Thirty Times

Hector's key turned in the north loading dock at 10:02, and the steel door swung out on cold air and cardboard.

Bigger than his voice, wide-shouldered, in an orange vest gone pale at the seams, Hector gripped my hand hard and said nothing. He didn't need to.

Imani Brandt stood behind him, blazer buttoned wrong, out of breath.

"I told the desk I was checking the freight lift," she said. "I've been thinking about that hold for twenty minutes. If a man wanted your name kept out of this building, I want to know what he's afraid you'll read."

"Or find."

"Both." She held up a key ring. "Master for the office floor."

We took the freight stairs. The station manager's office sat above the concourse behind glass, blinds half open, empty. Sedgwick was in his ten o'clock briefing, Imani said, thirty minutes of telling supervisors how proud he was of the on-time numbers. Hector stayed at the stairwell door and watched the corridor.

The gray desk had a lamp, a coffee ring and a drawer that wasn't locked. Men who believe nobody reads never lock anything.

Inside lay a rubber stamp: RESOLVED, RIDER COUNSELED ON POLICY. A thick brown folder. And on top of the folder, a copy of Form 14, deferral of inspection and replacement, crossover machine, Platform 6.

The approval line at the bottom said G. Frost.

I knew that signature. The loop of the G, the flat stroke through the t.

"That's yours," Imani said.

"It looks like mine." I lifted the page. "I have never seen this form in my life."

A sheet of tracing paper lay beneath it, covered from top to bottom with the same signature, over and over. The early attempts wobbled, the middle ones straightened, and the final few were clean enough to fool a bank teller.

I ran a finger down the page and counted. Imani counted with me, her lips moving.

Thirty.

Thirty times, Warren Sedgwick had practiced being me.