Circles Collide

Chapter 24: Turning the Tables

Oceano, California

April 6, 1998

It was 3:30 AM on this Monday morning when the intercom box in Jake and Laura’s bedroom began to chirp out an alarm, waking the couple from a sound sleep. At the same time, the same alarm sounded in Elsa’s bedroom in the guest house and in Meghan’s bedroom on the other side of the main house.

Jake’s eyes opened and he sat up immediately in bed, a little jolt of adrenaline flooding into him, making his heart pound in his chest. Laura was a little slower coming to grips with the sudden noise.

“What is that, sweetie?” she asked groggily. “What’s going on?”

“It’s the motion detector alarm,” he said. “Something just triggered it.”

“The motion detector? Where?”

“I don’t know,” he said, pulling back the covers and putting his feet on the floor. He was naked because he and Laura had had sex after they had put Caydee to bed. “I need to go check the monitors.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said, extricating herself from the covers as well.

“Okay,” Jake said. “Close the window and engage the security lock first.”

A look of alarm appeared on her face. “Do you think it’s that serious?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but I think we need to assume the worst until we can get a look, don’t you?”

“I guess so,” she said, the nervous look increasing a bit.

Jake grabbed his red robe from a hook on the doorway. He had not been in the habit of wearing a robe inside the house until Meghan had moved in last week and the possibility of encountering her in the halls or the kitchen in the middle of the night became a thing. He pulled it closed and then tied it securely. By this point, Laura had shut the window and latched it. She pulled on her own robe—hers was white and fuzzy and well broken in—and they went to the bedroom door.

Meghan was in the main hallway. She was wearing a long t-shirt with Cal Poly’s logo on it. It was obvious that she had no bra on beneath. Her hair was mussed and tangled and her eyes were sleepy. Her legs were bare and quite attractive, but Jake only glanced at them for a moment.

“What’s going on, Jake?” she asked. “Why is the intercom going off like that?”

“It’s the proximity alarm,” he told her. “Something just triggered it.”

“Like someone trying to break in?” she asked, alarm appearing on her face as well.

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “I’m going to check the monitors now. Is your window closed?”

“No,” she said. “I love to listen to the ocean when I’m sleeping.”

“Go close it,” he told her. “And latch it.”

“Do you really think that...”

“Just go do it, Meghan,” he told her. “We assume the worst until we know what’s going on.”

Meghan had been briefed on what the worst was: that some fanatical fan, or Intemperance hater, or just plain lunatic was trying to get to the Kingsleys to do violence. The house had been designed and constructed with this scenario in mind. Once all the doors and windows were latched and secured, it would take even a persistent intruder the better part of thirty minutes to gain entry; and that was only if the intruder was equipped with an axe, a sledgehammer, or cutting tools.

Meghan trotted back down the hall toward the guest bedroom that had been turned over to her. Jake and Laura opened the door to the office and stepped inside. The monitors were all operating in night vision mode. On one of them—the one that showed the view of the access road as it approached the gate to the property—was something that did not belong. It was a VW microbus straight out of the 1960s. It was moving slowly forward, its headlights out. Two vague human silhouettes could be seen in the driver and front passenger seats. The view was good enough that Jake could plainly see the front license plate number. That was good. The system continuously recorded all the video taken in a twelve-hour loop.

“Who is it?” Laura asked.

“No idea,” Jake said, watching. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that VW around town though. It’s red and has a bunch of bumper stickers on the back.”

“Yeah,” Laura said, nodding. “I’ve seen it too. Some hippie looking couple drives around in it.”

“They’re locals then,” Jake said.

“Maybe they just got lost?” Laura suggested. “Made a wrong turn onto our road?”

Jake shook his head. “People who make wrong turns onto the road don’t creep along with their headlights out,” he said. “They’re here for some purpose.”

“Should we call the sheriff’s department?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he said. “Let’s see what they do.”

“Maybe they just want to buy some pot from us,” Laura suggested.

Jake chuckled a bit and continued to look at the monitors. He checked all the others and saw that there was nothing unusual going on. At least this was not an organized, multi-factional attack on the compound. He looked back at the approach view. The microbus slowly passed the hidden camera station and continued on. The camera automatically panned to follow it. Sure enough, the entire back of the bus was plastered with bumper stickers, most of which were of the radical environmental variety.

The phone rang on the desk. Jake looked at the caller ID and saw it was Elsa’s number. She had her own bank of monitors in her quarters and was undoubtedly watching the same thing that Jake was. He picked up the phone.

“Hey, Elsa,” he greeted.

“Are you watching this, Jake?” she asked.

“I am,” he confirmed. “Not sure what to make of it yet.”

“I have seen that vehicle around town on many occasions,” Elsa said. “Their bumper stickers suggest they are members of the environmentalist movement as well as the animal rights movement.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Laura and I have both seen it as well. A hippie looking couple in their late forties, early fifties.”

“That is correct,” she said. “Have you contacted the sheriff’s department yet?”

“Not yet,” Jake said. “I want to see what they do.”

“I suppose that is appropriate,” Elsa said doubtfully.

“Are you locked down over there?” Jake asked her.

“Indeed I am,” she said.

“That’s good,” he said. “Stay on the line with me. I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Very good,” she said.

He pushed the button for speakerphone and then hung up the handset. On the monitor, the vehicle finally came to a halt. It was just a few feet before the point where the gate camera would have picked them up and triggered the security lights. Interesting.

“They have some insider information,” Jake said.

“Who are they?” asked Meghan, who was now standing next to Laura immediately behind Jake.

“Some hippies that live in SLO,” Laura said. “We’re not sure what they’re doing here, but they’re the only ones.”

“I’ve seen that van around town for years,” Meghan said. “The people that drive it hang out near the campus a lot and sometimes hand out pamphlets to the students.”

“What kind of pamphlets?” asked Elsa’s voice from the speaker.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I never took one from them. I avoid pamphlet people as a matter of course.”

“A wise philosophy,” Jake said. “Anyway, they knew exactly where to stop before the gate camera picked them up. I’m thinking they don’t know about the approach camera though.”

“It would seem they don’t,” Elsa agreed.

The doors opened on the microbus. Two figures got out. They were shades of green and white on the night vision view but they were plainly the hippie couple that everyone had seen around town. The male had a full beard and long hair tied back in a ponytail. The female was short, skinny, and her long hair was unkempt and flowing around her shoulders. They met at the front of the van and held a short conversation with each other. There was then a flare of white that momentarily overwhelmed the camera. When it cleared, Jake saw that the male had turned on a flashlight. He was shining it back and forth in the direction of the gate and the intercom box that sat before it.

“This is very suspicious behavior, Jake,” Elsa commented.

“Isn’t it?” Jake replied.

“Should we call the cops now?” asked Meghan.

“Not just yet,” Jake said. “They are barely on our property and still on the good side of the fence. Let’s see what they do.”

They continued to watch. The man left the flashlight on and the two of them walked over to the sliding door on the right side of the vehicle. The female opened it up and the male shined the flashlight inside. He then tucked the light between his arm and his chest and reached inside. He pulled out what appeared to be a frame of some sort that had been constructed out of PVC pipe. It was rectangular in shape, about four feet wide by six feet tall. He carried it over and set it down about four feet in front of the microbus, the legs sitting on the pavement of the access road. Once it was in place, he walked back to the sliding door and pulled out another object constructed from PVC pipe. This one looked like the goalpost on an American football field. The center bar was about three feet tall. The crossbar was maybe two and a half feet. The uprights were another three feet. Attached to the very top of both uprights was some kind of loose, dangling thing.

“What the hell is this shit?” Jake asked.

“It looks like a big slingshot,” Laura said.

“A slingshot?” asked Meghan, as if she had never heard of such a thing.

“Yeah,” Laura said. “My brother used to have one when we were kids. He was pretty good with it. Could put a hole in a soda can from twenty feet, easy.”

“That’s a big fuckin’ slingshot if that’s what it is,” Jake observed.

“I really don’t like the looks of this, Jake,” Elsa said.

“This is very odd behavior,” Jake had to agree.

The man carried the goalpost over to the frame he had just set down. He put the center bar into a receptacle on the top of the frame. It seated neatly. They could see that the goalpost was now angled backward at about twenty degrees or so. The suspicion that this was a slingshot began to grow. This suspicion was reinforced when the man went back to the sliding door, reached inside, and pulled out a large plastic garbage bag, which he then dragged over and parked next to the base of the frame.

“This is getting creepier by the second,” Meghan said.

“Yes it is,” Laura agreed.

The couple had another conversation and then the man shined the flashlight down at the base of the frame. The woman then sat down on the base, putting her skinny butt on the lowest of the front cross supports and then sliding backwards, so she was entirely inside the frame and grasping the vertical bars with her arms.

“What is she doing?” Meghan asked.

“Stabilizing it,” Jake said. “She’s using her weight to keep it from tipping or moving when he slings whatever he is going to sling with it.”

“They are going to launch something over the fence, Jake,” Elsa said with alarm. “What if it is Molotov cocktails?”

“That would be a bit antisocial,” Jake said, “but it wouldn’t hurt us. No way they can reach the house from there. It’s almost a quarter mile and uphill. And the trees and the grass are wet from the rain we had the other day.”

“But still...” Elsa started.

“He’s reaching in the bag,” Laura said.

And, sure enough, the man was reaching in the bag. He pulled something out. It was vaguely egg shaped, light in color, about the size of two fists clenched together. He reached up and grabbed the dangling device mounted between the two uprights. There was a piece of canvas or similar material there and he put the white object inside of it. He then stepped backwards, pulling on the canvas as he went. The material attached to the uprights proved to be large, elastic rubber bands or perhaps industrial bungee cords. It really was a slingshot. He stretched it out perhaps five feet, straining against the pull, and then let fly. The white object shot out of the canvas and rapidly flew out of the camera view. Jake looked at the screen that showed the view from the camera mounted just at the house end of the access road. The white object appeared in that view, traveling in a ballistic arc. It did not trigger the motion detector, which in turn would have activated the security lights, since the motion detectors were programed to disregard small flying objects to keep them from being constantly triggered by the sea birds and the crows that hung out on the cliff. The white object landed on the access road about thirty feet beyond the gate. It bounced twice and then rolled to a stop. It did not ignite, explode, or do anything else but lay there.

The man and the woman were now clearly laughing. They high-fived each other. The man then reached into the bag and pulled out another white, oval-shaped object. He seated it in the sling of the slingshot and fired it off as well. It landed a little shorter than the first one, but remained in the roadway. He then reached in the bag and pulled out yet another.

“All right,” Jake said. “I’ve seen enough of this shit. I’m calling the cops now.”

“Thank you,” Elsa said gratefully.

“I’ll have to hang up on you, Elsa,” he said.

“That’s okay,” she said. “Call me back when they are on the way.”

“Will do,” Jake said. He disconnected Elsa and then picked up the handset and put it to his ear. He pushed one of the buttons on the phone. It was preprogrammed with the number for the sheriff’s department dispatch center. The phone was answered on the third ring by a pleasant female voice.

“San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s department,” she said. “How can I help you?”

“Hi,” Jake said. “I’m Jake Kingsley and I live here at 13227 Pacific Coast Highway outside Oceano.”

“Okay,” the dispatcher said. “I have your address on my screen, Mr. Kingsley. Do you need the sheriff’s department to respond out to you?”

“Yes, I do,” Jake said. “You see, I’ve got these two people who pulled up to my gate in a VW microbus. They then assembled a large slingshot and are using it to launch unknown objects over my gate and onto my property.”

“Unknown objects?” the dispatcher asked. “What exactly are they?”

“I don’t know what they are,” Jake said patiently. “That is why I used the word ‘unknown’. They are small, whitish things that are egg shaped to some degree. When they land on the road they do not explode or burn or anything else, but these people have a large lawn and garden bag full of such objects and seem to have every intention of launching them all.”

“I ... see,” the dispatcher said. “Are they attempting to enter your property?”

“They are already on my property,” Jake said, “but they have so far made no attempt to go past the gate.”

“They are still there right now?”

“I am looking at them through the security camera,” Jake said. “They seem to have no idea that they are being watched. They are currently launching these objects at the rate of about one every ten or fifteen seconds.”

“How very odd,” the dispatcher said.

“I thought so,” Jake agreed. “Are you gonna send me some cops?”

“I’m getting them en route right now,” she said. “Can you give me a description of the people? Of their vehicle?”

Jake started with the vehicle. As soon as she heard the description and the license plate number, she knew who he was talking about.

“We have had some encounters with these folks before,” she said.

“I have no doubt about that,” Jake said. He then went on to describe them anyway. He could hear her fingers clattering away on a keyboard as he gave the description.

“I have three units en route to you, Mr. Kingsley,” she said. “The first two are coming from Pismo Beach. They should be there in less than ten minutes.”

“Thank you,” Jake said.

“Do you need me to stay on the line with you until they get there?” she asked.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said. “Tell them I will turn on the gate lighting once they arrive.”

“Very well,” she said. “Give us a call back if anything changes.”

Jake promised he would do that and then hung up. He then dialed Elsa back and returned her to the speaker phone. “Cops are on the way,” he told her. “Should be here in ten minutes or so.”

It actually took only eight minutes. The couple continued to launch whatever they were launching. The man was now turning the slingshot left and right between shots, scattering the objects on both sides of the access road now. There was quite the collection of them lying about by the time Jake and everyone else saw the flaring of headlights coming up the road from the direction of the highway. The two hippies saw it too. They stopped what they were doing and looked in the direction of the lights. They held a frantic, unheard conversation as the lights grew brighter and two marked patrol units suddenly appeared, catching them and their vehicle in a cone of light. As soon as they were lit up, Jake flipped some switches on the control panel and activated the gate lights and the lights along the access road to the driveway. The hippies looked at this for a moment and then went back to looking at the two sheriff’s vehicles, which had now stopped, side by side, and were blocking the road completely.

“I hope these two don’t do anything stupid,” Jake said, watching as the doors to the patrol cars opened. “The last fuckin’ thing we need is to have the cops blow somebody away on our road.”

“Yeah, that would kind of suck,” Meghan opined.

The uniformed deputies stood behind their car doors, their hands resting on their butts of their pistols, their flashlights in their non-gun hands. There was no audio, but it did not take a psychic to figure out what they were saying to the hippies. “Walk your asses over here real slow and keep those hands where we can see them.”

The hippies walked their asses over real slow. They kept their hands where the deputies could see them. When they got just in front of the patrol vehicles, they stopped. They then turned around and faced back toward their microbus. One of the deputies stepped out from behind the car door and approached. Jake recognized him. It was Steve Cartwright, a young deputy in his late twenties and one of the regular attendees of Jake’s informal guitar performances (and drinking sessions) at the Pine Cove, the San Luis Obispo cop bar. Steve walked up to the male hippie first. The male put his hands behind his head and Steve grasped his fingers with his right hand and pulled him backward a bit, so he was off-balance. He then used his left hand to pat the male hippie down. Once he was done with this, he did the same for the female hippie. Once satisfied that they weren’t packing, he walked up to the microbus and shined his flashlight inside.

Once the microbus and the hippies were cleared, the other deputy stepped out from behind the car door. Jake recognized this one as well—again, from her frequent visits to the Pine Cove on the nights he performed. It was Sarah Brooke, a tall, athletic cop in her thirties. She was divorced, ran marathons for fun, played in a local basketball club, and had hinted to Laura (who often accompanied her husband to the bar when he went) that she had always wanted to try the girl-on-girl thing just to see what it was like. Laura had never acknowledged that she was picking up on the innuendo Sarah was throwing down.

The two cops stood and talked to the duo for a few minutes, no doubt asking them just what they thought they were doing. The couple handed over identification cards and Sarah went back to her patrol car to run them. A few minutes later, the hippies were stuffed into the back of the patrol cars, the female in Sarah’s car, the male in Steve’s. About this time, another patrol car arrived on the scene and parked behind Sarah and Steve. This deputy got out and Jake recognized him as well. It was Sergeant Stivick, who had been the supervisor on the night the deputies had showed up to make sure Jake and Laura were not harboring a teenage transexual from Venezuela. Stivick was also a regular attendee of the Jake Kingsley show at the Pine Cove.

After holding a brief discussion with Steve and Sarah, Stivick went to the slingshot and examined it with his flashlight for a few minutes. He then looked in the bag that the objects the duo had been launching were stored in. The bag was now almost empty. Jake saw the sergeant shaking his head as he looked in there. He made no move to put his hand in or touch any of the objects. He then began to walk to the gate. A minute later, he was standing next to the intercom box. He pushed the button.

Jake opened the link. “Hey, sarge,” he said. “Thanks for showing up so fast.”

“No problem, Jake,” Stivick said. “Can I come up to the house?”

“Yeah,” Jake said, pushing a button on the panel. “Gate’s opening now.”

The gate swung open and Stivick stepped through, making the trip up to the house on foot. He weaved carefully between the little white egg-looking things the hippies had been launching and then climbed up the hill. It took him the better part of five minutes to make it to the front door. Jake and Laura both took the opportunity to lose their robes and throw on some sweat pants and shirts for the meeting. They still reeked of sex, particularly Jake’s face, which had spent a considerable amount of time between Laura’s legs earlier, but they figured Stivick would be unoffended.

“Come on in, Bob,” Jake told the sergeant when he opened the front door for him. Since the last visit Stivick had made to the house, he and Jake had graduated to first-name basis with each other.

“Thanks,” Stivick said, turning off his flashlight and then holstering it in a pocket on the left side of his uniform pants. He looked over at Laura, who was standing behind Jake, and gave her a smile. “Good to see you again, Laura. Sorry it has to be for something like this.”

“Good to see you too, Bob,” she told him. “Thanks for coming out so fast.”

“It’s what we do,” he said. His eyes then turned to Meghan, who was behind Laura, still wearing her long t-shirt sans bra. He looked her up and down appreciably, particularly her bare legs and her jiggling breasts.

“Oh, Bob, this is Meghan,” Jake introduced. “She’s our nanny.”

“Hello, Meghan,” Stivick said flirtatiously. “I’m Bob Stivick. I’m one of the night shift supervisors for the coastal district.”

“Nice to meet you,” Meghan said shyly.

Stivick reluctantly took his eyes off of her and turned back to Jake. “Did your little girl sleep through all the commotion?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” Jake asked. “A freakin’ bomb wouldn’t wake Caydee up if she doesn’t want to wake up. Some of the best advice we were given was to not make any attempt to be quiet around her when she’s sleeping. It pays off.”

“Hmmm,” Stivick said thoughtfully. “My wife and I weren’t given that advice. Now we have a couple of pre-teens who wake up whenever a mouse farts.”

“That’s a bummer,” Jake said lightly. “But it is good to have some anecdotal evidence to support the hypothesis.”

“Uh ... right,” Stivick said slowly. “Anyway, we got Phil and Dana in custody, as I’m sure you saw on the camera. Not sure what we should charge them with though.”

“What are those things they were slingshotting all over the property?” Jake asked.

“Dirty diapers,” Stivick said.

Jake’s eyes widened. “Dirty diapers?”

The sergeant nodded. “Dirty disposable diapers, to be exact.”

“I see,” Jake said. “And why are these hippies using a slingshot to shoot dirty disposable diapers over our fence at three-thirty in the fucking morning? What did we ever do to them?”

“You use disposable diapers for your baby,” Stivick said simply. “Do you remember that interview you gave a few months back where the reporter asked you if you used cloth diapers to help protect the environment?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “And I said, ‘fuck the environment’. I was kind of joking about that. I honestly didn’t think that reporter would actually print that statement. And it was quite out of context.”

“Well, Phil and Dana took it very seriously when they read that,” Stivick said. “They decided to teach you and Laura a lesson.”

“By doing the very thing that they are protesting?” asked Laura incredulously. “They’re mad about disposable diapers messing up the environment so they litter our property with disposable diapers to show their anger? That makes no sense at all.”

Stivick shrugged. “These people are not rocket scientists,” he said. “In their minds, they were asking how you liked it. And they also were not planning on getting caught. They knew you had a camera and a motion detector on the gate, but they were quite surprised to find that you had them on the approach to the gate as well.”

“Where did they even get the diapers?” Jake asked. “They don’t have a baby, do they?”

“They got them from the dumpster behind the KinderCare in SLO,” Stivick said. “At least that’s what they told Cartwright and Brooke. They said it took them almost a month to gather that many. And I’m here to tell you, those things are rank. I almost puked when I looked in the bag.”

“Disgusting,” Laura said.

“That’s where I used to work,” Meghan added. “And come to think of it, I did see that van hanging around the area the last few weeks I was there.”

“You should smell the inside of that van,” Stivick said.

“No thank you,” Meghan said with a wince of disgust. “Cleaning a baby’s booty is one thing. Dealing with month old diapers is something else entirely.”

“You got that right, hon,” Stivick said. “In any case, this is far from a first offense for Phil and Dana. They’ve been arrested for egging SLO city hall, for breaking into the chicken farm outside of Paso Robles so they could free the chickens, and are routinely caught vandalizing the fence at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. They have a particular hatred for the nuclear plant.”

“Are they married, or what?” asked Laura.

“Not really,” Stivick said. “California is not a common law state. They belong together though.”

“What happens now?” asked Jake. “Are they under arrest?”

“Well, that kind of depends on how you want to play this,” Stivick said. “There are several things we can charge them with, all misdemeanors, but, since they are misdemeanors that occurred in the presence of Cartwright and Brooke, we can charge them and you won’t have to make a citizen’s arrest and go through all the bullshit that entails. The question is, do you want us to arrest them and charge them?”

“What would you charge them with?” Jake asked.

“Trespassing would be the first thing,” Stivick said. “You have signs at the property line stating that this is private property and that trespassing is forbidden. They disregarded those signs and acted in a manner that implies they intended to trespass. As for the diapers themselves, we could probably get the DA to agree that malicious mischief is applicable. I’m not sure that vandalism would actually hold up here. And then there’s always illegal dumping. Shooting soiled diapers over a fence onto private property that is not a designated waste management site certainly meets the elements of illegal dumping.”

“I see,” Jake said. “And what kind of punishment would they receive for this act?”

Stivick shrugged. “They would definitely get hit with a hefty fine,” he said. “They would likely be ordered to pay restitution to you for whatever it costs to clean up the mess. And, with their priors, if you get the right judge and he or she is in a particularly bad mood on the day of sentencing, they might even get thirty days or so—although they would undoubtedly be allowed to serve it on the weekends only, and would probably get at least half of the time off as long as they weren’t total assholes inside the jail.”

“Hmm,” Jake said thoughtfully. “Hardly seems worth the time and effort.”

“I don’t know,” Stivick said. “It might teach them a lesson. And a fine will certainly hit them where they live. They both receive disability payments from social security as their primary means of income.”

“What kind of disability?” Jake asked. “They looked pretty fuckin’ healthy when they were slinging dirty diapers around with an oversized slingshot.”

Stivick shrugged again. “Who knows?”

“I don’t want to send people on a disability pension to jail,” Laura said.

“Yeah, me either,” Jake said. “When the reporters get wind of that, imagine how they would twist it. It’s just like when that bible thumper’s kid put acid in my hot tub. They would just make it seem like a harmless prank that I overreacted to.”

“Acid in your hot tub?” Stivick asked. He had not heard that story. “You mean ... like the burning acid, not the tripping acid?”

“The burning acid,” Jake confirmed. “He snuck in our back yard and poured five gallons of it into the hot tub. The amount you’re supposed to use is about half a cup. I caught him doing it and he wanted to fight. He was a big kid, six foot plus, football player. I punched him a few times before I even realized it was a kid. The media had a field day with it.”

“Wow,” Stivick said. “The diapers don’t quite rise to the level of acid in the tub—you could make an argument for attempted murder or at least attempted mayhem for that—but I get where you’re coming from. Phil and Dana aren’t exactly beloved around SLO county, but you’re more fun to sling innuendo about.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jake said. “How about they just clean up the mess they made, go away, promise to stay the hell away from us, and we don’t press any charges? Would that work?”

Stivick nodded thoughtfully. “We can probably persuade them that that is in their best interests,” he said.

“I want every last one of those diapers picked up and taken away,” Jake said. “And I want it done right now.”

“Okay,” Stivick said.

“Oh, and one other thing,” he added.

“What’s that?” Stivick asked.

“I want the slingshot and the frame.”

“You do?”

“I do,” Jake confirmed. “In the first place, it’ll keep them from using it again.”

“Okay, I can see that,” Stivick said.

“And it looks like a pretty cool thing to have,” Jake said with a smile. “Caydee and I can use it to shoot rocks into the ocean once she’s a little bigger.”

Phil and Dana, the hippies, agreed to clean up their mess and leave the slingshot and its frame behind. The deputies all left before the job was done, but Elsa dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweater and went out, armed with a six cell Maglite, to personally supervise the cleanup and make sure that every last dirty diaper was put back in the lawn and garbage bag and taken away. Phil and Dana were quite intimidated by Elsa, who lectured them the entire time about common law property rights, the fallacy of using vandalism to advance one’s radical environmentalist causes, the philosophical basis of the sanctity of a man’s castle and why that sanctity should be honored above all but the family unit, and the coming breakdown of western civilization that the hippies and everyone like them were currently fomenting.

“And make sure you do not show your faces around here ever again,” were her parting words to the couple as they climbed back into their rancid smelling microbus with their bag of dirty diapers.

Phil promised they would never show their faces there again and they drove off just before sunrise, their microbus belching out a stinking cloud of hydrocarbon exhaust that lingered in the still air for the better part of thirty minutes. Elsa walked slowly back to her quarters and then took a shower and changed into her working clothes. She then made her way over to the main house to start the Monday duties. Mondays were the worst, and not just because the whole week was stretched out before her. Though Jake and Laura took care to keep the house clean, the laundry done, the garbage emptied, the dishes cleaned and put away over the weekend, they still could not keep things up to her standards of cleanliness and order. Thus, she would spend a good portion of each Monday spot-cleaning all over the house to bring things up to her standards. And now, she was going into a Monday morning after missing her last three hours of sleep thanks to those uncouth ruffians.

She entered the kitchen door and saw that Jake, now showered and dressed, was at the stove. The smell told her that he was cooking omelets—vegetable and cheese omelets to be exact.

“What is this?” she asked him, surprised. Jake never cooked breakfast during the workweek.

“I thought I’d give you a little break since you had to deal with the hippies,” he told her.

“Oh ... well ... thank you,” she said, surprised and pleased.

“I’ll even clean up before I go,” Jake said. “Of course, I know you’ll just come behind me and clean everything again, but at least I’ll get the first layer knocked down.”

She smiled. “That is very thoughtful, Jake,” she said.

“Go sit down,” Jake told her. “I’ll bring you your omelet and you can eat at the kitchen nook with us.”

“But it wouldn’t be proper,” she said.

“Don’t give me that crap, Elsa,” Jake said. “You just spent almost two hours outside in the cold with a couple of dirty diaper smelling hippies. You are going to eat breakfast with us.”

“Well ... okay,” she said. “If you insist.”

“I insist,” he said. “Where did you put that slingshot?”

“I dismantled it and put it in the garbage where it belongs,” she told him huffily.

His face fell a bit. “Aww, man,” he whined. “I told you I wanted to keep it.”

“Yes,” she said, “so that you and Miss Cadence can one day use it to shoot rocks into the ocean. Ridiculous. I will not hear of such shenanigans. That device has been cut into little pieces and rendered harmless.”

“What a rip,” Jake said, shaking his head.

Elsa went into the kitchen nook and found Laura there. She too was showered and dressed for her day. She had her blouse open and the little flap on her nursing bra down. Caydee, still dressed in her footie pajamas, was suckling on Laura’s left nipple. Elsa smiled at the sight, making a point to enjoy it because she would not be seeing it much longer. Caydee was down to only nursing from the source in the mornings now. The rest of the day she was fed with bottled breast milk and sometimes formula. At night, they added a little bit of rice cereal to the bottles to fill her tummy a little more and encourage more sleep time.

“Good morning, Laura,” Elsa greeted. “And good morning Miss Cadence.”

Caydee, hearing her name (the name that virtually no one but Elsa routinely called her) let go of the nipple and looked over at her. She smiled, cooed a little, and then went back to her breakfast.

“Were you and Jake able to get any more sleep after the deputies left?” Elsa asked.

“I got a little,” Laura said. “And I can sleep on the plane. Jake didn’t get any more though. He stayed in the computer room to watch you and the hippies on the monitors.”

“Wanted to make sure you didn’t kill them,” Jake said, bringing two plates with omelets on them into the nook.

“I did not want to stand close enough to them to perform violence on them,” Elsa said. “They were rather aromatic.”

“Because of the diapers?” asked Laura.

“There was that,” she said, “but also a strong underlying odor of humans who do not engage in regular hygiene practices.”

“BO,” Jake said with a nod.

“That is what I just said,” Elsa replied huffily.

Meghan came into the nook a moment later. She was now dressed for the day as well, wearing a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a sleeveless blouse. Her brunette hair was still damp from her shower. She grabbed a cup of coffee from the machine and then sat down just in time for Jake to present her omelet to her.

“Thanks, Jake,” she said tiredly. “It looks delicious.”

“It is quite palatable,” Elsa said, “although I would have cut the broccoli up into smaller pieces.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the next time you have to go supervise the cleanup of dirty diapers out by the gate and I have to make breakfast for you,” Jake said.

“You do that,” Elsa told him.

They finished their breakfasts and Jake took their plates back to the kitchen and cleaned up everything the best he could. Caydee finished feeding, was burped, and then handed over to Meghan, who carried her into the entertainment room so she could lay on her blanket and play with her toys for a bit. Caydee was not mobile yet—she was still two or three months away from being able to crawl—but she could roll over in both directions and often did so.

At 7:45, Jake and Laura kissed their daughter goodbye, told her that they loved her, and then headed out the door. They got in Jake’s BMW—he still had not so much as touched the Toyota Sienna, let alone gotten inside of it—and drove to the airport. By 8:25, they were airborne, heading south to Whiteman Airport. Another workweek had begun.

Though they still had no MD&P agreement for Celia’s and Matt’s new CDs, they were proceeding under the assumption that they would eventually secure one and that both artists would go out on tour. As such, they had begun the process of putting those tours together. Matt and his band were working out of the warehouse that KVA had leased for their workups. Celia and her band were working out of the KVA studios for now, but knew they would eventually have to move to a bigger facility. Laura was not going to go out on tour with Celia this round—she wanted to stay home and be a wife and mother for the immediate future—but she was helping with the beginning stages of Celia’s workups. One of the items on the KVA to-do list was to secure another touring quality saxophonist.

Jake’s plan for the day was to drop Laura off at the KVA studio and then drive over to the warehouse so he could work with Matt and his boys for the first day of the week. So far, the peace between himself and the guitarist continued to hold. The only real point of contention was the fact that they still had no agreement and therefore Matt had no income to look forward to for the quarter.

“Just keep working,” Jake told him whenever the subject was brought up. “They will cave at some point.”

“When?” Matt would generally demand. “Will it happen before the fuckin’ IRS auctions off my fuckin’ house?”

“It will be before that,” Jake always promised.

He pulled into KVA’s parking lot and parked in front of the main entrance. Laura unbuckled and opened her door. She leaned over and gave him a warm kiss on the lips.

“Have a good day, sweetie,” she told him. “I’m sorry you didn’t get much sleep.”

“I’ll live,” he said with a shrug. “See you this afternoon sometime.”

“I love you,” she told him.

“I love you too,” he returned.

No sooner had she stepped out of the car, however, then Pauline suddenly appeared in the doorway to the office. She waved at Jake in a manner that conveyed that she did not want him to leave just yet. He held up and she trotted over to his door.

“What’s up?” he asked her.

“Think you can bust Matt loose from rehearsal for the day?” she asked him.

“Uh ... if I have to,” he said. “What’s the deal?”

“We have an eleven o’clock appointment at the National Records Building with Crow and Doolittle and Bailey,” she said.

“We do?” he asked. “Did they finally call up?”

“No,” she said simply. “I called them up and made the appointment.”

“You did? What for? They’re going to think we’re caving to them.”

“That’s exactly what I want them to think,” she said with a smile.

“How’s that?”

“I figured out a way to turn the tables on them,” she said. “A way we can have our cake and eat it too.”

“Really? Do tell.”

“Come inside,” she said. “I’ll explain it to you.”

“I can’t wait to hear this,” he said with growing enthusiasm. He knew how sharp his sister could actually be about such matters. “Let me just call up Matt and tell him what’s up.”

“You do that,” she said.

And he did. He then went inside where his sister told him about a cool thing that the Nerdlys had shown her last week. Using the internet, she had been able to access the entire law libraries of the Harvard School of Law and the Stanford School of Law. From the comfort of her home office, where she had sat in her sweatpants drinking wine over the weekend, she had found the answer to their problem.

In addition to Crow, Bailey, and Doolittle, Eric Frowley, National Records’ lead lawyer was at the meeting. He greeted the quartet of Jake, Pauline, Nerdly, and Matt at eleven o’clock in the sixteenth-floor meeting room. Celia had stayed at the studio, trusting the three of them to deal with the situation while she kept working. Frowley greeted everyone politely—as was his habit—but was obviously a bit wary about the meeting. He had dealt with Pauline many times before and had often come away on the losing side when confrontation occurred.

“We’ve decided to go ahead and sign the MD&P contract you offered us,” Pauline told them once the preliminaries were complete.

“Really?” Doolittle asked, his brows going up. “Without any modification to the clauses?”

“Without any modification,” Pauline confirmed. “Two hundred and twenty-five thousand for manufacturing and distribution of each CD. Twenty percent royalties for promotion of each CD.”

“And the clause relating to the successful negotiation of the touring contract?” Crow asked. “You will agree to that as well?”

“We will agree to that,” Pauline said plainly.

“Without disclosure of the terms we are offering for the touring contract until such time as the MD&P contract is signed and in place?” asked Doolittle, just for clarity.

“Yes,” Pauline said. “We will sign the MD&P contract as proposed.”

The three suits looked at each other, a mixture of elation and caution on their faces. “Well ... all right then,” Doolittle finally said.

Frowley, on the other hand, was openly suspicious of the offer. He could plainly sense that a game was afoot here. “Hold on just a minute,” he said. “This is starting to sound a little too good to be true.”

“It’s fuckin’ true,” Matt told him. “These people ain’t bullshitting you.”

“That is correct,” Jake said. “Put the contract down in front of us. We’ll review it for accuracy and to make sure there are none of those famous hidden clauses of yours, and, if it’s on the up and up, we’ll sign it.”

“Why did you change your mind?” Frowley asked. His hackles were definitely up.

“Because we need to start pulling in some revenue from our efforts,” Pauline said. “We’ve spoken with Aristocrat and they are not willing or able to offer a better deal than what you’re offering. It seems that we have no real choice but to go with your proposal.”

“You understand that if you do not come to an agreement with National on touring terms,” Frowley said, “then the MD&P contract would be considered in a state of breach? That means that National will be able to sue you for any income they could reasonably expect to have made from those CDs? In addition, you would also be on the hook for the fees my firm charges to prosecute such a lawsuit.”

“Yeah yeah,” Matt said impatiently. “We get it. Can you just put the fuckin’ contract on the table so they can sign the shit?”

Frowley was not convinced. “There’s something not right about this,” he told his clients. “We need to proceed with extreme caution here.”

“What kind of caution?” Doolittle asked. “We’ve already written up the proposed MD&P contract. Let them look it over and sign it. What could they possibly be trying to pull here?”

“I don’t know,” Frowley said. “But they’re up to something here. I can feel it.”

“I believe you are experiencing paranoid ideation related to the cynical and exploitive nature of your chosen profession coupled with the reality of your chosen clients,” Nerdly told him.

“That’s right,” Pauline said mildly. “We’ve agreed to your proposed contract. If we sign our names on the line and have the contract officially notarized, with copies going to all parties involved, it’s a binding contract, right?”

“Right,” Frowley said slowly.

“Then what’s the problem?” Pauline asked. “We came here to do business, to get our CDs out into the world so we can start making money off of them. That’s the only game we’re playing.”

“In fact,” Jake said, “we took the liberty of arranging for a notary to be here in just forty-five minutes.”

“You did?” asked Frowley.

“We did,” Pauline confirmed. “We can get the MD&P signed and notarized before lunch. After lunch, we can start talking tour.”

The four of them looked at each other again—the National suits with predatory smiles barely hidden on their faces, Frowley with that expression of wariness. Nods were finally passed around.

“All right then,” Frowley said slowly. “Let me make some copies of the contract and you can go over them.”

“Excellent,” Jake said.

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt added. “Let’s do this shit.”

Five minutes later, everyone at the table had a copy of the proposed contract before them. Jake only glanced at his. Matt did not look at his at all. Pauline and Nerdly, however, perused the document thoroughly, reading it word for word. This took the better part of twenty minutes. Finally, both Pauline and Nerdly pronounced the contract copacetic with what had been negotiated (though there had been no real negotiation at all) and free of hidden clauses and/or loopholes.

“As soon as the notary gets here, we sign,” Pauline said.

The notary public was an overweight middle-aged woman in a cheap business dress. Pauline had found her on the internet and checked her references to make sure she was legitimate. She was. Her name was Gloria Meeker. She smelled of cigarette smoke, but she had her credentials in order and all of the tools of her trade with her. Frowley examined her credentials personally and then made a few phone calls to satisfy himself that Meeker was indeed a currently appointed notary public with the power to notarize the document. He received his confirmation and they began the process.

First, Meeker took the driver’s licenses of all who would be signing and made copies of them. She then took everyone’s thumb print in a book she carried. She then separated the master copy of the contract into six individual pages. She did not read the document, but simply asked the parties if this is what they had agreed to. Everyone confirmed that they had agreed to it.

“All right then,” she said. “Go ahead and sign.”

Jake, Pauline, and Nerdly signed on behalf of KVA Records. Doolittle and Crow signed on behalf of National Records. Meeker than put her official seal on each page of the document. Two copies of the document were then made. Meeker put her seal on each page of the copies as well, certifying that they were notarized copies of the original document. National kept the original. KVA and Meeker herself took possession of the notarized copies.

“That’s it then,” Pauline said with a smile once the process was complete. “This contract is now in effect.”

“Agreed,” said Doolittle, who was no longer hiding his predatory grin. It was quite apparent that he thought he had KVA right where he wanted them.

Pauline returned the smile. She would allow him to think that for a few more days. And then she would spring the trap she had so neatly set.

“I really thought Frowley was going to blow this whole thing out of the water,” said Jake as they sat in their favorite Hollywood Mexican restaurant thirty minutes later.

“Yeah,” Pauline agreed. “He knows we’re up to something. A rat can smell a rat. He just can’t figure out what it is.”

“Fuck him where he breathes,” said Matt, who was drinking a bottle of beer since rehearsal had been cancelled for the day. “I can’t wait to see the expression on his face when he finds out what this shit is really all about.”

“We need to be careful to not give anything away just yet,” Pauline warned. “We cannot give them a basis to argue that we did not sign that contract in good faith. When I spring my surprise on them, they cannot have any evidence that I knew what I know before we put those signatures down.”

“Frowley is going to know anyway,” Jake said.

“Of course he’s going to know,” Pauline said. “They’re all going to know that we planned this all along, but knowing something and being able to advance a legal argument for it are two different things. That means that no one blurts anything out at this meeting. We listen to whatever fucked-up proposal they offer, reject it, and try to negotiate something better.”

“There’s no reason for them to negotiate shit,” Matt pointed out. “They think they hold all the cards.”

“That’s fine,” Pauline said. “It will be a short meeting then and we can all go home a little early today. Let them have their fleeting moment of thinking they got the better of us. It will be dashed soon enough.”

“You’re sure about this shit you were talking?” Matt asked. “Really fuckin’ sure?”

“I’m really fuckin’ sure,” Pauline assured him. “The precedents are right there in the law libraries if you just know where to look for them. Had Frowley bothered to do even minimal research on this contract, he would have found them as well.”

National laid their touring proposal on the table almost immediately after KVA returned from the lunch break. It was every bit as ridiculous as they had assumed it would be. Perhaps even more ridiculous.

“Let me get this straight,” Pauline said, her eyes glaring at the suits. “You are suggesting that National Records gets to keep sixty-five percent of all touring revenue from both Matt’s and Celia’s tour, and that KVA pays one hundred percent of tour costs?”

“That is our proposal,” Doolittle said with a smile.

“You’re out of your fucking minds,” Jake said, shaking his head. “This is not negotiating in good faith.”

“We disagree,” Doolittle said. “We consider this to be a fair and equitable offer considering the low royalty rate we will be receiving for CD sales from the project.”

“Fair and equitable?” Pauline asked. “I haven’t actually crunched these asinine numbers yet, but I’m pretty sure that if KVA only receives thirty-five percent of tour revenue—half of which we are obligated to give to Matt—and has to pay all of touring expenses—the truck and bus rentals, the crew salary, the venue rentals, the promotion costs—we will be operating well in the red.”

“That is not our concern,” Doolittle said. “You are contractually obligated at this point to come to an agreement with us on touring. This is our terms of the agreement. We will not be changing them.”

Pauline rolled her eyes. “Frowley, talk some sense into these people,” she told him. “You know as well as I do that offering terms of a contract that guarantees one of the parties will go into debt is not considered good faith negotiation.”

“I know no such thing,” Frowley said smoothly. “Especially when you consider the profits that KVA will enjoy from the ridiculously low royalty rate you negotiated for in the MD&P contract. Your net profit will be in the black.”

“Not when you factor in the costs we incurred in producing the CDs in the first place,” Jake said.

“Again,” Doolittle said, “your cost of production is not our concern.”

“We’re not going to agree to sixty-five percent and one hundred percent of tour costs,” Pauline told them. “I don’t even have to consult with my partners to tell you that. We will not go into the red just so you greedy fucks can rake it in.”

“Then your MD&P contract will be in a state of breach,” Frowley said. “We were quite clear on that point when we went over that contract. You agreed to abide by that clause and you signed your names on the line. If you fail to come to an agreement on touring, we will file suit demanding payment for all revenue from CD sales and touring, plus legal fees and perhaps even punitive damages.”

“I got your fuckin’ punitive damages right here,” Matt said, grabbing his crotch and squeezing it a few times.

Jake and Pauline both gave him sharp looks. Matt had been specifically instructed to keep his mouth shut during this meeting so he would not blurt something out that would hurt their cause.

“I’m sorry you feel you are being treated unfairly,” Doolittle told them. “But our terms for touring are not negotiable. You can either agree to them or face the consequences.”

Jake and Pauline looked at each other and then exchanged a nod. “I guess this meeting is at an end,” she said. “Further discussion is pointless.”

“You cannot simply ignore this issue,” Crow said. “We will file suit if no agreement is reached.”

“We need a few days to discuss this,” Pauline said. “How about we meet again on Friday afternoon?”

“Very well,” Doolittle said. “Friday at two o’clock. But be advised, we will not be changing our position. And if you do not come to terms by the end of this month, we will begin legal proceedings.”

“Understood,” Pauline said.

A minute later, she, Jake, Matt, and Nerdly were out the door and heading for their vehicles.

Friday afternoon, the same players met in the same room for the meeting. Crow, Bailey, and Doolittle all had smirks of triumph on their faces as Matt, Jake, Pauline, and Nerdly sat down at the table. Even Frowley had a smirk on his face. It seemed he had gotten over his suspicions that a game was afoot. This was okay with the KVA people and Matt. They were quite looking forward to seeing those smirks wiped away.

“We have just one question for you,” Doolittle said, not even bothering with the pleasantries. “Are you here to agree with our terms? If the answer is no, then this meeting is over.”

“The answer is no,” Pauline said simply.

Doolittle shook his head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Why didn’t you just tell us that on the phone yesterday?” he asked. “You could have saved all of us a lot of time.”

“Our position was made very clear,” Crow added. “You agree to our terms or you face legal action.”

“You simply have no room for negotiating here, Pauline,” Frowley informed her. “The contract you signed is quite clear on this point.”

“Yeah ... well, that’s what we want to talk about today,” Pauline said. “It turns out that the contract we signed is not quite as clear as you think it is.”

“Excuse me?” Frowley said. “It is in black and white and has been notarized. KVA will come to terms on a touring contract or the MD&P contract is in breach and you are liable for the profits National would have been reasonably entitled to.”

“Yeah, it does say that in the contract,” Pauline agreed. “But I’ve developed some new information since we last met.”

“New information?” asked Bailey.

“That is correct,” she said. “Did you know that you can access the entirety of the law libraries for both Harvard and Stanford on the internet? Nerdly here showed me how to do it.”

“This is a good time to be alive,” Nerdly said.

“It’s been a few years since I had to do legal research on the scale I’ve been doing it these past few days, but it really is like riding a bicycle. In fact, it’s even easier than riding a bicycle now that there are things like search boxes and cross-referencing tools.”

“What are you trying to pull?” asked Frowley, his concerned expression starting to make a return visit.

“I was just doing my due diligence as a member of the bar and a partner in the entity known as KVA Records,” Pauline said. “You see, I knew that something about that MD&P contract smelled bad.”

“Kind of like month-old dirty diapers scavenged from the KinderCare and slingshotted onto someone’s property?” Jake asked innocently.

Pauline smiled. The story of the SLO hippies and their little prank had made the newspapers, both in SLO and LA, and from there, to the AP wire and nationwide. As Jake had predicted, the reporters had spun the tale so it sounded like a harmless practical joke. “Kind of like that,” she agreed.

“That is a valid, legal contract that you are bound by,” Frowley said.

“Actually,” said Matt, “you’re talking out of your fuckin’ ass right now.”

“Well put, Matt,” Pauline said with a smile. She lifted her briefcase up and set it on the table before her. She looked at the suits. “If I may?”

They all looked warily at each other. “What do you have in there?” Frowley finally asked.

“Legal briefs,” she said. “Fourteen of them, actually. The older ones date back to the early 1950s. The newest one dates back to 1985. Can you take a guess as to what these briefs are about?”

“Whatever it is, it’s irrelevant,” Frowley said.

“No, actually they are quite relevant,” she said. “And very interesting.” She unsnapped the briefcase and opened it. She then removed a stack of neatly stapled briefs and set them down in front of her. She closed the briefcase and then set it back down next to her chair. “I’ll let you keep these copies for your perusal. I have my copies at home. Shall we start with the oldest?”

No one answered her. She took this as consent to begin. “Okay then,” she said, picking up the first brief. “This is regarding a case known as Growling vs Cavanaugh. It was heard and ruled upon by California’s third district court of appeal in 1952. It seems that Mr. Cavanaugh was a dairy farmer outside of Sacramento and he signed a contract to supply Mr. Growling, who owned a milk delivery company, with a certain amount of milk per week. In the contract he signed, however, was a stipulation that Mr. Growling would be in breach of contract if he did not, in turn, agree to an as-yet unnegotiated contract for cheese, butter, and other secondary dairy items, which, obviously, were more expensive to supply. Mr. Cavanaugh then sued Mr. Growling for breach of contract when they were unable to come to terms for the secondary dairy supplies. The superior court heard the case and the jury ruled in Mr. Cavanaugh’s favor, citing the terms of the contract. Mr. Growling appealed the case and the third circuit overturned the ruling on the grounds that it is unreasonable under the law to have the terms of a contract rely on the terms of a second contract that has not yet been negotiated or agreed to. Mr. Cavanaugh appealed that ruling to the California Supreme Court, who refused to grant certiorari, thus effectively confirming the third district’s ruling.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Baily opined. “Milk and cheese have nothing to do with MD&P contracts and touring agreements. You’re comparing apples and oranges, right Frowley?”

“Uh ... well ... not exactly,” Frowley said. “Can I see that brief?”

“Absolutely,” Pauline said sweetly, handing it over. The lawyer took it and began to scan it. It was a meticulously written brief, just like those that law students were required to write on a weekly basis throughout their professional training.

“I would like to turn your attention to the bottom, where I gave a summary of the final outcome,” Pauline said. “That’s the really interesting part. It states that the signer of the contract, Mr. Growling, was not obligated to abide by the stipulation regarding the negotiation of the second contract, but that the rest of the first contract was still considered to be valid and enforceable.”

“What does that mean?” asked Doolittle, whose smirk was starting to flee.

Frowley did not answer, so Pauline answered for him. “It means that, under the precedent set by this ruling, the contract we signed with you for MD&P is valid and enforceable for the terms we agreed to except for the part that states it is dependent on the negotiation and signing of the touring contract.”

The look of alarm on the faces of the suits turned to one of horror. “Are you saying,” asked Crow, “that we are bound to only get twenty percent royalties and to manufacture and distribute for cost even if we don’t sign a touring agreement?”

“You win the prize, Crow,” Pauline said.

“That’s ridiculous!” Doolittle spat. “This one ruling from the 1950s doesn’t have bearing now! It’s been almost fifty years!”

“The timeline doesn’t matter,” Pauline said. “The Supreme Court of both California and the United States itself routinely accept precedents that were set back in the 1800s. And remember, this is only the first brief. There are thirteen more of them, all having to do with the subject of having terms of a first contract being dependent on the terms of an unsigned second contract. You people were not the first ones to think of this particular scam.” She picked up the second brief in her stack and held it up. “Warner vs Stanchion, 1958. Warner signed a contract that said he would provide landscaping services for Stanchion, who owned a collection of little league and other amateur athletic fields in San Diego county. Stanchion also owned a chain of nursery supply stores. The contract stipulated that the landscaping contract was in breach of contract if Warner did not agree to and sign a fertilizer supply contract with Stanchion for the fulfillment of the first contract. Again, the case went to court and the jury found in favor of the plaintiff. And, again, the case was appealed, this time to the Fourth District, and, again, the ruling was overturned. The precedent set in Growling vs Cavanaugh was specifically cited in the ruling. And, again, the initial contract was ruled valid and in effect for all but the secondary contract clause.”

“Please tell me that she is making all of this up, Frowley,” Doolittle said.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Pauline asked, as if deeply wounded (though she kept the smile on her face).

“Are you?” he challenged.

“I am not,” she said simply. “I have every confidence that Mr. Frowley will verify all of my briefs.”

“And charge you for the time it took to complete the research,” Jake added.

“Naturally,” said Nerdly.

“How much you charge these fucks an hour, Frowley?” Matt asked. “Like six hundred bones or some shit like that?”

“It’s a lot more than that,” Doolittle said sourly.

“Damn, homey,” Matt said, looking at the lawyer with something that resembled respect. “No wonder you whore yourself out to these assholes.”

“Should I go over the other precedents,” asked Pauline, “or do you get the point?”

“I’ll look them over on my own time,” Frowley said through clenched teeth.

“You do that,” Pauline said. “You will find that they are all quite relevant to the case of National Records vs KVA Records, should such a case ever be filed. You will find that in each case, the ruling upheld the original contract as valid while giving no responsibility to the defendant to uphold the clause regarding the second contract. And you will find no precedents under California contract law—which is what we are dealing with here—in which a contract that was dependent on an unnegotiated and unsigned second contract was held to be valid on final appeal.”

“In other words,” Matt said, “another round goes to the band, motherfuckers! To the fuckin’ band!”

“Again, well put, Matt,” Pauline said. “Now, on that note, we’ll call an end to the meeting for today. We will give you a week to peruse these briefs and draw the conclusions you need to draw. We will come back next Friday at 2:00 PM. At that point, we will enter good faith negotiations for a touring contract for Matt and Celia. And when we do so, please keep in mind that we are perfectly free to sign with any other entity for such a contract and that with Celia, we do not even have to pay you for the performance rights.”

And with that, the KVA team and Matt Tisdale stood and left the office. They walked out of the building with smiles on their faces, knowing they had won.