Gwen Put A Price On Favors And Locked The Workshop Door

The payment instructions named Talbot Property Services.

That was the account on our rent bills. It was not the workshop's account.

"Why did I pay your property company?" Mara asked.

Gwen reached for the invoice. Mara drew it back.

"It keeps the books simple," Gwen said.

"Our bookkeeper will need to see it," I said.

"You don't get to audit me."

I asked Mara for permission to photograph both pages and her payment receipt. She agreed. Then she asked me a fair question.

"Are you going to give me the accordion?"

"I can't promise that. I never agreed to sell it. But I will help you get a clear record of what happened."

She nodded once. She didn't have to like me. She had paid $6,800, and I stood between her and the thing she had bought.

"Where is it?" she asked Gwen.

"Safe."

"That wasn't my question."

Gwen took her phone into the back hall.

Cal pulled every yellow card from the remaining instruments.

"I'm done helping," he told her when she returned. "Send someone for my folding tables."

"You've been here two hours," she said.

"Long enough to read."

He left his name and number on Mara's folder.

Emil and I collected the four accordions still in the shop. I wrote the time beside each number. Gwen watched without signing my removal list, so Emil signed as witness.

Eleven instruments accounted for. One missing.

The bench came apart with eight bolts. I packed the reed files in their felt roll and put the hot wax pot upright in a box. I had let it cool before touching anything else.

Gwen stood by the door as we made our last trip.

"You owe me $7,200 before that bench leaves."

"For what?"

She held up a sheet torn from a legal pad.

Eight lines, each marked $900. At the top she had written Rent Adjustment.

"Market rent was always $1,800," she said. "I gave you half off because we were friends."

"The lease says $900."

"For the company. You personally benefited."

"That's why people rent rooms."

Her mouth tightened.

I photographed the sheet. Then I opened the lease on my phone and showed her the rent clause.

"There's no discount debt here."

"You knew what I meant."

That had been her answer to many things. I knew what she meant when she borrowed my car. I knew what she meant when she asked me to cover Saturday. What she meant usually changed after I had done it.

This time, the page didn't change.

Emil held the side door open. We carried the bench through it.

Mara waited beside her car.

"I saved for fourteen months," she told me. "My son isn't getting a trip this year. That was the choice."

I gave her my number.

"Save the messages too. All of them."

After she left, I went back for the repair book. Six customer instruments remained behind the counter. Their owners had paid deposits totaling $1,140 for work I still meant to finish.

Gwen stepped in front of the book.

"Company records stay."

"I'm a member of the company. I can inspect them."

"Ask your lawyer."

She shut the door in my face.

By afternoon, a new lock shone above the old one.

I stood outside long enough to photograph it. Through the glass, I could see six repair tags facing the window.

I wrote down every name I could read.

Emil offered his garage for my tools, but February damp could harm the reed plates. We unloaded instead in his spare room, where dance-band posters covered the walls.

He put an old towel beneath the wax pot.

"My wife used to say a house should have a useful room," he said. "Now it has one again."

I sat among eleven closed cases and called a lawyer named Leah Voss.

While I waited for the call to connect, I opened the company bank statements I had saved each month. Eight rent payments sat in a neat row. Each was $900. Each had cleared.

I copied the dates onto Gwen's new list of supposed debts. Beside the total, I wrote one question for the lawyer: Can a favor become rent after it has already been paid?

She charged $250 for the first meeting. I put it on my personal card.

"Bring the signed schedule, the receipts, and the operating agreement," she said. "And don't try the new lock."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good. We will ask for access and return through the proper process."

I had almost finished listing the missing instrument's parts when an email arrived from Gwen.

The subject was Final Opportunity.

She offered to release the black accordion if I paid the $7,200 and signed away my half of the company for one dollar.

At the bottom, she had added a deadline of noon Tuesday.