"Allen, how would you feel if you managed Hachiko for me?"
The man took a moment, caught off-guard by both the suddenness of the question and the insanity of the content.
"Hachiko?"
"Yes, Hachiko."
"Me?"
"Yes, you."
"Management?"
"Yes, management. Did I hire a dunce when I hired you, Allen?"
"But Sa...Ms. Elizabeth, why won't you continue to manage it yourself?"
The woman, young, attractive enough, educated beyond the Palones' imaginings and with more experience than they could possibly know, hesitated over her answer.
"Because," she said in hushed Japanese, the first he had heard his native tongue in over two months, "I am the wife of the heir to a business supergiant. You know how large the Palones are, Riku, and you know how large I wish them to be one day. I've come far; I can go farther. My first test is to run Cromley Printing successfully. If I can double business-" Allen's eyes grew large as he thought of Cromley Printing's demographics and charts. To double that business would be a feat worthy of a mythical hero. "-I am that much farther to becoming so ingrained in the Palone family they will never think of a life without me. And that is precisely where I need to be. I cannot afford to be distracted by Hachiko now."
"But..."
"I am not handing the company over to you. I will still own it — on paper. Any large affairs will have to be approved by me before you speak to anyone else about it. But, in day to day matters, I shall entrust Hachiko to you. So don't let me down, okay?"
"I...I see. Well then, Ms. Elizabeth, I will gladly handle Hachiko for you."
"I thought you would, Allen," She nodded her head, and he could just barely see the tiny upturn at the corner of her eye that meant she knew that she had judged well, and was satisfied.
Outside the tinted windows, the scenery changed from urban highway to airport parking, and she turned back to him to wish him a safe journey. He thanked her for her concern, and had the chauffeur carry in his luggage. After a turbulent flight, a five-hour layover in Los Angeles, and a night pressed between the window and a rather portly tourist, Akiyama Riku, or Allen Mackery as he was known to the English-speaking world, finally returned home after two and a half months spent bouncing between New York City and Washington D.C. And he knew that this was only the beginning.
A/N: Hachiko is the name of a dog owned by Professor Ueno, who lived in Tokyo in the 1920's. Every day he would take Hachiko with him to the train station, where he would leave for work, and every night, when he came back, Hachiko would be there, because the dog knew that, at a certain time, his master would be at the train station. One day, though, Professor Ueno suffered a heart attack at the university and was rushed to the hospital, where he died. But Hachiko didn't know this (how do you tell a dog that his master has died?) and so, for the next nine years, Hachiko would be at the train station at the exact time that the train which was supposed to be carrying his master arrived (this was before all those pesky laws about pets in train stations.) The public caught wind of this, and started leaving food and water for Hachiko, to nourish him while he waited for his master. In the last year of Hachiko's life, a bronze statue was erected, commemorating the dog's faithfulness. Hachiko has since died (in 1935) but the statue is still there, in Shibuya station in Tokyo. Because of its rather iconic image, it is a popular meeting spot. For more information, see the Wiki page or other resources on the web.
In chapter 152 of the manga, Kyoko's "dangerous" mission has her meeting Cain Heel at the Hachiko statue in Shibuya station.