Jim called once.
Rusty did not answer.
He let it go to voicemail.
At four-ten, Leo sat on an overturned bucket holding one of the bent pushrods.
He rolled it slowly between his fingers.
Rusty paced nearby.
Big Dave was on the phone arguing with a supplier.
Milo had started searching old forum archives.
Leo looked toward the back hallway.
“Rusty?”
“What?”
“Does this building still have the basement lockers?”
Rusty stopped.
“What lockers?”
“The old ones.”
Rusty frowned.
He had almost forgotten.
Apex Iron Works occupied a building that had once been a small industrial supply warehouse.
Downstairs, behind the old boiler room, were metal employee lockers Rusty never bothered removing.
Most were empty.
Some still contained junk from men who had worked there decades earlier.
“Yeah.”
Leo stood.
“Are they numbered?”
“I think.”
He looked toward the stairs.
“Why?”
Leo set the pushrod on the bench.
“My dad had one.”
Rusty’s expression changed.
“What number?”
Leo looked directly at him.
“Forty-two.”
Big Dave stopped talking on the phone.
Milo turned from the computer.
Rusty stared at the boy.
“How do you know that?”
Leo shrugged.
“Dad brought me down there once.”
“When?”
“Before he died.”
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t remember?”
“He told me not to touch anything.”
Big Dave hung up.
“Let’s go.”
Rusty held out one hand.
“Everybody calm down.”
Big Dave was already walking.
“Forty-two.”
Rusty followed.
The basement smelled like concrete, dust, old oil, and a faint dampness no amount of ventilation had ever eliminated.
One fluorescent fixture flickered near the stairs.
Leo descended behind Rusty.
Big Dave followed.
Milo brought a flashlight.
The lockers stood along the far wall.
Rusty wiped dust from the numbers.
Thirty-seven.
Thirty-eight.
Thirty-nine.
Forty.
Forty-one.
Then forty-two.
A rusted padlock hung through the latch.
Big Dave looked at Leo.
“Key?”
Leo shook his head.
Rusty stared at the lock.
Arthur had been dead two years.
Nobody had touched the locker.
“Bolt cutters.”
Milo returned upstairs.
Two minutes later, the lock snapped.
Rusty opened the metal door.
Dust moved in the flashlight beam.
Inside sat three cardboard boxes.
A folded shop jacket.
An old helmet.
A coffee thermos.
Several manuals.
And a long narrow wooden case.
Leo recognized it.
“My dad made that.”
Rusty lifted the case.
It was heavier than expected.