The Concert Grand Beneath The New Plate Had My Old Mark

Victor Kells asked me to use the side door, though his front door stood open for the florist.

"Nothing personal," he said. "Cases scratch the hall."

My case had rubber feet. I kept that fact to myself.

At thirty-nine, I had tuned pianos in Richmond for seventeen years. I was a lean Filipino American man with warm brown skin, close-cut black hair, and a small white scar across my left thumb. The scar came from a slipped bass string. I still checked my hands before I touched a client's keys.

Victor Kells was a tall white man with silver hair, pale blue eyes, and a dark suit that sat without a crease. He was fifty-seven and dealt in fine instruments. People called him a collector when they wanted his money. At repair benches, we used his name more carefully.

He led me into a private music room behind his Richmond house. There were silk wall panels, a bowl of white pears, and a concert grand on a pale rug.

"Make it sound worth what I paid," he said.

"What did you pay?"

"More than you need to know."

My fee was $240. That was what I needed to know.

I took out the tuning fork my grandmother had left me. Its handle was worn smooth where her fingers had held it during choir practice. I tapped it against my knee and set its foot on the key bed.

The little hum was steady. The piano wasn't.

"You still use that?" Victor asked.

"It tells me where to start."

"Then I suppose it earns its keep."

I lifted the lid. A brass serial plate on the rim read 60418. Its screws were bright. The wood around them held two dark half circles, marks left by a larger plate.

I checked the action, then looked beneath the strings with my work light.

There was a narrow repair in the soundboard near the bass bridge. Three small plugs sat beside it, almost in a row. One was off to the left.

I knew those plugs.

In 2018, I had fitted them in a church grand in Church Hill. A water leak had split the board. The church later sold the piano through Victor's firm.

The serial number then had been 38172.

Six months earlier, I had read its number in a dealer notice about a warehouse fire. The church music director had sent me the notice with a sad face and three words: Our old girl.

The notice said no instruments had survived.

"Problem?" Victor asked.

"Loose hammer flange."

That was true. There was one.

He watched as I tightened its screw.

"You remember instruments, don't you?"

"Some."

"A useful gift. Until people confuse memory with ownership."

He said it gently. His hand rested on the lid as if somebody might take it.

I lowered my light.

In my shop, I owned the paper history of nearly two thousand local pianos. When the old Bench Circle repair group closed, I bought its cabinets and signed for its archive. My own records were mixed in: service cards, dated pictures, and pencil rubbings made over thin paper to show old repair seams.

The customer release forms let the archive answer identity questions for owners and insurers. I had kept those forms too.

Victor knew about the cabinets. He once offered me $300 to have them hauled away.

"Paper gets damp," he'd said. "Ears stay useful."

I had spent $186 on a used dehumidifier instead.

Now I finished setting the temperament. I worked out toward the bass and treble, testing octaves. My hands did their work while my mind stayed under that lid.

Victor took a call by the window.

"No," he said. "The fire list is closed. Keep it closed."

Then he shut the door on the rest of his call.

I photographed the loose flange for my report. Our work order allowed condition pictures. I took a wide picture first, then one of the repair and the new plate. I did not touch the plate.

When he returned, I was packing my fork.

"A quiet man," he said. "That's why I use you."

"Your invoice will arrive tonight."

"Send it to the office. And Leandro?"

I looked up.

"The contents of this room are private."

Outside, leaves skittered along the brick walk. I sat in my van without starting it. I opened the church's old message and enlarged the fire notice.

There it was: 38172, total loss, scheduled value $184,000.

I drove to my shop near Hull Street and pulled drawer C. The old service envelope smelled like dry paste.

My grandmother's fork rolled against a pencil as I opened it.

Three plugs. One off to the left.

Then my phone lit up with a message from Victor.

Before you make any more pictures, remember who sends you work.