In most of Japanese or Japanese-American society you don’t write things down about who owes whom favors, but in some rural villages in Japan they actually write down all the help and favors one village member gives to another, and they keep these records for generations. A village member might be expected to help another build a barn because that person’s great grandfather got help from the barn-raiser’s great grandfather a century before, and that social debt has not been balanced out yet! It can get tedious keeping track of things, even without formal mercantile bookkeeping.
Mariko thought that Mrs. Okada owed Mrs. Kawashiri for past favors, and Mrs. Kawashiri would be willing to help me by calling in some of her chips with Mrs. Okada on my behalf. I, of course, would then be obligated to Mrs. Kawashiri.
“Okay, I’ll ask Mrs. Kawashiri if she can set something up,” I said. “Are you sure Michael will get back to me?”
“Michael’s very good about getting back to people. I’m sure as soon as he has a break he’ll call me.”
Frustrated, but not seeing much I could do about things on the lawyer front, I went into the shop and asked Mrs. Kawashiri if she could ask Mrs. Okada to set up a meeting with her grandson who worked at the Times. Mrs. Kawashiri showed genuine pleasure at the prospect of helping me, and said she’d set something up.
I went into the back room where Mariko was waiting and decided to try something else. “Where’s the hatbox with the mysterious package.”
“On the shelf behind you. Why?”
“Because I’m going to open it.”
Mariko reached behind me and took down a hatbox. “No you’re not,” she announced. “I’m going to open it!”
She took the package out of the box and set to work. Her small fingers busily worked at tearing away the string and tape that held the package together. I cautioned her, because I wanted to be able to put the package back together more-or-less like I found it. She moderated her enthusiasm, but within a few seconds the package was open and lying in her lap was a stack of pale yellow sheets.
“What are they?” I asked.
Mariko picked one up and looked at it. She frowned. “This one seems to be a warranty claim for a TV.”
11
One hundred twenty-three thousand, seven hundred three dollars, and sixty-two cents. Did you double-check the total?”
Mariko shook her credit card calculator at me. “Are you saying my machine can’t add?”
“I’m saying you might have pressed the wrong key.”
“I double-checked it.”
“That’s an awful lot of money for warranty claims.”
“It’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“Why all this fuss over a bunch of claim forms?”
Mrs. Kawashiri came into the back room and asked, “Ken-san, can you meet Mrs. Okada right after lunch today? She lives in Culver City and says her grandson can stop by at that time.”
“Sure. Can you get me the address?”
Mrs. Kawashiri handed me a piece of paper with Mrs. Okada’s address written on it. She looked at the claim forms and said, “What are those?”
I sighed. “That’s a good question.” I picked up one of the claim forms and looked at it. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “There is one thing unusual about them, though.”
“What’s that?” Mariko asked.
“Even though there’s a dealer number filled in on the form, the name and address of the business that did the repairs has been left blank.”
“Everything else seems to be filled in,” Mariko said, looking at one of the forms.
Mrs. Kawashiri picked a form up and looked at it. “Mine’s got a little sticker on it,” she said, pointing to a white label a quarter-inch high and about two inches long. “There’s a bar code or something on it. Do all of them have that?”
Mariko flipped through the pile of claims. “Yeah. They all seem to have a sticker. They’re all claims against Mihara Electric Company, too. Right?”
I shuffled through the forms. “That’s right, but they’re for different things: TVs, VCRs, microwave ovens. A lot of them are bulk claims for fixing five or six TVs or VCRs.”
The bell that announced a customer entering the boutique went off. Mariko rose to greet the customer, but Mrs. Kawashiri motioned her down and went back into the shop herself.
“What’s the biggest claim?” I asked Mariko.
“About thirteen thousand dollars, I guess. Most of them seem to be between four and ten thousand, but there are a couple in here for just a few hundred dollars. Those are the ones that just have one repair listed on the claim.”
“Do the bulk claims all list serial numbers?”
“Sure. Here’s one. See? Three TVs and here are the serial numbers, two VCRs and here are the serial numbers, four microwave ovens, a TV satellite dish, and a projection TV. Total parts and labor is seventy-eight hundred bucks.”
“Do you think this could be evidence of some kind of fraud?” Mariko said.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe these things show that somebody was cheating Mihara Electric on its U.S. warranty claims, and Newly is trying to get back the evidence or something.”
“I don’t see how they could show that, because they don’t even have a company name. Although … I see they all have the same dealer number.”
“Maybe you can trace back from that who originally filled out the claim form, but I don’t see how they can be evidence of anything.” Mariko put down the claim form she had in her hand. “It’s beyond me.”
The phone rang, saving me from having to admit bafflement, too. It was Mariko’s lawyer cousin Michael. After briefly explaining the situation to him, we made an appointment to meet at three-thirty.
“Give me a couple of the claim forms to take with me, and wrap up the rest.” I said as I got off the phone.
“Excuse me, do I look like your personal assistant?”
“No, but you look like someone who will assist me if I bribe her with a large bowl of udon noodles for lunch.”
“With shrimp tempura on top?”
“Yes, with shrimp tempura on top.”
“Your packages, Mr. Tanaka, will be rewrapped in approximately two minutes.”
After lunch I dropped Mariko off and drove over to the Culver City address for Mrs. Okada given to me by Mrs. Kawashiri.
Naomi Okada was a small woman. I judged that she couldn’t be more than 4’9” tall, but osteoporosis had curved her spine till she seemed even tinier. She met me at the door of her modest Culver City home wearing a dark purple dress with thin black stripes. Her face was remarkably free of lines for her age, which I judged to be at least in the late sixties. Her gray hair was neatly pulled back into a bun, and her deep brown eyes had a bright sparkle of intelligence.
“Mrs. Okada?”
“Yes.”
“My name’s Ken Tanaka. Mrs. Kawashiri said she talked to you about me.”
“Oh, Mr. Tanaka. Please come in. My grandson’s not here yet.”
She stood aside and let me enter the small, neat living room of her house. A comfortable looking flower print couch, a matching chair, and a maple coffee table made it look like a showroom at an Ethan Allen furniture store. On the coffee table was a book and an arrangement of irises. In one corner of the room was a lacquered wood glass doll case, with a Japanese doll in it. Japanese style, the case stood on the floor, instead of up on a table. The doll was dressed in a miniature print kimono. Its painted face looked up at me with solemn dignity.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said.
“Oh, it’s no bother. I’m happy to introduce you to my grandson, Evan.”
“Well, I know it’s a big inconvenience.”
“It’s no inconvenience. Please sit down.” She indicated the couch. “Would you like some green tea?”
“No, I don’t want to bother you or put you out.”
“It’s absolutely no bother. Why don’t you have some tea?”