Chapter 6: The Chisels

The courier came at eight in the morning with a flat wooden box and a clipboard.

Rett signed for it with sawdust on his thumb and carried it to the bench.

Dell watched from his stool, chewing a breakfast biscuit.

"Who sends a box like that?" Dell said.

"Nobody I know," Rett said.

"It has a brass latch."

"I can see it has a brass latch."

Rett opened the lid.

Inside, in a bed of grey felt, lay a set of twelve chisels.

They were Japanese, hand-forged, with blue-black steel and handles of pale oak.

He took the narrowest one out and turned it in the light.

The edge was perfect.

The handle sat in his palm like it had grown there.

It was a little thicker at the base, with a slight flare where his smallest finger wanted it.

He did not need to measure to know it was made for his hand.

"Huh," Dell said.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything," Dell said.

"You said huh," Rett said.

"It's a general huh."

A card lay under the felt.

It had three lines in a hand he had seen on one contract and one bank draft.

For the ones in your drawer. They're worn to the metal.

Rett read it twice.

He had said it in the dark, between one round and the next, with his head on a stranger's shoulder.

My grandfather's chisels are worn down to nothing, and I can't bring myself to replace them.

He had thought the man was asleep.

"Term three," he said aloud.

"What's term three?" Dell asked.

"Nothing."

"You have terms?" Dell said.

"I said nothing," Rett said.

Dell chewed. "Whoever it is, they paid for the good steel. That's four thousand dollars of chisels. Easy."

"I'm sending them back."

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