Chapter 4: The Board

By the second day, I had a headset, a swivel chair and a board of forty-one magnets.

The dispatch desk was in the elevator office upstairs, up a flight of iron stairs from the bar, with a window over the whole yard.

Below me, trucks came and went through the chained gate in the snow.

A radio the size of a bread box sat on the desk, with three channels and a coffee ring under it.

Nikolai Lindqvist, who answered only to Nik, pulled a second chair up beside mine and sat so close that our shoulders touched.

"You don't have to do this," he said.

"I do," I said.

"You could do the books first."

"I'll do the books after lunch.

"Dutch said I could pay in shifts."

"Dutch says a lot of things."

He took the headset off its hook and settled it over my hair, adjusting the band with the flat of his thumb.

He did it quickly and gently.

His hands smelled like Gojo soap and cold iron.

"This is the board," Nik said.

"Every magnet is a truck.

"Red is a tow, green is a jump, blue is a lockout, black is a body."

"A body?" I asked.

"A wreck with somebody in it.

"The ambulance gets there first.

"We get there second."

I looked at the board and counted the colors twice.

"And you don't take the police calls," I said.

"We don't."

He said it lightly.

"That's a different yard.

"Cunningham's.

"The city pays them, the city's cops call them, and everybody's happy."

"Why don't you take the city's money?"

Nik looked at the board for a moment.

"Dutch doesn't like the smell," he said.

It was an answer, and I let it stand.

At ten past nine the radio hissed.

"Blackwater, this is eight-oh-two," a voice said.

"I've got a Buick off London Road, north of the Lakewalk.

"Driver's okay."

"That's Mason," Nik said.

"Answer him."

"What do I say?" I asked.

"Blackwater," Nik said.

I pressed the key.

"Blackwater," I said.

"Go ahead, eight-oh-two."