty. I had just been down the hall talking to Joanne Mauro, Barry’s executive assistant for 42 years. In addition to Mauro describing the tremendous impact her late boss had on her — “I don’t let anything bother me anymore” — she said Sherman loaned her his car one day and the brake pedal sank to the floor.
