The Inventory Copy Put His Signature Beside My Machines

Nadine did not argue with Warren over the phone.

“Email the inventory,” she said. “I'll need the source documents before I approve those lots.”

“It's a routine shop matter.”

“Then the records will be routine.”

She hung up and wrote the time on her pad.

I opened my other folder.

“This one went with our last tax packet,” I said.

The file was called Equipment Schedule, Signed. Its third page listed my six machines under a plain heading: PERSONAL PROPERTY STORED ON PREMISES. OWNER: MERRITT ALDRIDGE.

Warren had signed beneath the list. So had I.

Nadine moved her glasses down her nose.

“Send me that. Don't send him your whole collection of evidence while you're upset.”

“I want my shirt,” I said.

“Ask for the shirt in writing, too.”

It sounded silly. Still, I wrote it down.

By noon I sat across from a lawyer named Cora Bell. Her office window faced a parking lot where fallen leaves kept catching under the same blue car.

Her intake form asked what result I wanted.

I wrote: My machines. My tools. My name back.

“And the partnership?” she asked.

“Ended with a count of the money.”

Her first payment was $600. I paid it from my personal account and saved that receipt with the others.

We spread my records across her table.

River Queen, serial RQ-1842, had cost $4,200. Moon Orchard, MO-0731, had cost $2,800. County Fair, CF-2206, had cost $3,150.

Night Ferry, NF-0917, was $2,450. Copper Comet, CC-1408, was $3,750. Prairie Rocket, PR-0624, was $2,400.

Each receipt named me as buyer. Each payment came from my account. Each seller had written the cabinet number on the bill of sale.

“Some were bought after you formed the partnership,” Cora said.

“With my money. That's why we added this.”

I handed her our agreement.

It said work done at the shop did not change who owned a personal machine. Any transfer to the partnership needed a separate bill of sale signed by both partners.

There were no such bills of sale.

“Why did you insist on the numbers?” Cora asked.

“Two County Fair cabinets can look alike from the front. One can have a sound bottom and the other can be held together by carpet tacks. A game name isn't enough.”

I had learned that on my first purchase, before I met Warren. The seller had photographed the good side. I had still made him write down the number before I loaded it.

Cora marked the six receipts with six small tabs.

“Then we'll use the numbers,” she said.

“Did the shop pay for parts or labor?” she asked.

“Some. We tracked it.”

I showed her six job sheets. The charges totaled $2,100. I had paid them by deductions from my share of service income. The monthly statements showed each deduction.

“Good,” she said. “We account for that. We don't pretend it never happened.”

She asked about tools, customer machines, deposits, keys, and the auction contract. I answered until the room felt less like a place where I had been wronged and more like a bench with all the parts laid out.

At three, Warren's new inventory arrived through Nadine.

He had kept the serial numbers but changed the owner column to SHOP STOCK.

The file had no signatures. Its date was that morning.

Cora placed it beside the signed schedule.

“A new label doesn't explain a transfer,” she said.

She sent a letter to Warren. It asked him to preserve all shop records, stop any sale of the six cabinets, and arrange supervised pickup. It also asked for my tools, shirt, and access to the partnership books.

Nadine sent a separate notice holding the six auction lots for an ownership review.

Warren called me within four minutes.

“You hired a lawyer?”

“Send your answer to her.”

“Over some used games?”

I watched a leaf roll under the blue car outside.

“Six used games,” I said. “All listed by number.”

“I made you somebody in this town.”

I said nothing.

“People won't bring work to a woman who pulls this.”

“Cora's number is in the letter.”

I ended the call. My thumb shook so hard I missed the button once.

Cora asked me to write down his exact words while I remembered them.

Then we reviewed my auction paperwork. I had signed the owner form weeks earlier. Warren had signed a separate agreement for the shop's hosting fee. The auction office still had my original form.

He could erase my name from a handout. He could not erase the copy in their file.

Near five, he finally answered Cora by email.

He would allow a pickup Friday morning if I signed away all claims to the shop and paid him $9,000 for “training and use of facilities.”

Below that demand came one more line.

If those cabinets leave, you will be responsible for a commitment you know nothing about.