The Tailor Heir

The forklift’s warning beeper had been broken for three weeks.

Alex Tailor barely noticed it anymore, after a while, you stopped hearing things that were always there.

He guided a pallet of bottled water into aisle fourteen, checked the load against his scanner, and glanced at the clock above the loading bay.

11:40.

Four hours left on a double shift he hadn’t wanted but couldn’t afford to refuse.

“Tailor.”

Ruiz, the floor supervisor, waved a printout at him from across the aisle.

“Corporate wants the Simmons account reshuffled before the end of shift. You’re the only one who can read Delgado’s handwriting on the manifest.”

“I’ll get to it.”

And he would,Alex always did.

In six years at Ferris Distribution, he had never missed a deadline. Never left a pallet sitting past its wind and never complained loudly enough for anyone above shift lead to notice.

Showing up was what he was good at.

His mother had taught him that much.

She hadn’t left him money. She hadn’t left him a house or anything valuable.

Just the belief that showing up counted for something, even when nobody was counting.

Alex ate his lunch standing at the break room counter.

He didn’t take out his phone. He already knew the numbers.

Six hundred and twelve dollars left after this week’s paycheck.

Eleven hundred and forty still owed to Sacred Heart Medical for the last two months of his mother’s care.

The care hadn’t saved her, but he signed for it anyway.

The alternative had been watching her die faster in a hallway instead of a room.

Two years later, he still did the math.

He wasn’t sure why.

The number never changed enough to make him feel better.

“You look like a man who needs a vacation.”

Priya dropped into the seat across from him, carrying her own sad little container of rice.

She had worked on the packing line since before Alex started. Somewhere during those six years, she’d become the only person who could tell when he was pretending to be fine.

“I look like a man who needs a raise,” Alex said.

“Vacation’s a luxury good.”

“Exactly.”

“Everything’s a luxury good to you.”

She smiled, but her eyes stayed on him.

“You ever think about doing something else? You’re smarter than this place.”

Alex picked at his food.

“Smart doesn’t pay the light bill any faster than tired does.”

There was no bitterness in his voice.

He didn’t have much room for bitterness anymore.

“I’m fine, Priya.”

“You’re always fine.”

She shook her head.

“It’s the least convincing thing about you.”

Alex opened his mouth to answer, but his phone buzzed against the table.

Unknown number,212 area code.

He frowned.

He’d left Ohio exactly once as an adult, and that had been for his mother’s funeral. He didn’t know anyone in New York.

He almost let it go to voicemail.

Almost.

“Hello?”

“Alex Tailor?”

The voice on the other end was crisp and professional.

“Yes?”

“My name is Simon Reyes. I’m an attorney with Reyes and Associates in New York. I need to speak with you regarding a legal matter of some urgency. Would you be available to meet this week?”

Alex sat up a little straighter.

“I don’t have any legal matters.”

He immediately started going through the possibilities in his head.

Debt collector.

Scam.

Somebody trying to get his personal information.

“If this is about a debt……”

“It isn’t a debt, Mr. Tailor.”

There was a short pause.

“It’s the opposite of a debt.”

Alex frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“I represent the estate of Julian Voss.”

The name meant nothing to him.

But it meant something to the two men on the loading dock behind him.

They had stopped moving.

One of them slowly lowered the pallet jack.

Alex noticed.

“I don’t know who that is,” he said.

“I understand.”

Reyes’s voice softened slightly.

“I’d like to send a car for you tomorrow morning.”

“A car?”

“Yes.”

Alex almost laughed.

“Mr. Reyes, if this is some kind of joke…:”

“It isn’t.”

Another pause.

“This concerns an inheritance.”

Alex stared at the phone.

An inheritance.

He looked across the table.

Priya had stopped eating. Her chopsticks were still in her hand, but she wasn’t moving.

She’d heard every word.

Alex lowered his voice.

“Why would I be getting an inheritance from a man I’ve never heard of?”

Reyes didn’t answer immediately.

When he finally spoke, his voice was careful.

“That’s something I’d rather explain in person.”

Alex looked toward the loading bay.

The two men who had stopped working were now pretending not to watch him.

For the first time that day, Alex forgot about the clock.

He forgot about the pallet.

He even forgot about the eleven hundred and forty dollars he still owed the hospital.

“Tomorrow,” Reyes said. “Nine in the morning. I’ll have someone pick you up.”

Alex swallowed.

“Where are we going?”

“New York.”

And then the call ended.