The Man In The Cream Suit Ordered My Scraps Burned

By the time Silas Venn told me to burn the old lining, I had already found the memory card.

It had been sewn inside a thin foam pad beneath a courier's hairpiece. The outer lace had torn. When I lifted it to mend the edge, a hard corner caught my needle.

I was thirty-eight, a Japanese American woman with straight black hair cut at my jaw, brown eyes, and a small pale scar across my chin.

My name was Naomi Sato. I made theatrical wigs in a narrow shop above a courtyard off Coming Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Most days, I tied single hairs into lace until my back hurt. That morning, I had put down my ventilating hook and opened a secret.

I photographed the card where it lay. Then I made a mistake. I put it in an old laptop I used for lighting charts.

One video opened.

Venn sat at a table with Leon March, a city permit inspector I knew from theater visits. A man's voice behind the camera said, "Eighteen thousand, as agreed."

March opened a white envelope. Venn said, "Then the other company's stage stays closed through Christmas."

I stopped the video.

I wrote down what I had done, including the time. I shut the laptop down. The card went into a clean sleeve, and the whole removed pad went into a box.

Then I called the state investigations office. An investigator named Malcolm Reed asked me to leave everything alone. He gave me a case reference and said he would call back through the office switchboard.

That had been twenty minutes before Venn arrived.

Silas Venn was a broad white man with silver hair, a neat mustache, and a cream suit that never seemed to crease.

He was fifty-six. His age appeared every year in the donor program for the Briar Gate Players, where he chaired the board. I had a contract with the company. He approved its checks.

"Mrs. Sato," he said.

"Ms. Sato."

"Of course. Such a busy morning."

His smile stayed in place while he looked at my workbench.

The hairpiece had come in with June Sayers, Briar Gate's wardrobe manager. Its owner was Adrian Bell, who delivered papers and cash for Venn. June had signed my intake ticket and left before I opened the lining.

"New cotton against the scalp," Venn said. "No questions about the damage. Burn what comes out."

"I keep a record of removed material."

"You keep far too much."

My archive filled six cabinets. Every job had a signed ticket, a fabric sample, and notes about what I changed. I used blue basting thread to hold each sample to its card. Loose loops, never knots. A future maker could lift the fabric without tearing it.

My terms said the client owned the finished piece. I kept my repair records. That sentence had survived three contract talks and one threat to find a cheaper maker.

Venn touched a blue loop with one thick finger.

"It's only rubbish, dear."

"It's how I prove my work."

From the courtyard came a burst of laughter. Students were taking pictures beside the brick wall.

Venn turned sharply toward the window.

"Something funny?" he called.

They had not even seen him. Their silence seemed to calm him.

I began counting pins beside the block head.

"One. Two. Three."

"Must you do that?"

"It helps me work."

I counted when I was frightened. He had known that for years. Once, during a fitting, he had called it my little nursery song.

He placed an envelope on my bench. Inside was the unpaid Briar Gate invoice: $6,420 for six wigs and two weeks of fittings.

"This can be settled tomorrow," he said. "Or the board can question your work. I also know the owner downstairs. Your lease ends in December, doesn't it?"

My rent was $2,800 a month. I had $11,200 in savings. He knew enough to make each number hurt.

"The repair is eighty-five dollars," I said.

"Then write eighty-five."

I turned the authorization toward him. He signed without reading the terms above his name.

"By four," he said. "No old lining. No chatter. Adrian's business is private."

"All my clients' work is private."

He bent close enough for me to smell his mint breath.

"And please stop taking your lunch by the water. People notice a woman sitting alone."

I had eaten beside Colonial Lake twice that week. I had told no one except clients who asked about pickup times.

After he left, I counted all twenty-three pins. Then I locked the box in my sample cabinet and sat facing the door.

My phone lit up with a call from the state office.

"Ms. Sato? Malcolm Reed. Don't burn anything. And tell me exactly who knew where you ate lunch."