Boxes

All Night I didn't sleep. My shins were bruised and my throat tasted bloody and I kept picturing Willie holding my mouth open under the faucet, saying I had a week to get his $1700. I lay on the bed sweating from the heat, a baseball bat beside me, afraid he would come back. In the first blue blur of day I could see the calendar tacked to my wall: the months crossed off in different colors, the days I'd exercised boxed in black. For nearly a year I'd been straight, and then Willie showed up. I'd worried this might happen since my days in the halfway house.

The sun rose, striping the pavement between houses with shafts of yellow light and turning the leaves an almost transparent green. I rolled off the bed and looked in the mirror. My eyes were pink and sunken and a red weal circled my throat. It was still tender, and I pulled on a turtleneck to hide it. I pushed the chair away from the door and stepped into the kitchen where broken plates lay scattered over the counter and chairs. Black coffee was pooled in the shards of a yellow cup.

"I hear you went straight," Willie had said, folding his knife away. I nodded, looking up at him from the floor, holding my bruised legs. I couldn't see his eyes because his face was hidden by a hooded sweatshirt. He never liked people to look at him. He picked up one of the plates I'd bought at a discount store and inspected it. "Lots of good it done you," he said, and smashed the plate on the counter. He moved to the door, kicking debris aside, and paused in the frame, filling it like a huge albino cork. "You'll be back," he had said, and left.

The remains of last night's dinner were still on the table--a neat pyramid of chicken bones and a hunk of good bread, some lettuce and a green bottle of olive oil--the only part of the room that didn't look like a train wreck. After eating I'd sat for a while in the dim, cool room with the last of the day's sunlight high up on the walls, enjoying the taste of grilled chicken and olive oil lingering in my mouth. For a long time I had gone without such simple pleasures, and the world had felt bled dry of color and taste.

I had taken a walk in the early dark before cleaning up. When I returned, there was a new smell in the apartment, a tangy mixture of sweat and weed. It was familiar but not immediately so. By the time I realized it was Willie, he had grabbed a fistful of my hair and smashed my face against the counter. Most of the rest of the beating blurred over. But just looking at the sink made my throat ache.

I decided to get something to eat on the way to work. I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. I kept pushing until the key dug into my palm and the engine began to turn over, slowly. I had about $700 in my account, saved up from six weeks of work. That left me nearly a thousand short. If I sold the car I couldn't get to work, and besides, I'd be lucky to get $500 for it because the electrical system was shot. I floored the accelerator, put the car in gear and, wondering if Herb might write me a loan, backed out the driveway over some branches, which scraped against the undercarriage. I doubted it, but I didn't have many options.

•

I got to work early. Creech and Gortney and a few others were hanging around the Dumpster at the back of the lot, drinking coffee. They wouldn't wave hello. I'd been costing them a lot of money, not going along with their system. Before I started working they each used to make an extra few thousand a year stealing TVs. When I drove up, Gortney dumped his coffee on the gravel and headed into the warehouse, his shirt already untucked.

Stepping out of the car was like having someone wrap me in a hot, damp towel: The heat clung to my skin. The side of the warehouse glowed white in the sun, and I had to look away. I ducked inside through a small door cut into the larger, rolling one, and my stomach clenched from the paint and diesel fumes. I always noticed them first thing in the morning, then forgot them until the next day, which seemed to define my life recently. I needed to relearn the same lessons almost daily--to be patient, to be responsible, to eat well, not to dwell on the past. At least, that's what I'd been thinking until Willie reappeared. Now, I wasn't so sure what I was supposed to learn.

The air inside felt cool, almost chilly, but it wouldn't stay that way for long. By 11, with the sun beating on the tin roof, we'd all be baking. Reemer, my foreman, stood by the clock, gripping his clipboard. He smelled faintly of talc. "You look like shit," he said.

"Everyone has their days," I said, punching in, the puncher echoing like a shot in the quiet warehouse. I didn't want to talk, but I didn't want to make Reemer nervous either, so I caught his gaze and held it to show I wasn't coked up. He knew Jones had hired me under special circumstances, though just how much he knew I wasn't sure.

"Someone give you a hickey?" He pointed his tagger at my neck. "No other reason to wear a turtleneck in this weather than a hickey."

"Wild night." I poked his shoulder. "You couldn't guess the half of it."

I headed down an aisle of stacked boxes to Reemer's office. Outside the door, in a blue tray, were the day's work orders. There weren't any trucks in the loading docks yet, but I could get started, shifting boxes onto pallets and then moving the pallets up the concrete ramps with a forklift. Reemer followed me from the clock. I sorted through the orders, aware he was watching me, then set to work. It was mindless labor, but I was glad to have it. I ached all over from the beating and if I had time to think I would get scared.

My job was to count the boxes twice, first when I put them on the pallets and then again with the trucking foreman. Once we agreed on the count, we signed the shipping forms together. That way, no one could put extra boxes on the truck to sell on his own. At least theoretically. If I cheated and the trucking foreman cheated, we could put down whatever number we wanted and sell the rest, which is exactly what Creech and Gortney had been doing for years. That's why Reemer gave me this job; he didn't trust Creech or Gortney but couldn't fire them on suspicion, and they were too careful to get caught. From time to time, Reemer took over the loading, but he had too many other jobs to pay close attention to this one for long.

"Every one of these boxes is yours," Reemer had said, resting his big palm on a box gently, as if it were the head of a child. "Make sure you don't lose any."

I recognized the God-and-country speech. I'd given plenty like it to workers when I owned my own company, and it had always embarrassed me, but I found it reassuring to be on the receiving end. It was a sign I had a defined place in the world, when for so long I had been floating. I also liked that Reemer trusted me. He was the first one in months.

I set to work, counting, shifting, lifting. After an hour and a half I had two trucks' worth of pallets stacked and waiting, close to a thousand boxes. Winded, I rested my head against one stack and breathed in the dusty smell of the cardboard. It's not something you would ever think you'd get attached to, but I looked forward to going to work each day and smelling the smells of work. Sometimes I raked my thumbnail down a box just to bring the smell out more. There were other things I'd come to like, too: the way I fell asleep each night within minutes of going to bed, the soreness in my shoulders at the end of each day. I felt as if I'd been strapped into a harness. It was a satisfying type of ache. Willie's wasn't, and thinking of him I shuddered.

Creech whistled to get my attention and waved to let me know they were ready to load, and I nodded and sped toward him on the forklift. He headed into the dark interior of a trailer, disappearing so quickly and completely it was like he'd fallen down a hole.

I shifted the lift's arms into place, picked up the first pallet and bumped slowly off the ramp into the trailer, where Creech and Gortney were waiting for me in the dark. The engine's rumble echoed in the hollow interior. It sounded like a fleet of lifts was following me, even though I knew I was alone. I wasn't sure how far to go, so I went slowly until I picked out the pale shine of Creech's bald spot near the back wall. The first two times I'd driven into a darkened truck I lost my sense of direction and crashed into the sides. Creech and Gortney had imitated me for days, swerving their lifts like they were drunk, and had nicknamed me Amelia Earhart. Now, their dim figures were shadows in the dark until my eyes grew adjusted and their features emerged, as if they were being molded while I came closer.

Gortney had a thin, sharp face with small black eyes and a stiff mustache; he looked as if his mother had mated with a rat. Creech had a body like a Chicano car, a real low rider. Both of them were still giving me the silent treatment and I maneuvered the pallet (concluded on page 80)Boxes(continued from page 72) into the far corner without waiting for directions.

Their silence went back to the end of my first week, when Creech had asked me to put some extra boxes on a truck. I wouldn't. I didn't know what he meant at first, though he thought I was just playing dumb. "What?" I had said. "I can't. I have to count every one."

"So miss one. It's worth $25 to you, every time." Creech counted the boxes, running his hands over them like melons. I couldn't bear to watch this, and I pushed them just out of his reach.

Gortney slapped me on the back. "Come on, Amelia. It's a cardboard box. In the course of a lifetime, who's going to miss a few?"

When I realized what Creech meant, I just stared at him, then continued loading. I counted each box out loud and let it drop with a thud. Somehow Reemer found out about it, because he shook my hand at the end of the day and Gortney saw it. I knew Gortney and Creech thought I blew them in, but I didn't care. Later, Reemer told me Creech and Gortney had flipped everybody who'd held my job, and then turned two of them in--to make it look like they weren't doing the stealing. Once I knew that, I was even more glad I hadn't listened to them.

I goosed the throttle to disengage the sticky lift and Creech looked up at the sound. Even knowing they might turn on me, I thought of asking if they still wanted help running their scam. Willie was serious about what I owed him, and he had been tried once for murder. A witness said that Willie had brought another dealer out on a deserted road to the salt marshes, shot him through the ear, tied weights around his ankles and wrists and then rowed out to dump the body in the tall weeds. None of the jurors believed the witness. He had come forward eight years after the supposed incident, and no body had been found. But after last night, I was willing to believe anything about Willie, and rolling the dice with Creech and Gortney seemed a lot less deadly.

Still, I thought my best bet would be the bank. I shifted to reverse, the warning bell sounding, backed the lift out and headed for another pallet, listening as I left to the rising murmur of Creech and Gortney's voices. Loading took half an hour. They didn't speak to me once.

•

Just before lunch Reemer grabbed my arm and yanked me into his office.

"What's up, Johnson?" He closed the office door.

I rubbed my neck to let him know I didn't think his method was the smoothest, but he didn't seem to notice. He leaned forward and looked me over as if he were waiting for me to start tweaking at any moment, which just showed how little he knew about drugs. Cocaine cravings aren't like that. Your mouth gets dry and your stomach cramps and feels heavy, like you've swallowed a fruitcake whole, but no one else can tell.

"Nothing," I said, but I couldn't meet his eyes. I looked at the small desk overflowing with papers, the notices pinned to the corkboard walls, the glass windows crossed by steel bars. The light coming through the windows was dim, like we were underwater.

"You can tell me." Reemer laid his hand on my shoulder. The skin on his knuckles was cracked and scabbed. It looked painful, but I'd never seen him shirking. "I know it must be hard for you."

I thought about it for a long time. Reemer's voice was understanding and his face seemed honest, but I remembered Jones, his boss. When I had been interviewed, my counselor had sat with a file in her lap--my recommendations from the halfway house and from my other counselors--while Jones stood by a window, rising up on the balls of his feet and then dropping down on his heels while he thought it over. I watched his heels going up and down, knowing that my chances rode on how he finally decided: up, down, up, down, the physical manifestation of his mental gymnastics. I had done a lot to bring myself to that point, both good things recently and bad things earlier, but the decision now was out of my hands.

Finally he came down for a last time, harder than the others, as if he'd reached his decision and meant to seal the lid on it with his heels. In one quick glance he took me in, then turned to Carol and said, "All right." He kept talking to Carol, as if he were a teacher addressing my parent. "But if his past comes into work in any way, he's gone."

He sat down and began signing papers. He didn't shake my hand. I couldn't blame him. For all the recommendations I had in the folder there were other papers, accounts of what I'd done or of how much I'd fallen in debt or of how I'd run a business into the ground, and there was the sentencing report too, where the judge said he didn't agree with the plea bargain because he didn't believe I'd really changed, but was bound to go along with it.

How could I explain to Reemer that I owed $1700 to my ex-dealer? I wasn't supposed to go near him, and I hadn't, but nobody would understand that. They'd fire me, and I'd never get another job and the judge would revoke my probation.

I tried to think of a lie to tell Reemer. I had gotten out of the habit since I went straight and even if I thought of one, I wasn't sure I could pull it off. I read from a list of regulations posted on the wall. No Speeding on the Forklift. No Swearing on the Forklift. No Jousting with Forklifts. Those were all because of Creech, No Slacking. That one was probably directed at Gortney, but I doubt that he'd ever bothered to read it. No Drugs! That was mine.

"It's nothing," I said. "Sometimes I have sleepless nights, you know?"

That was true enough, as far as it went, and it seemed to satisfy Reemer. He stared at me unblinking, the skin under his eyes shiny with sweat in the heat. This time I looked back until a ledger slid off a pile of papers, startling me. Finally he nodded.

"OK. Just make sure that's all it is."

"I have to leave early this afternoon," I said, before he could tell me to go. "On business." I didn't think he would mind because I'd never asked before. But when he didn't say anything I added, "It's important to me."

"Is 2:30 OK?" He flipped a page over the back of his clipboard and studied the next one. "You should be done with your orders by then."

"That's fine."

"Good." He ran his pen down the line of names printed under the schedule and I started to go.

"And Johnson--"

I turned around, holding on to the door. I knew what he was going to say: This job was my last chance.

He wrote something next to one of the names and then spoke without looking up, the pen poised above the paper. "You're doing good work. I tell (concluded on page 140)Boxes(continued from page 80) Mr. Jones that every week."

I thanked him and walked outside. Everybody was playing touch football in the parking lot, where heat waves shimmered above the pavement. Sitting out, as I always did, I watched from the concrete loading dock, my legs dangling over the rubber bumper, the warm breeze trailing around my throat.

•

Before I left I grabbed an empty box from the Dumpster and threw it in my trunk. Willie had broken so many things in my apartment that all of them wouldn't fit into my trash cans. Creech and Gortney stopped pushing boxes around to look when they saw me drive off. I'd rinsed my face and hands in the bathroom sink and toweled off under my arms, wanting to appear employed but not filthy, and they probably thought I had some kind of date. I hoped the hour might make Herb more expansive.

It didn't. He was not happy to see me. I hadn't called ahead, not wanting to give him the option of refusing me over the phone, so I just walked by his secretary when she came out of his office for a file. She hurried after me saying, "Sir, sir," but Herb told her it was all right.

Herb had small blue eyes made larger by round rimless glasses and a probing gaze I found unsettling even at my best. He seemed to be calling up all my sins and marching them before his eyes one by one for review, but I knew he wasn't. That would take too long.

"Take a seat," he said finally, and I obeyed.

I got right to it. "I need a thousand dollars." I sat forward on the couch. I could feel my legs sweating, even with the air conditioning, sticking to my khakis.

"So do I," he said. He didn't smile.

"No," I dismissed the joke with my hand. "You don't understand. I really need it. Badly."

"I thought you had kicked the habit, though I have to say you'd never know it." He shifted a pen from one corner of his bare blotter to another. "You look almost like you did two years ago."

"I'm clean. That's not what I need it for."

"Buying a house?"

"I'm not buying anything. I'm paying off old debts."

"Yes." He opened and closed a desk drawer repeatedly, letting it bounce against his stomach and then click shut. "You must have plenty of those."

"Just this one. When it's paid off, I won't have any others."

I realized that sounded like a lot of my promises from before I quit the stuff, about how I was going to change, and I had the urge to get up and pace. I forced myself to remain still and decided to be honest. "I have to pay off my old dealer. When I went into treatment I still owed him money. He's not the kind to forget it. That's why I look this way." Herb didn't say anything, so I kept talking. "I've got a job. You can check it out. Use my pay as collateral. A thousand isn't that much. It'll be paid off in no time, maybe four months."

"So tell the cops."

"I can't." I looked at the pictures Herb had of himself on the walls. There used to be some of the two of us together, playing ball, fishing, but they were gone. Discolored paint marked the places they'd once hung. "I mean it won't do any good. He's beaten plenty of raps before, and to be honest, I don't think I could stand the pressure of a trial." I forced a laugh. "I'm not sure I'd survive that long anyway."

Herb shifted his gaze to the blank back of his door. I listened to the quiet whooshing of air being forced into the office and counted off the seconds on my fingers. My thumbs were growing broader from work and my fingertips and palms were callused. I'd reached 90 before Herb took a deep breath and started to speak.

"I'm not going to loan you anything, and I'll tell you why. I don't think you're ready for it." He sat forward so abruptly I thought he was going to come over the desk after me. "You say you have only one debt, which means you don't realize the full extent of some of the things you've done." He reached into his drawer and pulled out a sheaf of papers. "See these?" He shook them once, as if they were letters he'd received against me. "They're files about people I have to see next week. You know what I do now? Foreclosures." He let the word hang. "I repossess things--cars, boats, motorcycles, that kind of stuff. Young kids can't pay their bills, or a family overextends itself? I'm the one who shows up to remind them. All because I went to bat for you for a long time."

He put the papers back in the drawer and shoved the drawer closed. I expected him to sigh and rub his hands over his face, but he sat perfectly still, his hands fisted on the desk. He seemed to be making an effort to control himself, as if he might shake apart at any instant. "I don't like this job. If you walked in here with a million dollars in gold as collateral, I wouldn't loan you 30 cents.

"But here." He pulled out his wallet and laid a crisp $20 on the desk, then pushed it across the blotter with his fingertips. "For old times." He adjusted his glasses with both hands.

I knew he meant the $20 as an insult. "OK," I said. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to apologize for all I'd done before. I wanted to say I missed the times we had spent together, but he didn't care anymore what I wanted. Bringing up any of it would only be self-indulgent. "Thanks for your time." I left the money on the desk and walked out.

Outside, still sweating, I could feel myself starting to gag in the heat. I rolled all the windows down to let the car cool off and sat at the wheel, the door open, my head in my hands. I thought of my mother. I couldn't go to her. When I was in the halfway house, she wouldn't even come to family counseling sessions. I'd taken her savings and said I was investing it while blowing it up my nose. That's what I'd put aside $700 for. I was going to try to pay her back. I had heard she was working again, waiting tables.

There were two more banks on the same street and I went into both. The loan officers at each were very polite, well dressed, shook hands firmly. Neither wanted to lend me a penny.

•

Back at the apartment I swept up everything on the floor--plates, cups, glasses--whether it was broken or not, and threw it in the box. The food on the table went too, greasy and stale-smelling, and a stool with one leg split neatly in half. Done, I leaned on the broom in a corner, looking the apartment over. I saw dingy paint, doors and windows that were out of plumb, floors that still seemed dirty. I wondered if I would always feel that way, no matter how much I swept and scrubbed. I decided to skip my Monday night meeting, which I knew wasn't healthy, but I was too worn out to care. I took a steamy shower, popping my head out from behind the curtain every few seconds to listen for strange noises, then shifted the bureau in front of the bedroom door with the box propped on the edge of it. If I dozed off and Willie pushed on the door, I'd hear the box fall and have a few seconds' warning. When I lay down on the bed, I was holding the bat again.

A thunderstorm came and went, the thunder rattling my windows, the rain sounding like a mass of people marching on the street. Afterward, the air blowing in through the screens was cool and smelled of damp grass. I listened to passing cars, their wheels shushing through puddles, and to the sounds of kids shouting to one another as they played in the dark, and to my own quickened breathing. For a long time I was too wired to fall asleep, so I wrestled with myself about what to do.

I thought of Jones, his back turned for the longest time, and of Reemer, whom I wanted to please. And I thought of my time in the center, begging for drugs at first and then feeling cured, and then corkscrewing into a long depression: If this was what it was like to be off coke, why bother? It lifted only gradually. Then came the halfway house. Some of the guys didn't last: They returned drunk after work or didn't return at all. The rest of us were scared but wanted more than anything to make it. I almost had, and if I could get rid of Willie and his knife, I believed I would. A thousand bucks would let me.

I tried to remember who might owe me money, places I might have stashed some a year or two before, whether anyone at the halfway house was rich. I pictured different accidents happening to Willie--a car crash, an overdose, an aneurysm erupting during a pickup basketball game, him choking on his own fat tongue. I thought of asking Reemer, but I didn't know him half as well as I knew Herb, and look where that had gotten me. Who was going to hand a recovering addict $1000 to give to his ex-dealer?

What was it that Gortney had said? In the course of a lifetime, who's going to miss a few boxes? He was probably right. Assuming for a minute that Gortney and Creech would go along with me, I did some math. At $25 a box, $750 meant six boxes a day for five days. My savings brought it to $1450, and my next paycheck, because it was for two weeks, would put me over the top. I wouldn't eat much until I got paid again, but that didn't bother me.

I kept coming back to Creech and Gortney, turning in people who were their sources of cash. It must be about more than the money for them, I thought. The real attraction must be in making the money while keeping Reemer and Jones off-balance, beating the system by playing the game better than anyone gave them credit for. No wonder they were so angry at me. Until I said yes, they couldn't even start playing. If I did, I could go along with them just long enough to get the money and then pull out before they had a chance to do me in.

I sat up and looked at the box on my bureau and the idea's appeal faded. It was too complex and risky, and, worse, in its workings I could see my old life rushing up to swallow me whole: stealing and lying, trading the singular trouble of Willie for two more in Creech and Gortney. I didn't want to plow that field again. Soon the troubles would reproduce like monkeys, filling up my days, chattering at me constantly about what I owed and why, and how I had to do this or that to pay them off. That could end only in disaster. Creech and Gortney would hold those 30 boxes over me forever, threatening to turn me in if I didn't steal more, then doing it anyway when they got tired of me.

No, I had to find a better way, some kind of indemnity. As soon as I thought that word--indemnity--I felt something click. I checked the clock. Three A.M. I rolled over, punched my pillow into shape and closed my eyes. I would talk with Creech first thing in the morning.

•

I threw the box in my trunk and drove to work as the sun came up, twisting the radio dial restlessly and honking at slow starters at every light. My stomach was growling--I hadn't really eaten in a day and a half--and sweat was beginning under my arms. My legs and throat still ached, and I missed the warehouse entrance the first time by.

I turned back and headed up the driveway, gravel crunching beneath my tires. Creech was joking with some of the drivers out by the swamp willows. I sat in my car watching them laugh and pass around a Thermos. Gortney drove in behind me and joined them, and when Creech looked up I waved. He turned away. I took a deep breath, and fished around under my seat until I found a plastic mug. Then I walked over. It seemed to take forever.

When I joined the group, everyone stopped talking. I nodded to Creech and Gortney and Smith, one of the drivers. The others I didn't recognize. No one nodded back. It seemed like I'd interrupted a joke just before the punch line and they were waiting for me to leave to finish it.

I held my mug toward Creech, who had the Thermos. "Can I have a cup?" My voice broke, like I was going through puberty, but I managed to keep my hand from snaking.

"Get lost, Amelia," Gortney said. He spit near my shoes.

Creech ignored him. "Sure." When he poured, steam swirled around his thick wrist.

"Can I talk with you a minute?" I said, loud enough for him to hear, quiet enough that the others wouldn't.

He raised his eyebrows and smiled, passing the Thermos to Gortney.

We stepped away. Sticks broke under my feet, and I heard a crow cawing in the trashy field behind us.

I drank some coffee. "We talked before about some business," I started. I had to clear my throat. "Still interested?"

"Maybe."

I could tell he was. He rotated his shoulders in such a way. My eyes felt like they were bulging out of my head, the coffee scalded my tongue.

"How do you normally work it? Cash at the end of the day?"

"If you want it that way." He squatted down and scooped up a handful of gravel. "That's a bit trickier." He seemed to be inspecting the gravel in his cupped palm. He turned the stones over one at a time with his thumbnail, white against the gray stones.

"Doesn't have to be," I said. "I'll go somewhere to meet you."

"OK." He closed his fist over the gravel, rattled it and tossed it away.

"Just how much money are we talking here?" I said. "I mean, is this really going to be worthwhile for me?"

"Four, maybe five thousand a year," he said.

"I'll make that much?"

"No. We will. You'll make a lot less. One. Two if it's a good year."

I squatted beside him. He'd gotten a little carried away trying to impress me, which was good. It gave me an opening. "For taking all the risk."

"Hardly. Anyone can miscount. That's what you tell Reemer if he catches you. Us?" He looked around him, as if someone might be listening, then began digging channels in the gravel with his fingers. "We're the ones holding property that's not ours. No, I'd say $25 a box is just about right."

"Well, how much do the TVs bring?"

"Each?" His lips moved while he calculated. "Two hundred."

"Bull. A Trinitron retails for $1500."

"You don't get retail on the street."

"You don't get soaked that much, either. So at least $400."

He cracked a slight grin, which he covered quickly by coughing and standing. "Why now?" he said. "Why didn't you go for this before?"

I stood too, and shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Anybody watching would think we were playing a bizarre variation of leapfrog. "It was too soon after I got here. What was it, a week after they hired me? I didn't trust you. I thought you were setting me up."

"And now you've decided to be a nice guy and help us out."

"Let's just say that I could use some money."

"Sure," he said, nodding, as if to convince himself. "Everyone gets hard up now and again."

"That's right. But Reemer told me you've blown in a couple of guys for this scam."

"I wouldn't trust Reemer too far."

"I don't trust anybody. That's why I'm asking for some proof."

"How much?" His voice was so flat it was hard to tell he'd asked a question.

"Let's say $400." I might as well have some extra.

"That's a lot of money." He said it too quickly, and I knew he didn't mean it.

"Not really."

"We might be able to do that."

"Each. You, Gortney and the driver."

"No way."

"Two-fifty then. And that's my last offer."

He was silent. The wind snapped a blue plastic bag caught in a tree and Creech glanced up at it. I was sure he was going to say no.

"A box a truck, six trucks a day. You guys will have the money you've fronted me back in two days. And you'll make it back anyway by selling two TVs."

"That's too fast. The most we do is every other truck, and that's only during the Christmas rush." His arms were still folded.

"Look. Don't pay me another cent until after we're even," I said, hurrying. I had to hook him. "I won't raise my rate for a year. Twenty-five bucks a pop--that's nothing. Consider it a down payment. Thirty boxes' worth."

I'd been counting on their greed, but maybe I'd overestimated it. I was considering lowering my demand one last time when he sniffled and lowered his chin to his chest, then dropped his arms. I knew I had him. I was always good at negotiating--now I just had to not blow it.

"All right," I said, making it seem like I was giving in. "We can do a truck every other day, for all I care. You'll still get your money's worth."

He scuffed the toe of his boot through the gravel. "You're asking me to give you $750 for nothing."

"No. I'm asking you so I know you're serious. I like this job. I need it. And I need the extra money. That ought to be enough to convince you right there. But what I need more than anything is to know you're for real, not setting me up."

He pursed his lips.

"Pluses and minuses, Frank," I said, using his name for the first time, which caused him to look at me. "That's what everything comes down to, and if you don't go for a plus, well. . . ." I opened my hands, palms up, to indicate that if he didn't get it he was a fool.

"If we front you this money--and that's a big if--it's only after you've given us the first box. We need some safeguards, too."

I wanted to make it sound like I was thinking it over. "That's reasonable. Let's do a Trinitron right off the bat. We'll be just about even."

Creech shrugged. "What the hell. I'll ask. Hold on. I'll check it out with the others."

"No." I grabbed his sleeve, which surprised him. "I don't want Reemer to see me talking to you."

He turned to say something and his face had a keen, feral expression I hadn't seen before. I pulled back and wiped my hand on my pants. Creech noticed it.

"Hand dirty?"

I started to say something, but Creech cut me off. "You came to me, remember. This great scheme was your idea, not mine. So if we decide to do it, you better get used to the way I feel. I'm going to be your goddamn body glove."

A plane flew low overhead, its noise shaking the ground. Creech started to walk away and then came back and stood so close to me that I could smell the coffee on his breath. "Next time you get a bright idea, don't be so stupid and approach me like this. You can bet your boyfriend Reemer has been watching the whole thing."

This time when he turned and walked toward the warehouse, blindingly white in the morning sun, Gortney went with him, hunching down to whisper while looking at me over his shoulder. Sure enough, I saw Reemer's face framed in the small door's window, and when Creech and Gortney went in, he stepped halfway out so I would see him.

"Don't be late," Reemer called, then slammed the door shut behind him.

I thought about leaving. Why not? It looked like I had blown my last chance. I saw myself driving on long open roads behind the wheel of my car, the miles ticking away, but I knew it was a fantasy, as had been the belief that I could somehow escape my old life. Since I didn't have anywhere else to turn, I went in.

•

"Hi!" Reemer said, right in my ear. I dropped the mug and splashed coffee on my thigh. "Christ, Reemer," I said, pulling the wet pants away from my skin, "It's too early for that." I shook my leg like a dog.

"Too early for a lot of things," Reemer said, tapping a thick finger on the door window. He clucked his tongue. "I didn't figure you to be the type to deal with slimeballs."

"I'm not."

"Then what were you doing out there?"

"I don't have any deal, all right?"

I was breathing hard, and my words came out with such conviction that he was unsure what to do next. Before he could start up again I pushed by him and turned down a row of shelves toward his office. I didn't have a deal. What he didn't know was how much I wished I did.

•

I waited, but it wasn't easy. I didn't eat much, I rarely slept, when my phone rang I didn't answer it. At work I avoided everyone, especially Reemer. Thursday afternoon I stacked a wall of pallets and boxes next to the loading ramp. The boxes had been dropped off outside that morning, left by all our parked cars, since the shipping bay was temporarily full. I had to put them somewhere sheltered and somewhere people couldn't easily pick them up and toss them into their cars, but when I explained this to Reemer, he shook his head and said, "I can't see them from my office."

"So what?"

"So that makes them easier to steal."

"You're paranoid, Stan."

"I'm paid to be paranoid."

He watched me go in and out of the warehouse every few loads, leaning against the doorjamb with his clipboard. I could see his head nod as he counted the boxes.

•

Creech brushed against me, mouthed the words, "This truck," and passed by. He was so inconspicuous I wasn't sure it had happened, but I couldn't very well ask him, and I had only 48 hours before Willie's return.

He and Gortney looked at me as I came in with each load, but I kept my eyes straight ahead and didn't speak to either of them. Halfway through loading the truck, I went back to the office and flipped through the order forms again, standing so Reemer could see me. He was at his desk. I waited for him to look up, but he wouldn't. He checked items on his clipboard, slowly, and when he reached the bottom of the page, he started over at the top. I could hear the pen scratching over the paper. He never took that much time.

I walked toward the forklift, snapping a rubber band on my wrist, my fingers sticky with sweat, then whirred across the floor to the base of the ramp, where I stopped to fill out the numbers on the slip. I recounted without looking around and paused before signing it. When I did I caught a whiff of talc. I was glad to see my signature wasn't too shaky.

Reemer clapped me on the shoulder. "Are you going to load them or not?" he said. "There's 20 boxes on this pallet."

"I can count."

"I can, too. What does it say on that form?" He took it from my hand.

"Twenty."

It did, but he studied it so long he seemed to expect the number to change in front of him. "Well, what are you waiting for?" he said finally, handing it back. "Get going."

I fired up the forklift and moved off so quickly the load wobbled and nearly toppled. I put it in the truck, shifted into reverse and started backing out. Over the warning bell I said to Creech, "All set," and then drove off. When I came back with the next load Creech and Gortney were waiting on the ramp. Creech met me halfway, the first time that had happened since I had turned him down weeks before. It took a few seconds before I figured it out: He was serving notice that they were in control, and that I had better watch myself or they would make the scam so obvious I'd get fired. Reemer was bound to be suspicious of Creech giving me help.

I zipped by him into the truck, which smelled sweetly of onions, the last load to be carried in it. A few papery skins swirled away at my approach. When I came over the hump, Gortney leaned his rat face into the cage and for a second I thought he was going to kiss me.

"Glad to do business with you, Amelia," he said, slapping me hard on the back.

Creech trotted up behind us. "Welcome aboard." He made it sound as if I'd joined a pirate ship. I moved away and drove to the back without stopping, then idled the engine and awaited their approach. The truck floor rocked beneath their steps. Gortney, always the more practical of the two, began counting. When he was finished he started over again, then smacked the last box in irritation.

"I told you we couldn't trust him," he said to Frank. "There's only 20 on this load, too."

Creech looked at me.

"Let me see the envelope," I said.

"That wasn't the deal."

"It is now. Just let me see it."

Gortney was watching Creech, who tilted his head as a sign of approval. Gortney opened his jacket and I saw the top of a thick white envelope sticking out of his inside pocket.

"Check the load before the last one."

"It's buried."

"So it's harder to spot. Count them if you want to."

"Christ," Gortney muttered, but he started scrambling over the boxes to get at the others.

We waited. When we heard him again his voice was muffled by stacked boxes. "He's right."

"Just in case Reemer counted this load," I said.

Gortney dropped down beside me.

"Amelia! You're a regular fox. We're going to have to give you a new nickname."

"Save the name. I want my money." If I didn't get it now, I wouldn't get it at all.

"We could turn you in for what you just did."

"Forget it, Creech. You're bluffing. I'm not. Give it to me or I'll blow the whole deal."

They exchanged glances. "I mean it," I said, and I did. If I was going down, I'd be happy to take them with me.

Creech sucked his teeth. "OK," he said, nodding at Gortney, who blew a disgusted sigh. He shook his head, but pulled out the envelope and slapped it into my palm.

"You're smart, Frank," I said. "Letting Gortney carry like that."

"Fuck you."

The envelope was so white it seemed fluorescent. It felt heavy, and even though I had been right about their greed and their desire to run the scam, I still didn't trust them.

"If this is short, you've gotten your last box."

I knew I should resist trying to count it, but I couldn't. Just as I opened it and began thumbing the bills I heard banging and Reemer's voice, shouting. "What the hell is going on in there?" He was back in the rectangle of light at the end of the truck, pounding on the sidewall with his open palm, the blows reverberating around us.

I stashed the envelope and whispered, "Let me handle this."

Then louder, I said, "No, you're the asshole!" to Gortney, and swung.

He saw my fist coming and lurched back, trying to get out of the way, but succeeded only in giving me a different target. I'd been going for his nose and ended up connecting with his Adam's apple, which felt sharp and hard as a brick. He toppled over backward, making odd gagging noises, and I said to Creech, "Sorry. I had to. Now get this truck out of here before Reemer recounts the load."

I started out toward Reemer, trying to shake the pain from my hand.

He led me to his office, shut the door, told me to sit down. He stood above me.

"Are you trying to get your ass fired?"

"No, sir." I rubbed my knuckles.

"Because you're doing a pretty good job of it."

"We won't have any problems like that again. Believe me. I straightened the whole thing out."

"We better not." I knew he'd seen the punch, and that probably disposed him in my favor. He didn't like Gortney. Still, he didn't seem to believe that a fight was the only thing going on.

"Did you put an extra box on that truck?"

"I haven't lied to you, Stan."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I didn't put an extra TV on that truck."

We had a staring match. I wasn't going to back down.

"I could go out there and pull every box off and match its number with the manifests."

"Go right ahead." I didn't hesitate. He'd know something was up. "I'll help you." I pulled my gloves back on and stretched out my fingers.

He started to say something--I heard the sharp intake of his breath, his mouth opened to form sounds, and I thought he was going to ask about the envelope, which would be tricky since I didn't have any ready reply--but then the time clock clunked. Reemer's eyes shifted to it, and the distraction gave him an excuse to dismiss me.

"Go," he said, reaching around me to open the door. "And cut out this crap. I'm starting to change my opinion of you."

I wanted to tell him that I'd give him reason after reason not to in the months to come, but of course I couldn't. I could only show him, and I would.

•

Creech cornered me in the back of the warehouse an hour before work ended.

"That box you gave me?" He said it quietly, almost gently, so that he didn't sound angry, but I knew what was coming and checked out his hands. They were empty. "That box was full of shit. Busted plates, food, a three-legged stool. That wasn't what we paid for."

I pretended nonchalance even though I was nervous about how this would play out. "I had to. Reemer was suspicious. It was a dry run."

"Don't give me that crap." His voice was curt without being loud. He didn't have to be. He had my full attention. "I'm not a moron. We want our money back."

I shrugged and tried another tack. "Consider it a Christmas bonus."

"It's July, asshole."

"Christmas came early this year."

He shoved me against the wall; I could feel the skin on my shoulder blades scraping against the cinder blocks.

"Don't fuck with us."

"Don't fuck with me." I shoved him back, a surge of adrenaline making me push him farther than I had intended, but that worked in my favor. He hadn't been expecting it, and now there was too great a distance between us for him to swing and hit me. If he tried, I'd know he was coming. "One of you touches me and you'll never get a full box. Remember, you're talking a few thousand a year. What's the possible loss of a couple hundred dollars each?"

He couldn't think of a quick enough answer before I walked away. When he didn't hit me as I passed, I knew he wasn't going to, ever. He'd wait and wait, hoping I would come around, so he and Gortney could turn me in. He'd live for that moment until it came. I didn't bother telling him that he might as well give it up now.

Whillie? There was no way I could scam him. He didn't care about anything enough to lose money on it. But once he got his money--much of which had never been mine--he would forget that I ever existed.

I had an hour before quitting time, so I began shifting pallets into the bay, box after box, their fine dusty smell coating my clothes.

Willie was serious about what I owed him, and he had been tried once for murder.