The line fell silent for a moment. “When it’s born, she’ll let you see it, won’t she? What are you going to do about it out there?” He had no answers for her questions, and when he hung up, he found that all he had were questions.

After a sleepless night, he went in to work and gave Manuel instructions for a firebox repair. When he entered the office area, he ran into Mr. Wu, his boss, and Bradley Scott, a troubleshooter for the state boiler inspector’s office.

Scott turned a clipboard toward Paul’s face. “Is this your signature?”

Paul looked at the handwriting on the blue form, then glanced over at his boss’s glowering expression. “Why you want to know?”

“Because this report says Wu’s laundry was operating an old boiler at a hundred and fifty psi. That’s way over his allowed pressure. It also states that the crown sheet was glowing when you inspected the firebox.”

Mr. Wu put his hand on Paul’s arm. “Did you say this, buddy?”

Paul’s boss cursed. “Yes, he said it. It’s right there under his signature. The guy needs a new boiler, that’s all there is to it.”

“I don’t have a hundred and forty thousand dollars,” Wu told him. His dark eyes became primitive, showed betrayal.

Scott moved in closer, like a policeman trying to threaten. “Look, I love to jerk the boiler tickets on old stuff. But if I shut this guy down on a false report, that’ll leave my ass in a cast.”

Paul looked down at a wrench in his hand, one of the expensive ones he had bought with his first paycheck, and took a breath. “It’s not my signature,” he said. “The boss made up the report.” Cursing rolled around in the little office like a thunderstorm until Wu and Scott slammed the door behind them on the way to the parking lot. Paul turned to look at his boss, who held up a hand.

“Save it. Get your shit out of your locker and get the fuck out of here. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“You’re firing me because I wouldn’t let you screw that old man?”

“No. You’re history because you don’t appreciate what you have to do to be worth a big paycheck.”

Paul sucked on his bottom lip a moment. He looked out a window and watched Mr. Wu walking fast to keep up with the state inspector, banging his fist into an open palm. “I can live with that,” he said.

Chapter Eleven

Eleven