Chapter 6 - The Long Wharf
Three days later, the rain had cleared, leaving New Orleans wrapped in a blanket of thick, humid fog that drifted off the Mississippi like white smoke.
At Wharf 7, far down the industrial corridor where the container ships unloaded their steel cargo, a single black sedan sat idling near the edge of the water.
Silas leaned against the hood, a paper cup of chicory coffee steaming in his hand. Marcus stood near the bumper, checking the time on a heavy steel wristwatch.
Footsteps echoed along the wet concrete—the hurried, nervous clicking of expensive leather loafers.
A man in a camel-hair overcoat emerged from the fog, flanked by two thick-necked associates with their hands tucked into their armpits. It was Jimmy Callahan.
Callahan was fifty-five, thick around the middle, with silver hair and the florid complexion of an Irishman who drank too much gin and spent too much time yelling at union stewards.
"Where is he?" Callahan demanded, stopping ten feet from Silas. "Mercer called me out here at six in the morning. I got four barges clearing customs at seven."
Silas didn't move. He took a slow sip of his coffee. "He's in the crane shed, Jimmy. Alone."
Callahan frowned, his small eyes narrowing. "Alone? What's this about? We settled the Vance business. I cut the bastard loose. He's down in the salt marsh where he belongs."
"Go inside," Silas said, nodding toward the corrugated metal building behind him. "Leave your boys out here. Mr. Mercer doesn't care for company when he's doing inventory."
Callahan hesitated. He looked at Marcus, who remained completely motionless, then back at Silas. With a muttered curse, Callahan signaled his men to stay put and shoved the side door of the shed open.
The crane shed was massive, cold, and cavernous. Dust motes drifted through the high shafts of morning light. In the center of the concrete floor sat a single wooden crate, upon which rested a silver thermos, two porcelain mugs, and Ellie Ward’s red spiral notebook.
Grant Mercer was standing near the edge of the pit where the crane cables were anchored, looking down into the grease-slicked machinery.
"Grant," Callahan said, his voice echoing slightly in the vast space. "What is this? I don't like being summoned like a deckhand."
Grant did not turn around. "Twelve years ago, Jimmy, you were a junior dispatcher for the Southern Pacific line."
Callahan stopped four paces from the crate. "What does twelve years ago have to do with anything?"
"You signed the maintenance logs for Wharf 4 the night the grain elevator burned," Grant said.
Callahan’s face lost every shred of its florid color. The skin beneath his silver beard turned the shade of curdled milk. "Grant... that was an accident. An electrical short in the dust intake. The fire board cleared it."
Grant turned around slowly. His suit was black, his shirt crisp and white, but his eyes were darker than the water beneath the wharf.
"The fire board was run by your brother-in-law," Grant said. "And the men who brought the road flares were paid out of a petty cash account registered to a holding company called Delta Marine Logistics. A company you incorporated two weeks before the fire."
Callahan took a step backward, his hand twitching toward his pocket before he remembered where he was. "Grant, listen to me. That was business between your old man and the syndicate. It had nothing to do with Thomas. Nobody knew Thomas was in the office!"
"My father is dead," Grant said, his voice dropping into an icy, hollow whisper. "And my brother survived. But a man named David Ward spent six weeks having his skin scraped off with surgical brushes because of your logistics company."
Grant picked up the red notebook from the crate. He held it out.
"In this notebook, David Ward kept sixteen years of shipping manifests," Grant said. "Every container that passed through your slips without a customs stamp. Every pallet of unmanifested copper wire. Every crate of Dominican cigars. He wrote them down every night because he was a professional, and he knew that men like you always leave a paper trail when you're stealing from the port."
Callahan stared at the little red notebook with wide, terrified eyes. "Where... where did you get that?"
"From his daughter," Grant said. "She gave it to me as a down payment."
"A down payment for what?"
"For your retirement, Jimmy."
Grant tossed the notebook onto the crate. It landed with a dull, hollow thud.
"By noon today," Grant said, "you will sign over your operating leases for Wharves 6 through 9 to the Mercer Maritime Group. You will surrender your port commission seat. And you will take your family to your winter house in Gulfport and you will never cross the Pearl River again."
Callahan began to tremble. His chest heaved with a mixture of terror and furious disbelief. "You're stripping me! That's thirty years of work, Mercer! You can't just take my slips over a twelve-year-old fire that didn't even kill anyone!"
Grant closed the distance between them in three long, silent strides.
He didn't draw a weapon. He simply reached out and caught Callahan by the throat with one hand, lifting the two-hundred-pound man until his toes barely skimmed the concrete.
Callahan made a choked, gargling sound, his hands clawing desperately at Grant’s iron fingers.
Grant brought his face within three inches of Callahan’s.
"David Ward died in a two-room apartment on Constance Street because he worked eighty hours a week trying to pay off an imaginary debt to your dog," Grant whispered, his breath warm against Callahan’s terrified cheek. "His wife scrubbed your vomit off the floor of the Monteleone. His daughter walked into my room with a bruised wrist and asked me for a favor."
Grant’s fingers tightened slightly, just enough to compress the carotid artery. Callahan’s eyes rolled back, his face turning a deep, purplish-black.
"You have until noon, Jimmy," Grant said softly. "If the signatures are not on my desk by twelve-fifteen, I will give this red notebook to the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana. And Silas will visit your house in Gulfport before dinner."
Grant let go.
Callahan hit the concrete like a sack of wet salt, gasping for air, clutching his bruised throat with both hands, sobbing in ragged, humiliating gulps.
May you like
Grant didn't look down at him. He picked up the red notebook, slipped it into his breast pocket, and walked out of the shed into the white morning fog.
---
