Chapter 18: A Home for Christmas

Kyoto, Japan
December 1985

The glass walls of a corner office on the thirty-second floor of the Kymo Electronics Ltd. headquarters provided natural lighting for the spacious ultra-modern office of its CEO. Curved statuettes of chrome and glass met incomprehensible wall hangings that were someone's idea of "modern art". The decorations only added to the sterile feeling of the place. Behind a huge desk of chrome and glass sat an aging oriental man.

Only three items were on the desk: a phone, a small stand with its gold ink pen, and a folder opened to describe the absolute disaster his company was facing. He had no product in America for its lucrative Christmas season. His factory sat idle for lack of parts that cost only a few yen each. His company was under attack, and he had no answers.

The phone sounded a single chime. "Yes," the old man said.

"Nakiro is here to see you," a female voice emanated from the phone's speaker.

"Send him in," the old man replied gravely.

A much younger man, large compared to most Japanese and wearing an impeccable, thousand-dollar western suit entered the room and stood before the desk, bowing deeply. There were no chairs.

"Please," the old man began, "tell me you have some idea what this is all about."

"We were contacted by the Brotherhood," said the burly Japanese man.

"We have a good relationship with the Brotherhood. They see our shipping concerns are met and we pay them well for it. Why would they, of all people, be involved? I don't know of any family that would cross them. It would make moving goods nearly impossible," the elderly man said.

"They claim that we have been involved in one of their port cities, in the Eastern U.S. Uhh, Savannah, in the U.S. State of Georgia," the man replied.

"Nonsense, we have no dealings anywhere near there. Surely nothing south of New York or New Jersey and we clear all things there with the Brotherhood."

"Nevertheless, they claim that our group was interfering with local legal matters involving one of their members. When the matters did not conclude satisfactorily to us, according to the source, a business was torched intending to intimidate a certain party into cooperation; a business worth over a million U.S. dollars."

"So they hijack our cargo and attempt to stop our factories on a suspicion? Surely they have better information than that."

"They claim all this was done by Mori Yakimoto less than two weeks ago. I have confirmed some of the legal matters and that a business that belonged to one of the parties was destroyed shortly after."

"Yakimoto? What is he doing? Freelancing in the United States? What else did this contact tell you?"

"Only that they wished an end to it all. No repercussions, no reprisals, no war. They even asked that Yakimoto not be harmed but that he and Kiromo are to stay out of the Brotherhood's business in the U.S ... They have pointed out to us the location of our goods, they are in South America. They even apologized that such actions were necessary and perhaps we may come to greater agreements in the future. Perhaps even more assistance than they have provided in the past."

"And the parts needed at the factory?"

"They will be released back onto the general market."

"This is a disaster! It will cost billions, almost nine billion yen! What use are those goods in America by the time they arrive? For what? Get me Yakimoto, and get him now!"

Mori Yakimoto denied everything initially. He showed great honor in holding out for nearly four hours when questioned. In the end, however, he told everything before he died.

When the full report returned to the director he could only shake his head. "Make peace with the Brotherhood with my apologies that one of my men would do such a thing. I want no one near this Savannah and leave the boy and Yakimoto's niece alone. Let's conclude this ugly business and we will talk to our people so that they understand that freelancing under the Kiromo name is not to be tolerated. I want everyone to know what happens when you decide to do personal business in my name."

One other, junior, member of the Kiromo family died the following week when the package containing Mori Yakimoto's body inadvertently surfaced from the depths of Lake Biwako east of Kyoto. He had been under strict instructions that the body was never to be found. Such failures were not tolerated.

The good news for everyone involved was that the following Wednesday was the last day of school until the New Year. Bright and early that Thursday morning literally everyone showed up at the practice facility. Go-Go and Alice had already started work there along with Bea. There were two offices in the front area in addition to the entry/reception area. One was set aside for Bea, while the other became a conference room.

They had enough manual labor on hand to just take the charity's truck to a local office supply store and load up everything from a conference room table and chairs to file cabinets and desks. The previous week Tony had simply called Snap-On and had them send a truck out; Go-Go ordered whatever was needed for tools and equipment to refurbish the wheelchairs.

Tony simply put everyone but Tina on the payroll. Anyone who couldn't find work in the office was put to work for Go-Go, as there were still quite a number of chairs that needed to be refurbished, and they all had to be done by the first of the year. This allowed Go-Go to spend most of his time in either the sand blasting or painting booth, while some of the kids stripped down the old chairs or reassembled them with new parts when he was done priming the frames. Matt did that mostly full time, but always had a least one or two more workers alongside him. It came as no surprise to Tony that Anita dove right in and wielded wrenches and screwdrivers right alongside the rest, in fact she spent more time with Matt (and his occasional unpaid assistant Rhonda) than anyone.

It was a testament to the character of the group that whatever needed to get done got done without hesitation or complaint. When it was time to load the truck for the weekend gig everyone abandoned the makeshift wheelchair assembly line and pitched in. Then it was back to work on wheelchairs.

Several conference calls were completed throughout the following week with Jake Turner and only one studio seemed to fit the band's needs. The figures stated were kept rather close to the vest by Tony, Tina, Bea, and Gwen, but there was no doubt that at more than three thousand dollars per hour once the band hit the studio it better be ready to record right then and there. While the figure was high, they realized it was still much less than half the rate they had contemplated charging for their own studio, where the cost of the digital tape alone ran about a thousand dollars an hour.

The building became an interesting place after that. Volunteers from both high schools (Riley was no slouch in recruiting either) would work on the chairs while the band spent as much time as possible on stage right next to them, going over and over the new songs, improving them until no one in the building could come up with another suggestion. The first day they asked for volunteers only four showed up, but once word got around there was no shortage of workers building chairs and listening to the band. Go-Go, well, he good naturedly took to wearing earplugs. You can't please everyone.

The United States Government moved surprisingly quickly. Given that the building itself was a total loss, and hadn't been used in years in the first place, they scheduled a closed bid auction for the property, bids to be opened January 2, 1986. Tony had the property appraised and the value came back at a whopping 1.3 million dollars. He tried to hide the amount he bid for the property from everyone, but public records are public records. He simply leased his new property back to Cobblestone, refused to talk about it, and settled back for a long investment period on his new piece of real estate. Tina would get her studio back, right where the old one was to be built and he didn't care that he paid 1.65 million dollars for the dirt it was built on. He was a bit irritated that in spite of his financial standing he still had to get his father to co-sign the mortgage. He could have paid cash for it if he'd really wanted to. Lenders could be irritating at times. Then again he had asked them to mortgage a piece of property for well above its appraised value.

By the fifteenth of the month he began dumping semiconductors back onto the Asian market. For some he had actually had a rather marked impact on price. By buying that many and lowering the supply it had driven prices up and it looked like he actually might make a profit. He hadn't considered the speed at which Asian plants could retool however. As soon as they saw the prices rise they seemingly retooled overnight to produce the items in short supply. Their goods hit the market right after Tony started selling and by the time he had completely divested himself of them he had lost around eighty-five thousand dollars. He was pretty sure that Kymo Electronics suffered much heavier losses than that. Idle factories were very expensive things to have lying around.

At the end of that week a plain envelope, with no return address, arrived at the office addressed as personal to Tony. When he opened it, he found a note with only a single typewritten sentence.

Our business has been successfully completed. Tony burned the letter.

Christmas was bearing down on everyone quickly. Tony wasn't too worried. His going shopping, even alone, would rouse the snooping suspicion of three teenage and one pre-teen girl. He simply did his shopping while he got in his required solo hours. He could fly to Macon, which was much larger than Savannah, borrow the FBO's courtesy car, and go off for an hour or two with no one the wiser. He was pretty close to getting his license now and he was pretty sure his solo flying days were close to over. Once he was allowed to carry passengers, he couldn't imagine one of the four girls not always wanting to go along, at least at first, just for the novelty of it. Then again he was moving straight into advanced tickets, IFR, multi-engine, and even a commercial rating were required for what he had in mind so there would be no stopping the formal lessons for the foreseeable future. He was sure he was driving the girls crazy as they were positive he'd done no shopping at all.

The coming holiday did cause Cheri some concern, though it proved that she and Tony could at least be taught. Cheri still spent most nights at Rebecca's. It wasn't unusual for both girls to stay at Tony's after a late night gig rather than waking up Marj and Chris at three or four AM. Cheri actually enjoyed snuggling into Tony's bed while he and Rebecca would go down to Kalliste. On the Sunday morning before Christmas the three were having a quick brunch before heading into the office when Cheri asked her question. "Tony, uhm, on Christmas Eve, do you think I could stay here?"

Tony, to his credit, took his mother's advice and turned to Rebecca. "It's not a problem Cheri. It's just been the three of us on Christmas morning for as long as I can remember. I'm sure Mom and Dad won't be upset," Rebecca said.

Cheri looked expectantly at Tony.

"I've already told you baby-girl. You can flat move in here if that's what you want. I'd love to have you Christmas morning and every Christmas after that. We're family," Tony said.

"I just don't want to, well, make Rebecca jealous."

"Can't help it Cheri," Rebecca replied. "I will be, just a little. I think, though, that Tony has the right of this. He's trying very hard to stay on my parent's good side."

"How is that Tony?" Cheri asked.

"Cheri, I can't take Marj and Chris' daughter away from them. She's still their daughter and they're the only people in the world who come close to loving her like I do. All parents know their children will grow up and move away eventually, but to start doing things like having Rebecca spend the night Christmas Eve and wake up here on Christmas morning is like stealing what little time they have left. It's really not fair to them no matter what Rebecca and I would like."

"Look," Rebecca said. "There are those few precious moments in the morning but they are special memories. You should be with your family and that's Tony for now and I should be with mine. By noon we are all going to be over here for dinner anyway and everyone is together, but I think those first few hours in the morning are for our parents and, well, Tony's all ya got girl, and if you don't think he really wants you with him then you don't know Tony as well as I thought."

"Tony?"

"If you hadn't asked I would have baby-girl." Tony said. "I've got an idea. Let's take some time this morning and do a little shopping, all three of us."

It took three trips from the car later that evening. Once it was done the real fun began as Tony, Rebecca, and Cheri did their own Christmas decorating in the one place where the three of them felt most like family. Soon Kalliste gleamed with colored lights, she had her own Christmas tree with all the trimmings, and soft candles filled her interior while traditional seasonal music played softly on the sound system. A simple gift from each to the other was placed under the tree to await their time on Christmas Day. Cheri had a home and a family for Christmas, all her own.