The Cash Receipts Reached The City's Contract Review Table

Beverly's request to revoke my space said I had refused safety orders and caused unrest among vendors.

It did not mention the survey.

I answered in one page. I attached the written clearance and asked the city to judge my permit on the record. Maren replied that the request created no grounds to remove me. My assignment remained valid.

I read her answer twice before opening that night.

Across the aisle, Beverly taped up a notice about a mandatory vendor meeting.

"We need to address rumors," she told Ruth.

But the meeting that mattered took place in a plain city room a week later.

The city had given Beverly written notice of a contract review. An auditor named Ellis Webb sat beside Maren. There were no balloons, no market music, and no crowd Beverly could warm up.

She brought a thick binder with bright tabs.

I brought mine with a rubber band around it.

She had counted on a quiet vendor having no way to answer her. My answer had been in the permit packet all along: the city's approved coordinates, still matched by pins beneath the paving. I had held the proof while she pressed my binder shut in front of my customers. Now the people who issued that proof were reading it.

Six more vendors had come forward by then. Their receipts covered two other strips already included in approved stalls. Those stall holders supplied their own city plans.

Nine buyers had paid for three strips. Each strip had been sold to three vendors for the same evening hours, every month from February through May.

Thirty-six payments of one hundred eighty dollars.

Six thousand four hundred eighty dollars.

Ellis laid out three drawings, then placed a stack of receipts under each.

"Were these payments required by the city?" he asked Beverly.

"They were voluntary contributions toward market improvements."

"The receipts say exclusive use."

"That's a standard phrase."

He turned one toward her.

"This also says payment required to retain primary stall."

Beverly adjusted her red glasses.

"You have to understand the pressure of managing small businesses. People hear what they want to hear."

Ruth sat beside me, holding her bag with its newly sewn strap.

"I heard one hundred eighty dollars," she said. "That's what I paid."

Maren asked Beverly for the written approvals allowing the extra rentals.

There were none.

Under the city's contract, management had to keep records of money collected for market operations. Ellis had requested the cash book and monthly reports. The extra rental payments appeared on the vendors' receipts but not on the reports sent to the city.

"I was going to reconcile those," Beverly said.

"Four months of them?" Ellis asked.

"Cash takes time."

He made a note.

Then Maren asked about my equipment.

"I never took anything," Beverly said.

They played the phone recording. Her voice filled the small room.

Cut the ties. Put the clamp through the hasp.

I looked down at my thumb scar. I had earned it years before, opening a stubborn sole with a dull knife. Rushing had cost me work then. I wasn't going to rush now.

Maren played the overnight camera footage next. The workers rolled the blocks inward while my locked cart stayed in place.

"Routine adjustment," Beverly said.

"On whose authority?"

"Mine."

She seemed to hear her own answer a moment after everyone else did.

Ellis opened a thin folder. One crew member had supplied the folded sheet visible in the recording. It was a work order signed by Beverly, directing them to set the B14 blocks at 109.00.

Attached was the old drawing with 112.00 crossed out.

"Did the city approve this revision?" Maren asked.

"We make field decisions all the time."

"Your contract doesn't permit this one."

Beverly looked at me.

"She's built a case because she couldn't stand being corrected."

I finally spoke.

"I asked you for the fee sheet."

Nobody added anything for a while.

The city suspended her management authority pending its final contract decision. An interim supervisor would open the lot, and all payments would go through the posted city account. Beverly had to turn over the office keys and market records.

She stood up so quickly that her chair struck the wall.

"Good luck getting anyone to do my job."

The review wasn't a criminal trial. Maren made that clear. The audit findings would go to the proper investigators, and Beverly could respond through the stated process.

For me, it meant she could no longer stand over my cart demanding cash.

That evening, I gave Ruth, Leon, and Denise copies of the city's interim order. Each checked the line that protected existing stall assignments.

I touched the three honey-colored stitches on my apron before turning my lamp on.

Two days later, a process server came to my apartment.

Beverly had filed a court claim against me for forty-eight hundred dollars.