"So you were prepared to have a little profit from the tour and half a million doesn't sound like an unreasonable number, right?"
"Right," Jake agreed.
"And because I told you it was half a million, you just accepted that?"
"Well... yes," he said. "You're not just our manager, you're my sister. We're family. I don't think you'd lie to me about money or try to screw me."
"Ha!" she yelled, loud enough to startle him.
"What?" he asked, wondering if she'd been dipping her beak into some white powder.
"That's where you're making your mistake," she said.
Chapter 1b
"What mistake?"
She pulled a piece of paper from one of her desk drawers. It was an official looking legal form with numbers printed all over it. "This is a breakdown of your tour revenue as of last week. It lists all forms of expenses and all forms of income, including merchandising. When you read the bottom line it says that we made $1,116,428, or, to round down a bit, $1.12 million."
"Wow," Jake said, whistling. "That's not bad."
"Not bad at all," Pauline agreed. "It's a little over one hundred and eighty grand for each of us, but it kind of disturbs me how willing you were — how willing all of you are — to just accept my word about how much money you're pulling in."
"Why does that disturb you?" he asked. "You're my sister. You're not gonna embezzle from us."
"How do you know that, Jake?" she asked. "Am I not just as prone to temptation as anyone?"
"I've known you all my life, Pauline," he said, more than a little exasperated by this conversation. "I know what kind of person you are."
"You don't know what's in anybody's heart, Jake, nor do you know what limits of temptation that anyone is able to resist. When you're talking about this kind of money you shouldn't trust anyone blindly. Not even your sister."
"Are you saying you're going to screw us?"
"No," she said. "I haven't screwed any of you out of so much as a penny, nor do I have plans to do so, but I could screw you if I wanted to. It would be absurdly easy to do so. I could've told you all we made half a million on the tour, given you each eighty grand, and then pocketed the rest and none of you would have ever known. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. I could be skimming off your royalties and your off-tour merchandising profits too. All of your money comes to me first and then I divide it up and wire it into your accounts. Quite frankly, Jake, in the amounts we're dealing with now, I'm no longer comfortable doing this. I'm basically an honest person and I like to think I'd never embezzle money but I'd feel better if there was some kind of oversight."
"What are you suggesting?" he asked.
"You need to get an accountant," she said. "All of you need someone to help manage your money for you for and it would make sure that I stay honest. It would remove any temptation I might ever feel for helping myself to a little more than my share."
"An accountant?" Jake said distastefully. "I've heard horror stories from some of the other second contract bands about accountants. They say you should never trust any of them. They'll cheat you blind, steal all of your money, and then send you a fucking bill for their services."
"That's because those other bands are letting their accountants run their money the same way you're letting me do it. I'm not suggesting you simply transfer responsibility from me to some bean counter you find in the Yellow Pages. I'm suggesting you find someone with good references who seems at least superficially trustworthy to help manage your money for you. He'll also be able to figure out how best to pay your taxes come next year — what you can deduct, what you can't, how you can set yourself up so you don't owe as much. This is something that I'm not qualified to do — in fact I'm planning to utilize an accountant myself when it comes to taxation issues. In any case, I will be able to keep your accountant honest because I will know how much money I'm turning over to him. He will be able to keep me honest because he will see all the financial paperwork and wire receipts I get from National. Both of us, working together, will be able to keep National honest."
"Why can't I just be my own accountant?" Jake asked. "I can go through receipts and paperwork, couldn't I? I'm not an idiot. I'm sure I could research the tax laws as they relate to..." Pauline was laughing. "What?" he asked, angrily.
"I'm sorry, Jake," she said. "But would you recognize a forged accounting sheet if I showed you one? Would you recognize fake wire transfer receipts?"
"Well... probably not," he admitted.
"And as for managing your own money..." She laughed again. "I'm sorry, but that's just hysterical."
"What's so fuckin' funny about it?" he asked.
"Jake," she said. "You have pulled in just over a million and a half dollars in the past seven months, right?"
"Right," he said.
"And where is that money right now?"
"You know where it's at," he said. "It's in my bank account."
"Exactly," she said. "You have a million and a half dollars sitting in the same checking account you opened when you were sixteen. It's earning no interest for anyone but the bank and it's fifteen times the amount the FDIC even insures. That is not very good money management. This is not income from a paper route or from flipping burgers at McDonalds we're talking about here. We're talking about more than a million dollars, with much more on the way."
He had to admit that she had a point there. He had meant to start looking into managing his money a little better — he wasn't a complete idiot financially — but he'd just never found the time. Maybe this was like looking after his car or cleaning his house or getting from home to the airport. Sure, he could do it for himself if he took the time to learn how, but why not hire someone to do it for him? After all, he was rich now, wasn't he? Wasn't that what rich people did?
"Hmm," Jake said after running these thoughts through his head. "I find you make a good point, Pauline."
"Good," she said. "I thought you'd see things my way. Now the next step is to start looking into accounting firms in the area, filtering through them one by one until..."
"No," Jake interrupted, "I think I already know who I want doing my accounting."
Pauline looked at him sternly. "You do?"
"Yep," he said, nodding in confidence. "I think I do."
"Jake," she asked carefully, "do you even know any accountants? I mean certified ones with cards and everything?"
"Yes I do," he said. "I know one."
"One? Jake, this isn't like picking someone to cut your grass while you're away. An accountant needs to have references and we need to check out his background."
"We're getting the cart ahead of the horse here, sis," he said. "I don't even know if she's really an accountant or not. I don't know if she'd even do it. I do want to look into it though."
"She?" Pauline asked. "A female accountant?"
Jake raised his eyebrows. "Are you saying a female couldn't possibly be a good accountant?" he asked. "Pauline, I'm shocked at you."
"Shut the fuck up," she said. "You know that's not what I meant. Is this a woman you used to fuck?"
"I've never fucked her," he said. "I wanted to once, but that was back in sixth grade."
"Sixth grade?" she asked. "Who is this woman?"
"Jill Yamashito," he said. "My twin."
"Your... twin?"
Jake smiled, draining the remainder of his beer. "Yep."
Heritage, California
November 26, 1986
It was Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving, when Jake pulled his father's Chrysler LeBaron to the curb at 29th and N Streets in Heritage's semi-fashionable mid-town section. A small, non-descript office building stood on this corner. The sign out front read: YAMASHITO, YAMASHITO, and YAMASHITO. CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS.
Jake got out. He was dressed in a conservative pair of dress slacks and a long-sleeved, button-up shirt. His dark glasses were upon his face despite the overcast sky. A few pedestrians were walking by but none seemed to notice that the longhaired freak they were crossing the street to avoid was Heritage's most famous personality. Pauline stepped out of the passenger seat. She was adorned in one of the business dresses she used to wear when she had worked for Heritage's biggest corporate law firm. The two of them — along with Nerdly, who was at his parent's house — had flown into their hometown six hours before in order to share the Thanksgiving holiday with their families.