Stealing Flowers (31 page)

Sally phoned me that afternoon to tell me
that she had a date with Lloyd Friday night and that Mary and Una
had that morning, made her a vice-president. I congratulated her,
but of course I was dismayed and confused. Lloyd of all people.
Like Mary, Sally knew exactly what to do to get to me. The message
was clear, capitulate and sleep with her, or lose her to Lloyd.

I returned to the Factory-Bright report and
read through the Poss’ report next. Still nothing. That took me
until ten o’clock that evening and when I arrived home, I fell
asleep without even washing up, and so my days passed by, in
between trips to do actual physical audits, reading one report
after another, then reading them again. Soon, I became sure
something was wrong, but I was unable to see it clearly; no trend
existed. Perhaps Una had been right all those years ago, and I was
as thick as a brick.

If Hiroyuki grew impatient with me, he never
showed it. Maybe he and Bill weren’t sure themselves what to think
of the reports. Huge capital funds were flowing between the
division at alarming rates, some figures were purposely inflated,
some deflated. It made no sense unless it involved a number of
senior people, but a conspiracy theory, ugh!

On August 12, Clara died. The funeral
ceremony in New York City was the next day. If ever any doubt
existed in anyone’s mind of Una’s position inside society, the
company, and the Tappet family, it would have been cleared up then
with a bang. The outpouring was massive and the turnout for the
ceremony, in the thousands.

The family flew with the body to Jamaica and
Clara was finally laid to rest on the sixteenth in a gravesite near
her own mother in a village just outside Kingston, but we didn’t
stay in Jamaica as I had hoped, but immediately returned to our
regular lives. I was starting to realize, the heat at Tappets, had
been turned up to high, but didn’t know why.

Two months later, Monday, September 15, I
flew with Hiroyuki and Bill to Japan to visit Tappet’s Integrated
Products Plant in Tokyo, run under the Factory Bright banner. We
toured the Integrated Industrial Park. Tappets didn’t own the land
nor even most of the companies leased there. It was a huge
structural monstrosity connected by bright yellow underground
corridors. Nana Sumo and James Nasuko were our guides. Nana, a
young Japanese translator with a pretty figure, black hair, and
brown eyes, had a reputation of being a witty conversationalist in
either language, but I didn’t care about that, I was so randy I
could hardly keep my eyes off her and only hoped Hiroyuki didn’t
notice my flirting.

Sally had started sleeping with Lloyd and I
wanted to return fired so badly that I could hardly control myself.
Nana had come to Tappets by way of her father, the vice-president
of Sursheita, the quality products division, and the way she smiled
at me, I thought she was willing to give it a go. I quickly grew
fond of her sense of humor and her ability to keep on reassuring me
with her eyes that I wasn’t misreading her.

James Nasuko, a short and young Japanese
man, managed the plant. His suit fit perfectly and he wore his hair
short, almost a fifty’s style. His eyeglasses accorded him more
years than he had and I realized that he wore them for that reason.
“My hotel room is at the Meredith on the shore-view,” I said making
conversation with Nana as we walked along, “I’ve a room which faces
the bay.”

She came closer and lowered her voice. “I’d
like to see it.”

For a moment, I’d to take deep breaths to
calm myself. The thought of real sex with a female executive inside
Tappets to revenge myself against Sally seemed impossibly good.
Also, it seemed that I’d never just had sex with somebody in a
natural way. With Lloyd, I’d been raped. With Sally, I’d been a
kid. The two Koreans were working girls and there had been payment.
With the few in between, it had been casual college sex. I wasn’t
sure I could even do it on my own with a full mature female. It
seemed suddenly rather difficult; what if I failed to please her? I
found myself standing all excited about sex next to Hiroyuki in the
main auditorium with another Stanroid, John Admen. The crowd before
us numbered nearly a thousand, sitting on fold out chairs. John was
Stan’s age, also with a full head of grey hair, weighing over two
hundred pounds and standing at approximately six-feet tall. He’d a
slight belly, but really not too noticeable. Like most of Stan’s
war buddies, he smoked and his skin was grey because of it. I’d
never seen the man tanned. I don’t think he liked the sun. I knew
he was an ardent defender of Stan’s policies, like Ken Roxton, and
one of the Tappet’s most loyal and longest standing branch
presidents. I looked around to find Nana just behind us. She
smiled, and with every bit of my will, I smiled back. When lust
fills a man’s heart, it’s hard to smile. It’s almost like being
aggravated or angry. You’re like a wolf, and my excitement just
wouldn’t recede.

“So what do you think?” John asked, catching
me totally distracted. “Did they show you which of the new lines
are produced here?” I nodded. He turned to Hiro. “Mr. Nakamura, are
you ready to start your speech?” Hiro nodded. “Are you ready with
your father’s,” he said to me. I nodded as well. “Well you go
first, young man.”

Stan’s speech was short and Nana would
translate it from a copy she held. It was a piece of cake. I
stepped up to the podium and looked at the crowd. I looked over and
scanned Nana’s body. I felt like a complete beast, and sexual
excitement lasted through my whole speech. It went on to talk about
excellence in production, honesty at work, and pride in a job well
done. It sounded inspirational to my ears, and in ten minutes, I’d
finished. It had been sheer Stan Tappet, 100%, laced though with my
sexual longing. The manufacturing of refrigerators and toaster
ovens, had never sounded so seductive.

Stan once told me that if you can make
capitalism sound like socialism, the people will embrace it. I’m
sure I’d made it sound like getting laid. It was dramatic, liberal,
and most importantly, like sex, full of vague promises. Afterwards,
we toured the factory floor itself, and when I came to the assembly
line where over a hundred employees gathered. They stopped the line
and clapped. Both Hiro and I solemnly bowed. I realized they
expected greatness of Tappets over the long path of their futures.
My goal in life had become to take over Tappets with Sally and make
it the number one company in the world.

“You seem lost in thought,” Nana whispered
to me as the proceedings finished. “Was it something I said?”

“Do you think we can sneak out of here?” She
giggled but didn’t look hopeful. “Mr. Nakamura,” I said, “Would you
mind if I took the translator and left.”

Without smiling at my joke, and with a
penetrating yet inscrutable expression, he nodded. I turned heels
and left with Nana before he changed his mind. When we got to the
car, I kissed her and felt great relief when she kissed me back. We
stopped on the way to buy condoms and everything went very well in
the hotel room. Her body was flawless and much different than any I
remembered; it was smaller, softer, and her skin smoother and
darker. She smelled of flowers and baby powder.

I took her out that night and we had a great
time. I returned home the next day with Hiro and felt happy, but
within the next month, I discovered Nana was engaged to be married
to an older Japanese man of some standing in Tokyo. I also
discovered Sally was sleeping with Lloyd more than casually. These
two things put me into a funk.

We soon finished the Tonal-Flex audit and
moved along to Tay Mines. This took much traveling. Afterwards, we
audited Tappet-Tapes, Nexus, Constant Batteries, Tappet Holdings,
and finally, Tappet Electronics. I’d studied the reports sober,
tired, focused, drunk on wine, while eating, hungry, and I’m sure,
in my dreams, and after a year and half, April 10, 1987, I visited
Hiro in his office with Bill Stanton at my side, to present my
analysis. I’d delivered a one-hundred-and-thirty page report and
had condensed it down to a few pages of pointers. Hiro indicated
that we sit on couches near the windows which overlooked the
Hudson. His secretary served us coffee and left.

“What’s discussed here today,” he said in a
soft voice, “is to remain completely confidential, until I say so.
Okay Christian, go ahead.”

“The flow of currency,” I said, “credits,
bond funds, resources, employees, and just about everything else in
Tappets, has merged the divisions into one giant cross-pollinating
organism, so, a thing like this is hard to uncover. At least it was
for me. I first couldn’t see anything wrong at all. Whoever’s
behind it, has disguised it well. Let me tell you how it works.
Money which eventually would have gone for stock-dividends was hid
as a profit-ulterior-event such as acquisition, real-estate, and
other expenses, which was then purchased, but never in the
quantities reported. Hand in hand with this is the quite-startling
fact that the books were cooked, but not enough to raise any
alarms. The difference in shrink, loss of goods in theft, and other
factors were exaggerated. When I cross-compared outside Tappets,
our costs never matched other companies day to day losses.

“This long-term process of constantly
skimping profit was done on such a massive scale with so many
people involved, that this report can’t conclusively say who knows,
who’s involved, and who’s just playing along. Our short list
though, includes, Gordon Whitley and others at Tay Mines and Tappet
Holdings, Graham Roberts and others at Constant Batteries, Donna
Wader and others at Mutual Real Estate, Kyoto Takeshi and others at
Sursheita, Cheryl Garland and others at Nexus, and finally, Jack
Denison. He’s the reason I believe that this goes back decades. He
has covered up for a long time any clarification request from my
parents with elaborate excuses.”

Hiro caught my eyes. “Maybe,” he said.
“Bill, saw it first. I couldn’t see it at all. Neither could you at
first. Maybe Jack is innocent. It’s a slow steady action that’s not
overly greedy. I mean, considering the scale, it’s enormous, but
whoever’s behind it, is being careful not to clean the register
completely. Now what to do?”

“Let’s go get them,” I said.

“Don’t approach this like a cowboy,” Hiro
said softly, “you’ll destroy the company. We could say that our
Tappet wide audit is complete, but due to discrepancies it won’t be
published. Instead we’ll redo it with both Jack and Bill under your
guidance. That should take another year and a half.”

“What does that solve?” I asked in a soft
respectful voice, but also with some disappointment.

“I think everyone, including your mom and
dad will save face. The guilty parties will be warned and their
unwanted behavior will cease. Some will quit in fear. After our
second audit, we’ll privately disclose the culprits to Sally, Una,
and your parents. Then, with their permission, we’ll dismiss or
retire them one by one, but over a long period.”

His logic was impeccable and he put the need
of the company ahead of his own sense of justice. “I’ve so much yet
to learn from you,” I said.

Bill and I set up a meeting with Jack
Denison and announced our plans for a second audit the week after.
As far as I could tell, Jack didn’t suspect we were on to him.

On Stan’s fifty-fifth birthday, Saturday,
July 20, 1987, we had a party for him. Una ran it, and it was
surprisingly formal. I shook hands and chatted casually to whomever
caught my attention as I moved through the Tappets’ crowd, always
watching Una, who planned the evening like a work of art. I wore
dress pants and a new shirt. I had settled into one hundred and
seventy-five pounds and my reflection didn’t bother me too much
anymore. I’d quit my gym and joined Stan’s so I could work out with
him which we tried to do everyday. I was in the best shape I’d ever
been. It was just that my face troubled me. I seemed to have a look
of being perpetually lost.

The brightly lit room had been remodeled
just for this celebration and the party surpassed my expectations.
I’d heard Una tell Mary numerous times that these kinds of social
events brought forth the ideas, and that the office only existed as
a place to work out the details. Una wore a bright flowing red
dress and had a crimson carnation in her hair. In the last while,
she had lost weight, perhaps even up to thirty pounds, this had
started when her mother had died. Sally had her long blond hair
pulled back and it accentuated her beautiful angular face. The
sleek dark-green business suit over her slender figure had an
eloquent effect, and I knew Una had picked it out for her.

Sally wore glasses in public now, but for
appearance only. They made her look older, just like James Nasuko,
but I didn’t like them on her. Stan was dressed similar to me, and
when Hiroyuki arrived, he wore a suit so fine that I again felt
underdressed. He was exceedingly dignified looking, better than a
century’s-old Buddhist monk in a bright white robe and a whole
universe away from The Family of Truth’s elder’s tie-dyed t-shirt
and blue jeans.

Ken Roxton, the President of Modal Oil wore
a grey tuxedo, and tonight, this seemed to accentuate his age and
his square face. Though robust and well-built, he normally looked
much younger. It was his grey hair combined with his grey apparel
that betrayed his age. I got drinks for Stan and Hiro and stood
beside them. “Mary will be down in a moment,” Sally said when she
joined us.

“Hiro, how are you doing?” Graham Roberts,
the head of Constant Batteries, said loudly, coming into our
circle. His voice held some disdain.

We all shook hands and smiled. Graham’s
Slavic heritage wasn’t immediately obvious to the eye, even though
after a few drinks, he talked with an accent. His face sported a
moustache as white as his hair and his eyes always held a cruelness
to me. Stan’s friend or not, from the beginning, I’d disliked him,
but now that he was seemingly implicated in the fraud against
Tappets, I was coming to despise him. “Still predicting a
recession?” he asked Hiro glibly, almost sarcastically.