Different Circles

Chapter 2: Wheeling and Dealing

Coos Bay, Oregon

July 4, 1991

North Bend Municipal was the largest airport on the coast of Oregon. Even so, it was not very big and the only commercial passenger service it supported were daily flights to and from Portland. Situated on a peninsula of flat land that protruded out into Coos Bay—the largest natural harbor between San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound—it was just south of the large cantilever bridge where Highway 101 spanned the neck of the bay.

Jake overflew the town of Coos Bay itself and then brought them in for a gentle touchdown on Runway 22 at 11:43 AM. The weather on the Oregon coast was clear and pleasant, with only a light onshore breeze blowing and the temperature sitting nicely at sixty-two degrees. As they stepped out of the plane in the general aviation parking area, everyone took a moment to enjoy the contrast between hot and sticky inland California and where they were now.

No sooner had he secured his aircraft for an overnight stay than Jake heard the high-pitched whine of jet engines approaching. He looked up to see a Lear jet on final approach, its landing gear down, its flaps fully deployed. It touched down on the same runway Jake had just used and then taxied over to park near the GA terminal. The engines shut down and, a moment later, the side door of the aircraft opened. Out stepped Greg Oldfellow, washed up character actor and Celia’s husband. He was dressed in a custom tailored three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase. He was the only passenger on the plane.

Greg looked a little older than he had back when he’d made The Northern Jungle. His hair was a little thinner, his cheeks a bit hollower, his eyes a little more tired. Still, he was an extremely good looking man and, like most professional actors, in fine physical shape thanks to a stringent diet and regular workouts. Though he had no prospects in sight for making more films, he made a point to keep himself in Hollywood form in case something did pop up.

Celia rushed over to him as he emerged. The two of them shared a warm embrace and a lengthy kiss. It was quite obvious they were happy to see each other.

“I missed you,” Greg told her as he touched the side of her face.

“I missed you too,” she said. She then whispered in his ear: “I told you Jake wouldn’t kill us.”

“That’s good to see,” he returned. “Still, I’m much happier knowing you’ll be flying back with me.”

“Fair enough,” she said with a shrug. She did not enjoy flying on a Lear any more than she enjoyed flying in Jake’s plane, or even a commercial jetliner. All of them scared the mierda out of her.

Jake waited until their embrace broke and then headed over himself.

“Good to see you, Greg,” he greeted, holding out his right hand.

“You too, Jake,” Greg returned, shaking with him.

“Nice suit. Do you always fly dressed like that?”

“Only when I’m to attend a business negotiation,” Greg said. He looked Jake up and down, taking in his casual pair of slacks and a button-up short sleeved shirt. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

“That is my plan,” Jake said. “I’m told that Mr. Blake isn’t much for putting on airs.”

Greg nodded thoughtfully. “Hopefully that information is correct,” he said.

“Hopefully,” Jake agreed. “How was the flight in?”

Greg gave a sour look. “A little bumpy and a little cramped. I’m not a big fan of private aviation. I’d much rather fly first class commercial, if given a choice. It’s cheaper, there is more room, and you can actually sit down in the toilets without breaking your kneecaps on the door.”

“I don’t know,” Jake said, thinking of some of the exploits he had enjoyed on private jets in his time. “There is a lot to be said for having the plane to yourself.”

Greg picked up what he was laying down. He nodded appreciably. “I do see where you’re coming from with that. You’ll have to tell me some stories about it over a drink or two.”

Jake laughed. “Deal.”

Greg looked around at his surroundings for a moment. “A quaint little place, I suppose,” he said. “The weather is certainly nice. Where is the limo? Is it running late?”

“There is no limo,” Jake told him. “This entire area only has twenty or thirty thousand people in it. It’s too small to support a limo service.”

“No limo service?” Greg said, shaking his head. “Barbarians. How are we going to get around then?”

“I rented a couple of cars for us.” He pointed over to the terminal parking area, where two 1991 Lexus 400s were parked. “You and Celia can have one, I’ll take Pauline and the Nerdlys in the other.”

“Cars,” Greg said, as if he had never seen such a thing. “I guess that’ll have to do.” He looked at Jake suspiciously. “What about the hotel? Do they have decent lodging in this place?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Jake told him. “I booked us rooms at what is reputed to be the best place in town. It’s right on the bay.”

Greg gave a sigh. “I can’t wait to see it,” he said. There was little enthusiasm in his voice.

Jake thought the Ocean View Hotel and Resort was a pretty good place. Everyone had suites that did indeed enjoy a view of said ocean, and they were nice enough to let the group check in early. Greg, however, sniffed a little when he saw the Presidential Suite he and Celia were to share.

“I suppose it’s adequate,” he commented.

“Quit being such a snob,” Celia told him, slapping at his shoulder.

“I can’t help it,” he returned. “It’s in my makeup.”

They all gathered to have lunch in the hotel’s restaurant. Greg’s mood seemed to improve a bit when he and Celia were recognized by several of the other diners. Two of them even came over to ask for autographs. Neither mentioned his role in The Northern Jungle, which improved his mood even further.

“What are you doing here in Coos Bay?” one of the autograph seekers—a mid-thirties woman with tremendous breasts—asked him.

“Just a little trip to the coast with some friends of ours,” Greg answered, waving toward the friends in question. Jake and Bill went unrecognized.

“That’s cool,” she said, awe still showing in her eyes. “I hope you like our town.”

“It’s a beautiful place so far,” Celia told her.

She made her way back to her table, leaving them to themselves once again. Jake, now that Greg seemed happy, decided the time was right to broach the subject that needed to be broached.

“So ... Greg,” he started. “The rest of us all had a chance to talk about this on the plane coming over here, but maybe we should share some of our thoughts with you.”

“Thoughts about what?” Greg asked.

“About how we’re going to run this negotiation,” Jake said. “You see, this guy Oren owns what is perhaps the most advanced recording studio in the United States right now. It’s a completely digital, fully computerized facility capable of almost immaculate sound reproduction. It is truly state of the art, and we need him to agree to let us use it.”

Greg nodded thoughtfully. “That is my understanding,” he said. “And that is why I’m here. To help you negotiate the use of the facility.”

“Uh ... yeah,” Jake said. “And we appreciate that. I know you have lots of experience negotiating movie contracts and things like that, and that can be helpful to us.”

“Exactly,” he said confidently.

“The thing is, however,” Jake went on, “our information is that Blake will only provide studio time to those he signs to his record label, and even if he did want to sign rock and pop musicians to his label—something we’re inclined to believe he does not want to do—we are independents and plan to stay that way. He’s an obscenely rich man, so financial pressure is not the way to gain ground with him. We need to have a united front and a clear game plan when we go in there to talk to him.”

“Absolutely!” Greg said enthusiastically. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Jake took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “So ... with that in mind,” he said, “I need to point out that we are going in there as a team—a mutually supporting group of people all working for the same goal.”

“Right,” Greg said. “A team.”

“And every team,” Jake went on, “has to have a leader. The leader of our team is Pauline.”

Greg’s eyes flitted over to Pauline for a moment and then back to Jake. “Well ... naturally Pauline is the leader,” he said slowly. “She is the manager of both you and Celia.”

“Exactly,” Jake said. “That means we follow Pauline’s lead and we support her whether we agree with what she is doing or not. I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page with that.”

Greg seemed to sour a bit, but he nodded. “I understand completely,” he said.

Oren Blake II was a large man, standing a full six feet six inches and weighing in at close to two hundred and fifty pounds. He was forty-four years old on the day he met Jake and Celia and their entourage and he looked exactly as he did on his album and CD covers. He sported a full beard and mustache, both of which were speckled with a subtle amount of gray hair. The dark brown hair on his head was long, falling almost down to his shoulders. He was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and a button-up flannel shirt. His jeans were secured by a belt that was closed with a fourteen-karat gold buckle in the shape of the state of Oregon, the beloved locale where he had been born and raised.

OB2, as he was called in the popular media, was to country music what Intemperance had been to rock music, which was to say he was wildly popular among fans of the genre, but more than a little controversial. His father, Oren Blake, had been a popular honky tonk singer back in the fifties and early sixties—a contemporary of Hank Williams, Bob Wills, and Ernest Tubb—who had died in an alcohol related automobile accident just when his career was really starting to take off. His son, who had only been twelve at the time, eventually picked up the reins of the family legacy and ran with them, achieving much more success than the father had ever imagined.

OB2’s music was technically in the category of Outlaw Country, made popular by the likes of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. His version of outlaw, however, made their version seem tame in comparison. Fond of writing songs about alcohol and drug abuse, cheating on one’s spouse or girlfriend, fighting in bars, and, in one memorable song, taking one’s girlfriend to the abortion clinic, he was the only country musician to have earned himself a Tipper sticker on his albums. Several radio corporations actually refused to play his tunes on their stations and OB2 himself had once been arrested for obscenity after a live performance in Memphis—just as Jake had in Cincinnati.

What this all meant, of course, was that his albums and singles sold like mad whenever they were released. It helped considerably that he was an excellent musician with a strong voice perfectly suited for country music vocals. He had also proven to be a shrewd businessman. He had never been subjected to a first-time contract that exploited him horribly as Intemperance and most other new acts in the United States faced. Knowing that his family connection with his father was a valuable tool, he managed to negotiate his first release contract with Mason-Dixon Records out of Nashville for a significant amount of positive revenue and only three option periods. When those first three albums went multi-platinum, and with each spawning two to three multi-platinum single releases, his second contract was even more lucrative and he became a multi-millionaire before the age of thirty.

There had been no third contract for Oren Blake II. He went independent two albums before and produced yet another multi-platinum album that made him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Using that revenue, he founded Blake Family Records, built Blake Studios in his hometown of Coos Bay, and used these assets to sign acts and record albums for up and coming country musicians that caught his eye. So far, four of those he had signed to his label had gone platinum as well. One of them—Jeffery Appalachia—had pulled in a Grammy the previous year and was considered to be the best young country musician of his generation.

Blake Studios was an unassuming building that sat in an unassuming section of Coos Bay. There were no views of the ocean or anything else that was interesting. The building itself was only two stories and looked like a government facility more than anything else. There were only a few windows in the structure and the parking lot was small and surrounded by chain link topped with razor wire. Entrance was accomplished an intercom box before an automatic gate. Blake himself met them at the front door after they had cleared the security checkpoint. His eyes went immediately to Celia, where they looked her up and down unabashedly.

“Celia Valdez!” he greeted. “It is so nice to meet you.” He held out his hand to her.

She gave him a small smile and stepped forward to shake with him. “It’s nice to meet you as well, Mr. Blake,” she said.

“Oh, screw that Mr. Blake shit,” he said. “Call me Obie. That’s the name I answer the most to.” He chuckled. “I’ve certainly been called a lot worse.”

Celia laughed as well. “Haven’t we all?” she asked.

Blake turned to Greg next. “And I have no trouble recognizing you, my friend. Greg Oldfellow, Celia’s husband and actor extraordinaire. How the hell are ya, Greg? May I call you Greg?”

“Uh ... of course,” Greg said, holding out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you as well, uh ... Obie.”

They shook. Obie then asked: “What the fuck was up with that Northern Jungle flick? Why the hell did you ever agree to be in that atrocity? Didn’t you read the fucking script first?”

This threw Greg for a considerable loop. “Uh ... well ... it’s a long story,” he stammered. “Let’s just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Obie nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I know where you’re coming from with that. Same thing I said when I got the fuckin’ Asian clap over in Hong Kong.”

Jake couldn’t help but let a chuckle come out of his mouth. This attracted Obie’s attention. He looked at him for a moment, his eyes probing. Finally, recognition seemed to creep in.

“Hole-ee shit,” Obie said. “Don’t tell me you’re Jake?”

“That’s me,” Jake confirmed. “It’s nice to meet you, Obie.”

“What the hell did you do to yourself, boy?” Obie demanded. “You look like a cross between a fireman and a San Francisco faggot.”

Jake raised his eyebrows a bit. “An interesting description,” he said. “It’s kind of a disguise. I find I can walk around in public without being recognized this way.”

Obie continued to look him up and down. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose you have a point there. How do you get yourself laid if no one recognizes you?”

“The old-fashioned way,” Jake told him. “I have to earn it.”

This seemed to pique Obie’s interest. “Wow,” he said. “Going out and trying to get your weenie wet on your own merits, without being able to use your celebrity status. I haven’t done that in twenty years. Intriguing.” His eyes bored into Jake. “Does it make the conquest more satisfying when you succeed?”

Jake nodded. “Absolutely,” he said.

“Hmm,” Obie said thoughtfully. “Something to think about.” He turned to Bill and Sharon, who were standing just behind Jake. “And you two need no introductions.”

“We don’t?” asked Bill.

“Of course not,” Obie said. “Nerdly and Sharon Archer. You two are rumored to be the best goddamned audio engineering team currently operating in these United States. I am honored to make your acquaintance.”

“Uh ... I was also the piano player for Intemperance, and I’m one fourth owner of KVA Records,” Nerdly said.

“Yes, yes,” Obie said. “That too.” He held out his hand. “Shake with me, Nerdly. It’s an honor to meet you.”

Bill held out his hand and shook.

“And you, Sharon,” Obie said next. “It’s an honor to meet you as well.”

“Uh ... thank you, uh ... Obie,” Sharon said shyly, holding out her hand timidly.

“And,” Jake said, “I know you’ve talked to her on the phone, but let me introduce Pauline Kingsley, my sister and the manager for both myself and Celia.”

Obie then turned his attention to Pauline. He looked her up and down as appreciably as he had done for Celia. “It’s nice to meet you at last, Pauline,” he said. “You never mentioned in our conversations that you had a body that could stop a goddamn express train in its tracks.”

Pauline smiled. “I guess it never came up,” she said. “Thank you for seeing us today. Hopefully we’ll be able to do business together.”

“Perhaps we can,” Obie allowed. “I’ve heard a few tales about you, you know?”

“Have you?” Pauline asked.

“Little tales about how you managed to get a new contract for your brother and his boys a few years back. That would take some shrewd negotiating indeed.”

Pauline gave a little shrug. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Obie,” she told him. “You know that National Records would never renegotiate a first-time contract with a successful band.”

“Oh, they might,” Obie said. “They would have to have a compelling reason though.”

“Perhaps,” Pauline allowed.

Obie smiled. “Come on inside, all. Welcome to Blake Studios. How about we start this little shindig off with a tour?”

To Jake, the studio looked pretty much like every other he had been in, though perhaps a little more modern looking, and with nicer furniture. To the Nerdlys, however, it was a combination tour through the Taj Mahal and Disneyland combined. There were three complete studios on the ground floor of the building. Two of them were in use, but the third was not. Obie took them into the empty studio to show them around.

“The primary setup, as you can see, is essentially the same as in an analog studio,” Obie told them. “This is the control room, naturally, where the engineers and the mixers play.”

The control room was the biggest in the studio and contained most of the electronics. It was semi-circular in shape, with large windows set into the circular half. In the middle of the room was a mixing console full of dials, switches, levers, knobs, and, interestingly, computer terminals, all of which were dark at the moment. It looked more complex than the cockpit of a 747, and arguably was.

Nerdly ran his hand over it in awe, caressing it as if it were Sharon’s naked thighs in the bedroom. “The AudioMaster 9000,” he whispered.

“It’s beautiful,” added Sharon, who seemed afraid to actually touch it. She turned to Pauline. “This is the latest in audio recording technology,” she told her. “It’s completely digital and equipped with a MIDI interface that is hard linked to the DAWs and the input generation equipment. Do you know what that means?”

“Uh ... no,” Pauline said. “Actually, I don’t.”

“It means we could use this equipment to isolate each individual instrument and vocal track perfectly, without so much as a squeak of extraneous sound,” Jake explained. “The digital nature allows the engineer to filter out all but the sound desired, or to mix in other sounds from a MIDI synthesizer.”

Pauline nodded slowly. “And ... that’s good, right?”

“It’s more than good,” Nerdly said. “It’s exactly what we need. The things we could do in here. Laying down the initial tracks would still be an exercise in tedium, but once that is done, the true advantage of digital and MIDI becomes apparent. Overdubs would be nothing. An extra guitar or a violin overlay could be recorded and then custom altered to fit into the section desired. Vocalization overdubs would be much easier as well. We could use this equipment to mix perfect songs, with every audio nuance under our control.”

Obie was smiling. “Your boy knows his audio,” he told Pauline. “That is exactly why I spent so much fucking cabbage equipping this place. Country music is going through a resurgence, some of which I like to think I am responsible for. It gives us a distinct advantage to package our product in the best manner possible. Thus, I seek out and find the best musicians and young talent I can and bring them in here to hone their output like one would polish a diamond.”

“That sounds very lucrative,” Pauline said.

“It is,” Obie assured her. “And for that reason, I’m very selective about who I grant studio time to. I am particular about who I sign to my label, and I’m not in the habit of renting my studio out to those who are not signed with me. It’s a business decision, you see.”

“We see,” Pauline said. “And I will even say that your policy makes perfect sense.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page here, darlin’,” Obie told her.

“But,” Pauline added, “I cannot help but point out that you did invite us here to tour your studio. You must be considering our offer on some level or you would have just told me to fuck off when I contacted you.”

Obie smiled. “Maybe I just wanted to show off,” he suggested.

“Nonsense,” Greg said, speaking for the first time inside the building.

Everyone turned to look at him. Obie raised his eyebrows up. “Nonsense?” he said. “Where I come from—which is here, by the way—that could be construed as a fighting word under these circumstances.”

“Forgive me for speaking plainly,” Greg said. “It seemed that was your favored method of communication. In any case, you did not invite us here just to show off. You’re a businessman, and a busy one at that. Your time is valuable. I hardly think you would waste it just to show off for the sake of showing off. You wanted us to come here and see this studio. There is something you want from us. How about we go sit down somewhere and talk about whatever that might be?”

Jake and Pauline were now glaring at Greg. This was exactly what they were afraid would happen. But Obie did not seem the least bit upset. He was actually chuckling.

“Well, all right then,” he said, clapping Greg on the shoulder nearly hard enough to knock him over. “Why don’t we go upstairs to my office and have ourselves a little jaw?”

Obie’s office was actually quite modest. He had a simple oak desk with a computer terminal and a calendar on it. A plaque on the desk read: THE BUCKS START HERE. On the walls behind him were a series of platinum and gold records, neatly arranged in an aesthetically pleasing pattern. The carpet was plain earth tone. On the wall adjacent to the desk was a small wet bar with a refrigerator. A spread of chairs was arrayed before the desk, six of them. Exactly enough for the guests he had invited up. Jake suspected that was not a coincidence.

“Help yourselves to drinks, everyone,” Obie told them, waving to the bar. “I find these things usually go a lot smoother with a little lubrication.” He then proceeded to drop some ice cubes in a glass and pour himself four or five fingers of Jack Daniels.

Taking that as a command, everyone went over to the bar and poured themselves a little something. Jake, taking Obie’s lead, went with JD on the rocks. Though he hadn’t planned on putting alcohol into his system this early, he figured it was a business decision.

Once the drinks were poured, everyone took their seats. Obie then raised a toast.

“To negotiations,” he said, holding up his glass. “May they be fruitful and profitable for all concerned.”

“Negotiations,” everyone echoed in unison before taking sips of their respective beverages.

Jake felt the smooth whiskey slide down his throat, warming him. He nodded appreciably. Though there certainly was better bourbon in the world, you couldn’t beat the distinctive taste of Jack Daniels.

“All right then,” Obie said. “Let’s begin by me telling you what is not open for negotiation. I will not sign either of one you to my label. Blake Records specializes in country music only and having a rock or a pop act would not be conducive to our image.”

“We understand and agree,” Pauline said. “Both Jake and Celia have had more than enough of record labels. Their overriding desire is to be independent. That is why KVA Records was formed. We are simply looking to rent studio time from you.”

Obie took a thoughtful sip of his drink. “I am not in the business of renting out my studio,” he said. “I believe I mentioned that earlier. There is no profit in it. This studio exists to produce recordings for my label and that is its only reason for being.”

“Are there no exceptions to this rule?” Pauline asked.

“There are exceptions to every rule,” Obie allowed. “And I might be inclined to grant one here, but y’all need to make it worth my while.”

“We are prepared to pay you three hundred dollars an hour for studio time,” Pauline said. “And we would not require the assistance of your sound engineers. We have the Nerdlys for that. All we would need is a techie for basic equipment operations.”

Obie chuckled. “Three hundred an hour?” he said. “That’s where you open negotiations, Pauline? Come now. That’s what an ordinary analog studio would charge you. I would accept nothing less than five hundred an hour with a minimum commitment of two hundred hours, paid in advance.”

Pauline nodded thoughtfully. “That’s pretty steep,” she said. “How about four hundred an hour and a hundred and fifty hours of commitment?”

“How about five hundred an hour and two hundred minimum, paid in advance,” Obie countered. “That part of the deal is non-negotiable.”

“Everything is negotiable,” Pauline said.

“Not that price,” Obie said. “I have what you need and, if I’m not mistaken, you do not have much else in the way of options. I’m kind of sensing that you want to keep these projects secret until you have masters ready. That eliminates all of the major record label studios—even if they would do business with you. That kind of gives me a monopoly, doesn’t it?”

Pauline sighed. “I suppose it does,” she admitted.

“It does,” Obie said. “I am a reasonable man, however. I could have named six or even eight hundred an hour and you would have had no choice but to accept it, right?”

“I don’t know,” Pauline said. “That would be something we would have to talk over.”

“But you don’t have to talk over five hundred an hour and two hundred minimum?”

The six of them looked at each other. They all nodded, even Greg, who was usually the most fastidious about what things cost. Pauline turned back to Obie. “I guess we have a deal,” she said.

Obie was shaking his head. “We do not yet have a deal,” he said. “That was just the negotiation on price for studio time if I do decide to grant it to you. There are several other aspects to this deal I’m proposing.”

“There are?” Pauline asked.

“There are,” Obie said with a smile. “You see, even five hundred an hour and two hundred hours of commitment is paltry compared to what I could make by actually having one of my artists use that studio time for the production of a new album. I would be losing money—an assload of it, in fact—by renting out time to an act I do not receive primary royalties on. In order to agree to something like that, there needs to be something in it for me.”

Greg spoke up before Pauline could. “Why don’t we just cut to the chase here, Obie, and you tell us what you’re after?”

Again, Pauline and Jake shot a glare at the actor, but again, Obie actually seemed to appreciate his candor.

“Very well,” Obie said. “First of all, I’m going to have to ask for royalties on any album you produce in my studio.”

“Royalties for simply renting studio time?” Pauline said.

“That is what the bigs would have asked of you, isn’t it?” he countered.

“Possibly,” Pauline admitted. “We never actually approached them.”

“They would have asked for five percent minimum,” Obie told them. “Trust me on this, y’all, I used National’s studio for my first independent album back when I broke free. They charged me five percent royalties on top of the fuckin forty-two percent royalties they got for distribution and promotion. Now me, I’m a reasonable man, not prone to unrelenting greed...”

“So, your greed does relent at some point?” asked Nerdly.

Obie stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. “That’s pretty fuckin’ good, my friend,” he told him. “Does my greed relent.” He shook his head and laughed a little more, then, suddenly, turned back to serious. “I’ll charge you three percent royalties on all albums and singles produced in my facility in perpetuity, and, the accounting of which will be subject to random and unscheduled audits by a firm of my choosing at my expense whenever and however many times I deem it necessary. This figure and those terms, like my price of studio rental, is non-negotiable.”

Again, Pauline looked at her crew. They all nodded their agreement to her.

“Agreed,” she told Obie. “Do we have a deal now?”

Obie was shaking his head. “Not yet,” he said. “We haven’t negotiated the most important part of the deal yet. All the rest of this shit is just ticky-tack financials that don’t really mean shit when you come right down to it. The most important part is the reason why I didn’t just hang up on your ass when you contacted me, Pauline. Y’all have something I need.”

“And what is that?” Pauline asked.

Obie smiled and looked at the Nerdlys, who were sitting together just to the left of him. “These two,” he said.

“Us?” Bill asked.

“What do you mean?” asked Sharon.

“You two are hot commodity,” Obie told them. “Your skills at the mixing board and with audio engineering are the stuff of fucking legend, my nerdy friends. I want it on my side. Any deal we make will be contingent on the two of you working to train up my techs and my engineers.”

Everyone sat in stunned silence for a few moments. Finally, it was Bill who spoke. “Well ... we are flattered, naturally, Obie, but we have a financial and a time commitment to KVA Records and the production of these two albums. I don’t know how we could possibly commit to entering your employ at any point in the near future.”

“You would not be entering my employ, per se,” Obie told them. “And I understand your prior commitments and obligations. What I want is for my techs and engineers to work closely with you and Sharon while you’re recording these two albums. You see, my guys and gals are not bad at what they do, but they’re not the cream of the crop. They’re mostly young’uns, just out of school, and they lack experience in the industry. I want them to train under fucking masters—and that’s what you two are.”

Sharon and Bill looked at each other, and then at Pauline. Pauline shrugged. “I don’t see any disadvantage to such a relationship,” she finally said, “as long as it is understood that Bill and Sharon are in charge of the engineering.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Obie said. “The masters are supposed to be in charge.”

“Well ... in that case,” Pauline said, “I think we...” She stopped as Obie held up his hand.

“There’s more,” he said.

“There is?” Jake asked.

“There is,” he confirmed. “I’m working on a new album right now, as is Jeff Appalachia. Both are still in the development stages currently, but ... about the time y’all are done recording your albums, we oughta be about ready to start recording ours. I want you two on those projects for me. You agree to that, and, well, I guess we got ourselves a deal.”

“That is a considerable demand for time commitment,” Pauline said.

Obie nodded. “Take it or leave it,” he said. “Those are my terms.”

Another look was passed around. Before anyone could give a nod or a shake of the head, however, Greg spoke up.

“I think we should leave it,” he said bluntly.

This time, Obie was not amused with his candor. Neither was anyone else.

“Now wait a minute...” Jake started.

“Greg!” said Celia.

“Hang on,” said Pauline.

Obie shook his head. “I think my offer was quite generous,” he said. “Charitable even. And it, like everything else we’ve discussed, is not negotiable.”

“Everything is negotiable,” Greg said in a quiet voice, sipping out of his drink. “That is the one hard and fast rule, especially when you are playing from a position of strength.”

“Which y’all most certainly are not,” Obie said. “No negotiation on terms. In fact, I’m about half a cunt hair width away from just kicking y’all the hell out of here and forgetting this whole thing.”

“No no,” Pauline said. “There’s no reason for that. Your terms are...”

“Unacceptable,” Greg said. “That is the word you are looking for. He wants to hijack our engineering team for some unknown length of time of his choosing, just when our efforts will begin to pay off. And he wants to do this without compensation? That is not acceptable!”

“Then we have no deal,” Obie said softly, his eyes glaring into Greg’s.

“Really, Greg,” Pauline said. “I’m going to have to insist that you step out of these negotiations immediately. I am the manager here.”

“You are,” Greg said. “And you are caving to his every demand without a fight. You call that negotiating? I don’t. I call it capitulation. You never let your opponent set the tone as Obie has done here today. The financials you negotiated were bad enough, but letting him kidnap the Nerdlys? That is outrageous, especially when you realize that is what he is really after, what is actually important to him. Negotiate, people! If you won’t do it, I will. After all, I’ve got a million of my own dollars tied up in this shaky venture. I will look out for my interests if you will not.”

Everyone looked at him in stunned silence—everyone except for Obie, who was sizing him up as one poker player did to another.

“May I make a counter proposal?” Greg asked him.

“I’m listening,” Obie said softly.

“The financial terms are as negotiated,” he said. “The royalties, the rental, the auditing, all of that, just as proposed. Those are not unreasonable terms.”

Obie nodded. “Go on.”

“As for the Nerdlys, they will train your teams during the production of the two albums we are here to record. They will do all they can to instill their knowledge and experience to your people. After that, the deal is done. If these albums sell like we’re hoping they will, we’ll be back for second albums within the year. The training can continue at that time.”

Obie chewed his lip for a moment and then took another sip from his drink. He continued to stare at Greg the entire time. Finally, he shook his head. “I want the Nerdlys on my upcoming album at the very least,” he said. “I’m doing some experimental stuff and I want them involved. I’ll drop Appalachia from the proposal.”

Greg thought that over for a moment and then nodded. “That is reasonable,” he said, “if we place a cap on the amount of time you can have them. How about one hundred hours maximum?”

“Two hundred max,” Obie countered.

“One-fifty max,” Greg countered back, “and, of course, you will pay them for their efforts at the standard audio engineer rate plus ten percent.”

“Pay them?” Obie barked. “Are you out of your mind? Pay them for the privilege of me doing y’all a favor?”

“A favor is in the eye of the beholder,” Greg said.

Obie took a deep breath and let it out. “Standard rate only,” he countered.

“Standard plus five,” Greg shot back.

Obie continued to stare. Ten seconds passed. Everyone was now staring in awe, caught up in the drama.

“All right,” Obie said, holding out his hand. “I think we got a deal.”

Greg shook with him. He then turned to Pauline and Jake. “And that is how you do that,” he said smugly.

The next day, just past noon, Jake’s plane was back in the air, heading south toward Santa Monica airport, where it was based. Only Jake and Pauline were aboard for this flight, as Celia and the Nerdlys had all chosen to go back home with Greg aboard his chartered Lear. Jake didn’t blame them. The ride would be faster, more luxurious—there would be an actual bathroom aboard, for instance—and drinks would be served, although it was likely that if everyone else was feeling the way Jake did, there probably wouldn’t be much of that occurring.

Jake and Pauline both were suffering from hangovers of moderate intensity. Obie, after getting a contract drawn up by Pauline (“Put it in plain English that spells out the terms we’ve agreed to,” he had insisted. “Don’t try putting any of that fancy lawyer speak in it. If I have to call my lawyer to interpret it, the deal is off.”) and signed by all participants, had proven himself a generous host. Since it was Fourth of July, he had used his personal limousine and hired driver to take them all out on a tour of his town—which was to say they toured his favorite bars and drank like fish. Everyone in town knew Obie and he was a well-liked figure, partly because of his celebrity status, partly because he donated heavily to town programs such as the library, the hospital, and the high school music program, but mostly because he was a friendly, down to Earth guy who would strike up a conversation with anyone and would usually buy them a drink in the process. By the time they made it to the town waterfront for the impressive fireworks display (said display was also heavily funded by Obie), all of them were roaring drunk. And they had not stopped drinking during the celebration of America’s independence by means of air launched explosives. It had been close to eleven before Jake had finally poured himself into bed.

“All right,” Jake told his sister now as he watched the winding of the altimeter. “We’re past ten thousand feet now. The cockpit is no longer sterile.”

“Bleah,” Pauline said sourly. “If we keep bouncing around like this, this cockpit is going to be seriously unsterile in a minute.”

“It’s the turbulence caused by the onshore wind pushing up over the coastal range,” he told her. “It should smooth out a bit as we get further inland.”

The aircraft took another impressive lurch, making Pauline groan. “Let’s hope so,” she grunted.

They bounced and banged their way onward for a few more minutes, but by the time Jake leveled them off at sixteen thousand feet, the worst of it was indeed behind them. Pauline finally opened her eyes again.

“You doing okay, sis?” Jake asked her.

“I’m not used to drinking like that,” she said. “I should’ve stopped after the second bar.”

“You certainly seemed to be having a good enough time,” he pointed out. “It looks like you and Obie kind of hit it off. Any chance he’ll be joining the Kingsley clan at some point?”

“Yeah,” she said sourly, “like I’m looking to be some horny old goat’s fourth wife—especially since the prenups he makes his women sign are legendary.”

“Oh yeah?” Jake asked.

“Fixed alimony that is negotiated prior to the marriage, paid for a duration of two-thirds the length of the marriage, coupled with an immediate payout of one half of all net salary that Oren Blake II the individual, not the limited liability corporation, made during the course of the marriage. Child support, if any, to be negotiated at the time of the divorce. And, of course, the standard agreement that the undersigned wife will forfeit all of this in the event of infidelity.”

“I’m assuming that clause does not apply to infidelity on Obie’s part,” Jake said. Obie was absolutely notorious for his womanizing, particularly when out on the road.

“That would be a correct assumption,” she confirmed.

Jake nodded appreciably. As far as prenuptial agreements went, that was a good one. He couldn’t imagine having the balls to actually ask a woman to sign something like that. How would you even bring it up? When would you bring it up? Right after you proposed? And what kind of woman would even sign something like that?

“Well, anyway,” Jake said, “I’m glad we were able to come to terms with him. The use of that recording studio is going to make our music shine. And most of all, we can put it all together in reasonable privacy.”

“We’re certainly going to be paying a steep price for it,” she said. “You’ve done the math, I’m assuming? Five hundred an hour times two hundred hours of commitment is a hundred grand, payable in advance. That is not a paltry amount.”

“Oh, it’s going to be more than that,” Jake said. “There’s no way in hell we’ll be able to get two albums laid down and mixed with only two hundred hours of time. Hell, we spent nearly three hundred hours on Lines on the Map alone, and that was when we had Nerdly somewhat reigned in. We’re going to have to release his bonds on these albums.”

Pauline looked at him sharply. “How much time are we talking about?” she asked.

Jake considered for a moment. “Well, the digitization of the studio will cut down somewhat on the mixing time once we get the basic tracks laid down, so maybe it won’t be that bad in the end, but ... well ... I don’t think that two hundred hours per album is an unreasonable estimate.”

“So ... at least two hundred grand just to get masters in hand,” she said. “And then we’ll have to pay Obie three percent royalties on all sales forever.”

“That’s the deal,” Jake said. “You wrote it down yourself, remember?”

“I remember,” she sighed. “And it could’ve been even worse ... if not for Greg.”

Jake chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess we maybe underestimated him a bit?”

“We did,” she conceded. “I was pissed at him when he weighed in like that. I wanted to kill his ass right then and there, but ... he was right. He knew where and how to hit Obie so we could twist things in our favor—as much as things could be twisted in our favor, anyway.”

“We probably should have realized he would be a shrewd operator,” Jake said. “He has spent the past fifteen years negotiating movie contracts, after all. I guess you don’t get to be worth fifty million by being bad at making deals.”

“I suppose not,” she allowed. “I just wish he wouldn’t be so pompous. He drives me crazy with that snobbery sometimes. And when he starts telling me how to manage you and Celia ... that is infuriating. He knows nothing about managing musicians, about producing music. That was why we had to ban him from the goddamn studio, remember?”

“I remember,” Jake said. That had been an awkward and uncomfortable time in their relationship.

“He did a good thing yesterday, Jake, but he also did a bad thing. I can’t have him thinking he can undermine me when it comes to management decisions. I am in charge of the day-to-day operations of KVA Records. Only one person can be in charge. That needs to be made clear to him.”

“I’ll talk to C about the day-to-day things again,” Jake said, “but...” He took a deep breath.

“But what?” Pauline asked.

“Did I ever tell you the story about when we first signed up with Shaver, our so-called manager before you?”

“The guy who screwed you like a Bangkok whore,” she said. “No, you never told me that story.”

“Yeah,” Jake said with a sigh, “that was not the most productive business relationship we’ve ever forged, that’s for sure, but when we first met him, he tried to screw us even worse than what we ended up with. He tried to soak us for thirty percent, claiming that was his standard rate for signing an unknown band.”

“Thirty percent?” Pauline said. “That’s outrageous. Twenty is the industry standard for new bands. Successful established acts can actually get away with ten to fifteen.”

“And we knew that at the time,” Jake said. “Still, we were desperate to get signed and he flat out told us that it was thirty percent or he was going to hit the highway. You see, he saw our potential back then, and he wanted very badly to exploit us for every dime he could squeeze out of us. He ran a bluff on us. Matt—who was our leader at that time—wanted to cave to him. He didn’t want to risk losing our connection to a record contract.”

“But he didn’t cave,” Pauline said. “I remember your actual contract with Shaver was for twenty-one percent.”

“Matt did cave. So did the rest of the guys. I came to the conclusion that Shaver was bluffing us and I stepped up. I defied Shaver, told him I would refuse to sign a contract for anything more than twenty percent. Matt was pissed. He threatened me with violence, but I was right and I held my ground. It was Shaver who caved when he realized he might lose us completely. He held onto that one percentage point over twenty just so he could save face with himself, and I allowed it to stand, but he was the one to cave.”

Pauline looked at her brother, her expression unhappy. “I see the parallel with our situation yesterday,” she told him. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying there is a time and place for someone to step up and make themselves heard, even if they are not in charge. I did it with Shaver, and Greg did it with Obie. In both cases, the ends justified the means. We’ve got a lot of tough negotiations in our future, sis. We’ll need to negotiate with one of the record companies for royalty rates and distribution and promotion terms. We’ll need to negotiate the amount of control we retain over the manner of how our products are released. In all of this, you will remain firmly in charge, but I think maybe it might be a good idea to have an attack dog on a leash sitting in on those negotiations.”

She was clearly not happy with this suggestion, but she was smart enough to see the merits of it. “I suppose you’re right,” she allowed.

“I’ll talk to Celia about getting him to chill on the day to days,” he promised. “But I want him around when we sit down with the suits to talk terms, okay?”

She nodded. “Fair enough,” she replied.

Meanwhile, 610 air miles to the south, Matt Tisdale, former lead guitarist for Intemperance, a man who had once called himself Jake Kingsley’s brother, was suffering from a hangover of his own. He had celebrated the birthday of his country by partying at his two-million-dollar house on the beach just outside the town of San Juan Capistrano. Independence Day had only served as a titular theme of the party. Matt hardly needed to have a reason to throw one his infamous gatherings.

He opened his eyes, wincing at the light streaming in from the picture window is his master bedroom. He was naked and reeked of sexual musk, his head pounding rhythmically with the beat of his heart, his mouth as dry as the Sahara. He turned his head to the right and saw the equally naked body of Kim Kowalski—the former porn star known as Mary Ann Cummings—curled in a fetal position next to him. She was snoring slightly, her respiration deep and regular. Kim pretty much lived in Matt’s house now—she had been for the past year and a half—but she did not live there officially. Matt saw to that. She still owned her own house in Los Angeles, though she rarely visited it these days. He did not even refer to her as his girlfriend, though in some states they would actually be considered common-law spouses. No bitch was ever going to lay claim on Matt Tisdale.

He looked at the clock on the wall, seeing it was just past noon. Christ, he thought, what time did we go to bed? He wasn’t entirely sure. As often happened at one of his parties, his brain stopped recording memories at some point before he actually made it to bed, but he did have a reasonably clear recollection of doing shots of tequila with Kim and some stripper that she had been trying to recruit for a porn production her start-up company—Mary Ann Cummings Productions—was working on. That had been at 4:30 AM. He remembered looking at the clock in the living room. They had been discussing the possibility of a little threesome action to show her what could be expected of her if she agreed to sign on. Had that happened? He didn’t remember having a threesome, but he also didn’t remember not having a threesome.

He looked around the room. There certainly was not a stripper in the bed with Kim, although that was not proof one way or the other. All guests to Matt’s parties were invited with the understanding that they not let the sun rise on them there. Come in, party down, enjoy my hospitality, and then get the fuck out, was the motto that was made quite clear. Sometimes he even printed that on the actual invitations.

He looked to the right, to the nightstand on his side of the bed, and saw three condom wrappers crumpled up there. Ahhh, so there had been a little action up here at some point after 4:30. If he had just been boning Kim by herself, there would have been no condoms involved. Kim was on the pill—the only woman in his life he had ever trusted to actually be on it—and, since she no longer performed as an adult film actress, disease was no longer a worry—at least it wasn’t as long as Matt himself capped his weapon whenever he railed someone who was not Kim, and as long as Kim made sure any weapon other than Matt’s that penetrated her was capped as well. It was an unconventional relationship, but it worked.

I wonder how she was? he thought as he pulled himself out of bed. She was a pretty good looking piece of skank. A pity I can’t remember what we did. Oh well. Life was like that sometimes. Some days you remembered the threesomes, some days you didn’t. Maybe Kim would remember what had happened and would be able to fill him in.

He trudged slowly across the bedroom, heading for the bathroom. He had just celebrated his thirty-second birthday the month before, but a casual observer might have thought him ten years older than that based on appearances. It wasn’t his body that was the issue. On the contrary, he was in pretty good shape. Broad shouldered and standing at five-ten, his arms, though covered with tattoos, were well muscled and powerful looking, his stomach was flat, and his chest, though also covered with tattoos, was equipped with a set of well-defined pectoral muscles. It was his face where those unearned years were apparent. Years of smoking cigarettes, snorting cocaine by the gram, and drinking alcohol like it was water, had taken their toll. There were permanent bags under his eyes, lines and wrinkles forming on his cheeks. Even his hair, which still hung down well below his shoulders, and which he had stopped dying black a few years before, looked tired and used. And it was starting to thin in the front—his forehead growing at the rate of a half-inch or so per year. Sometimes, when he looked in the mirror these days, he had a hard time equating the reflection staring back at him with the way he felt inside.

Who is that old fucker? he would wonder. How in the fuck did he get here? What in the fuck am I doing to myself?

He would handle such epiphanies in typical Matt Tisdale fashion. He simply stopped looking in the mirror so much, particularly when he first awakened after a party.

He employed such a strategy now. He emptied his bladder in the toilet, brushed his teeth, and then stepped into a shower as hot as he could physically stand. He shaved his face in the shower, operating entirely by feel. He then combed out his long hair, got dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a tee shirt that featured the name of an infamous resort in Cabo San Lucas, and put on his shoes and socks, all without so much as a single glance in the mirror.

There would be no epiphanies today.

Kim was still sleeping soundly so he made his way out of the bedroom and into the main part of the house. There was no sign whatsoever that a drunken, cocaine-fueled party with more than thirty guests had finished up its ten-hour run only six hours before. The tables were all clean and dusted, the debris removed, the hardwood floors and the carpets neatly vacuumed and swept, the dishes all cleaned and put away. That would be the work of Carmen, his housekeeper. At sixty-four years old, she was as fastidious about cleanliness as a career navy admiral. She worked tirelessly picking up the messes that Matt and his friends managed to create and she never so much as batted an eye or raised a brow when those messes included cocaine mirrors, used condoms, or even, on occasion, the odd strap-on sex toy. For all this she was paid quite well. Matt compensated her at thirty-six thousand dollars a year, plus room and board, plus a yearly Christmas bonus that was always in the five-digit range. His butler, Charles, and his cook, Louisa, were similarly compensated. Though Matt still harbored an intense hatred for Jake Kingsley and still considered him to be the primary catalyst in the death of Darren Appleman, their former bass player, he had learned much from him in the manner of how one should treat one’s servants.

Matt followed his nose into the kitchen, where Louisa, who always seemed to know just when he was going to get out of bed, was preparing a chili verde omelet for him. She greeted him with her usual ‘buen dia, senor’ and then told him breakfast would be served in three minutes.

“Thanks, hon,” Matt replied. “I hope you’re making it extra spicy today.”

“Indeed,” she said with a smile. She knew that her boss believed that spicy food was a hangover cure—the spicier, the better—and she had seen the condition of the house earlier.

At a small desk in the corner of the kitchen sat Charles, the butler, though he did much more than simply buttle. He was the titular supervisor of the other two servants and the primary accountant of all household finances. He kept track of Matt’s appointments and obligations, making sure to remind him and, when necessary, harass him to make sure they were attended. He arranged for all maintenance on everything that had to do with the house and made sure it was carried out. He was, as Matt often told him, “the most important motherfuckin’ thing in this house after my cock and my Strat.” Though Matt was not finicky about the attire of his servants, Charles would never be seen on-duty in anything less than a pair of dress slacks and a dress shirt with tie. He was dressed as such now, as he tapped away on the IBM computer at his workstation.

“What up, Chuckie?” Matt greeted him as he poured a large glass of fresh squeezed orange juice from a pitcher in the refrigerator.

“Good morning, sir,” Charles returned, not giving any indication how much being called ‘Chuckie’ annoyed him. “I trust you had a good time last night?”

“I’m thinking I did,” Matt said. “I’m pretty sure I scored a little threesome with Kim and a stripper in the wee hours, although I don’t actually remember it.”

“That would be the young lady I called a cab for at six o’clock this morning,” he said dryly. “She did indeed smell as if she might have been participating in such an activity. She told me that I should thank you for your hospitality and that she will be contacting Ms. Kowalski this week regarding the offer that was made.”

“Six o’clock huh?” Matt said thoughtfully. “No wonder I still feel drunk. I probably am.”

“Undoubtedly, sir,” Charles told him. “Would you like me to attempt to reschedule your meeting for today? I know you have a rule regarding business meetings while in a state of intoxication.”

Matt thought this over for a moment and then shook his head. “Naw,” he said. “The meeting is not until three o’clock. I’ll be okay by then. Besides, I really need to talk to that fuckstick, Crow about my album release. If I bow out today, he’ll do everything he can to try to put me off for another week or two. I can’t have that shit.”

“As you wish, sir,” Charles said. “I have the limo scheduled to pick you up at one-fifteen. Traffic should be light today since it is the day after a holiday. I do not anticipate it taking more than one hour and twenty minutes to get to your destination.”

“You the man, Chuckie,” Matt told him, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m gonna need some blow when I get home. How’s the supply?”

“All that you laid out for your guests last night has been consumed,” he said.

“All of it?” Matt asked. “Jesus fucking Christ! That was ten grand worth of premo shit I put out.”

“It would seem your guests enjoyed themselves quite well,” Charles said. “You do still have three grams of Bolivian flake in your safe, as well as four grams of the Peruvian in your bedroom supply.”

“All right,” Matt said, nodding. “Go ahead and bust me out some of the Bolivian and put it in in the bowl in the living room. And have a nice Scotch and Pepsi waiting for me.”

“As you wish, sir,” Charles agreed.

“And you probably oughta start thinking about securing a new supply of blow for entertainment. After all, if this meeting goes as I plan, my album release party is coming up soon, and it’s going to be fucking epic.”

“I will start working on that today,” Charles assured him.

Louisa brought his breakfast over to the table. He thanked her absently and then sat down to eat it. His stomach grumbled at him at first, but soon the spicy chilis and the wonderful texture of her lovingly prepared meat started doing their work. The nausea and dizziness he had been struggling with began to fade—not as quickly as it would have with a few lines of coke, but it was a start.

As soon as he was done eating, Louisa swept the dishes away and carried them to the sink. Since she was in charge of the kitchen, it was she who took care of the day-to-day dishes. By the time Matt returned from his post-meal, post-party bowel movement, the kitchen was back to its sparkling self and Charles was on the phone with one of his connections, arranging for a late morning delivery of six grams of Bolivian cocaine that would be put in the entertainment storage container in Matt’s safe.

The limo picked Matt up exactly on time and delivered him to the front steps of the National Records Building in Hollywood at twenty-two minutes after two. He made his way into the lobby of the building and was greeted by a few tourists who recognized him and wanted his autograph. He signed three or four until someone asked the taboo question.

“Dude,” a long-haired surfer type in his twenties enquired, as Matt raised his pen to sign the piece of paper, “are you and Jake and the rest of Intemperance ever going to get back together?”

“No,” Matt responded, glaring at the surfer with enough venom to make the man take a step backward. He handed the piece of paper back, unsigned. “There is no Intemperance anymore. We are never getting back together. I thought I had made myself clear on that point.”

“Uh ... sorry, dude,” the surfer stammered, absently taking the paper back. “I just thought that ... since ... you know ... you were the greatest fucking band on Earth ... I mean, don’t you owe it to the people?”

“I don’t owe anybody a fucking thing,” Matt said. “Excuse me. I got shit to do.”

With that, he walked away, heading for the elevators. He passed through a security checkpoint without stopping. The guards knew better than to question Matt Tisdale. Three minutes later, he was up on the top floor, standing in the inner office of Steve Crow, his A&R representative for his upcoming album.

“I’m here,” he told the secretary. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Uh ... good afternoon, Mr. Tisdale,” the harried secretary said. “You are still a bit early for your appointment. If you wouldn’t mind having a seat until...”

“What the fuck?” Matt asked her, making no move to take a seat. “Does he got Mikey fucking Garcia in there slurping on his schlong again?”

“Uh ... no,” she said. “Mr. Crow is alone, but...”

“Then let’s get this shit going,” Matt said. “Pick up that fuckin’ phone and tell him I’m here.”

She picked up the phone and told Crow he was there. She seemed quite relieved when she was told to go ahead and send him in.

“Mr. Crow will see you now,” she said.

“Thanks, baby,” he said.

Steve Crow looked no different than the first day Matt had met him. That had been eight years before—God, has it really been that long? Matt pondered—when he replaced Intemperance’s initial A&R rep, Max Acardio, who had gotten a little heavy handed during a dispute about the band doing pre-written material. He still had his hair immaculately styled, his clothing custom fitted, the single gold stud in his right ear, the perpetual sunglasses covering his eyes, and the same untrustworthy grin perpetually on his face. He was a snake, as were pretty much all of National Records’ upper management, but he was the devil that Matt knew, so that was why he had not balked when National assigned him to his solo effort.

“Mattie, my man,” Crow greeted, the grin becoming so wide it looked like his jaw might actually separate. “It’s good to see you. How are they hanging?”

“High and tight,” Matt told him. “The way they always do when I have to visit this fucking place.”

Steve laughed as if that were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “Have a seat,” he invited. “Can I get you something to drink? Or maybe some blow?”

“You know I never take you up on that shit, Crow,” Matt said, planting his butt in the chair. “Why do you always ask?”

“Just trying to be a good host,” Crow said. “Can I get you anything at all?”

“Nothing,” Matt said. “I’m here to talk some business. Shall we skip all the fake-ass preliminaries and just get to the point?”

“No problemo,” he said with a shrug. “What’s on your mind?”

“The album, of course. You fucks have been delaying and delaying the release for months now. I want it on the shelves as soon as possible.”

“Well ... that’s what we want as well, Matt. We are releasing it as soon as possible. It is in the queue for manufacturing as we speak. It’s just that there are higher priority items that need to be produced first.”

“Bullshit,” Matt said angrily. “Don’t try to blow smoke up my fuckin’ ass, Crow. My cheeks are too tight for that shit. We completed that master back in late March. It was supposed to be on the shelves by May, but it’s still sitting in your fucking queue and we haven’t even started talking about putting a tour together. What the fuck is going on here?”

Crow shook his head. “There is no conspiracy going on, Matt,” he said. “We just have a number of projects pending release and our manufacturing capabilities are limited. We have to schedule these things accordingly. And if the release of the album is not imminent, then there is no point working on the tour. Tours, as you’re aware, must coincide with the release of the album.”

“I know how the fuck the system works,” Matt told him. “That’s why I know you sneaking little pricks got some reason for delaying me. I ain’t gonna put up with it. Now tell me what the reason is and we can start talking about how to get around it.”

“There is no reason,” he insisted. “It’s just that...”

“Crow,” Matt interrupted, his eyes boring into him. “Can you just drop the slimeball-record-executive-talking-to-the-fresh-young-talent-we’re-going-to-exploit act for this meeting? I’ve been around the fucking block a few too many times with you ass wipes for that shit to work on me.”

Crow returned his stare for a moment and then sighed. “All right,” he said. “We talk straight.”

“Hopefully straighter than you,” Matt muttered.

“Hey now,” Crow warned.

Matt held up his hand in appeasement—about the closest he could come to apologizing to someone—and then resumed his steely stare. “What’s the deal?” he asked.

“It’s complicated,” Crow said.

“I’m a smart guy,” Matt assured him. “I assure you, I can follow along.”

Crow nodded. “Well ... it primarily has to do with the marketing of your project, the best way to get maximum sales out of it.”

“Marketing?” Matt asked, rolling his eyes. “My shit don’t need no fancy-ass marketing, just basic promotion and saturation airplay of the release cuts on the hard rock stations. It will sell itself.”

Another sigh from Crow. “That’s just the thing, Matt,” he said. “The boys in the marketing department and the promotions department are not quite as confident as you in the potential of the project.”

“Why the fuck not?” Matt asked. “I laid down eight goddamn tracks of some of the best guitar work to ever be recorded in any medium. I put my fuckin’ heart and my fuckin’ soul in that shit and it rocks. There are millions of adoring Matt Tisdale fans in this country and throughout the world that are going to eat that shit up once they hear it. They are going to snatch those albums off the shelves like they’re fuckin’ rubbers in that drug store over on Western Avenue.”

“Uh ... an interesting analogy,” Crow had to admit, “but the thing is ... we ... uh, that is they, feel that the lack of even basic audio engineering on your project will be a detriment to airplay and sales.”

Matt’s face darkened into a scowl. “Again with that overdub shit,” he growled. “Will you motherfuckers ever let that shit drop?”

Overdubs were something that were done on virtually every album produced since the development of the modern recording studio in the mid-twentieth century. It was the practice of adding additional instrument or vocal tracks on top of the basic tunes to enhance the sound of the music for radio airplay and the record consumer. Some bands, like Intemperance, for example, used them minimally (that had always been at Matt’s insistence) and some bands, such as Boston, Queen, or Rush, used them extensively, to the point where it was sometimes difficult to reproduce their finished product live. Matt was a staunch conservative when it came to overdubs. He considered them dishonest—a misrepresentation of the art—and, as such, he had refused to allow any overdubs of any kind on any of the tracks of his album. And as an established artist, he had insisted that his contract give creative control of the recording process to him and him alone. Though everyone from the head of National Records down to the janitor who swept up the mixing room had begged Matt to allow the audio engineers to dictate at least a few enhancements to his work, he was as unmovable as a granite cliff when it came to this issue.

“You’re making a mistake, Matt,” Crow told him. “Those tracks are too harsh for airplay, particularly with the length of them. You don’t have a single cut under six minutes on the whole album.”

“Those tracks are raw!” Matt insisted, for perhaps the thousandth time. “They sound exactly as they do live. And they’re long because of the guitar work. That’s the appeal of them.”

“The length we can work with,” Crow said. “We’re not trying to sell singles of your cuts here—hell, singles have been pretty much going the way of the dodo bird ever since CDs became the primary format anyway—but that rawness, that simplicity of only three instruments and one vocalist...” He shook his head. “ ... that’s what going to hurt us. Station managers aren’t going to like taking up six to eight minutes of airtime that won’t appeal to a broad cross section of their demographic. At least not without some sort of enticement to give your tunes a little kick in the ass.”

“What kind of enticement are you talking about?”

“We need to wait until Intemperance and the members of the group (he saw Matt begin to scowl dangerously)—sorry, former members of the group—are back in the public spotlight a little. That will raise awareness to the point that we can release your album and there will be an intrinsic demand for it, tunes unheard. That will increase sales if you insist on putting the project out as it stands now.”

“What the hell kind of shit are you spouting?” Matt demanded. “Lines On the Map is still in the top ten on the album charts. I get a buttload of letters every week from fans asking me if we’re getting back together, asking me when my solo album is coming out. Every time I run into a fucking reporter from those entertainment rags, I get the same shit from them. I hardly think we’ve faded from the public consciousness.”

“That’s not my point,” Crow said. “They’re still going to be playing Intemperance on the radio forty years from now. You guys will undoubtedly be accepted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the first year you’re eligible.”

“I’m not standing with any of those fuckers at the induction ceremony!” Matt suddenly yelled. “I’m not showing up if any one of those assholes are there!”

Crow held up his hand in appeasement again. “How about we cross that bridge in 2007, Matt? That’s the first time Intemperance will be eligible.”

“That don’t fucking matter,” he insisted stubbornly. “I ain’t never gonna change my mind about that shit. I’ll never stand with those fucks again!”

Crow let out another sigh. “Fair enough,” he acquiesced. “Anyway, my point is that overall popularity does not matter to what we’re discussing here, we’re talking about current projects that bring the band and its former members back into the current public consciousness.”

Matt closed his eyes tightly for a few seconds and then slowly reopened them. He took another deep breath and then said: “Please explain what kind of metaphysical bullshit you’re talking now.”

“It’s simple,” Crow said. “When there are new Intemperance related albums on the chart, when there are new Intemperance related tunes being played on the radio, the public interest in the former Intemperance members becomes part of the current public consciousness instead of the nostalgic-based public consciousness. Interest in any new Intemperance related project will then be automatically increased at that time. That will increase the willingness of radio station managers to play Matt Tisdale solo tracks. That, in turn, will increase distribution of your work and pull in more music consumers who will then buy the album.”

Matt rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Are you talking about that fucking Greatest Hits album you’re planning to release?” he asked in disgust. Since National Records owned the rights to all Intemperance tunes released under their label—which meant all Intemperance tunes that had ever been recorded and released—they had the right to do with them as they pleased. And what they pleased was to continue to make money off of them for as long as they could conceivably get away with it. As such, they were now in the process of putting together a double CD package of all of the band’s most popular songs—an album that would be sold for a wholesale rate of nine dollars and a retail rate of sixteen dollars. There was nothing any of the band members could do about this. It was in the contracts they had signed that the exclusive rights to the songs belonged to National for twenty-five years. Though the band members would be paid royalties on the sales of the album, and had the right to participate in the mixing and arrangement of the album if they wished—none of them wished to do so—they could not prevent the project from going forward.

“It’s due for release late at the end of September,” Crow said. “It’s going to go platinum in a month, guaranteed. Intemperance will be back on the album charts again and the current exposure will begin to climb.”

“Undoubtedly,” Matt said, “but that’s not going to increase airplay of Intemperance tunes. There’s nothing new on that album. You’re just repackaging the shit we already did to profiteer from it.”

“True,” Crow allowed, “but that’s not the only Intemperance related project that is set for release around that time.”

Matt’s face became dangerous again. “Are you talking about the album that motherfucking traitorous ass-sucking mole Coop has been working on?” Of all the former Intemperance members, Matt hated Coop the most. At least Jake and Nerdly and that faggot motherfucking freak Charlie had stuck to their convictions when it had come to voting Darren out of the band—the act that had led directly to his overdose and death (at least in Matt’s mind). Coop had initially had Darren’s back, had been loyal to him and against his removal and had been the standoff vote that kept the issue at a stalemate. But then, because he’d knocked up some twat and had been worried about his precious income, he’d turned his back on his brother and sold him out.

“Veteran will be releasing their debut album about a week after Intemperance’s Greatest Hits is released,” Crow said.

“A bunch of fuckin’ sellout assholes,” Matt spat.

Crow simply shrugged. “Your opinion of them aside, I’m told that their album is quite compelling. It is projected to garner extensive airplay of multiple tracks and to reach multiplatinum status by the end of the year.”

“They’re not even on this label,” Matt said. “Those losers signed with Aristocrat. How the fuck do you know all this shit?”

“We have our sources,” he said mysteriously.

Matt looked at him with open suspicion. “You motherfuckers collaborated on this shit, didn’t you? You got together with some executive cocksuckers over there at Aristocrat and put together this plan to release all these albums in a certain order based on this witch doctor speculation you all have, didn’t you?”

Crow gave a sideways smile and a little shrug. “We do have a certain degree of cooperation with competing labels when there is a mutually beneficial issue at stake,” he said. “This is one of those times. It was felt that releasing Greatest Hits first would enhance the popularity of Veteran’s debut, which would then have the rebound effect of enhancing Greatest Hits even further. Once both of those albums are well into popularity and in the current consciousness, that will be the proper time to release your album and start your tour.”

“That’s fuckin’ bullshit!” Matt shouted, feeling the need to do some violence swelling up inside of him.

“It’s not bullshit,” Crow returned. “Remember who you’re dealing with here, Matt. These decisions were made by industry professionals who have a combined experience of hundreds of years in predicting album success. They are valid.”

“Right,” Matt said. “These would be the same professionals who tried to get us to perform those fucking hacker tunes and cover tunes time and time again? The ones who tried to tell us the tunes we wrote and composed were substandard? We defied you and we got our way, remember? And who is the biggest fucking seller your label has signed in the past twenty years?”

Crow had no choice but to concede this point. “Intemperance,” he said, “by a significant margin, in fact.”

“That’s right,” he said. “And now you’re sitting there trying to tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. You need to release my album immediately. It needs to be out before this Greatest Hits bullshit and before those sellout losers start slinging their pop-rock around. My shit can stand on its own.”

Crow was shaking his head. “The decision has already been made, Matt.”

“Well fucking un-make it!” he yelled.

“I’m sorry,” Crow said. “You’re not going to win this one. We will release your album as it was produced, but it’s going to be released at the time and in the manner of our choosing. That is in your contract, as I’m sure you well know.”

Matt refused to accept this. “You’re fucking cock-blocking me here!” he said. “I want my shit out first. That’s why I busted my ass for sixty fucking hours a week in that studio getting it done!”

“That is not going to happen, Matt,” Crow said. He then gave a shrewd look. “Unless...”

Matt glared at him. “Unless what?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Well, I’m not authorized to actually offer you this, of course, but I have a feeling that if you agreed to go back into the studio and let us engineer those tracks a little more, maybe, just maybe, the big bosses might agree to let your album out first.”

“You’re talking about overdubs again, right?”

Crow nodded. “Overdubs and some professional engineering of the tracks. We’ll put our best people on it, I can guarantee that. You’ll have to bust your ass, of course—two months is not a lot of time—but it would make your album so much more marketable, at least in the eyes of those who make these decisions.”

Matt looked up at the ceiling, angry, frustrated. It always came back to this issue with these fucks. He just wanted to put his music out there in the form that it was intended to be heard in. They wanted to dress it up like a fucking Barbie doll and package it like an aspirin tablet. He opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t sure what, but it was going to make his previous tirades sound like a mother’s praise in comparison—and then an idea suddenly occurred to him. He closed his mouth again, taking a moment to formulate the idea a little further, to quickly polish up a few details, and then ... finally, to ask himself if he actually had the balls to suggest it.

“Matt?” Crow said hopefully. “You look like you’re pondering the thought.”

“I’m pondering all right,” he said. “Tell me something, and don’t bullshit me either. Was what you just suggested part of the plot all along, or did you just come up with that shit on your own?”

“It was not part of the plot all along,” Crow assured him. “When we signed you for this solo album, we knew the potential you held as an artist. We know that there is a significant market for your style of music. We knew you were stubborn on the issue of mixing and overdubs, but we didn’t know you were going to stonewall to the extent you have. We really do want to put a quality Matt Tisdale album out, and we think you have a diamond in the rough with what we’ve got on that master, but it needs to be polished, Matt. If you don’t let us polish it, it’s going to suck hind tit to the other Intemperance projects. That’s the simple fact. What I’m suggesting was never discussed, but I can tell you, I’m pretty sure they’ll accept the offer.”

Matt took him for his word. He was pretty good at reading Crow. Nevertheless, he shook his head. “I can’t accept that offer,” he said. “The music I laid down was meant to be heard as it is. I’m certain of that.” He paused. “But I’m willing to let you prove me wrong.”

Crow looked at him carefully. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“If Next Phase is released before these other atrocities, and if you follow through with even minimal promotion of the project, it will go gold at the very least. That’s five hundred thousand copies sold, regardless of what kind of airplay I get. Do you agree?”

Crow gave a sideways glance and a shrug. “I won’t argue with that figure,” he said. “There are certainly enough Matt Tisdale fans in the United States to sell half a million copies of your album once they know it exists and it’s for sale.”

“All right then,” Matt said. “And if the album was to go gold and no further, would National Records show a profit from that?”

“Of course they would show a profit from a gold album,” he said. “In a contract like yours, the margin between profit and loss is somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter mil, but that’s not the point.”

“I know that’s not the point,” Matt said. “The point is you want to make maximum profits. You’re a business and you have stockholders and all that bullshit. I’ve heard it a thousand times. But what I’m saying is that maybe we can have ourselves a little wager here.”

Crow raised his eyebrows. “A wager?”

“Release my album by the end of the month,” Matt said. “Release it as is and make sure it gets out before Greatest Hits and that traitor Coop’s shit. Promote it to the best of your abilities and see what happens.”

“Okay,” Crow said tiredly. “And what is the wager?”

“If it doesn’t go platinum by the end of the year, I’ll concede that you corporate fucksticks just might have a point about this engineering crap. I’ll allow my next album to be mixed and engineered under the supervision of your best people. I will allow your overdubs and all that other shit.”

Now it was Crow who was giving a look of suspicion. “You’re fucking with me, right?” he asked.

“I’m not fucking with you. I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”

Crow nodded thoughtfully. “An interesting offer,” he said.

“Before we go any further, there will be stipulations.”

“Such as?”

“I still compose the original tunes for that second album. I still retain creative control over the tunes that are put on the album. I still play all guitars on the album. If there’s going to be guitar overdubs on it, I’ll be the one to compose them and put them there. I still handpick any musicians who do bass or drum overdubs. And there will be no instrumental overdubs that represent an instrument that does not exist in the composition. In other words, no fucking synthesizers, no fucking piano, no fucking string sections.”

Crow scratched at his head for a moment. “Are you willing to put this in writing?” he asked.

Matt barked out a laugh. “Putting things in writing is the only way I would do business with you motherfuckers,” he said.

“Fair enough,” Crow said. “I don’t have the authority to agree with this offer, of course.”

“Never thought you did.”

“But I’ll bring it up to Doolittle and the rest of the team. They just might play ball with you on this.”

Two days later, in Los Angeles, Jake pulled his BMW 750 iL into the circular driveway in front of Pauline’s house on the shore of Silver Lake Reservoir. He parked just behind a somewhat battered 1987 Mercedes 500 series that was already there and stepped out, taking a moment to stretch. It was just past noon. The southern California summer air was warm, muggy and smoggy and, as such, he was dressed in a pair of shorts, tattered brown sandals, and a tank top that showed off the tattoos on his upper arms. He walked to the door, an envelope with official looking writing on the front in his hand. He made a quick check of his watch and nodded. Right on time. And the presence of the Mercedes meant the man he had come to see was still here. With a brief smile, he walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

Gloria, Pauline’s housekeeper/cook/butler, opened the door thirty or so seconds later. She had the requisite smile on her face as she saw who the allegedly unannounced visitor was. “Mr. Kingsley!” she greeted. “Welcome. Ms. Kingsley did not tell me you were expected.”

“I wasn’t really expected,” Jake lied. “I was in the neighborhood taking care of some business and thought I’d stop by to drop something off for her.” He held up the envelope. “It’s something for her but it came to the studio by mistake. I thought it might be important.”

“Oh ... I see,” she said, nodding, her words heavily accented. “She is with one of her clients right now. You want me to take to her?”

“That was my plan,” he said, “but it looks like her client is Coop, am I right?”

Her face darkened a little. “I no at liberty to tell others who Ms. Kingsley is meeting with,” she said sternly.

He nodded, actually respecting her discretion. “I understand,” he said, “but I’d know that car anywhere. I even threw up in it once.”

She wasn’t quite sure how to respond this this. “Uh...”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Just slip in and tell Pauline I’m here and ask her if she minds if I pop in for a minute. I haven’t seen Coop in ages. I’d love to say hello to him.”

She still looked doubtful but she allowed him entry. Jake handed her the envelope—which had nothing but a stack of blank pieces of paper inside—and she carried it down the hall toward Pauline’s office.

Jake stayed in the foyer, looking out the living room window at the lake, where a dozen or so pedal boats were cruising around. Interspersed among them were a few wind surfers who were struggling to have any fun out there due to the lack of any significant wind. Two attractive women in shorts and half-tops came jogging by on the running path that circled the reservoir. Jake stopped looking at the watercraft and looked at them instead, giving an appreciative whistle at the bouncing breasts and well-muscled feminine legs. That reminded him that he needed to get laid. It had been well over a week now since he had engaged in “meaningless fornication”, as Nerdly would have put it.

Gloria returned. Her face was much more relaxed now. The envelope was no longer in her hand. “Ms. Kingsley say that she and Mr. Cooper are finished with their business and you may come back.”

“Thanks, Gloria,” he told her, stepping in that direction. “I know the way.”

“Very good, Mr. Kingsley,” she said. “Can I get you anything? Some Corona with lime?”

“No, thank you,” he replied. “I’m not going to be here long.”

“As you wish, sir,” she said.

He walked down a hallway lined with original oil paintings done by a variety of local artists, living and dead. The office door was standing open and he stopped at the threshold, giving a quick knock on the door frame. “Cool to come in?” he asked.

Pauline was sitting behind the desk, a few manila envelopes and file folders sitting next to her computer monitor, all closed. The envelope Jake had just delivered was sitting separately. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse and had her hair down. She gave him a knowing look and invited him inside. “Come on in, Jake,” she said. “We were just finishing up our business.”

John Cooper—aka Coop—former drummer for Intemperance, was sitting in the chair in front of her desk. He looked pretty much the same as he always had: a tall, wiry figure with light skin and a mop of curly blonde hair that poofed out in a near afro form and spilled down onto his shoulders in an unruly glob. His face was still smooth and unlined, despite the years of substance abuse he had participated in and flirted with. He wore a pair of tattered blue jeans and a tank top that showed off his well-muscled drummer’s arms, both of which were fully sleeved in a variety of tattoos. His face had a smile on it as he turned to take in his former bandmate. The smile changed to a look of confusion as he got a good gander at Jake’s new look.

“Jake?” he said carefully. “Is that really you?”

“It’s really me, Coop,” Jake assured him, stepping forward and holding out his hand. “It’s good to see you, brother.”

Coop stood and stepped forward to meet him, slapping his hand into Jake’s with significant force. They shook warmly and then pulled each other into a bro-hug, holding the embrace for a bit longer than the requisite three pats on the back.

When they broke apart, Coop looked him up and down again. “What the fuck did you do to yourself?” he asked him.

“Just got a haircut and grew a ‘stache,” Jake said. “Keeps the ladies from attacking me in public.”

Coop scowled in confusion. “Why would you want that?” he asked.

Jake laughed. “I do have to ask myself that sometimes,” he said. “You’re looking good.”

“Thanks,” Coop said. He reached out and touched the tattoo on Jake’s right arm. “Got yourself some new ink finally, huh? I like it. What is it, Hawaii or some shit like that?”

“South Island of New Zealand,” Jake said, turning so he could see it better. “You see that red dot there?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s where my house is.”

“That’s fuckin’ awesome,” Coop said. “I love the detail.”

“The best goddamn ink slinger in Lyttleton, New Zealand put that on there for me. I insisted on the best.”

Coop nodded. “Good work. I didn’t even know they had tats in New Zealand.”

Jake chuckled. “They got ‘em, all right. Fancy meeting you here. You and Pauline talking some business?”

“Yeah,” Coop said. “We were just going over some of the particulars about that Greatest Hits bullshit that National is putting out. She was telling me how they’re leaning more heavily for the earlier tunes, the ones before we renegotiated our contract. That way they don’t have to pay us as much.”

“Yeah, they’re snakes,” Jake said.

“It’s the way the fuckin’ world works,” Coop said solemnly.

“That’s the God’s truth,” Pauline had to agree.

“How’s the gig with Veteran going?” Jake asked. “Pauline tells me you’re up for release soon.”

“We are,” Coop said. “We just started tour rehearsal last week.” He shrugged. “I’m excited to get back out on the road again, but, you know, it ain’t gonna be the same without you and Matt and Nerdly and ... you know ... Darren.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, feeling a strong tug of nostalgia that almost brought tears to his eyes. “We had some good times out on the road, didn’t we? It was a grind, but goddamn did we party.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Coop agreed. “Remember when we used to have them contests with the groupies? The two by twos and the three by sixes?”

Jake laughed. What Coop was referring to were challenges between the band members regarding how many groupies each could have sex with in one night and how many orgasms they could give themselves and the groupies in question. A two by two, for instance, meant that the band member had to have sex, to completion, with two separate groupies and give each of them one orgasm apiece. A three by six meant that three groupies had to be screwed with each receiving two orgasms of their own. “Who had the record back then?”

“It was toss up,” Coop said, “depending on how you rank them. Matt had a fuckin’ four by four one night but Nerdly pulled off a three by nine. And didn’t you get a two by eight one night?”

“I did that,” Jake agreed. “My fuckin’ abs were sore for a week after.”

Pauline was looking at them with an expression of disgusted amusement. “I am sure I want to have no idea what you two are talking about,” she told them.

“I’m sure you’re right,” Jake agreed with a grin.

“Oh, sorry, Pauline,” Coop said, flushing a little. “I forgot you were a prude.”

She glared at him. “I am not a fucking prude!” she barked. “I just don’t brag about my exploits in mixed company.”

“She’s right you know,” Jake told Coop. “There was this one night in Las Vegas, back when I was banging Mindy Snow, Pauline went with us to the...”

“Jake!” Pauline yelled, blushing furiously.

“Sorry,” Jake said, though he was anything but. If you couldn’t embarrass your own sister, who could you embarrass?

“Hold on a second,” Coop said. “This sounds like a bitchin’ story.”

“Don’t you dare tell it to him,” Pauline warned.

“Sorry, Coop,” Jake said. “The boss has spoken.”

Coop was disappointed. “What a rip,” he said.

Pauline stood up. “Look, guys,” she said. “I hate to cut the little reunion short, but I really have somewhere I need to go.”

“Oh,” Coop said slowly, seemingly taken aback by the abrupt dismissal. “That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I just stopped by for a minute anyway. Just needed to drop that envelope off.” He looked over at Coop. “What do you got going after this? Anything?”

Coop gave a shrug. “I was just gonna go home and fuck off a little, maybe catch a nap and then go out and hit the club tonight to score some pussy.”

“I got nothing happening right now either,” Jake said. “You want to go out and grab a few beers and some tacos? There’s a great Mexican place over on Sunset not very far from here. Cold brew and the best chicken tacos you ever had.”

Coop thought that over for a few seconds and then nodded enthusiastically. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said. “I could go for some tacos right now, and I can always go for some beer. Do they have that Mexican shit that comes in the brown bottle?”

“They got it,” Jake assured him.

“Fuck yeah then. Let’s hit it. Why don’t we take my car and I can drop you off back here when we’re done?”

“Uh ... I can take my own car and you can just follow me,” Jake said.

Coop was shaking his head. “I might get lost, homie,” he said. “You know how I am. I really think we should go in my car so you can direct me ... if you know what I mean.”

“Ahhh,” Jake said, nodding. “I know what you mean.” He looked over at Pauline. “Is it cool with you if I leave my car here for a bit?”

Pauline knew what he meant as well. “No problem at all,” she said. “Have fun, you two.”

Jake nodded at her with a smile. “It’s what we do,” he assured her.

Coop’s car was quite cluttered. The seats were ragged and torn, there were beer cans and empty fast food wrappers all over the back seat, and the interior smelled strongly of both tobacco and marijuana smoke. A pair of slinky pink thong panties hung from the rear-view mirror. Before they even pulled out of Pauline’s driveway, Coop pulled a large joint out of his cigarette pack and handed it over to Jake. “Here you go, bro,” he said. “Fire this fucker up. I gotta get stoned if I’m going to be eating me some tacos.”

The joint was why Coop had insisted on taking one car. Everyone had their favorite vice. Matt’s was cocaine, Jake’s was alcohol, Nerdly’s was theoretical physics, and Coop’s was marijuana. Though he had spent a fair amount of time as a heroin addict back in Intemperance’s first contract days—thanks to Darren, God rest his soul, who introduced him to it—good ganja had always been his first love. And he truly loved smoking out with his friends.

Jake took the joint and lit it with the lighter from his front pocket. He was carrying one today since he had planned all along to have a few beers and that meant he would want to smoke. He took a shallow hit, just barely enough to qualify as one, and then passed the joint to Coop.

“Thanks, brother,” Coop said, sucking noisily and tremendously, causing a flare of bright orange to erupt at the tip of it. Approximately one sixth of the length of the doobie disappeared down his throat in less than ten seconds.

“Good shit, Coop,” Jake squeaked, though he had blown his own hit out almost immediately after sucking it in.

“You gotta love Humboldt County,” Coop squeaked back, passing the smoldering joint back to Jake.

By the time they reached La Familia bar and grille on Sunset—a trip of less than three miles from Pauline’s place—the joint was nothing but a roach sitting in the ashtray among dozens of similar roaches. Jake, despite the fact that he had only taken small hits and held them for only a second or two, was feeling the rush of THC worming through his brain. He hadn’t really wanted to get stoned, but now that it was working on him, he went with it gladly. It had been months since he’d last felt the sensation.

Why do I not do this more often? he found himself wondering. It seemed like there was a good reason, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was now.

La Familia was a hole in the wall place, family run for two generations, exactly the sort of place that Jake tended to seek out in order to spend his food and beer dollar. The lunch crowd was in full force when they walked in, but, since it was a weekday, there were a few tables available. They were led to one near the rear—a few of the patrons giving Coop and his long hair odd looks—and given menus. Jake did not bother opening his.

They ordered beers and Coop asked what was good here.

“Everything is good here,” Jake told him, “but the chicken tacos are one of the best things you’ll ever put in your mouth.”

“Better than Mindy Snow’s pussy?” Coop asked with a grin.

Jake laughed. “Not quite as good as that,” he allowed. “But close.”

Their beers came and they munched on freshly made tortilla chips that were still warm and homemade salsa that had just the perfect amount of bite. By the time the waitress came to take their orders, they had already worked their way through their first beers and most of the bowl of chips. They ordered their tacos along with more beer and chips. The waitress headed off to the kitchen, wondering why the pale hairball who smelled like pot looked so familiar to her.

“Pauline said she gave you a copy of our CD,” Coop said. “Did you give it a listen?”

“I have,” Jake said. “Several times, in fact.”

“What did you think?”

“Good solid tunes,” Jake said. “I think it’s gonna sell a bunch.”

He was telling the truth, but carefully not mentioning his personal opinion. In truth, he found the tunes on Veteran’s debut CD to be more than a little formulistic. They were heavy on electric guitar and synthesizer and pounding drum beats, but with simplistic lyrics that relied heavily on the musical sophistication that had been produced by the veteran musicians. In short, they were more productions than compositions. More tunes that had been finely honed in the recording studio rather than tunes from the heart. They would sell like mad because they would be radio friendly on rock and pop stations both and would be appealing to the musically unsophisticated music consumer—which was to say that eighty or more percent of those who bought rock genre music would like it. The same people who liked acts such as The Beastie Boys and Kiss were going to love Veteran and declare them the up and coming thing. Those who were musically sophisticated, however, were going to pass them off as nothing more than another fad.

“That’s what Tim Jenkins—he’s our A&R guy at Aristocrat—keeps saying as well,” Coop said. “And those of us in the band are already spending our royalty money. We know we’re going to hit big with this shit.”

“How was it working with those guys?” Jake asked. He knew every one of Coop’s bandmates by name and reputation. All of them were former members of bands Jake had listened to and enjoyed in his late teens to early twenties. The only one he had ever actually met, however, was Mike Hamm, the bass player. Hamm had been the bass player for Earthstone prior to their breakup after their last album. Earthstone had been the band that Intemperance had opened for on their first tour—or at least they had opened for them until it became clear that the fans were buying tickets to see Intemperance primarily and National had broken up the tour to send Intemperance out as the headliner. Jake—who had considered Earthstone one of his favorite bands in his formative years—had found Hamm to be an unlikable sort when he actually got to know him. He was an aggressive and confrontational anger ball when he was drunk and coked out, which he had been most of the time out on the road.

“It was all right,” Coop said with a shrug. “Nothing like when we were all together though.”

“No?”

Coop shook his head. “No,” he said. “You thought you and Matt had fucking ego problems with each other? I’m telling you, what you two had wasn’t shit compared to Jerry Hawk and Rob Wilkes. Those two motherfuckers fight like Arabs and fuckin’ Jews over every single goddamn note on every goddamn track. It took us forever to get the tunes locked down and into format. And they don’t listen to me at all, just tell me to shut up and play my fuckin’ drums like they tell me to. Me and Steve—that’s Steve Carl, the keyboardist?”

“I know who Steve Carl is,” Jake said. “He’s a master at the synthesizer.”

“He is,” Coop agreed, “but he’s in the same boat as me. They just want us to shut up and play like we’re told while they measure each other’s fucking dicks. And we’re both so much younger than they are—fucking Hawk and Wilkes are both in their goddamn forties, you know and been playin’ for more than twenty years—that they don’t think we got anything valuable to add.” He shook his head. “It ain’t nothin’ like Intemperance man. When we got together and jammed, fucking everyone’s opinion mattered, we all had input on the tunes. We argued sometimes, hell, a lot near the end, but we always listened, you know what I’m saying?”

Jake nodded. “I know what you’re saying,” he said.

Coop’s good mood seemed to have faded a bit. “That’s what’s up with that,” he said. “I’m glad the composition and recording is over, that’s all I have to say. I’m just looking forward to hitting the road so I can start bagging groupies and getting wasted again.”

Jake brought the subject back around to more pleasant things. They spoke about their early years on the road, reminiscing about their exploits but staying away from the touchier subjects such as the drugs and alcohol before hitting the stage, the heroin addictions, the decline and eventual death of Darren, or the venomous separation from Matt. Their tacos came and they ate them. They drank three more bottles of beer apiece. They smoked cigarettes and blew the smoke out into the room (it would be another eight years before California would ban smoking in restaurants). And they laughed and felt the warmth of old friendship.

Early in the conversation, Coop asked Jake if he was working on anything musically these days and Jake deflected the question. It was easy to do with Coop. You simply had to point out a nice pair of tits or talk about how good a particular variety of cannabis was. After the fourth beer, however, Coop brought the subject up again.

“Seriously, dude,” he said. “How are things with you? I hear Matt’s got a solo album coming out soon. You been working on anything?”

Jake took a slow, long drink of his beer and then set the bottle down on the table. He picked up a chip, dipped it in salsa, and then crunched it up. Only then, did he speak. “I actually am working on something, Coop,” he said, “but we’re kinda trying to keep it quiet.”

“No shit?” Coop said happily. “I thought you might be. I ask Pauline this all the fuckin’ time, but she never gives a straight answer.”

“Pauline’s a good manager,” Jake said.

“Fuckin’ A, she is,” Coop said. “If it weren’t for her, Veteran never woulda made it to the point where we had something to release. She knows when to come in and kick some fuckin’ ass and take names. She can put Hawk and Wilkes right the fuck in their places when she has to and get them to kiss and make up.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “She is good like that.”

“The only piece of advice those assholes ever took from me was to get with your sister as manager instead of that slimeball Shaver. I’m glad they listened to me on that, at least.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, now worried that Coop had actually forgotten what they were supposed to be talking about. “Anyway ... Pauline would be really upset if I were to tell you about our projects.”

“What projects?” Coop asked.

He licked his lip a little. “The ... uh ... projects that I’ve been working on lately? The ones I’m not supposed to talk about?”

Coop’s face lit up. “Oh yeah!” he said. “Those projects. What do you got going, dude? You coming up with some cool shit, or what?”

“Well...” Jake said hesitantly, “like I said, I’m not really supposed to talk about it. Can you keep this quiet?”

“You know it, brother,” he said. “My mouth stays fuckin’ shut when it’s inside information, you know what I’m saying?”

Jake nodded slowly. “I know what you’re saying,” he said. “All right, here goes. The fact is, me, Pauline, Nerdly, and Celia Valdez have put together an independent record company.”

“Celia Valdez?” Coop said, amazed. “That Mexican bitch from La Diferencia? The one whose brother you and Matt got in a fight with that time?”

“That’s the one,” Jake confirmed. “Although she’s from Venezuela, not Mexico. Anyway, she got released from her contract the same time we broke up Intemperance. Her and I kinda got to be friends over the past few years.”

“Oh yeah?” Coop said slyly. “You tappin’ into that shit, brother?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Jake admitted. “We’re just friends. But she is a very talented musician and her voice is probably one of the best in music right now.”

“Yeah,” Coop said, “and she got a set of titties that won’t fucking stop!”

“That too,” Jake agreed. “Anyway, we all got together and we’re working on a couple of solo albums on our label. KVA Records, we call it. We put some material together and we just secured some studio time at Blake Records up in Oregon to start recording in late September.”

“Blake Records? Ain’t that the place owned by that country singer dude?”

“Right,” Jake said. “OB2. We call him Obie. He’s charging us a pretty penny for the studio time, and he gets to kidnap Nerdly and Sharon for a while, but he’s going to let us record there. It’s a completely digital studio.”

“That’s fuckin’ awesome, Jake,” Coop told him. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Jake said. “I’m looking forward to putting something out there. So is Celia.”

“That explains why we couldn’t get Nerdly to help us with the final mix on our album.”

“Yep,” Jake said. “He was working with us.”

“I guess I’ll forgive him for that shit,” Coop said. “But tell me something.”

“What’s that?”

“Did you ever even get a feel of Celia Valdez’s titties?”

Jake shook his head sadly. “Not even a feel,” he said.

Coop dropped Jake back at Pauline’s house a little after three in the afternoon. He was most definitely not within the legal parameters of sobriety for operating a motor vehicle, but he proclaimed himself to be fine.

“It was good catching up with you, Coop,” Jake told him as they shared one last bro-hug in the circular driveway.

“Fuckin’ A, Jake,” Coop told him, seemingly near tears. “It was almost like old times, wasn’t it?”

“Almost,” Jake said.

“Well, I’m gonna hit the fuckin’ road. Go home, take a little nap, then go find me some big fake tittied bitch to bone.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Jake allowed.

Coop climbed back in his car. Just before he drove off, Jake leaned in the driver’s window a little. “Remember,” he said, “that shit about me and Celia and our solo albums ... mum is the word.”

“No problemo,” Coop said, making the my lips are sealed gesture, followed by the throwing away the key gesture.

They promised each other they would get together again soon and then Coop drove off. When his car disappeared from sight, Jake turned and headed, not for his own car, but Pauline’s front door. It opened just as he mounted the steps and Pauline was there, looking at him.

“Well?” she asked.

He gave her a thumbs up. “The rumor that Celia and I are working on a solo album and have rented studio time from Obie should start circulating from Aristocrat Records and spread far and wide from here. I give it a week, maybe less.”

Pauline smiled. “Excellent,” she said. “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

“I’m sure,” Jake assured her. “Slow release of information without any means to verify it or, more importantly, listen to the efforts we’re producing, will generate interest far ahead of the release. You just get your ‘no comments’ ready when they start asking.”

“Armed and ready,” she said.

Jake took a deep breath. “It was good catching up with Coop like that, even if it was to use him as a rumor conduit.”

“He’s a good guy at heart,” Pauline allowed.

“He is,” Jake agreed. “Now then, do you mind if I crash out in your spare bedroom for a bit? I think I need a nap.”