My Import Receipts Went Upstairs To A Lawyer In Old Town

Lena Cho's office was above a bookkeeper in Old Town. The stair rail felt cold even through my glove.

I had called her about a lease once. This time, I brought a binder that pulled one shoulder lower than the other.

"Start with what you want back," she said.

"Three mobile service furnaces. Twelve refractory casting molds. One lift cradle. My tools and job sheets."

"And the company?"

"We have a van, shop tools, shelves, cash, and bills. Half the business is mine. Those machines are a separate matter."

She cleared her desk.

I set down the fox and opened the binder.

The smallest furnace had cost $15,400. The middle one was $17,600. The large one was $21,800. The molds cost $8,600, and the cradle cost $3,400.

"Sixty-six thousand eight hundred dollars," Lena said.

"From my savings. Before we opened the company account."

I had imported the furnace bodies and molds, then fitted the furnaces with controls here. The freight papers named me. Each equipment number matched a receipt and a brass plate.

Schedule B listed them all.

It said I kept ownership. The partnership got free use while I worked there and had access. If that access ended, written notice started a ten-business-day return period.

A separate line said the equipment was not part of my investment in the company.

"Why this arrangement?" Lena asked.

"Russell had no money for machines. I had no wish to give away my retirement. We both thought it was fair."

I showed her the email he had sent before signing.

Free use suits me. Keep your ownership. Let's make some money.

Lena read it twice.

"Save the email in its original form," she said. "We'll want more than a screenshot."

She did not promise that a single page would solve everything. She asked for the lease, our bank statements, the partnership agreement, and the message to clients.

I had most of them. Russell had shut me out of the rest.

Lena made a separate list of the records we still needed. I liked that she left spaces for things she did not yet know. In my trade, an empty reading box meant you still had a test to run.

At eleven, Lena sent a written demand to him and his lawyer. It listed every machine by number. It demanded the return of my personal things, access to company records, and the removal of his sale offer.

She also told him to keep all repair records and electronic files.

"Should I hire a truck now?" I asked.

"Get a quote. Don't enter the shop without an agreement or an order."

I paid her a $1,800 deposit. Afterward, I sat in my truck and changed my grocery list. Soup could stretch another week.

Russell called while I was still parked.

"You could have asked me nicely."

"I asked for a key."

"Those machines have been in our shop for four years."

"So have my winter boots."

He breathed hard into the phone.

"I'll give you $3,500 for your share. That's generous with the debts we have."

"Send the offer and the books to Lena."

"You always needed someone to handle people."

I watched a woman help her child over a wet patch of sidewalk.

"I'm handling this person," I said, and ended the call.

Hugo met me later at a cafe on Yellowstone Avenue. He brought his own notes, written while we had worked together.

"You don't need to speak for me," I told him.

"I'm speaking for what I saw."

His largest school kiln had needed a new burner block and door seal. Our company contract also included the use and service of my largest mobile furnace while that work went on.

"Mae says the total reached $28,600," Hugo told me.

"Our signed bid was $25,750. Send the extra charge to Lena, please."

I had not approved a change. Our rental terms already included routine service.

"Is the mobile unit still unplugged?" I asked.

"With a note on it. Nobody has touched it."

"The high-limit control was cutting out too soon. I ordered its replacement before this happened."

"Russell said the work was finished."

I put down my spoon.

"When?"

"Last Thursday. He brought the furnace back after a service stop. Said we could load it Monday."

"I wasn't there Thursday."

Hugo wrote that down.

"I'll tell Mae in purchasing," he said. "She can check what we paid for."

I told him to use the school's normal process. He nodded. Neither of us wanted children near a machine with a disputed service record.

That evening, Lena called. Russell had removed the sale offer but would not agree to return the machines.

His lawyer claimed the company books showed them as business assets.

"We've asked for a quick hearing to keep them in place," she said. "The return demand alone won't stop a buyer with a trailer."

I looked at my fox beside the phone.

A minute later, the hearing notice arrived in my inbox.