Chapter 2

Vernon's hand was still reaching when the flash fired.

The white light washed the pier and every face on it.

When the crew blinked it back, Marta had the cap and the stub in one fist and Vernon's arm jammed against her board.

"He's a kid," Vernon said.

"He doesn't know what he's holding."

Perry knew what he was holding.

He had carried it in his cap band for three weeks.

"Ticket four-one-six," he said.

"Berth nine."

"Four hundred eighty cases, net weight forty-one pounds."

"Dated the fourteenth."

"Your book says four hundred forty."

Vernon's laugh came back, but it came back smaller.

"Paper off a scale-house floor."

"Any man can pick up paper."

Marta turned the stub over in her fingers.

She read the number twice.

Then she read the serial inked on the crate face twice.

Four-one-six.

The same four-one-six on the ticket in her hand.

She pulled the clip board flat against her chest and flipped pages until she found her own sheet.

Her finger stopped on a line.

Four hundred eighty.

Her own count, written the day of the load.

"Forty cases never touched the scale," she said.

The crew had gone quiet in a way that had nothing to do with the camera.

Then the numbers began landing on their own.

Forty cases a run.

One run a month.

Five years of runs.

Loaded off the pier before the scale house opened.

Written down light on every company ticket.

And a waterfront priced like the plant was already empty.

Emmett Fisk stood in the scale-house door with his hat in both hands.

He was sixty-one years old.

His hands were not steady.

"I wrote them the way I was told," he said.

Vernon turned on him fast.

"You wrote nothing."

"You're a clerk."

"Then ask a clerk," Marta said.

She stepped in front of Perry.

"You've been telling this town for six years that this boy can't read."

"I never said it," Vernon said.

"Everybody said it."

Nobody spoke.

The gulls did the talking.

Perry pulled the cap off his head and held it flat, band up, so the whole crew could see where the stub had lived.

"Count every crate I stacked," he said.

"Start with the ones that don't add up."

Vernon straightened his coat and picked up his ledger.

"Take it to a boardroom," he said.

"See which of us they believe."

Then he walked for the plant door.

Marta watched him go.

Then she looked at Perry.

"Boardroom's that way," she said.