Legal Question in Employment Law in Illinois

I worked for a company that purchases precious metals and coins. I was in my last two weeks of work there (taking a fulltime position with another company that I had worked at part time for over 2 years). I worked for this "goldbuyer" at a store front where I was paid hourly - no commissions on his purchases and profits, no bonuses. I had a customer come in with a very large amount of items. I believe that I went through the testing process as trained to do so. I had a couple of questions around a few pieces where I knew I needed to deduct a bit of weight from the items and looked for our procedures manual and could not find it anywhere in the kiosk. I tried to call the owner who is over 3 hours away from this location and he didn't answer. I tried my manager. She didn't answer. I tried our other location (3 hours away) and got a coworker there who manages outside shows - she told me how to deduct the weight. I quoted a price to the customer and was told that that wasn't enough as she had called our other location the day before and spoke to a woman there who told her we would pay 70 to 75% of the market price for her precious metals. I got back on the phone with that woman at that office and she said that she had told her that and then told me what to pay her per dwt (pennyweight) on the items. So, I did. She received a check for several thousand dollars. This week my owner phoned to tell me that all of the items weren't real that some were magnetic and that I had not deducted enough weight on the few items and that I had overpaid her over 2,000.00. I was stunned as I had tested the items! I asked if he could bring the items to my location so that we could over them together. He refused and said he would send me pics which he has but that doesn't give me any thing to compare them to from teh entire purchase and does not show me the transaction information on the purchase sheet I completed when I made the transaction. I asked him to provide this and he hasn't. What he has done is he sent me an email telling me that he is deducting part of the "error" from my two remaining checks - which means i won't get paid my hourly wage for the past 2 pay periods as the checks are way below what he claims I owe him. I have told him that I magnet tested all items, about my conversations with the other employee to come to price decisions, about the fact that procedures were no longer available at the site and that I questioned if the acid was still good since it hasn't been changed since I started there last July! I'm wondering a) am I really obligated to repay this money b) if I am, shouldn't I be entitled to the merchandise c) can he really hold my paychecks to apply it to this "loss"? And, what should I do?

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