Sold to the Bratva King novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: The Crane Cab

My crew was three people, counting me.

The first was a retired hospital housekeeper in her sixties. The nurse from the Brigham had sent her.

The second was my landlord's grandson. He was nineteen, six foot three, and he blushed when anyone said his name.

On Monday at seven the three of us rolled through the Atwater Marine gate in my white van.

The missing T on the sign hadn't been fixed.

The Port Authority supervisor met us on the berth with a clipboard and a hard hat that said SAFETY in reflective letters.

"Oil spill on the apron, from a hydraulic line," he said. "And crane two."

"What about crane two?"

"Nobody's been up in that cab in two years. The pigeons moved in."

"And if it isn't cleaned?"

"Inspection's Friday. Clean, or it gets cut up for scrap."

I looked up at it.

Crane two was the middle one. Chalky blue paint, a hundred feet of ladder, the cab hanging out over the water.

The crane operator had climbed that ladder for thirty-one years.

"I'll do the cab," I said.

Up in the office window, a shape moved behind the glass.

My brother, in his navy blazer, with a coffee cup he wasn't drinking from.

He didn't wave. Neither did I.

We did the apron first.

Booms, pads, degreaser, the pressure washer. The kid hauled drums.

At eleven I suited up for the cab.

Tyvek, gloves taped at the wrists, a full-face respirator. Two years of droppings is a lung disease waiting for somebody to breathe it.

Kent was standing at the foot of crane two.

Camel coat. Hands in his pockets. Planted on the first rung.

"This crane's condemned," he said. "Nobody goes up."

"It's on my work order."

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