Chapter 20: My Father's Desk

I left my second at the burning dock house with a hose and got into Nolan's car.

"Find out how deep it goes," I told him, with soot on my face. "I'm coming in with you."

He did not argue.

The Askew house sat on the south hill behind iron gates.

Nolan had grown up in it, and he walked through it now like a man who meant to break it.

The butler opened the door and stepped back without a word.

I stayed one step behind Nolan down the east hall.

His father's study was at the end.

Nolan did not knock.

Old Askew sat behind the desk in a gray cardigan with his cane against his knee.

He looked at his son, and then he saw me in the doorway, and his mouth went thin.

"You left the party in front of two hundred people," he said. "You stood between me and my own guns."

"I did."

"You made me look like a fool."

"You were one," Nolan said.

The old man's face went dark.

Nolan walked past the desk to the cabinet on the wall and opened the third drawer.

His father half rose. "Nolan."

"You keep the payment books here. You always have."

Nolan took out a black leather ledger and dropped it on the blotter.

"Don't touch that."

"I'm not asking, Father."

He opened it and ran his finger down the pages.

The handwriting was small and slanted, line after line of men I knew from the docks.

Then Nolan stopped on a name that was not a man.

*C.D.*

*Monthly. Cash, Pier Seven drop.*

The first entry was dated eight months back.

He counted the lines.

There were eight, and the last one was from the week before the party.

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