Chapter 17: The True Heir

The dockworkers' hall held three hundred men, and every one of them had come to see me sign.

I stood on the platform under the union banner with the deed in my hand.

Nolan was at the foot of the steps, with his arms folded and his eyes on the doors.

My second stood at the other end with two of my own people.

I had called the vote at seven in the morning, the minute my second told me C. Dunleavy now held my mortgage.

The note could take my pier, but it could not take three hundred men who owned the docks beside me.

By noon the hall was full.

"Gentlemen," I said. "Nineteen years ago, the Dunleavys sold me to a smuggler to pay a debt."

A low sound ran through the room.

"They did it again last week. They tried to sell me to the Askews for these docks."

"We heard the recording!" a man shouted from the back.

"Then you know what I'm asking," I said. "Vote to confirm me as owner of the Dunleavy dock company.

"I will pay you on time, and I will never sell you."

"Aye!" someone bellowed, and the shout spread.

A hundred hands went up.

Then the double doors at the back of the hall opened, and the noise stopped.

Clem walked in.

She wore a charcoal suit and a white blouse, and she had pinned her curls back tight.

The oatmeal cardigan was gone.

A man in a gray suit walked behind her with a briefcase.

Two sheriff's deputies stood behind him.

"Please don't stop on my account," Clem said, in a voice that reached the rafters.

"I only came to correct the record."

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