Chapter 4: Mr. Trammell

"Mr. Crenshaw, the Houston Port Authority is in the large conference room," the receptionist said. "And Mr. Trammell asks for the Bayport file."

"He asked for it yesterday."

"He asks for it again today. He says it was in the wrong colour."

Yancey carried the file down the corridor with a straight face.

Under his suit he was sore in three places, and he knew exactly which man was responsible for each.

He had slept two hours.

He had showered in Jud's marble bathroom at six, dressed in yesterday's shirt, and found a new white one folded on the chair with the tags cut off.

It fit.

Jud had left for the office before he woke, and had left a note on the pillow in a hard slanted hand.

Eat something.

That was all.

Yancey had folded the note into his wallet before he'd thought about why.

The big conference room faced the Ship Channel, with a long walnut table and a dozen people around it.

Jud sat at the head, in charcoal this time, with a pen in his hand.

He did not look up.

"Mr. Crenshaw is taking the minutes," he said to the room. "Sit there."

He pointed to the empty chair at his right hand.

Yancey sat.

The man from the port authority began to speak about dredging schedules.

Yancey wrote it down.

He wrote steadily and neatly, in the notation he'd taught himself over four years with a stub of pencil, and he did not look to his right.

Under the table, a hand came to rest on his left wrist.

He stopped writing.

The hand was warm and dry.

It turned his arm over, gently, so the palm faced up, and a thumb settled on the inside of his wrist, right over the pulse.

Nobody could see.

The table was thick, and the cloth hung low.

"The Bayport terminal," Jud said calmly, to the room, "will not accept a delay past the fifteenth."

His thumb moved, a small slow circle.

Yancey's pulse was going so hard he could feel it in his teeth.

"Mr. Crenshaw," Jud said, "you've stopped taking notes."

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