Barney licked his lips. One second later, he was off of the stool, and a languid, puffy man of fifty was in his place. He was wearing a sporty hat made from the American flag. He apologetically dabbed at his mouth with a napkin.

“Whenever I leave the counter— May I help you?”

“I’m from St. George Reef,” he said, tapping his lapel.

“Ah.” The man raised his eyebrows. “A far-flung correspondent.” He said this with a cosmopolitan air, as if making fun not of Lee but of the phrase “far-flung correspondent.”

“Yes. Well, anyway, I need a Clayton loan.”

“Oh.” He bit his lower lip. “Actually, we’ve changed the forms. They’re now called advances. But I can get you set up over here to fill them out. Here for the big war drive?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm.” The man took his time digging through a drawer. Lee heard the sound of toenails on floorboards, and craned his neck to see the dog walking in circles, settling down on a neatly folded blanket by the window. “Fill out all the information here, here, here, and here. Skip this part here. And sign here with your full name.”

Lee accepted the forms. Eleven minutes. The man left his stool, and sat down at his desk. The man’s hand dipped into a bag of cookies, and he began methodically chewing again. “Would you like some shortbread?” he called over his shoulder.

“No, thank you.”

“The Girl Scouts were nearby. Turns out that if you give twenty dollars directly to them, you get free shortbread.”

“That’s okay.”

“I gave thirty. She gave me some gum, too.”

Lee could not listen. The first question was “Name.” He considered writing he was one of the Field brothers. He began filling in his address, his shift, his reasons for the advance (“travel”), skipping over each place where he could insert his name. Max Field. His name was Max Field. Maybe.

The man suddenly banged on his desk. “Oh, right,” he said, as if startled back from a daydream. He ambled to a shelf of tall black scrapbooks, each one of them the size of a world atlas. “It’s been so long since I’ve done this. St. George Reef, you say?” He hefted down a volume with the name of the lighthouse etched upon the spine. He brought it to the teller’s window and struggled to page through it. Here were photographs, each with corners tucked into black paper backing. The first pages showed various angles of the lighthouse, and the remainder showed each person who worked there.

With a feeling of shame that spread across his face, Lee thought, “Oh, that’s why they took those pictures.”

“What did you say your name was?”

Lee didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The book seemed to open of its own volition, something bulging between the pages. “Oh, look at this,” his interrogator said.