Chapter 66

Two Sides of a Coin

It was still barely light when someone started hammering the door.

"Eren, you in?"

Eren was shoving the kettle into his pack. Lila already had her coat tied, about to leave for work.

Eren pulled the latch. Nova behind him muttered, "Who's that this early."

Meng Shoucheng nearly walked into him.

"Shoucheng?"

Shoucheng didn't greet anyone. He put a hand on the wall. "After work last night I went and asked when the work-injury money was coming. Clerk said it's already closed. Xiangyang signed. He took last month's advance. Company treated the case as finished."

The room went still a beat.

Lila stood, yanked her coat off the chair. Crystone powder puffed off the cuffs. She stared at the papers on the table and pushed the words through her teeth. "Let's go."

Nova put half his body out from the inner room, schoolbag strap still on his shoulder.

Eren got the bag on him. "School. Come straight home after. Don't hang around out there."

The three of them went out. Nova followed to the stair, watched them go down, then turned back, threw the latch, put the bag on, and headed for school.

The South Yard sat at the south end of town, not far from their lane. By the time they got there the light was full. Wheels and hooves had started on the street. The farther south they went, the heavier the dust. Carts and heavy wagons lined the edge of the lot, crates lashed to the beds. Outside the sheds the stacks ran high. A few loaders stood on ladders sending goods up. Men below tipped their heads to take them.

When Shoucheng went through the gate he squared the Tamarisk tag on his chest without thinking.

The man on the gate knew him. His eyes stayed a little longer on Eren and Lila.

"Shoucheng, this early?"

Shoucheng said, "Looking for Buckle. Got something."

They walked in along the sheds. A few workers nearby stopped and looked, then put their heads down again. Someone said, low, "Little Meng's thing?" Another elbowed him quiet.

Eren took the voices in. He didn't look back.

A few people were waiting at the clerk window. The door stood half shut. A narrow table and a few chairs inside.

Shoucheng went to the window. "Where's Buckle?"

"Foreman's in back counting stock."

"Get him out," Shoucheng said.

The clerk frowned. "What for?"

Shoucheng's mouth tightened. "Meng Xiangyang."

The clerk pulled a copied receipt from under the counter and pushed it out. "You saw this last night, didn't you?"

"Listen, kid," Eren said. "We didn't come here to talk. You don't want trouble, you go."

Quiet a moment behind the window. The clerk slanted his eyes, then stood.

"Wait."

Buckle came out with an unlit cigarette still between his fingers. The old buckle on his belt was rubbed bright.

When he saw Shoucheng his eyes slid off.

"Shoucheng." He kept it low. "I said last night. Company's already done with it."

Shoucheng hadn't opened his mouth when Lila did. "That was an advance. Work-injury separate. That's what you said then."

Buckle looked at her, knew the face, and looked worse. "I said it. I sent it up too. Company didn't approve the injury. Don't put that on me."

"Why not?" Eren said. "He got hurt on the job. That doesn't count?"

Men unloading nearby stopped their hands. A few loaders drifted closer. Wagons were still coming off in the yard, wood crates hitting the ground one dull knock after another.

Buckle swept the faces around them. Color came up in his face. He pushed his voice lower. "Initial inquiry says improper operation. Meng Xiangyang confirmed that when he signed."

Shoucheng spoke all at once, loud enough that the loaders watching jumped. "I was there that day. Xiangyang was underneath taking freight. What improper operation. The crate slid from up top and hit him in the back."

Buckle snapped his head toward him, trying to pull the words back. "Shoucheng, you don't know the company's standard—"

Shoucheng didn't let him finish. Faster, louder. "We keep this up, nobody works! Get smashed dead and nobody gives a damn!"

More people closed in.

Lila's temper came up too. She'd taken the foreman's word before. She couldn't tell if this was at him or at herself.

"One thing to your face, another behind your back! Act like you care, then put the knife in!"

The workers around them forgot what was in their hands. Someone said, low, "What they did to Little Meng's too much. Kid that young."

Another picked it up. "They're all the same damn color."

Someone else muttered, not loud, but enough. "Wasn't him that got hit. Course he doesn't care."

Buckle's face went dark red. The cigarette in his hand had already broken. "Don't you start. You think I decide how the company handles it?"

The more he explained, the quieter it got. All those eyes on his face, waiting for something that would hold.

Buckle jerked his head up, voice jumping, finger jabbing. "Company wants to save money, they make me the bad guy. I hadn't gone and asked, you wouldn't have a single coin! Now look. I'm the bastard both ways!"

The words were barely out when the loading lot went dead.

A half-shut office door was pushed open from inside.

A woman in her thirties came out.

Dark chestnut curls were up in a high tail, the ends brushing the collar of a deep-gray coat. Low-cut work clothes underneath. Medium-tall, cheekbones a little high. She didn't waste motion. She looked like she did this for a living.

She looked at Buckle first, then around the people watching. Her mouth bent. Her eyes didn't go with it.

"Those remarks just now," she said, "were Mr. Brenner's personal views. He is not authorized to speak for Tamarisk Land Freight."

Lila looked at her. "Who are you?"

"Margot Vale." She put a hand out. "Outside counsel for Tamarisk Land Freight."

Lila didn't take it.

That didn't bother her. She only took the hand back and stood as straight as before.

Eren glanced at her. "This day and age, still lawyers?"

Margot's mouth bent again. Still no heat in her eyes.

"Sound law is the basis of a stable society," she said. "Don't you think, Mr. Eren."

He wasn't surprised she had his name. A freight company willing to do it this way had already gone through everyone around Meng Xiangyang.

Margot didn't wait for him. She only held out a handwritten sheet and set it where they could all see.

"Meng Xiangyang signed in his own hand, confirmed the initial facts, and took the payment. The sum was paid first by Tamarisk Land Freight. No written objection was raised at the time of receipt." She tapped one box. "That is the company's legal basis now."

Eren didn't look away. "You want to talk sense, get specific. What gives you the right to write improper operation?"

Margot turned a page. "Loading Safety and Work Rules, Article 3: no remaining under a high stack without an order. Article 12: no entering a load-bearing zone on your own before the crates are secured."

Lila heard the last of it and laughed once, angry, and jerked her chin at the yard. A few loaders still stood under the stacks, half a body in the crate-shadow.

"Then your company's safety's a joke. I walked in and saw people going back and forth under those piles. You run it that loose, you don't answer for it?"

"I'm saying the company made its work-injury finding on the rules and the day's initial record." Margot looked at her and didn't follow her hand into the yard. "If you believe the record is incomplete, or that anything's wrong with how the company runs the place, you may file an objection at the town hall."

"You've already got the town hall lined up, I take it," Eren said.

"Mr. Eren, I don't believe slander will improve your position."

Lila couldn't hold it.

She stepped in and put her hand on the papers. The sheets wrinkled under her palm.

"What do you take people for! Have you seen Meng Xiangyang? He's still that young… You know he's going to sit in a chair the rest of his life?"

Margot looked at the hand on the paper. "Miss. Damaging a document does not change the facts."

Lila was still going when Eren put an arm out and stopped her.

He drew the sheaf from under her hand, flattened it at the window, and held it up for the people watching.

Then he tore them, one sheet after another.