The Hidden Marks Appeared During A Witnessed Inspection Of The Shop

I looked at the signature for a long time.

It had the little hook I made under my last name. It also had a gray spot beside the S.

That spot had come from a coffee stain on our lease.

I found my lease copy. The mark was there, in the same place.

Della told me to send both documents and stop answering Nolan myself.

She asked him where the signature had come from.

His reply arrived before lunch.

I used the signature on file to complete our old inventory records. Sachiko already agreed to put everything into the business.

Della printed that email too.

"He answered a question I would have spent money making him answer later," she said.

Wes agreed to meet us at the shop the next morning. Until he saw the ownership records, he would take no bids or deposits. Nolan agreed to an inspection after Wes said he would otherwise withdraw from the auction.

I paid an independent restorer, Cal Mercer, $180 to attend and photograph each mark. Della came to keep a written record. Wes brought his catalog.

Nolan was waiting beneath the awning.

"Four people to look at a few scratches?" he asked.

"Five," Ruthie said, getting out of her car.

She wore bright orange shoes and carried a clear folder.

"I'm looking at my repair cabinet and my layaway pair. Those are three separate reasons."

Inside, the shop smelled wrong. The lemon oil was still there, but someone had sprayed a sweet room scent over the warm dust.

Nolan had tied lot cards to the cabinets with white string.

My largest personal machine was Lot Four. His catalog called it a rare restored survivor, estimated at $22,000 to $26,000.

A week earlier, he had called it dead weight.

"Where are the plates?" Cal asked.

"Loose metal went in the recycling," Nolan said. "They weren't useful."

"They were useful to me," I said.

We did not argue about the missing plates. Della wrote his answer down.

I unplugged Lot Four. I opened its service door and released the deck catch. Cal held the hinged assembly while I set a light beneath the turntable.

There it was on the steel support: an open diamond, a dot, and 104.

The mark was smaller than a grain of rice.

"Photograph the whole assembly first," I said. "Then the mark."

Cal took both shots. He wrote the auction lot number on a card and placed it beside the cabinet for another photograph.

I laid my receipt on a clean cloth.

It showed a purchase of $5,200, made two years before our company formed. My old photograph showed the original plate, a split in the left trim, and a missing flower in the grille.

The restoration page linked that plate to stamp 104. A dated work photo showed the stamp after I made it.

Exhibit B named the same machine.

Wes bent to compare the repaired trim with my photograph.

"That's a pretty clear match," he said.

"She could have stamped it last night," Nolan said.

I looked at the new lock.

Wes followed my eyes.

Della asked Cal to note the aged paint and dust around the mark. She did not ask him to guess its exact age.

We worked through all six machines. Numbers 101 through 106 matched the purchase folders and the signed schedule.

Nolan watched without his good smile.

"I stored them," he said at last. "I did wiring on some of them. That has value."

"Then document the work," Della said. "It doesn't turn a storage agreement into a bill of sale."

I tapped my pencil against my wrist while Cal lowered the last deck. Four slow beats. Then I helped guide the latch home.

We checked the remaining six cabinets too.

Ruthie's old cafe machine carried 301. The bus driver's repair carried 302. Their intake tickets named the customers as owners.

The four company machines carried 219 through 222.

"Those four belong to River Measure," I said for the record.

Nolan glanced at Wes, as if that admission might save the whole auction.

"And these two were reserved under my agreement," Ruthie said, touching the air above the blue and yellow pair. She did not touch the cabinets.

Their stamps matched C11 and C12 in my book.

Wes crossed two more lines in his catalog.

"No auction until this is sorted," he said.

Nolan's phone rang. He silenced it.

A truck stopped outside. Someone rolled a heavy dolly over the threshold.

"Nolan?" a man called. "You said come early, before the crowd."

He held up a paid invoice.

"I'm Leon Rusk. Where are my two jukeboxes?"