We Read The Tank Records Beside A Stove Full Of Ash

"Tell me before she does," my landlady said.

Nola Price lived in Vermont. She had rented me Unit 14 after her husband died, and she had never once asked whether I could afford a place of my own.

"The generator ran dry," I told her. "Phyllis blamed me. I have the delivery slips."

"Then keep them. She's demanded I end your lease."

"Will you?"

"I'm asking what happened, Ben."

I sat down on an empty bottle crate. Until then, I hadn't noticed how badly my legs shook.

"Let me call you in the morning," I said.

"Send me her demand first. I want us reading the same words."

Across the room, Mrs. Dell gave up her chair to a man whose knee brace had locked. Wesley passed out battery lanterns from his car. My own lantern lit the blue folder.

Six weeks earlier, the condominium had ordered 2,400 gallons of diesel at $4.10 a gallon. The invoice total was $9,840.

I remembered the truck. I had waited beside it in a yellow raincoat while the driver ran the hose down our fill passage.

My slip said 600 gallons.

I held it flat with a clean spoon.

Wesley leaned over my shoulder.

"Did you write that?"

"The truck meter printed it. I signed below."

"And the invoice?"

"Phyllis handled payment. Volunteers only checked delivery."

He pointed at the dates. They matched.

"Could there have been another stop here?" he asked.

"Let's check."

My laptop still had half a battery. The controller files were saved locally because the generator room had poor reception. I opened the folder for that delivery date.

The tank reading before delivery was 340 gallons. After delivery, it was 940.

Six hundred in. Just as the paper said.

My latest backup, saved the day before the storm, showed 812 gallons used since that delivery during tests and several outages. That left about 128 gallons when this storm arrived. The big generator burned roughly twelve gallons an hour under that night's load.

It had run most of the day.

"So it wasn't full when the blackout started," I said.

"Apparently," Wesley said. "Tomorrow I'll check the gauge against the actual level. Tonight, this is a saved record. We treat it like one."

I liked him more for that answer.

He hadn't believed Phyllis without checking. He wouldn't believe me without checking, either.

We saved another copy to Nola's email. I photographed the slip, front and back, then put the original in a clean envelope.

"You don't need to take everything apart tonight," Mrs. Dell said.

"I'm only putting it in order."

She looked down at the envelope.

"I moved away from you in the lobby."

I let her finish.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Thank you."

Outside, wind dragged a loose lid along the lane. Inside, the cider barrel made three small clicks.

Listen before you lift.

At first light, Wesley and I crossed back to the building. Phyllis met us beside the service door with a printed sheet.

"Emergency access restriction," she said. "You may enter your apartment. No basement, no tank room, no records cabinet."

"Who voted?" Wesley asked.

"This is operational."

He read the sheet without touching it.

"You called me to inspect a failed generator. I need access to the generator."

Elaine Ortiz, the board president, came down the stairs behind her. She had been helping her father reach a hotel with working elevators.

"Let him in," Elaine said.

Phyllis moved aside.

Wesley checked the tank with its manual measuring stick. The remaining fuel agreed with the controller within the gauge's normal margin. He found no open drain and no fresh sign of a leak.

Then he inspected my workshop's power feed across the lane. It had its own meter and no connection to the condominium's emergency panel.

"No diesel equipment here," he told Elaine. "No stolen circuit, either. I'll put my findings in writing."

"The fuel could have been carried," Phyllis said.

"Eighteen hundred gallons?" I asked.

Elaine looked at me.

I showed her the slip and the paid invoice from the owners' monthly packet, which Nola had just forwarded.

"The difference is $7,380," I said.

Elaine took off her wet gloves.

"I'll ask the supplier for the complete delivery packet."

"All vendor requests go through management," Phyllis said.

"I'm the president. I'll make this one."

By noon, power had returned to two streets north of us. Our building stayed cold. Elaine arranged a small emergency fuel delivery with two board members watching the meter.

I went back to the shop to wash the mugs.

My phone rang before I finished the first rack.

"Ben," Elaine said, "the supplier sent two signed tickets under that purchase. The second one has a marina address."