Circles Collide

Chapter 7: Dreams and Schemes and Circus Crowds

San Diego, California

July 11, 1996

After the two-and-a-half-hour flight from Los Cabos International at the southern tip of the Baja peninsula, the Avanti touched down gently on Lindbergh Field’s Runway 27 at 2:05 PM, three minutes ahead of schedule. Jake was in the pilot’s seat, Suzie in the copilot’s seat, Laura sitting behind Jake. Celia had remained behind in Barquisimeto to continue visiting her family. The approach had been a little harrowing—at least to Jake—with a steeper than normal glideslope, some tricky wind shifts, and the uncomfortably close proximity to the downtown skyscrapers, some of which were higher than the final approach altitude. The slope brought them uncomfortably close to a parking structure located just eight hundred feet from the runway threshold, but Jake had pretty much learned to trust his ILS approach system by this point and had resisted the urge to pull up and go around. They had cleared the garage by more than two hundred feet, though it had certainly looked like less than that.

“Another nice one,” Suzie commented as they rolled out. “It’s almost like you know what you’re doing now.”

“Almost,” he said with a chuckle. He was exceedingly grateful that Suzie had been along for the ride on this trip, was convinced he would not have been able to do it without her. He really had not thought the trip through when he had first planned it, had not really thought about the fact that he would be flying from busy international airport to another busy international airport, usually through legitimate IFR conditions due to the tropical cloud cover, skirting the occasional thunderstorm, and consistently having to choose between making a nearly blind ILS approach or not flying at all. Suzie’s presence had been a last-minute suggestion when Celia offered to meet them in Caracas and he now knew that without her by his side to talk him through the flights and the landings and to gently goad him into working on unfamiliar skills, he likely would have just ended up hiring someone to fly the plane home after all. But now, he had more than fifteen hours of challenging flying and six challenging ILS landings (including two high altitude airports) under his belt. He was much more comfortable with his new airplane and had already decided to embrace all of its capabilities now that he had some experience.

“Now it’s time for the interrogation,” Laura said sourly from her seat. She had slept almost the entire flight and had only awakened when she heard the flaps being lowered for approach. She was still a little groggy and out of sorts.

“Undoubtedly,” Jake said with a sigh as he turned onto the taxiway and started heading for the international terminal, where the general aviation customs checkpoint was waiting for them. The interrogation was something that had happened each time they had crossed an international border: in Caracas, in Panama, in Guatemala City, and in Mexico City. The aircraft they were flying on was flagged in pretty much every nation in the western hemisphere and everyone wanted to give it and its occupants the onceover. They had no reason to believe that San Diego would be any different.

It turned out it was a little different, but not in a good way. Instead of only customs agents and a drug-sniffing dog, there were two additional armed men waiting for them. These men were dressed in tactical gear. They wore baseball caps on their head with the letters DEA on them.

“This is going to be fun,” Jake remarked sourly as he went through the shutdown checklist.

The customs agents were polite, as they had been in every previous country. They looked at everyone’s passport, paying particular attention to the stamps, and then asked Jake what his business had been in South and Central America and Mexico. They listened to his explanation attentively, as if they did not already know what his business had been. The DEA agents stood back a few feet during this phase, unintroduced and saying nothing.

“Why did you pick the route home through Central America and Mexico?” one of the customs guys asked after Jake told his story. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to fly directly to Miami and then work your way home from there?”

“Maybe,” Jake allowed, “but that would have been a long, overwater flight during thunderstorm season in an aircraft I am not all that familiar with. I have never done an overwater flight of that distance before and I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. I was more comfortable with shorter hops that were always within a hundred miles or so of land.”

The agents nodded, giving no indication whether they believed him or not. They then moved on to the second part of the ritual: opening up the suitcases and having the dog sniff them before rifling through their belongings. Like every other team of customs officers, they seemed to find something particularly interesting about Laura’s panties.

The agents then boarded the aircraft with the dog for their inspection and walk-through. While they were doing that, the two DEA agents finally stepped forward and introduced themselves. They were Special Agents Markley and Mendoza.

“We’re assuming that you understand our interest in you and your aircraft, Mr. Kingsley?” Mendoza, who seemed to be the leader, asked him.

“I do,” Jake said. “This plane used to belong to Eduardo Gomez, who is allegedly a particularly successful exporter of yeyo from South America.”

“That is correct,” Mendez said. “How well do you know Mr. Gomez, Jake? May I call you Jake?”

“You may,” Jake said. “And I don’t know Gomez very well at all. I had never even heard of him until my accountant discovered that he was trying to sell the very plane that I was interested in buying. And I had no reason to believe he was an international drug dealer until after I had already closed escrow on the plane and started working my way home with it.”

“But you’ve socialized with Mr. Gomez,” said agent Markley. It was not phrased as a question, but stated as a fact. One or more of the previous customs agents had undoubtedly been in contact with him.

“That is correct,” Jake said. “When I flew to Colombia back in May to inspect the aircraft, he made a point of coming to meet me. I’m sure you’re aware that I’m somewhat of a celebrity, right?”

“Oh yes,” Mendoza said. “We are aware of who you are. Intimately aware, you might say. And we know you have had some previous experience with yeyo yourself.”

“Yes, I used to snort a little coke back in the day,” Jake allowed. “Everyone who picks up an entertainment rag or reads the headlines in the supermarket knows that. But I haven’t used any in years now, not since the last Intemperance tour back in 1990.”

“Would you be willing to submit to a drug test?” asked Markley.

“No,” Jake said simply.

“Why not?” Markley asked.

“Because what is in my pee is none of your business,” Jake explained.

“If you’re not doing any cocaine, why are you unwilling to submit a sample?” asked Mendoza.

Jake sighed. “If you know me as well as you say, then I’m sure you’re aware that my father spent his career as an ACLU lawyer. Giving you my pee just to satisfy your curiosity kind of goes against the grain of how I was raised. If you want my pee, you’re going to need to get a judge to sign an order compelling me to give it. Good luck with that, gentlemen.”

The two agents looked at each other for a moment, passing some kind of silent communication back and forth. Mendoza then looked at him again. “You know,” he said, “it would be perfectly within our rights to impound this aircraft pending an investigation into whether or not it was purchased with drug money.”

“You think I purchased it using drug money?” Jake said with a laugh. “Seriously? I am a multimillionaire, gentlemen. I have money falling out of my asshole, all of which can be traced back to my primary income stream, which is KVA Records, which gets its income from the sale of music produced by myself, Celia Valdez, and a little group called Brainwash. I don’t know if you’ve checked with your friends over at the IRS yet, but I can assure you that everything is in order and there are no questionable income streams.”

“We’re not talking about your purchase of the plane, Jake,” Mendoza said. “We’re talking about Eduardo Gomez’s purchase of the plane. If he bought the plane using drug money, then it doesn’t matter that you bought it with clean money. It was still originally purchased using tainted funds.”

“We do not need to prove the matter in a court of law,” Markley added. “We only need to have reasonable suspicion in order to impound the asset.”

Jake was starting to get angry now, but he kept his temper in check and his voice calm. “If you want to go down that road, you had better be prepared for a fight,” he said. “The title on that aircraft is quite clear. The bank that financed it for me did a very thorough investigation into the title—an investigation that they charged me nearly fifteen thousand dollars for, I might add. They were satisfied that the funds Eduardo Gomez used to purchase the aircraft from Piaggio Aerospace in Italy were from legitimate and legal sources of income.”

“Yes,” Mendoza said, as if he were talking to an idiot—which he probably thought he was. “That is because that money was laundered and made to appear legitimate through accounting practices that relied on Gomez’s coffee export business to disguise the actual source of the income.”

“I guess they did a pretty good job then,” Jake said, “because Piaggio Aerospace and Security Pacific Bank both signed off on the transaction. They would not have done that if there had been any questions about the source of the original funding.”

“Any provable questions,” Mendoza said.

“A fair point,” Jake allowed. “Do you have any provable questions that Piaggio and Security Pacific were unable to uncover?”

“We haven’t opened the investigation yet,” Mendoza said.

“Well, by all means, open the investigation if you think you need to,” Jake told them. “But if you impound my aircraft while you’re doing it, I’m going to come after you—both as an agency and personally—with every legal means at my disposal. And believe me, gentlemen, when you have as much money as I do, there are a lot of means. Not only will I hire the best, most specialized law firm to come after you, but Security Pacific will do the same. After all, you’re threatening to cause a default on a loan of more than three million dollars they just made, because you can bet your ass that if you impound this plane, I’m not paying a dime of the monthly payments.”

The two agents shared another look, this one a little more doubtful. It seemed they were starting to realize that Jake was not someone they could just intimidate into doing what they wanted.

“Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot here, Jake,” Mendoza finally said.

“Perhaps we did,” Jake agreed. “Look, guys, I’m not involved in the drug trade. Not in any way, shape, or form. I am willing to concede that Eduardo Gomez might be involved in it, but I had no knowledge of that when I entered into this agreement to purchase the plane with him. I used my provably legitimate income to make this purchase. The aircraft manufacturer and the bank that funded my loan have no questions about the source of the income originally used to purchase the aircraft. The title is free and clear and has been approved. All of the paperwork is in order. That is all I have to say. If you wish to speak to me further about this matter, you will have to make an appointment and I will make sure I have an attorney present. If you want to open a huge can of worms—worms that will have teeth—then you go ahead and impound the aircraft.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Jake,” Mendoza said politely. “We will, of course, continue to look into this, but we have no further questions for you at this time. As long as the customs agents do not find any irregularities, you are free to keep possession of the aircraft for now.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said.

The two agents walked away, heading for the entrance to the plane.

“Wow,” Suzie said as they walked away. “That was pretty intense.”

Jake simply shrugged. “It’s the life I chose,” he said.

Meanwhile, just over a hundred miles to the north, a serious breach of patient confidentiality was about to take place—again. This was a breach that would be investigated extensively and the perpetrator of it fired from her job and sued in civil court by her victim. It was a breach that would be mentioned in the United States House Chamber as the 104^th Congress debated the final details of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act—which would become known as HIPAA—and would serve to sway a few members who had previously been hesitant to vote aye.

The perpetrator of this breech was a registration clerk at the Women’s and Children’s Center on the campus of Covington Medical Center in Santa Clarita. A large, modern hospital that had opened for business only five years before, it was where Mindy Snow had chosen to deliver her baby when the time came. And the time was nearly here. Though her actual due date was not until July 21, her doctor had arranged to have her admitted for a non-emergency induction on the morning of July 12, more than a week early.

Darcy Grover was the thirty-year-old clerk who took the call from Dr. Jonas Steinberg’s office regarding the admission and induction. She was not a nurse but had been working in this position for six years now and she knew that planning a routine induction more than a week before the actual due date was unusual indeed. Darcy had access to Mindy Snow’s chart and could see that there was no medical justification for such a thing. Mindy did not have gestational diabetes and the fetus was not overly large. There were, in fact, several medical reasons not to do an induction early. She smelled something sour here, something that probably had to do with Mindy’s Snow’s celebrity status, but she could not figure out what it was.

It should be noted at this point that Darcy Grover had a fairly intense dislike for Mindy Snow. Though she had never met her, she was a regular follower of celebrity gossip and knew that Mindy had been responsible for the breakup of Greg Oldfellow and Celia Valdez, who had been her absolute favorite celebrity couple. She thought that Greg was the most handsome man and often fantasized about him when she masturbated. And Celia was her favorite singer and favorite female celebrity of all time. She had a beautiful voice and seemed a very realistic person. The two of them had been natural together, obviously soulmates. And those vicious stories about Celia having sex with that lesbian pilot simply could not be true—just like those stories about Greg routinely cheating on her when they were married.

After putting the hold on the birthing suite for the next morning, Darcy went and talked to the day shift charge nurse to let her know that a VIP would be checking in the next day.

“Mindy Snow, huh?” Lynda Rogers, the charge nurse in question, commented when she was told. “I heard that she would be delivering here.” She sighed. “I guess we’ll have to pull out all the bells and whistles.”

“I noticed that her EDC is not until July 21,” Darcy said. “And she has no medical reason for early induction. Isn’t that kind of strange?”

Lynda, who had been working in labor and delivery departments in the greater Los Angeles area for more than twenty years simply shook her head. “Not with these celebrity types,” she said. “It’s a body thing.”

“A body thing?” Darcy asked, confused.

“How does Mindy Snow make her living?”

“With her acting,” Darcy said.

“That’s part of it,” Lynda allowed, “and I’m not suggesting that she isn’t a great actress, because she is, but it’s her looks that are the most important thing. She is a beautiful woman, and she needs to stay that way if she wants to keep getting roles. I’ve seen this time and time again with women who rely on their looks to get them through life. They eat a restrictive diet and exercise obsessively so they won’t gain any weight while they’re pregnant. They rub imported Greek extra-virgin olive oil on their bellies four times a day. And they want the baby out as soon as it is reasonably safe to do so. This all helps prevent stretch marks on their precious skin. And they want it out by induction instead of C-section. Induction doesn’t leave a scar on her their little flat bellies.”

“That is appalling!” Darcy said, outraged. “They would risk their baby’s health just to prevent a few stretch marks?”

Lynda simply shrugged. “It’s Hollywood,” she said.

“And Dr. Steinberg goes along with this?” She had always liked and respected Dr. Steinberg before. But now...

Another shrug. “It’s not really all that dangerous,” Lynda explained. “There’s a slightly increased risk of lung issues, but it’s only a small risk. If Steinberg didn’t do it, she’d find someone else who would.”

“Hmph,” Darcy grunted, shaking her head. “I think it’s disgusting.”

“Yeah? Well, what can you do?”

Darcy returned to her desk and continued to fume about this. What could she do? Well, maybe there was something that she could do. She could expose Mindy Snow for the heartless bitch that she was. Anonymously, of course.

She got off work at four-thirty that afternoon and drove home to her modest apartment in North Hollywood. After feeding her two cats and playing with them for a few minutes, she went to the kitchen and looked at the stack of this week’s LA Times copies that were sitting next to the garbage can waiting their turn to be taken to the recycle bin. Her absolute favorite entertainment reporter was Bernadette Tapp, who had been the one to first break the story that Greg and Celia were divorcing and who had covered their breakup extensively since. There had been an article penned by her a few days ago on that very subject. It had to do with the final paperwork filing of the uncontested divorce.

It took her a few minutes of digging around before she found the story again. She did not re-read the article. Instead, she went to the bottom where Tapp’s office number and email address were printed. She debated giving a call but decided that she would probably only get voicemail and God only knew how long it would be before someone listened to it. So, instead, she turned on her computer and opened up her email account. She put Tapp’s email into the sender box and then typed out a brief message.

I have some very interesting information to share regarding Mindy Snow’s upcoming delivery of her child. If interested, I will be home all evening and will answer the phone if you would like to discuss this.

She signed her email “an anonymous source” and then put in her phone number. She then sent the email from her account (her email address was an AOL account, with username Darcy_Grover). She then sat back on the couch to watch television, eat leftover pizza from last night, and drink chardonnay from a box in the refrigerator.

Less than an hour later, when she was three glasses in, the phone began to ring.

It was Bernadette Tapp on the other end.

They had quite the conversation.

Jake and Laura spent the night in Oceano after flying from Lindbergh Field to San Luis Obispo Regional Airport in the city of San Luis Obispo. The airport was fifteen minutes further from their home than Oceano Airport, but the runway in Oceano was not long enough to accommodate the Avanti so they were now renting a hangar at SLO, hoping that the faster aircraft would cancel out the longer driving distance. In the next week Jake would put the Chancellor on the market for the asking price of two hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

On the morning of July 12—a Friday morning—he got his first opportunity to check the timeline of his commute in the new plane. His band—the members of Lighthouse—had been hard at work rehearsing up the basic melodies of the set he planned to play at the TSF and he was going to check on their progress before they knocked off for the weekend (he had given them all weekends off until the festival itself). On Monday, he would jump right back in with them and they would hopefully start to polish things up into something that did not suck. Of course, he still did not have a piano player or a synthesizer player or a violinist, so those were things he was going to have to start working on as well.

He roared into the sky just after eight o’clock, climbing out toward Morro Bay before turning south toward the San Fernando Valley. As he left the airport, his engines turning at ninety percent thrust, hundreds, if not thousands of people who lived or worked in the vicinity of the egress path of SLO Regional looked up as they heard the grating, irritating, loud whine of those rear-facing turboprop engines. Though the Avanti was extremely quiet inside the fuselage, outside was another story completely. Many of them pondered the strange aircraft that was generating the noise. It looked quite peculiar, like something out of a science fiction show. They then mostly forgot about it. For the time being anyway.

Jake leveled the Avanti at 11500 feet, flying under VFR conditions and reaching his target altitude in less than five minutes. After entering cruise flight, the aircraft easily achieved a ground speed of 330 miles per hour, bumping lightly over the spine of the coastal mountains. He began his descent only sixteen minutes later and then circled into the landing pattern of Whiteman Airport, touching down at 8:37 AM. It took him another ten minutes to secure the aircraft and make the walk to his hangar, where his F-150 was hooked to a trickle charger, patiently awaiting him.

As he drove from the airport to the studio, he passed quite near the Covington Medical Center campus. His aviator’s eyes noticed that there were several helicopters circling around the fifteen-story building, which was kind of strange, but he dismissed the thought as soon as it was no longer in his sight. He arrived at KVA Records at 9:07 AM, only seven minutes after the band had started their day.

The Nerdlys were not there—they were up in Oregon with Brainwash, starting the process of laying down the rhythm tracks for the ten tunes that had been selected for the next CD—so the soundcheck was nearly complete (although, in truth, they did not sound as good as when the Nerdlys were supervising it).

Everyone was happy to see Jake.

“How’s the new plane?” asked Ted.

“Everything I hoped it would be,” Jake told him.

“Did I ever tell you about the plane crash I was on back when I worked in Riverside County?” he asked next.

“No,” Jake said. “And I do not want to hear about it, if you please.”

“It’s a good story,” Ted said, just itching to spin a tale of death and destruction.

“I’m sure it is,” Jake said, “but I’m going to take a pass on this one.”

“All right,” Ted sighed, clearly disappointed.

They finished their sound check and showed him what they had accomplished. It was a lot. When he had left for Dallas nearly two weeks ago, they had been in the very beginning stages of learning his melodies. Now, they were able to perform respectable instrumental versions of every one of the sixteen songs on the setlist. Of course, they still needed to work on the bridges, intros, outros, and the mixing with Jake’s vocals, but they had made good progress while he was gone and his confidence that he could pull this off began to rise.

Nobody had listened to the news today or had read the LA Times. For that reason, nobody knew that a media circus was currently in progress just a few miles away. The first that Jake heard about it was when the band broke for lunch and Jake used his cell phone to call Greg Oldfellow. Greg was staying in LA these days because Palm Springs was too hot for his taste this time of year. The two of them had made plans to have dinner today as they had not seen each other in more than a month now.

“We still on for Remington’s?” Jake asked the actor when he answered his phone.

“Are you kidding me?” Greg asked. “I’m not leaving this house until all of this blows over.”

“Until all of what blows over?”

“You haven’t heard?” he asked.

“Heard what?”

“Mindy is having her baby today,” he said. “She’s in the hospital right now.”

“Oh ... I didn’t know that,” Jake said, still not understanding what the issue was. Why was Greg the least bit interested in the birth of a child he had been tricked into fathering and had publicly renounced a relationship with?

“I have reporters and paparazzi clustered in front of my house and at least two news helicopters circling over the top of it. It’s insane.”

“Why are they bothering you?” Jake asked.

“Because I’m the father,” he said. “Johnny, my agent, tells me they have been harassing him since last night. First it was Bernadette Tapp for the LA Times. She’s the one that broke the story that Mindy was being induced today. And then, once the Times came out this morning, all of the other gossip trolls started calling and showing up in front of my house.”

“I don’t understand their interest in any of this,” Jake said. “She’s just having a baby. An ordinary, everyday baby. It’s not like she’s a virgin birth or something.”

“A truer statement was never made,” Greg scoffed.

“Why the helicopters and the pap and all that? I don’t get it.”

“It’s because Mindy is being induced more than a week before her due date,” Greg said. “Somebody at her doctor’s office or the hospital leaked that information along with the speculation that she is doing it for vanity reasons.”

“Vanity reasons?” Jake had no idea what he was talking about.

“That she’s getting the baby out early to avoid stretch marks or a C-section scar. This same ‘anonymous source close to the case’ is also claiming that Mindy was starving herself the entire pregnancy to avoid weight gain. The press has already been painting her as a heartless manipulative slut.”

“That’s what she is,” Jake reminded him.

“I know that,” Greg said, “but now they’re painting her as an unfit mother, willing to risk the health of her child for her own vanity. The article brings up the fact that she had an amniocentesis that was not medically necessary just to DNA type the child as being mine. The anonymous source is claiming that there was no medical reason at all to induce the baby early and plenty of reasons not to.”

“I see,” Jake said. “And they’re trying to drag you into this for what reason?”

“They’re asking Johnny crazy questions,” Greg said. “They want to know if I’m going to step in and try to stop the induction. They want to know if I’m going to try to obtain full custody of the baby to keep her incompetent hands off of it.”

“And you’re not going to do any of those things?”

“Of course not!” he said. “My position is unchanged. Mindy made this bed, now she can lay in it. I just don’t want to deal with those reporters and this media circus. I’m holing up in here until this all blows over.”

“Didn’t you say you were going to head up to Coos Bay soon?” Jake asked. His golf course was now complete and would be ready to host its first players on July 20. Greg planned to be the very first golfer to swing a club on the course. And it was intended to be a high-publicity event to serve as advertisement for the posh course.

“I will be there, one way or the other,” he vowed. “I still have a week to figure it out. Maybe this will have died down by then.”

“I doubt that,” Jake opined. “Listen, I have an idea.”

“An idea?”

“I’m flying back to Oceano after rehearsal today. Going to stay the weekend. Come with me. You can see my new plane and then hole up at my house where the reporters can’t get to you. On Sunday morning, I’ll fly you up to Coos Bay and you can hole up there as long as you want.”

Greg thought this over for a few moments and then tried to dismiss it. “It won’t work,” he said. “They’ll just circle your house in their helicopters instead of mine. They’ll just send the mobs to your front door instead of mine. And then they’ll just follow us to Coos Bay.”

“Well, they can’t show up at my front door,” Jake countered. “My property is secured. The most they could do is cluster around the access road where it comes off of the PCH, and I don’t think the SLO sheriff’s department and the highway patrol would be very keen on that.”

“There’s still the helicopters,” Greg said. “Do you really want two or three of those vultures circling over for hours every day.”

“Not really,” Jake admitted, “but I think there’s a way we can avoid that as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“They won’t show up at my house if they don’t know you’re there.”

“How would we keep them from learning that?” Greg asked. “If you pick me up, they’ll just follow us to the airport with their helicopters. Even if they don’t see us fly off, they’ll know I’m with you and they know where you live.”

“Then I should not be the one to pick you up,” Jake said.

“Who is going to pick me up then?” he asked. “A limo? I will still have to fight my way through the horde in order to get inside.”

“How about you drive yourself to the airport, Greg,” Jake said.

“Drive myself?” he asked, as if Jake had suggested that he club a baby seal.

“You do know how to drive, and you do have a car, right?”

“Well ... yes, but ... I still don’t see how that solves the problem. The helicopters will still just follow me.”

“They can only follow you so far,” Jake said. “They can’t fly in the airspace adjacent to the airport. They’ll have to break off when you get close. In fact, if you just take North Hollywood instead of the Golden State, you’ll pass right by Burbank Airport. They’ll have to break off pursuit there and you will likely lose them at that point. They won’t even know you were in the vicinity of Whiteman by the time you get there. And I can have the plane all ready to go as soon as you arrive.”

“Hmmm,” Greg said, pondering this plan. “It would be nice to be able to get out of town without anyone knowing where I’ve gone.”

“All you have to do is leave from your garage,” Jake said. “Just back out onto the street and drive away. That way, none of them will have time to get in their cars to follow you on the surface streets. By the time the helicopters realize they have to break off, you’ll be too far ahead for them to catch up.”

“But what about my car?” he asked next. “Will it be safe at that airport for a week or so?”

“They have security there,” Jake assured him. “And even if something happens to your car, you’re rich. You just buy another one out of the cash in your pocket.”

Another few moments of pondering and then, “I find you make some good points. Let us put the plan into action.”

“Right,” Jake said. “I’ll be heading to Whiteman at 4:00 PM and should be there by 4:15. I will be ready to fly by 5:00. You time your drive so you get to the airport about 4:45. Don’t forget to account for the detour up North Hollywood. That should add another ten minutes or so.”

“Uh ... right,” Greg said. “Ten minutes.” A pause. “So ... what time should I leave here then?”

Greg did not do much of his own driving and was quite inexperienced at estimating travel time.

“It’s a Friday afternoon,” Jake said. “Traffic will be a little thick. You should probably leave your house at about ten minutes to four. If you arrive a little early, it’s no big. If you arrive more than ten or fifteen minutes late, however, things start to get more complicated.”

“Right!” Greg said. “Ten to four. I’ll be there.”

“See you then,” Jake said.

“See you then,” Greg agreed.

The plan went off without a hitch. Greg came quite close to running over two reporters and a videographer when he suddenly backed out of his garage without warning, but they managed to allow their survival instincts to override their reporter instincts at the last second and got out of the way. He drove off rapidly from his Brentwood subdivision, leaving the ground troops scrambling to get to their vehicles. The airborne troops followed him, as predicted, two of the helicopters broadcasting his journey live on their respective stations, breaking into the previous live shot from in front of Covington Medical Center, where they were still camped out and waiting for word on Mindy and her baby. As Jake had promised, the helicopters had to break off when he approached the southern portion of Burbank Airport. The ground troops in their cars were still too far behind to catch a sighting of where he went from there. Greg was able to continue on his journey in relative peace from here, having only to deal with the afternoon traffic of Los Angeles.

Jake watched the pursuit from inside the KVA Studio building along with Pauline, Ted, and Ben Ping.

“This shit reminds me of the day they arrested OJ,” Pauline remarked.

“He’s driving a lot faster than the Bronco was,” Ted pointed out.

By the time he left the studio to drive to Whiteman, Jake already knew that Greg had successfully evaded them as they were now back to the view in front of the medical center and speculating about just where Greg might be going. Since he had been heading in the general direction of the San Fernando Valley, and since Covington Medical Center was located just a bit northwest of the San Fernando Valley, the conjecture was that he was on his way there and they eagerly anticipated his arrival. Some thought he was coming to try to stop the induction. Others thought he was coming to be with Mindy and witness the birth of his child.

Instead, he pulled into the parking lot of Whiteman Airport at 4:46 PM and parked his car in the weekly pay lot, which was automated for arrivals so he did not have to deal with an actual human being who could tell the reporters he had been there. He made his way over to the tarmac in front of the main terminal building, where Jake was in the process of having fifteen hundred pounds of jet fuel pumped into his tanks from the fuel truck. Jake hustled the actor inside the plane before the fueling tech could see him.

“I think you pulled it off,” Jake told him. “Go grab a seat on that couch back there so the fuel guy doesn’t see you through the window.”

“Right,” Greg said, looking around the interior. “Not bad,” he said. “Not quite a Gulfstream, but much better than that other plane of yours.”

“Yep,” Jake agreed, “and you can take a piss if you need to.”

“That’s good to know,” Greg said.

“I didn’t even put you on the manifest as a passenger,” Jake told him. “A violation of FAA regs, true, but it will keep some tower controller from ratting out where you are.”

“Oh, that seems a wise precaution,” Greg said. “Can you get into trouble for that?”

“If it’s discovered, I can just claim it was an oversight and take a little slap on the wrist. I have no previous violations.”

“That’s good,” Greg said.

“The only thing is that if we crash and burn, they’re not going to know it’s you in the plane with me. That could complicate the identification of your remains to some degree.”

Greg looked at him sharply. “Uh ... my remains?”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “But don’t worry. I’ve covered that as well. Elsa and Laura know you’re on the flight with me. I called them earlier and told them to expect you. Pauline knows you’re with me as well. One of them will be able to tell the NTSB who you were and then it’s just a matter of getting hold of your dentist to match his x-rays with the teeth of your corpse.”

“Very comforting,” Greg said.

“I thought so,” Jake said with a smile. “Hang tight. We’ll be in the air in twenty minutes.”

It was actually closer to eighteen. Greg sat in the copilot seat while Jake rolled down the runway and lifted into the air. He turned northwest for home and climbed to eleven thousand feet. Once he was at altitude, he set the autopilot, including the auto-throttle, and settled in.

“It’s a remarkably quiet plane,” Greg observed once he perceived that the sterile cockpit condition was no longer in effect.

“That it is,” Jake agreed. “Having the engines mounted high, in the rear, and facing backwards keeps most of the engine noise from reaching us. Also, there’s pretty good sound insulation built into the fuselage.”

“Definitely a step up from your other plane,” Greg said again.

“And guess what?” Jake asked.

“What?”

“I have the ability to turn off the control inputs from your position. So, if you want to put your hands on the controls and pretend like you’re flying, you go right ahead. You can even make engine noises if you want.”

Greg looked at him and saw him smiling. “I’ll take that under consideration,” he finally said.

Jake chuckled and then took a glance at his instrument panel. Nothing was amiss. He scanned the sky around him, seeing two airliners heading into LA but neither were in a position to be of concern to him. He turned back to the actor. “You look better than the last time I saw you.”

“Do I?”

“You do,” Jake said truthfully. “You don’t look as stressed. Did you get yourself laid?”

“Not yet,” Greg admitted. “But I do feel like I’ve been handling the situation better of late. I’m not drinking as much as I was the last few months and I’ve resumed my workouts. I’ve even gotten some feelers about upcoming auditions. Until today, it seemed my reputation was intact and the press had almost forgotten about me.”

“I wouldn’t think this whole clusterfuck about Mindy being induced will ultimately be damaging to you,” Jake suggested.

“It shouldn’t,” he said. “Still, I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

“Have you talked to Mindy since all the shit hit the fan?”

“Not a word,” he said. “She has been in seclusion and has made no attempts to contact me. Nor have I made any to contact her.”

“I bet she gives the kid a fucked-up name,” Jake prophesized.

“That is not any of my concern,” Greg said.

They flew on in silence for a few minutes, the plane making an automatic course correction as they reached one of the programmed waypoints on the route. When it rolled back to level, Greg finally spoke up.

“So ... you ... uh told me that Celia was there when you picked up the plane from South America?”

Jake nodded. “She met us in Caracas,” he said. “Showed us around for a few days and then we all flew to Barquisimeto and stayed there for a few days. It was cool. Nice place. Kind of reminds me of Heritage in a way. A medium sized city whose purpose for being is the agriculture that surrounds it. A little muggier than Heritage though.”

“You saw her family while you were there?”

“We did,” he said. “Nice, down-to-earth people. Celia stayed with them in their house. Me, Laura, and Suzie stayed in the hotel, but we had dinner with them both nights. I enjoyed talking to them. They seem very concerned about the direction their country is heading in. Inflation is out of control, wages are stagnant, everything costs more, and it all gets worse by the month.”

“Interesting,” Greg said, though he sounded far from interested in Venezuela’s economy.

“They kept talking about some dude named Hugo something-or-other,” Jake added. “They seem to think that if he would just run for the top spot there that he’ll be able to turn things around.”

“I’m sure he will,” Greg said dismissively. “You say that this Suzie, the female pilot, was there with you?”

“She was,” Jake confirmed. “I’m sure you’ve read about Suzie and C being friends. It’s been in all the papers.”

“Yes, I’ve read about it,” Greg said. “They allege that there is a sexual affair going on between the two of them—or at least there was one?”

“That’s the allegation,” Jake agreed. “They got that from Suzie’s former copilot, Njord. He didn’t play well with others and told an elaborate story about Suzie and Celia to an entertainment reporter. The rest is history. The press has been running with it ever since and Njord got fired and will probably never fly passengers again.”

“A perfectly ridiculous story,” Greg scoffed. “I’m amazed that anyone actually takes it seriously. Celia having sex with another woman? Absurd! And then suggesting that Laura is sleeping with female groupies? Even more absurd!”

“Uh ... yeah,” Jake said slowly. “Absurd. That’s what it is.”

Greg did not pick up on the tone of Jake’s voice. That was a good thing. Jake did not want him to ask if the allegations were true or not because he did not want to have to lie to the man. Though he was a much better liar than his wife, it did not mean he did it lightly.

“How is Celia?” Greg asked next. “How is she coping with everything—the divorce, the rumors, the media coverage?”

“She’s doing okay,” Jake said. “She’s been able to throw herself into her work and channel all of the negativity into putting on her performances. It’s a gift she has. It keeps her from having to think too much about what happens next.”

“She was always good at that,” Greg said. He hesitated for a moment and then: “Any ... uh ... romantic interests that she has?”

“She does not share the details of her personal life with me,” Jake answered. “And I have not been out on the road with her much. But, as far as I can determine, there has been no new man in her life since you.” Don’t ask about women in her life though, he thought.

Greg did not. He had already made his opinion on that matter clear. He nodded, trying to look somber but actually sending off a happy vibe that Jake was easily able to pick up. “I am so sorry that I screwed things up with her,” he said. “I told her that in person when we met for the divorce agreement, but if you wouldn’t mind just reiterating it to her the next time you see her?”

“I will,” Jake promised. “And she knows that you’re sorry. She’s sorry too.”

Elsa fed them her famous chicken parmesan, angel hair pasta, and a tossed green salad. They washed it down with a bottle of high-end chianti imported from Italy. They ate ravenously and then retired to the deck to watch the sunset while sipping scotch and smoking Cuban cigars. None of them had watched the television or paid any attention to the news since Jake and Greg had arrived, but Laura had informed them that as of 6:00 PM, when they had arrived from the airport, the biggest questions being asked were: Is Mindy going ahead with the induction despite being condemned as a bad mother? And just where had Greg Oldfellow gone and what was he doing? His trail had grown cold in the vicinity of Burbank Airport. Had he perhaps flown from there to somewhere else? And, if so, where?

Just past nine-thirty, as they were all back in the house and enjoying more scotch, the telephone began to ring. Elsa had already finished her nightly cleanup and had retired to her guest house, so Jake checked the little caller ID box and, seeing that it was Pauline’s number, picked up the phone.

“Hey, Paulie,” he said into it. “What’s up?”

“Have you been watching the news?” she asked him.

“Not since I left the studio,” he said.

“Why don’t you let me talk to Greg for a minute?”

“Uh ... sure,” he said softly. “Is it bad news?”

“That depends on one’s perspective,” she said. “It is not unexpected news, however.”

“Uh ... okay,” he said. He turned to the actor. “It’s Pauline. She wants to talk to you.”

“To me?” he asked, surprised.

“To you,” he confirmed, handing him the handset of the phone.

He took it hesitantly and then put it to his ear. “This is Greg.” He listened, his face souring a little. “She did? It was?” Another pause. “And this is official? Really? Grand? Seriously? Wow.” A shake of the head. “I see. Well ... I suppose that’s good to know. It doesn’t change anything, but I appreciate you letting me know. Okay ... I will. And you do the same. All right. Goodbye.”

He pushed the button to disconnect the handset. He then slowly handed it back to Jake.

“What was that all about?” Laura asked. “Did she have the baby?”

“She did,” Greg said. “Pauline says it was officially announced by Mindy’s agent ten minutes ago. She had a baby boy. Seven pounds, two ounces. Healthy in all respects. A routine induced delivery.”

“Wow,” Laura said. “I honestly didn’t think she would go through with the induction after all the negative media coverage of it.”

“You can’t steer Mindy off a course if she decides she wants to be on it,” Jake said.

“That is very true,” Greg agreed.

“Did she tell you if they know the name?” Laura asked.

“They do,” he said. “She named him Grand, no middle name. She apparently made sure to specify that.”

“Grand?” Laura asked.

“Yes,” Greg said sourly. “Grand Oldfellow.”

They paused and let that sink in for a minute.

“I knew she’d give him a fucked-up name,” Jake finally said.

Pictures of Grand Oldfellow were printed in the LA Times on Sunday morning, the shots released by Georgette, Mindy’s agent, who had reportedly been by her side during the labor, the delivery, and the immediate postpartum period. He looked like a typical baby that had been delivered vaginally, his head somewhat misshapen from having been squeezed through the birth canal, a blue hat on his head, no particular expression on his face. He was neither beautiful nor ugly at this point in his life, though it was plain to see that he shared Greg’s nose and Mindy’s cheeks. There were no pictures of Mindy and no quotes from Mindy other than that she would just like to be left alone to care for her child in privacy. As if that was going to happen.

Speculation remained rampant about just what had happened to Grand’s biological father. Though it was well-established by this point that Greg had no intention of being a part of the child’s life, this did not prevent the various reporters from accusing him of being a bad father. He had not been there for the birth! He had not even offered her congratulations! He was not returning any of their calls or reporting his whereabouts so they could harass him! In their eyes, this last was particularly unacceptable behavior.

About an hour after reading the copy of the Sunday Times that Jake had arranged to have delivered to the mailbox at the front gate of his property—Elsa enjoyed making the hike down each morning to collect it—Jake, Laura and Greg climbed into Jake’s car and made the drive to SLO Regional. It was time to get Greg to Coos Bay. Obie offered to let him stay in his house while he was there—he and Pauline and Tabby were currently staying in LA—and Greg took him up on it, though he did plan to start scoping out a house of his own while he was there.

They lifted off and Jake climbed to his assigned altitude of 34,000 feet. It only took two hours and ten minutes from wheels up to touchdown—more than one hour faster than he could have done it in the Chancellor. Marcie Scanlon, who could be spared from recording duties today because they were still working on the rhythm tracks, picked them up in the van that KVA had purchased for transportation in Oregon.

“Oh my God!” she gushed when she saw who was with Jake and Laura. “Greg Oldfellow!”

“That’s right,” Greg said with a sigh.

“It’s really you! Oh my God! I knew that Jake knows you, but I never thought I would get to meet you!”

“I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance,” Greg said, though he sounded anything but pleased. “Jake has told me a lot about you. And, of course, I really enjoy your music.”

“Thank you!” she said. “Wow. So ... that’s where you’ve been all this time they’ve been wondering what happened to you? Hanging out with Jake and Teach?”

“That’s where he has been,” Jake said. “And we would really like to keep that to ourselves for the time being.”

“Oh ... of course,” she said.

“I don’t really expect that you won’t tell Jim about this,” Jake said. “But we would prefer you don’t mention it to anyone else. And when you do tell Jim, please make sure he understands the need for discretion.”

“I will,” she promised.

Jake instructed Marcie how to get to Obie’s house. They dropped Greg off in front and he went in. The servants had been told to expect him.

“He seems nice,” Marcie commented as they drove away, heading back to the studio.

“He’s just an ordinary guy,” Jake said. He considered these words for a moment and then shook his head. “Scratch that. He’s actually a pompous ass completely out of touch with the common people. But, for all that, he is a nice guy. And he’s in a bad place these days.”

“I know,” she said. “Imagine, not being able to be a part of your own child’s life.”

“Yeah ... I suppose,” Jake allowed.

Once at the studio, Jake turned all business. He immediately pulled Nerdly off of the soundboard and into a private office (very much over Nerdly’s protests. He did not want a single note put down on the hard drive without his personal approval of it). He then asked for a report on their progress so far.

“We are proceeding a little more slowly than expected and over budget,” was the summary.

“What’s the issue?” Jake asked.

“The issue is you,” Nerdly informed him.

“What do you mean?”

“None of us quite realized the depth of your contributions to the Brainwash recordings,” he said. “It is you who comes up with and suggests most of the fine-tuning of the melodies and the blends between melodies and bridges, intros and outros. You are the one who comes up with those subtle nuances that elevate the tunes from good to great. Jim, Marcie and Steph are trying to adapt your techniques, and they are getting better at it, but they simply do not have the experience and the instinct that you do when it comes to fine-tuning a recording.”

Jake was flattered by this news, but also worried. “Are you saying you’re not going to be able to put out a quality recording without me?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Nerdly said. “I’m sure that even without your input, we will produce an aesthetically pleasing master in the end and it will sell well. It’s just that it will not be as good as it could be without your regular contributions.”

“Hmm,” Jake said thoughtfully. “Well ... I can’t do too much about this. I’m committed to the TSF and I do not want to shortchange my efforts to put on a good show in September. Especially not since I’ve already lost two weeks so I could pick up my new plane. And especially not since Matt will be the headliner, playing right after me. I’ll be goddamned if I let that asshole show me up.”

“Oh yes,” Nerdly said. “I heard that Matt is now committed once again. Do you have any information about why he changed his mind?”

Jake shrugged. “None whatsoever,” he said. And this was true. Pauline had not mentioned anything to him about Matt’s compelling reason. He did not even suspect that Pauline might know what it was.

“Maybe he wants to show you up?” Nerdly suggested.

“Maybe,” Jake said. “I don’t know. I don’t really care. I’m just going to put on the best fuckin’ show I can throw together with what I have to work with.”

“That’s what you always do,” Nerdly said. “What we always do.”

“And we’ll do it here too,” Jake said. “I’ll make a point to come up here as much as I can and be involved in the process. Hell, with my new plane it only takes about two hours to fly up here. I can come up on the weekends and review what you’ve been doing, make suggestions.”

“I think that would behoove all of us,” Nerdly said.

Jake nodded. “I aim to behoove,” he said.

Jake and Laura got up at 4:30 AM on Monday morning. Jim Scanlon drove them to North Bend Municipal at 5:15 AM. Jake lifted off from Runway 04 at 6:01 AM, just one minute after the night restriction on outgoing flights was lifted. Nevertheless, the screeching, whining loudness of his plane woke up hundreds of people as he made his climb-out and turned to the south. The airport operations voicemail would record two dozen noise complaints before he was even at cruising altitude.

Laura slept almost the entire flight, nodding off around eleven thousand feet and not waking up again until the sound of the flaps lowering for final approach to Whiteman. They touched down at 8:33 AM and were at the studio at 8:55. Laura drove Jake’s truck to Grenada Hills to sleep some more and then to start getting her affairs in order for her upcoming trip to Europe. Jake put in a full day of rehearsal with his band. They made some good progress.

Mindy Snow and Grand Oldfellow returned to their home that same day. Paparazzi and videographers captured her trip from the hospital lobby into the limousine (with reporters commenting on how Mindy did not even look like a woman who had just given birth) and then news helicopters followed her home, broadcasting the entire trip live, including the zoom-in as the mother and son got out of the limo and walked into the house.

Greg Oldfellow’s whereabouts was still a mystery, still the subject of endless speculation. It was known, however, that he was scheduled to officially open his new golf course in Oregon on the morning of July 20^th—one day before Mindy’s original due date.

The pap staked out the airport for two days before the 20^th, but no one caught so much as a glimpse of him, though they did get some good shots of other celebrities and general rich people arriving in town for the grand opening. The media people were not allowed on the golf course property, but this did not stop them from mobbing the entrance starting at 5:30 AM. They filmed and snapped pictures of every vehicle that arrived for the opening but still never managed to capture Greg’s face since when he did actually arrive, he was in the back of a limo with tinted windows.

There were a gaggle of reporters who were allowed onto the course, but they were mostly sports-oriented, and all had been advised that the subject of Greg Oldfellow’s illegitimate child was off limits.

And so, when the time came, Greg simply appeared outside the clubhouse, dressed fashionably in a pair of expensive slacks, six-hundred-dollar golf shoes, and a polo shirt and hat with the name of the club prominently displayed. He gave a short speech about the club being a lifelong dream of his and then cut a ribbon with a large pair of scissors. He then joined the first foursome to play the course—himself and three of his top investors.

They took to the links and played for the next four hours. Greg beat all of his companions with a scratch 76, thus briefly allowing him to hold the record for the lowest score ever recorded on the course. The fact that his low score was beaten two hours later did not even matter. He was still entitled to having his name inscribed on a plaque above the bar, where it would be there forever.

In his opinion, it had been a good day.