The Buyer Put His Deadline Beside My Original Agreement

Wade Rusk chose a diner across from a tire shop. June came with me.

He was already seated, with his phone on top of a site plan. He moved neither when we sat down.

"I don't want to referee a divorce," he said.

"Then look at the company records," June said.

She set three pages in front of him. The current ownership record. The operating agreement. My sworn denial of the consent.

Rusk pushed his phone aside.

"Delia told me he wanted out."

"You have notice that he disputes her authority," June said. "You also have notice of Thursday's hearing."

"I've got $45,000 tied up and a grading crew to schedule."

"Your advance is in escrow," I said. "My customers' pianos are in the building."

"Then move them."

"She changed the locks."

He gave a short shrug, as though a locked door was a small flaw in my character.

I took out the bank's original routing page and the altered one. June had approved showing him copies. We kept the originals in her file.

"This signature was copied onto the bank change," I said. "The same image is on the paper making her manager."

He studied the black dot beside my name.

"I'm not a handwriting expert."

"Neither am I. I know when I signed."

June wrote the case number on her card.

"Call your lawyer today. Please confirm in writing that no one will enter or damage the site."

"Get me a signed order before six Friday," he said. "I'm not eating a cancellation charge because two people quit liking each other."

"You just learned the seller's authority may be false," she said. "Remember when you learned it."

The waitress set down coffee. Nobody drank it.

As we stood, Rusk tapped the site plan.

"Your wife said all this was junk."

The long rectangle he touched was my action bench. My father had built its lower shelf from a bowling lane being torn out across town. There were pencil marks underneath showing the length of my arms at seventeen.

"She knew what it was," I said.

Outside, June sent Rusk an email recording what we had shown him and his answer. She copied his lawyer, whose name he had finally given her.

"Why repeat it?" I asked.

"Because tomorrow he may remember a different breakfast."

We drove to the city permit office. Rusk's application was still under review. A clerk confirmed that an application was not permission to knock down a building. The file lacked verified owner consent.

June submitted my written objection and a copy of the court notice. We took a stamped receipt.

It helped. It did not open my door.

That afternoon, Delia agreed to let customer property out between three and four, provided I stayed off the premises.

"She has no right to set that condition," June told me. "We can still use the hour to protect the instruments."

Two insured piano movers went inside with the customer list. June watched from the doorway. I stood on the public sidewalk, checking tags as cases came out.

Howard arrived at three twenty wearing work gloves over his careful hands.

"I can carry something light," he said.

"You can check names."

"An excellent assignment."

Delia watched from the office window. Once, she lifted her phone and took my picture. I kept matching tags.

The movers took the actions to a dry storage room a church rented to us for $120 a week. Every owner got a receipt. My bench tools stayed inside. So did my father's bench, the drill press, and twenty years of repair notes.

Howard's action came out last. A mover handed me the small green felt square he had found on its tray.

I put it in my shirt pocket.

"You could have made this easy," Delia said from the doorway.

"You could have opened the door."

She looked past me at Howard.

"Is this what you do with retirement?"

He removed his gloves before answering.

"At present, Mrs. Doyle, I am checking a list."

She shut the door.

At five, Mae called from the bank. Its review had found $129,600 in Nolan's company account when the hold took effect. Restrictions were now in place under the bank's process while its lawyers sought the needed court relief.

"The rest?" I asked.

"We're tracing $56,800. I don't want to give you an answer we can't support."

I wrote both figures down. They added up exactly. For once, the hole had edges.

Then June sent me a new document from Rusk's lawyer. Delia had produced a lease giving him immediate possession of my building. It bore another copy of my signature.