Chapter 19: Unintended Consequences

Savannah, Georgia
January 1986

The band completed what was sure to be their last two club dates for quite some time. The last was a very lucrative hotel gig on New Years Eve. To tide over the other members of the band Tony and Tina had copied parts of the recording contracts they had initially been offered and agreed to advance the rest of the band against album sales while they were in the recording studio.

For everyone else involved come January second Tony simply put them on the Cobblestone Digital payroll. This had the affect of keeping Gwen, Chrissie, Matt, and Riley close at hand and while they might not be working in the exact jobs they would have eventually, they would be useful. While these jobs were closely aligned with the music, Cheri was now technically employed by Tammy's Wheels. The crossover of actual labor was widespread, but that's what accountants were for and they did now have the services of a professional firm.

On the second of January, Carol Smith went back to her firm to begin work for the New Year. A colleague informed her of the news during routine passing in the halls. She couldn't decide whether it was something good or horrible. She certainly had no love lost for the man and it would seem to make certain legal issues a lot easier to clean up. There was almost no doubt now, she was going to have a fifteen-year-old granddaughter in a few months. She called Tony at his office. Now that sounded strange to her. Tony didn't actually have an office, but it was his building. Everyone had just taken to calling it the office, but to her it was Tony's office. It was unlikely that she would, but he should know so he could be the one to break the news to Cheri before she heard it somewhere else.

When the phone rang Alice Morgan managed to catch Tony coming out of the conference room where he had been doing some paperwork alone. With all the wheelchairs essentially finished, most of the kids were taking some free time before school started again, but there was no stopping her young boss no matter how hard anyone tried. As always he seemed to feel that the success or failure of both the studio and Tammy's Wheels was something only he could be responsible for. She had even considered calling Rebecca today to come get him out of her hair. It wasn't anything she couldn't do herself and Tina had assured her that calling either Rebecca or herself when he was in the way was most certainly an unwritten part of her job description.

"Tony," she said. "Your mother is on the phone for you."

"Oh, thanks," he replied changing directions to take the receiver that Alice was holding up.

At first Alice paid no attention after handing him the phone. A simple call from Tony's mom wasn't really any of her business. She looked up when she heard the thump of Tony's back hitting the wall and watched him as he slid down to the floor. His eyes were vacant and all the color had drained from his face. He sat there staring, seemingly at nothing, for a moment. Finally, he spoke into the receiver. "Uh, sorry Mom that was just a bit of a shock. I'm not quite sure how to take it." He paused for a moment while his mother spoke. "Yeah, but it wasn't sup ... I mean," he sighed. "It's not exactly the way you want to win a legal dispute is all." Again, he paused before concluding the call. "I'm sorry Mom please, of course it's my responsibility. I don't need a lecture on that," she heard him say. He was clearly a bit annoyed with Carol. "And I'm sorry for that tone. I'm just in a bit of shock is all. I'll see you at home later, OK."

Tony slowly stood and handed the receiver back to Alice. "Tony, are you OK?" she asked with growing concern.

That seemed to somewhat snap Tony out of his reverie. "Yeah, Mrs. Morgan, I'm sorry. Just a bit of bad news is all. Look we both know I'm just in the way here. I'm going home for a while, probably for the day. If the girls stop by here send them to my house for me will you?"

"Sure Tony. Are you sure you'll be alright?"

Tony forced a smile at her, turned, and headed for the front door. No, not this time, he thought as he walked to his car. This time I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be alright.

Anita wasn't often home alone, but today she really didn't feel like going with Tina and the other girls. She didn't need her hair cut and waiting on them to have that done and then run some other errands didn't really appeal to her. There wasn't anything to do at the office with Tony either so she stayed home curled up with Sparkles and a book. Sparkles wasn't much of a reader, but he did hold amusing mock battles with the occasional turned page when he deigned to notice them at all. Maybe he was a critic. He seemed to find every seventh or eighth page somehow offensive and showed his displeasure in a decidedly feline manner.

She heard the front door open, but whoever it was just went straight downstairs without ever looking into the living room where she had been reading. That meant it was probably Tony, but it wasn't like him not to at least check on her. It was kind of annoying that he did that, but sometimes those annoying things somehow felt good to her.

Curious, she got up and started across the living room only to hear the outside door in the basement close. Looking out the window she saw Tony heading for his boat.

When he hadn't returned a half hour later Anita finally decided to go see what he was up to. If he was working on Kalliste maybe he could use her help. This Anne girl's diary was important, she was coming to realize, but it could wait.

She found him below in the salon. The curtains were pulled and no lights were on. Tony sat on the black leather couch, his face in his hands. A full drink sat on the coffee table. Its liquid was a deep amber at the bottom graduating to almost clear near the top; the liquid was capped by the white detritus of what once were ice cubes.

"Tony?" Anita asked. "What are you doing down here in the dark?"

Tony picked his head up and looked at her; a once gangly girl now bursting into womanhood at an alarming rate, but still the innocent. "Thinking little one, thinking," he whispered.

"Oh ... Tony are you alright? You don't look good to me."

"No little one, I'm not alright. I've done something, something terrible. Now I don't know what to do. I don't think there is anything I can do," he replied.

Anita moved and sat down beside him. Not satisfied she squirmed into his lap. "Can't be that bad Tony. You may do some weird things, maybe even some crazy things, but you don't do terrible things."

Tony struggled for words. "Do you know what I mean if I say unintended consequences?"

"Something you didn't mean to happen?"

"Yeah little one, almost. It's when you do something that seemed right at the time but something else happens. So by doing something, something that I didn't think through like I should have, it had unintended consequences. Terrible consequences. So you're right, I don't try to do terrible things on purpose, but this time I did."

"How bad can it be Tony?"

"Have you ever heard the term that two wrongs won't make a right?

"Sure, turn the other cheek. Don't do something bad just because something bad was done to you. You learn that at church."

Vengeance is mine sayeth the lord is also something you learn in church, Tony thought. "Yeah well I broke that rule and something bad happened."

"Tony, just tell me what happened. I know you don't think I'll understand, but try me."

"That Sunday, when the fireman asked me if I knew who burned down Tina's studio. I lied to him, I knew who it was. I knew it the moment I saw it."

"Why Tony? If you knew you should have told him so he could get the police to put him in jail."

"In a perfect world little one, yeah, in a perfect world. But I knew they didn't have any chance of catching him, not the person who really did it. The man, whoever it was, that lit the match was paid to do it. Even if they found that person he wouldn't have even known who paid him. But I knew. I knew something I could never prove to the police and he knew that as well. He did it to get to me, to make me afraid of him."

"He doesn't know you very well does he? You tried to hide it from me, but you were madder than hell."

"No he didn't know me well at all. If he did he would have known I didn't really care if he burnt down my building, but that recording studio wasn't mine, not really. It was Tina's. No he didn't know me well at all. If he had of done something to me it might have worked. I might have been afraid. Instead, yeah, like you said, I was madder than hell."

"You got him back didn't you? You did something to him."

"In the end I did. The man was a criminal, like in the mafia. I didn't do anything to him. I did something to his mafia. Some of it wasn't exactly legal; some of it was perfectly fine. Basically I used my money to wreck their business and then told them to make the man leave us alone."

"You wrecked their business? Like burnt it down?"

"No, I wouldn't burn something down. I had their shipments misplaced so they couldn't sell them, a lot shipments. Then when they tried to make more things to sell I bought all the parts so they couldn't make any more. When it was all done I cost them millions and millions of dollars. Then I told them to leave us alone or it might happen again."