Climbing the Rock

Chapter 9A: Rebellious Souls

July 8, 1983

Los Angeles, California

"Jake, where are you going?" Manny asked as Jake picked up his key ring and headed for the front door. It was 9:25 AM and Manny had just finished cleaning up the mess made from the light breakfast he'd served.

"Out," Jake said simply.

"But you didn't call a limo," Manny said.

"Just taking a little walk, Manny," Jake told him. "Don't worry about it."

"But, Jake, you can't just..."

"Don't worry about making lunch," Jake said as he opened the door. "I'll be eating elsewhere."

He stepped through the door and closed it behind him. He half-expected Manny to come chasing after him, but he didn't. Thank God for small favors.

He rode the elevator down to the lobby and encountered the day-shift doorman as he walked through the doors.

"Are you going somewhere, Mr. Kingsley?" he asked, concerned.

"Yes," Jake said, walking right by him.

"But I wasn't notified," the doorman told him. "There's no limousine out front for you."

"I'll be walking to my destination today."

"Walking?" the doorman said, appalled. "You can't do that!"

Jake turned and looked at him. "I can do whatever I want. I'm an American citizen, remember?"

"Well... yes, but..."

"See you later," Jake said, turning and heading out the door.

"But, Mr. Kingsley," the doorman called after him. The door slid shut, cutting off what came next.

Jake was dressed in a pair of tan shorts and a collared white shirt. He had a baseball cap on his head, sunglasses on his face, and a pair of old tennis shoes on his feet. He began to walk west. As he did so, the doorman — who was being paid one hundred dollars a week to keep an eye on Jake and Bill — got on the phone to Manny, his contact in the chain of command. "Jake just left on foot," he said. "Where is he going?"

"I don't know," Manny replied. "He just walked out of here and didn't tell me anything. I didn't even know he was planning to go out."

"He's up to something," the doorman opined.

"Yes," Manny agreed. "I'd better call Mr. Acardio."

Jake, meanwhile had gone two blocks west. He turned right at the next intersection and there, parked in front of a fire hydrant, was a candy apple red 1983 Porsche 911 convertible. Sitting in the front seat, dressed in white shorts and a sleeveless red blouse, her brunette hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, was Mindy Snow. The dark sunglasses she wore hid her eyes but she sported a huge smile as she saw him approaching. She opened her door and got out, holding out her arms to him for a hug.

"You made it," she said as they embraced.

"Mission successful," he reported, feeling himself flush as he felt her alluring body push against his.

She pulled back and looked him up and down for a minute. "Its good to see you," she said. "I'm glad we were able to get together."

"Me too," he said. And it was very true. They had talked to each other two more times on the telephone since that first conversation and he was finding himself increasingly infatuated with her. For the first time in months he had stopped thinking about Angie whenever he looked at a telephone and had started thinking about her. Today was the first time they had actually been able to arrange to get together. Since neither her agent nor Jake's employers would care too much for them being seen together, they had been forced to resort to secret agent maneuvers in order to have an actual date.

"We'd better get going," Mindy said, looking around. "I think people are starting to take notice of us."

Jake looked around and saw she was right. Several people walking down the sidewalks or sitting on the benches were looking directly at them, whispering to each other, pointing fingers. It would only be a matter of seconds before someone came closer to see if their suspicions — that they were really looking at Jake Kingsley and Mindy Snow — were correct. "Yeah," he said. "Let's hit it."

"Why don't you drive?" Mindy suggested.

Jake shook his head. "It's your car," he said. "And you know the way."

She stepped a little closer to him, so her shoulder was pushed against his. "I'm an old fashioned girl, Jake," she said. "I believe the man should drive. I can tell you the way."

He smiled. "You talked me into it," he said.

He opened the passenger door for her, allowing her to sit, and then walked around to the driver's side and climbed in. He had to adjust the seat back since Mindy was considerably shorter. He then pushed in the clutch, fired up the engine, and listened with satisfaction to its finally engineered purr. He put it in first gear and pulled away from the curb, accelerating rapidly down the one-way street.

"Sweet," he said as he shifted gears. "This a beautiful car."

"It doesn't exactly fit my image," she said, "but I love it so. Get on 110 east and take that to I-5 north. From there, we'll go through the valley and catch Highway 14 out into the boonies."

"I'm on it," he said, changing lanes and getting ready to hit the onramp.

"You're a great driver," she told him as he rocketed onto the freeway and merged into the semi-thick mid-morning traffic.

"I don't get to do it very often these days," he said. "And I've never driven a Porsche before. It's very nice."

"Nothing handles better," she said. "Wait until we get to the windy roads up by my place. You'll really love it then."

"I can't wait," he said.

They drove in companionable silence for a while, just enjoying the smoggy air in their faces, the warmth of the summer morning sun on their backs. Jake took them through the interchange for Interstate 5 and into the San Fernando Valley, putting them in the fast lane and keeping their speed pegged at 75 miles per hour.

"So how are things going with you and your label?" Mindy asked as the traffic began to thin out a little. "Any signs of them giving in yet?"

"Not yet," he replied. "Acardio has called me up a few times, threatening me with everything he can think of to threaten me with. He seems particularly fond of telling me I'll be working as a portable lavatory maintenance technician at various construction sites throughout the greater Los Angeles area."

She laughed. "You have quite a way with words, Jake."

Jake shrugged. "It's a gift, I guess. Anyway, he's been calling up the other band members too, trying to do the old divide and conquer routine. We're all standing firm though."

"Are you?"

"Oh yes," he said. "The guys were willing to put up with the allowances and the assigned housing and the babysitters as long as they got to keep living the lifestyle, but when they wanted us to do those crappy songs, that crossed the line. There's no chink in our armor on this issue."

"You guys take your music very seriously, don't you?"

He nodded. "More seriously than anything else in life," he said.

He took the Highway 14 exit and within minutes the bustling, overcrowded Los Angeles metropolitan area seemed to disappear around them as they headed northwest, into a canyon surrounded on both sides by rugged mountains. After about twenty miles Mindy directed him to turn right on a small, badly maintained, two-lane road. Here, as promised, Jake got to experience the handling of the Porsche as they twisted and turned upwards, into the mountains. His ears began to get stuffy and then popped as the altitude abruptly changed from near sea level to more than three thousand feet. The foliage turned from scrubrush and oaks to pine trees and redwoods. The smell changed from burned hydrocarbons to fresh, mountain-scented air.

"Isn't it beautiful up here?" Mindy asked him as he whisked around a fifteen mile per hour turn at thirty-five.

"It's gorgeous," he said. "You can almost forget that you're only a few miles from nasty old LA."

"It's a long drive into Hollywood but I'm glad to take it," she said. "I can feel my problems slipping away every time I drive home. It's like I leave them down below, you know what I mean?"

"I think I do," he said, smiling as they climbed higher and higher.

They turned off on another two-lane road, drove about two miles, and then pulled into an unmarked single-lane road cut through the thick pine trees. About a quarter mile down this road was a wrought iron gate. Mindy leaned forward and pushed a button on a remote control clipped to the driver's side sun visor. The gate swung slowly open. Jake drove through and it closed behind them.

He drove up to the top of a steep hill and the road made a sharp left. As he negotiated the turn, a large clearing opened up before them. In the midst of this clearing Mindy's house stood. It was a huge tri-level of classic Spanish architecture surrounded by a lush green lawn. Off to the side stood a smaller guest home and what appeared to be a stable.

"Here it is," Mindy said. "Home sweet home."

"Wow," Jake said, taking it in. "That's a nice pad."

"I had it custom built," she said. "I'm more proud of the land though. I own six hundred acres here. My property goes right to the edge of the Angeles National Forest."

"Not bad for a twenty year old," he said.

She shrugged. "It's my summer home," she said. "I keep a place on Molokai for the winter."

He parked the Porsche in a detached six-car garage. Parked in there with it was a Mercedes convertible, a Range Rover, and two horse trailers. They exited the vehicle and stepped out a door on the side of the garage. They walked up a cement path and entered the main house through a side door, which led into the kitchen.

A Hispanic woman of about thirty greeted them. She was dressed in blue jeans and a long T-shirt. She smiled when she saw Mindy enter.

"Carmella, this is Jake Kingsley," Mindy said to her. "The one I told you about."

"Welcome, Mr. Kingsley," Carmella said with a heavy Spanish accent. "I understand you are famous musician. Do you know Carlos?"

"Carlos?" Jake asked.

"Carlos Santana," she said. "He plays the guitar."

"No," Jake said. "I admire his music very much — I've even seen him in concert before — but I've never met him."

"Carlos is great musician," she said.

"I agree," Jake said truthfully.

"Did you enjoy the trip up the hill?"

"Uh... very much," Jake said.

Carmella turned to Mindy. "I have your picnic basket all packed, ma'am," she said. "And I gave it to Eduardo to mount to the saddle."

"Thank you, Carmella," Mindy said. "We'll be heading out soon. Why don't you go help Eduardo get the horses ready and then both of you can have some free time until we get back."

"Thank you, ma'am," Carmella said. She smiled at Jake one last time and then disappeared through the door.

"Your maid?" Jake asked when she was gone.

"Yes, and my cook. Her husband, Eduardo, takes care of the landscaping and the horses. They live in the guest quarters out back."

"Is there any chance they might... you know... tell your agent that we're together?"

She found this amusing. "No," she said. "I hired them myself and they are completely loyal to me. They'd better be for as much as I'm paying them."

"Wow, that's a concept," Jake said. "Servants that are actually loyal to you."

She gave him a tour of her house. It was even more impressive from the inside. She had an actual ballroom on the ground floor, a complete entertainment room, a library, a game room, and four large bedrooms, including a master bedroom of more than a thousand square feet that featured a large balcony that looked out over the mountains.

"I like it," Jake said when the tour was complete.

She shrugged modestly. "It's a far cry from the tract house I grew up in," she said. "Shall we go have our picnic now?"

"You bet."

"How are you at horseback riding?"

"I rode one once when I was a kid," he said.

She laughed. "I guess you'll need a few lessons then, won't you?"

Her stable was very modern, with climate control and automatic feeding and watering mechanisms. It contained eight horses. Two of them had been taken out of their stalls by Eduardo — a mid-thirties Hispanic man in a straw hat. His face was weathered but friendly. His grasp of the English language was almost non-existent. He simply smiled and nodded. If one wished to communicate with him, one had to go through Carmella.

"This is Annabelle," Mindy said, patting the nearer of the two horses. "You'll ride her. She's sweet and gentle."

"Okay," Jake said doubtfully. She was also huge, her massive shoulders nearly at the height of Jake's head.

"And this," Mindy said, walking to the other horse, "is Zarita. She's my pride and joy, aren't you, Zarita?" She patted her butt affectionately and then made a quick check of the picnic basket attached to her saddle.

Mindy thanked the two servants and dismissed them. She then led the two horses outside. "Climb aboard," she told Jake, smiling.

He managed to get into the saddle without too much difficulty. Mindy then climbed aboard her own mare and gave Jake a brief rundown on the command and control systems for operating these particular vehicles. They then started off on their ride, going at an easy walk out behind the back of the house to the large part of the clearing. Here, Mindy had him practice stopping and starting, turning and trotting until she deemed him skilled enough to take to the trail.

"Just follow me," she said, aiming Zarita towards an opening in the foliage at the back end of the clearing. Jake brought Annabelle around and got her moving. They entered a wooded trail that climbed gently before them.

"You don't really have to guide her anymore in this part," Mindy said. "The horses will follow the trail on their own."

And follow they did. They took their passengers through the thick woods, climbing higher and higher into the mountains. To Jake it was quite the novel experience. He was out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by pine trees and the scent of fresh, smog-free air. Squirrels and chipmunks were everywhere. Birds called out from the trees. The occasional deer crossed their path, usually does and fawns but the occasional buck as well. He was in nature, in a square mile of land that did not contain another eight thousand people, as every square mile of the LA urban area did. And no one knew where he was. He had no babysitter with him. There was no phone to ring with an enquiring voice, asking him what he was doing or telling him to go somewhere or threatening him if he didn't record a bunch of crappy music that some sell-out hacker had written. There were no autograph seekers or religious fanatics. The only sounds were the sounds made by the animals.

"I see why you like to come out here, Mindy," he told her. "It's so... so peaceful."

"Yeah," she said dreamily. "It's a little slice of solitude. I paid a lot of money for it, but it's worth it."

They continued on, not talking much, just enjoying the outdoors. Jake found his eyes flitting back and forth from the beauty of the surroundings to the beauty of the girl sitting atop the horse beside him. She almost seemed to glow with an innocent splendor he had encountered in no one he'd met since he started performing live as a musician. She seemed like she had no idea how pretty she was. Her tanned legs were smooth, perfectly formed, with just enough muscling to give them shape. Her breasts jiggled softly beneath her shirt, not too large, not too small, rounded in a way that made men ache to look at them. And her face... it was simply exquisite, a terminally cute, terminally innocent face that conveyed gentle naiveté, wholesomeness, and stubborn purity all at the same time. This was Mindy Snow he was with. He could not get over this. He was riding into the mountains with Mindy Snow.

After about an hour of following various trails, branching left and right, going up hills and down until Jake — a city boy — was thoroughly and completely disoriented, they came to a small clearing about thirty yards across. Here a mountain stream babbled and roiled its way down the side of the mountain.

"We're here," Mindy announced. "My top secret I-want-to-be-alone-place."

"I like it," Jake said, looking around, thinking that this place was about as isolated as it was possible to get within the territorial boundaries of Los Angeles County.

"Of course it's not really mine," she said. "We left my property about a half hour ago. This is National Forest property here."

"As long as they don't mind you using it."

"They haven't complained yet," she said. "In fact, I've never seen another person here in all the times I've been here."

She dismounted and stretched her back a little. Jake climbed down as well — finding it considerably harder than climbing up had been — and felt a definite soreness in his butt and legs. He stretched himself this way and that a few times, trying to work out the stiffness.

"It'll take your bottom a little while to get used to it," Mindy told him as she unstrapped the picnic basket. "Can you get the blanket from the back of your saddle?"

He figured out how to release the straps that held it in place and unfolded it. It was a large, soft cotton blanket, red and white checkered. At Mindy's direction he spread it out on the bank of the stream. While the horses wandered over and began to drink, Mindy opened the picnic basket and pulled out fried chicken, potato salad, corn on the cob, and ice cold sodas. She filled two plates and they began to eat. The food was nothing short of spectacular.

"This is great," Jake said between chomps and chews. "Did your maid make this?"

"Yes," Mindy said. "She's real good at the kinds of food I like — fried chicken, chicken fried steak, gumbo, meatloaf. That's one of the reasons I hired her. Part of my interview process was having the candidates cook for me." She giggled. "I had to do a lot of extra hours with my trainer during that week to keep the pounds off, but it was worth it."

"Wow," Jake said. "You actually interviewed and hired your own servants. I can't get over that."

"I can't get over the fact that your servant was assigned by the record company and that he spies on you. Why don't you fire him if he's not loyal to you?"

He explained to her about their contract and their housing assignment clause and the assigned house staff clause.

"That's horrible," she said, genuinely shocked. "Are all musicians treated this way?"

"Well, I haven't talked to all musicians, obviously. And I doubt that once you reach a certain level that they can treat you that way, but I think that most musicians under their first contract experience pretty much what we're going through. We're so eager to get signed in the beginning we'll agree to damn near anything. And the record companies take horrific advantage of that."

"And you don't have a union or any sort of professional organization to help you?"

"Not that anyone has ever told me about," he said.

"You need one. We have the Screen Actors Guild. They make sure that even extras are paid fairly and treated fairly. And for those of us that do this for a living, we're very well protected and set up. They have health insurance and retirement plans for us. Most important, there's a whole list of exclusions that the movie producers are not allowed to try to put in our contracts."

"What a concept," Jake said sourly.

"Writers have a guild too," she said. "So do cartoonists and stuntmen and theater actors and television actors and even people who make commercials. Why don't musicians have one?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Well somebody should get one going, don't you think?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "I'd vote for it."

They ate in silence for a few minutes, finishing up the last of their food. Jake wiped his face with his napkin and took a drink of his soda. "Does it bother you?" he asked her.

"Does what bother me?"

"That I'm not really rich and powerful? That its all just an illusion?"

She laughed. "You may not be rich, Jake, but I think you're very powerful."

"Oh?"

"Your songs are incredible. They're very moving. You're voice is hypnotic and very... you know..." She blushed furiously. "... sexy. And your lyrics are deep and meaningful. Your song Descent Into Nothing sounded like you wrote it about me, about what it was like to grow up in an adult world like a television studio, about how I felt like I'd been pushed too hard and too fast, that I... I don't know... learned things young that I wasn't meant to know about yet. You captured all of that in three verses and a bridge and then put it all to music. Don't tell me that's not powerful."

Jake was amazed. Mindy knew exactly what the song was about. Exactly. She was one of the few people he had talked to who had actually absorbed the message he had imparted into that song. "Thank you," he stammered.

"Like I said, I'm a fan of yours, Jake. And just because I'm famous myself doesn't mean I'm not in complete awe that I'm actually sitting here with you, talking to you, that the Jake Kingsley actually rode one of my horses out here. I keep wanting to pinch myself to see if I'm just dreaming all of this. I don't care that you don't really have any money. Why should I care about that? I have my own money. Lots of it."

"You're very mature for a twenty year old," he said, looking into her brown eyes again, feeling his infatuation for her deepening into something a little stronger.

She gave him her shy smile. "I went through the descent into nothing," she told him. "Just like you did."

"Yes," he said, "but somehow you came out just as cute and cuddly on the other side, didn't you?"

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "you can look at me and say whether or not I'm cute, so I'll have to take your judgment on that one. But you can't say I'm cuddly until you've actually cuddled me."

"No," he said, "I don't suppose I can. Maybe we should make the experiment?"

"For the sake of verbal accuracy," she said, "I suppose we probably should."

She spun her body around so she was facing away from him. She then scooted backwards, until she was leaning backward against his chest. His arms went around her middle, coming together just below her ribs. Her stomach was unbelievably soft beneath her shirt. Her head lolled back onto his shoulder. She sighed contentedly. "This is nice," she said softly.

"Yes," he said, his mouth suddenly a little dry as he smelled the fresh aroma of her body, as he felt the silky softness of her hair caressing his cheek. "Very nice."

"So?" she asked. "What's the verdict? Am I cuddly?"

"Oh yes," he said. "It has been confirmed. We have cuddly here."

The light in her eyes took on a particular shine and he responded to it. He lowered his face and put his lips to hers. Their first kiss was soft and gentle. So was the second one. She cooed during the third one. During the fourth, his tongue probed out just a little and hers came out to meet it. After that, the rest of the kisses merged into one. Soon they were making out like teenagers in the movie theater. She eventually let him lay her down on the blanket and put himself on one elbow next to her. He rubbed her stomach as they kissed, feeling that rich softness of her abdomen, but when he tried to push his hand beneath her shirt to touch her bare flesh she stopped him.

"We're moving a little fast, Jake," she said somewhat breathlessly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's okay," she said. "I liked your hand on me. It's just that... well... I'm an old fashioned girl. I don't like to jump into things like I'm sure you're used to doing."

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"Don't be sorry," she said, disentangling herself from his embrace. "I like being together with you. We'll have time for moving things along later, won't we?"

"Will we?" he asked.

She leaned down and kissed the tip of his nose. "Do you want to see me again?"

"As much as I can," he assured her.

"And I want to see you again," she said. "So we'll have lots of time for kissing and touching, and... you know... working our way onto other things, won't we?"

He agreed that they probably would. But there was one small problem. "What about your agent?" he asked. Jake knew from their phone conversations that Georgette had all but ordered Mindy to stay as far away from Jake as possible. Even a rumor that she was seeing a scrungy, coke-sniffing, womanizing, Satan worshipping rock musician would derail the sweet and wholesome image that was her trademark and could potentially cost her future parts in future movies.

"That does put a bit of a kink in things, doesn't it?" she pouted. "I wish we could date like everyone else in the world without having to worry about what the public thinks."

By "we", Jake knew, she didn't just mean the two of them, but all celebrities in general. "This is the life we choose," he told her. "And we have to play by its rules, don't we?"

She kissed him again, a soft, lingering kiss, breaking it just short of the tongues coming out. "We'll get together whenever we can," she said. "We'll talk on the phone and meet in secret like spies. And, most important, we'll deny everything if we get caught."

"Should we carry cyanide capsules with us too?" Jake asked.

She could have gotten angry at that comment but she didn't. Instead she gave him another kiss. "Maybe when we get to know each other better."

It was when they were about halfway back to her house, as the horses were working their way down one of the slopes, that she finally asked the question she had so far avoided posing. "Did you really snort cocaine out of a girl's... you know?"

He lied without even thinking about it. "No," he said. "That was Matt's gig. I just got carried along for the ride when the reporter wrote the article."

She nodded, seemingly relieved by his answer. She talked about that particular issue no more.

She dropped him off in the same place she had picked him up. They said their goodbyes and they clasped hands affectionately but they did not hug or kiss. There were too many potential eyes on them. When she drove off he stared after her, watching until she turned the corner and disappeared. He had a smile on his face and a lightness in his soul he hadn't felt in a long time. There was romance in his life, something that had been absent from it for a long time now. He wondered how Matt managed to live without such a thing. Was it because he'd never experienced it?

He pondered this thought as he walked back to his building. A different doorman was on duty when he went through the entryway but he had apparently been briefed on Jake's AWOL status.

"Mr. Kingsley," he said. "Where have you been? We were worried about you."

"We?" Jake asked.

"Us on the staff," he said. "It's not like you to disappear on foot like that."

"Yeah? Well you'll have to get used to it, I'm afraid. It's going to be happening a lot."

"But, Mr. Kingsley," he said. "How will..."

"Here's a thought," Jake said. "How about you and your colleagues do this thing my mom taught me... oh... about kindergarten age or so."

"What's that?"

"It's called minding your own business," Jake said. "It's real easy if you try."

Jake continued into the building and went directly to the elevators. He pushed the call button. While he was waiting for the car to arrive he could see the doorman was already on the phone.

The lines of communication worked quickly. When he walked into his condo three minutes later, Manny was standing inside the doorway, waiting for him. He had the phone already in his hands. "It's Mr. Acardio," he said, handing the phone to Jake.

Jake took it and put it to his ear. "Wassup, Maxie?" he asked.

"Jake!" Acardio barked. "Do you know what time it is?"

Jake looked at his watch. "It's four twenty-eight," he said. With that, he hung up the phone and handed it back to Manny. "Here you go," he told the manservant/spy. "Can you mix me up a rum and coke? I think I'd like a stiff drink to relax with after this most interesting day."

Manny's eyes were wide with shock. "Jake, you hung up on Mr. Acardio!" He said this in the same tone a Christian would use when describing a particularly grotesque blasphemy.

"Yep," Jake said. "I sure did. So, how about that drink?"

The phone began to ring again.

"You get the phone," Jake said. "I'll mix my own drink."

"Jake," Manny hissed. "You're behaving like a buffoon."

Jake ignored him and walked over to the bar. He took out a water glass and filled it with ice. Before he could even select his rum, Manny came in, holding out the phone to him again.

"Mr. Acardio insists on talking to you," he said.

Jake sighed. "Just a sec," he said. "Let me get my drink going first."

And despite Manny's frantic gestures and whispers, Jake went about the task of constructing the perfect rum and coke. He took out two bottles of rum, opened them, and smelled each one. He thought it over for a few seconds, smelled them again, and then chose the Jamaican import. He used a shot glass and carefully measured out three individual ounces of the rum, one by one. He poured each over the ice in his glass. He added coke from the sprayer installed in the bar, waited for the bubbles to settle, and then added some more. He stirred slowly and carefully with a stainless steel stirrer. He had a sip and decided it wasn't strong enough so he poured another half shot into the shot glass, poured that into his glass, and then spent a bit stirring again. He tasted it once more and then nodded his approval. Only then did he take the phone from Manny's hand and put it back to his ear.

He looked at his watch again. "It's four thirty-one now, Max," he said. "Did you know that there's a number you can call that's specifically dedicated to time-telling?"

Acardio was infuriated. "You watch how you talk to me, you ungrateful punk! How dare you hang up on me! You'd be nothing without me. Nothing! You'd still be playing for those banjo strumming hicks in that dreadful club in Heritage!"

"Uh huh," Jake said. "And strangely enough, I'd be making more money than I am now, wouldn't I?"

Acardio stammered for a moment, obviously unsure how to answer that one. Finally, he just changed the subject to the one he really wanted to discuss. "Where have you been all day, Jake?"

"Out," Jake said.

"That's not good enough," Acardio told him. "You sneak out of your condo, take off on foot without telling anyone where you're going, and then don't come back for seven hours? I'm afraid 'out' isn't going to cut it. Where were you, who were you with, and what were you doing?"

"None of that is any of your business, Max," Jake said calmly.

"Anything you do is my business," Acardio told him. "We can't allow you to just go wandering around the city wherever and whenever you please. Anything could happen to you!"

"Your concern is touching," Jake replied. "But you and your babysitters and your spies down in the lobby are just going to have to get used to it. I will be coming and going as I please from now on."

"You can't do that!" Acardio yelled.

"Sure I can. I believe we abolished slavery and indentured servitude a few years back, didn't we?"

"Your contract..."

"Doesn't say shit about me having to ask your permission to go out or about having to get your approval to see any particular person."

"That may be true," Acardio said, "but it doesn't say we have to give you a spending allowance either. That is completely at our discretion. If you do not abide by the rules we set down I will cut off your allowance."

"Do what you need to do, Max," Jake told him. "But since you're planning to declare a breach of contract anyway, that's not really much of a threat now, is it?"

"Jake," Acardio said, "you know as well as I do that you're not going to let us file a breach of contract on you. You're not going to give up this lifestyle we're allowing you to live for a life of poverty and misery. We've been over this before. You're not fooling us. We're calling your bluff."

"We're not bluffing, Max," Jake said. "I would have thought you'd realized that by now. All five of us are quite prepared to go down with the ship before we play any of that shit you call music."

"Listen, Jake," Acardio said. "You've had your little rebellion against our authority, okay? We've been treating you with kid gloves through it but it's getting old. Don't make us get nasty with you."

Jake sighed. "You know something, Max," he said. "I was in a really good mood when I came in my house just now, the best mood I've been in in years. That mood is starting to fade a little and this conversation is directly responsible for that."

"You need to face reality, Jake," Acardio said.

"So anyway," Jake continued, ignoring the interruption, "before my mood fades even further, I'm going to end this conversation. Call me back when you're ready to talk about which three of our songs you want to record."

"Jake, I'm warning you..."

"And cut off my allowance if you think you need to," he added. "It'll probably do me some good to stay home at night more.

"Jake!" Acardio yelled. There might have been more but Jake didn't hear it because he hung up the phone again.

"Jake," said Manny, who had been hovering nearby during the entire exchange, "I think you're making a big mistake. Nobody talks to Mr. Acardio that way."

Jake looked at him with contempt. "When I want advice from you, Manny, I'll ask for it. In the meantime, I'm accepting no calls from Acardio unless he tells you they've given in. Do you understand?"

"I can't refuse to..."

"Look, Manny," Jake told him. "I just had one of the best days of my entire life, you dig? And I refuse to have it spoiled. I refuse. Now I understand where you're coming from. You're an employee of Acardio and National Records."

"No, Jake," he said. "I'm not. I'm..."

"Let's not play games," Jake said. "You're an ass-sucking mole planted here by Acardio to keep an eye on me and babysit me. I've known that since the first day. I'm not stupid, okay? And while I can never respect you for what you do, I can at least understand your position. I'm sorry I'm forcing you to be in the middle of this dispute between myself and the executives at National Records, but it's the life you chose and you're going to have to deal with it. When he calls back you need to ask him if he's given in to our demands in full. If the answer is anything but yes, I will not talk to him. Period."

The phone began to ring.

"You'd better get that," Jake said. "In the meantime, I'm going to go out on the balcony, drink my drink, smoke a few cigarettes, and reflect upon my day."

And with that, he took his drink, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and walked across the room to the balcony door. He stepped outside and sat in his favorite chair. He stared out at the smog choked downtown buildings and sipped rum and coke. Manny did not disturb him.

Eighteen hours later, Jake and Matt stepped out of limousine in front of the National Records building. They had been summoned to a meeting though told nothing about what the subject of it would be. Jake knew, however, that it could be only one of two things. They were either giving in, or they were announcing an official breach of contract.

"How was your date with the little cutesy actress?" Matt asked as they waited for the elevator.

"It was good," he said. "Very good. But my ass is so sore right now I can barely sit down."

"Your ass is sore?" Matt asked, interested. "What kind of kinky-ass shit were you doing with her?"

"It's from the horseback riding," he said. "She owns this huge piece of property up near the Angeles National Forest. We rode for a couple of hours and had a picnic."

"A picnic?" Matt asked, as if he'd never heard of such a thing.

"Yeah, by a stream. It was nice."

"It was nice?" Matt said. "What the hell does that mean? Did you nail her, or what?"

"I kissed her," Jake said.

"On her pussy?"

"On her lips."

"And then what?"

"And then we rode back to her house. Like I said, it was nice."

"You didn't bang her?" Matt asked, appalled.

"No, I didn't bang her. We had a picnic, we kissed a little, and I came home."

Matt shook his head in disbelief. "I thought you said you had a good time."

Jake chuckled, not bothering to explain any further. Matt simply wouldn't get it. Instead, he turned the subject over to more serious matters. "What's your guess," he asked him. "Are they caving or not?"

Matt shrugged. "At this point I'd just be glad if they made a decision of some sort. I'm tired of having these fucks call me up and threaten me all the time."

In the end, it turned out to be almost anti-climatic. They were led into the office of James Doolittle, the head of National's A&R department, a man they had never met before in person but that both had talked to on the phone several times during the crisis over Matt's refusal to play anything but his Strat onstage.

"It's good to meet you boys at last," he said as they sat down in chairs before his large desk. He was a short man in his mid-forties, his graying hair neatly styled, his clothing a power-suit right out of Dress for Success.

They shook with him but did not return the sentiment that it was good to meet with him at last. Instead, Matt got right to the point.

"If you brought us in here to threaten us some more, we'll just leave now. We're not bluffing and we're not giving in on this. We will not perform any song we haven't written."

"I understand completely," Doolittle said.

"Oh you do, do you?" Matt asked.

"Yes," he said. "I do."

They waited for the punch line. Apparently, however, there wasn't one.

"You guys are artists," he said. "It's understandable that you're unwilling to compromise your art for strict commercialism. I get where you're coming from and I respect you for it."

"But... ?" Jake asked.

Doolittle shook his head. "No buts here," he said. "As of today, I've removed Max Acardio from his position as your Artist and Repertoire rep. He will be reassigned to work with some of our other bands. From this point on, Steve Crow will be your rep from the A&R department. Steve's a little younger than Max, but he is a little more up on current trends in hard rock. I think he'll be able to work a little more harmoniously with you on this second album."

"Replacing our rep is not going to change anything," Jake said. "If he's just going to try to get us to record other people's music then we're still at square one here."

"He's not going to try to get you to record anything you don't want to," Doolittle told them. "It's obvious that you have very strong feelings about that. Now personally, I think those songs our writers came up for you would have been phenomenal had they been recorded but I would never force any of my artists to do things against their will. I only wish Max would have come to me with this problem earlier and we could have resolved it before so much bad blood developed between you all."

"Wait a fuckin' minute here," Matt said, leaning forward. "Are you saying you're not going to try to get us to record those shitty songs?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Doolittle said. "Steve has your preliminary recording and has been going over it since yesterday. He'll help you decide which of those songs to record in place of the three by our in-house writers that you've rejected. The important thing here is that we get you boys into the studio as soon as we can. We want that next album ready for release when Descent starts to fall off the charts."

Jake and Matt looked at each other, sharing a bit of telepathic communication. They turned back to Doolittle.

"Okay," Jake said. "If that's the way you want it, then we'll get to work."

"That's the way we want it," Doolittle told them. "Steve's office is on the sixteenth floor. I'll have my secretary let him know you're on the way. Matt, why don't you head over there now, meet him, and get the wheels turning."

"What about Jake?" Matt asked.

"He'll be along in a minute or two. I'd just like to have a word with him about another matter first."

Another look was shared between the two musicians. Jake gave an almost imperceptible nod. Matt returned it and walked out the door.

"I suppose you know what this is about," Doolittle said as soon as the door clicked shut.

"I suppose I do," Jake said. "And I'm standing firm on this as well. I will come and go from my condo as I please. I am not an inmate, I am not a slave, and I refuse to be treated like property."

"We're just trying to look out for your safety, Jake. Max may have been a bit over the top in his response to you, but that was all he was doing. You're a famous person and you're also controversial. There is a real danger of you getting hurt when you go off on your own like that."

"Well, that's a chance I'll just have to take," Jake said. "Cut my allowance off if you need to, but it doesn't matter. When I want to go out, I will go out and I will go out where I want to go and it's none of your business, or anyone else's business, where I'm going or what I'm doing."

Doolittle sighed. "Jake, I appreciate where you coming from with this, really I do. But the fact of the matter is that you've got a history of unauthorized performances of music in violation of your contract. That is one concern."

"Unauthorized performances, huh?" Jake said. "That would be the time I played my guitar and sang for some of the employees of the restaurant I was working at. I still think calling that an unauthorized performance was a bit much, but I was told not to do it again and I didn't do it again. And I'm not going out and performing concerts behind your back now. I think you probably know that. Don't you suppose you might've heard about it if I were?"

"Nevertheless," Doolittle said. "We have a vested interest in keeping you safe and in knowing your whereabouts."

"I'm a big boy," Jake told him. "I can take care of myself."

"I'm sure you can, Jake," he said. "But what harm does it do to let us know where you're going and what you're doing? If you're not doing anything contrary to your contract, why should you mind letting us keep tabs on you?"

Jake looked up at the ceiling for a moment, taking some deep breaths. He then looked around the room and locked his eyes on an expensive leather briefcase sitting on a table behind Doolittle's desk. "Is that your briefcase?" he asked.

Doolittle looked back at it. "Uh... yes it is."

"Can you bring it over here for a minute?"

"Why?"

"I want you to open it up for me so I can look through it."

"What?" Doolittle said.

"You don't have anything illegal in there, do you?" Jake asked him.

"No, of course not, but..."

"If you don't have anything contrary to the law in there, then why should you mind me looking through it?"

Doolittle sighed. "That's not the same as what we're asking you to do, Jake."

"I know," he said. "What you're asking me to do is even worse. I just want to look through your papers. You want to stick your nose into my private life. That is offensive me to me, Doolittle. Very offensive. And I will not allow it. Now you can accept that or you can not accept that, but that's the way it's going to be."

Doolittle seemed about to say something else but didn't. He raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, Jake," he said. "Have it your way."

It seemed he'd given in too easily. But Jake didn't press the issue. He simply said his goodbyes and left the room.