Then another number.
Malik rubbed harder.
More characters.
A casting number.
He picked up a second plate.
Different number.
Third.
Different again.
“Those are just old seed plates.”
Malik turned.
One of the auctioneer’s assistants was passing with a clipboard.
The man nodded toward the crate.
“Whitford had those things forever.”
“How many?”
“Plates?”
“Yes.”
The assistant shrugged.
“Eight hundred. Nine hundred. Something like that.”
“You selling them separately?”
The man laughed.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’d still be here Christmas.”
He pointed toward a scrap dealer’s truck parked nearby.
“Everything back here goes by weight after the main lots. Scrap iron, damaged shelving, old parts nobody wants.”
Malik looked into the crate again.
“What machines?”
“Old plate planters mostly.”
“Which manufacturers?”
The assistant shrugged.
“International. Deere. Oliver. Allis. Maybe some others.”
“You know the numbers?”
“No.”
Malik looked at another crate.
Then another.
“How much for all of them?”
The man stared.
“You serious?”
“Yes.”
The assistant looked at the scrap buyer, who happened to be standing nearby smoking a cigarette.
“Earl, what were you figuring on these?”
The scrap buyer, Earl Givens, walked over.
He looked into the box.
“Cast iron.”
He estimated the weight.
“Whatever the scale says.”
The assistant looked at Malik.
“Make an offer.”
Malik counted his money through the fabric of his coat pocket.
He knew he had $236.
He knew spending most of it on unidentified iron was probably foolish.
He also knew one thing the others did not seem interested in.
Every plate had a number.
Numbers meant specifications.
Specifications meant compatibility.
And compatibility meant somewhere, potentially, there was a machine that required exactly that part.
Malik said:
“One eighty.”
Earl laughed.
Not cruelly.
Just surprised.
“You want to pay a hundred eighty dollars for scrap iron instead of letting me buy it by the pound?”
Malik looked at him.
“Yes.”
“You sorting all that?”
“Yes.”
“Good luck.”
The assistant shrugged.
“You haul it.”
“Yes.”
“Today.”
“Yes.”
“All six crates.”
“Yes.”
“Anything at the bottom comes with it.”
Malik hesitated.
“What’s at the bottom?”
The man laughed.
“If I knew, I would’ve sold it already.”
Malik pulled out his money.
The assistant wrote a simple receipt.
Six crates assorted obsolete seed plates and related planter parts.
Approximately nine hundred pieces.
$180.
Malik counted out the bills.
When he finished, $56 remained in his pocket.
Almost a summer’s savings gone.
The assistant handed him the receipt.
“Congratulations.”
Malik looked at the crates.
He did not feel congratulated.
He felt slightly sick.
Earl Givens flicked ash from his cigarette.
“Boy wants to buy scrap iron by the piece instead of the pound.”
Then he smiled.
“Maybe you know something I don’t.”
Malik answered honestly.
“I don’t yet.”
That made Earl laugh harder.
Malik found Otis near the machine shed.
“I bought something.”
Otis did not look up.
“How big?”