Chapter 6 - The Salt on the Floor
By three o'clock on Friday afternoon, the sun had dropped behind the blue hills of Milton, leaving the great house in a dark, grey shadow that smelled of coming snow.
Downstairs in the long library, Thomas Vale sat behind an oak desk that had belonged to his father. He was wearing his dark wool suit again, his white hair freshly combed, a single sheet of paper lying flat on the green blotter before him.
Graham stood by the tall window, watching two men in grey coveralls carry a heavy iron safe down the stone steps toward a waiting van.
"Where is he now?" Thomas asked without looking up.
"He’s at a diner on Route 1A in Revere," Graham said, his voice flat. "With his mother and the Holloway girl. They’re using the girl’s mother’s credit card to pay for the coffee."
"And the trucks?"
"All thirty are sitting in the yard in Charlestown," Graham said. "The city police put the boots on them at one o'clock. Holloway’s lawyer is downstairs in the front hall right now, offering to trade his house in Scituate if we don't press the tax lien."
"Tell him we don't want his house," Thomas said, picking up his fountain pen. "We have enough houses. Tell him he can have his fleet back in five years if he pays forty percent interest on the operating loan and signs a waiver releasing the Vale estate from any future claims regarding the lease."
"And Mercer?" Graham turned from the window.
"Travis Mercer is twenty-eight years old," Thomas said, his pen hovering over the paper. "He has no trade, no degree, and no uncle who will give him fifty dollars after today. Tell the union local in South Boston that if any yard hires him for more than minimum wage, we’ll pull our pension fund out of their credit union."
The heavy mahogany door opened, and Arthur walked in. He had taken off his coat, his grey wool shirt unbuttoned at the neck, revealing his thick, weathered throat.
"She’s sleeping," Arthur said, sitting in one of the high-backed leather chairs across from the desk. "Dr. Callan gave her something for the swelling in her ankles."
"Did you show her the book?" Thomas asked.
"I showed her," Arthur said. "She knows about Colleen."
Thomas let out a short, dry snort. "Colleen Mercer is a small woman with a small mind who thought she could use a forty-year-old probate story to get a house in the South End. She’s not important, Arthur."
"She shoved my daughter onto a wet curb," Arthur said, his voice dropping into that dark, low rumble that made the glass lamps on the desk vibrate slightly. "That makes her important to me."
"She’s being taken care of," Graham said from the window. "The city health inspector found three violations in her hair salon in Weymouth this morning. They’re closing her down for thirty days starting Monday."
"Not enough," Arthur spat.
"It’s enough for now," Thomas said, signing his name at the bottom of the paper with a clean, sharp flourish of blue ink. "We don't need a scandal in the papers, Arthur. Evelyn’s going to have the child in three weeks. We need the name clean when the papers are filed at the probate court."
"Which name?" Arthur asked, looking his father in the eye. "Vale? Or Mercer?"
Thomas set his pen down on the green blotter, his old blue eyes locking onto his son's face with a cold, unyielding glare.
"There are no Mercers left in this county after today," Thomas said flatly. "The child will be named Eleanor Vale. She will own forty percent of the harbor trust when she turns eighteen, and if Travis Mercer ever comes within three hundred yards of this house, Graham has my permission to put him in the bay with forty pounds of chain around his feet."
May you like
Arthur was silent for five long seconds. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his small silver pocket knife, and began to scrape a spot of dark grease from beneath his thumb nail.
"Fair enough," Arthur said softly.
