Standing On Top

Chapter 4a

National Records Building, Los Angeles

June 16, 1987

The argument had been going on for more than thirty minutes now with Matt holding firm to one extreme, Bill holding firm to the other extreme, and Jake trying to get the two of them to meet somewhere in the middle. They were in one of the mixing rooms of the recording studio in the basement of the building. It was far from the first argument that had taken place within those hallowed walls.

They had entered the recording studio on April 1 after finalizing the tracks they planned to record for It's In The Book, their fourth studio album. Once the band agreed to record Jake's controversial tune and name the album after it, National became very open to any and all other tracks. The only one of the thirteen songs Intemperance had submitted in their demo tape that caused any question was I Am Time.

"No lead guitar?" Crow and Bailey had asked doubtfully, both wondering if the song was another one of their joke songs like they'd submitted during the contract dispute. Those songs had been about picking boogers, choosing a brand of soup in the grocery store, and angry tirades full of gutter profanity. I Am Time was a song from a hard rock group with no lead guitar, only a lead harmonica.

"It's an experimental piece," Matt had explained to them. "We know it's a departure from our normal shit but we all like the tune a lot and we want it on the next album."

"But a harmonica?" Crow asked.

"It's a harmonica that rocks," Jake said. "We're not asking for you to release it as a single or anything. It's just a deep cut filler tune."

Crow and Bailey had balked at this for the better part of two days, urging the band to pick another tune as filler, but eventually they gave in. They wanted to get It's In The Book recorded as soon as possible and using their veto power on a filler tune just didn't seem worth the effort.

The band had worked six days a week, nine hours a day for two solid months and recorded all of the musical and vocal tracks for the new album in near record time. They were now veterans of the recording process and did not require nearly as many takes per track as they had in their earlier albums. Now that every guitar track, every bass track, every vocal, piano, and drum track had been captured to near perfection on individual reels, they needed to mix them together, blending all the tracks at proper levels onto a master recording tape. It was here where the differing philosophies of the three core Intemperance members began to cause tempers to flare and the process to bog down in arguments and disagreements.

I Am Time, the so-called "filler" tune, was the subject of the current mixing room argument. Jake, Nerdly, and Matt sat in chairs before a complex soundboard, headphones hanging around their necks. George Harmon and Roger Covent, the head studio technician and his first assistant, sat at another soundboard across the room, listening helplessly as the three musicians pounded another minor detail into the ground. George and Roger had both liked it a lot better when Intemperance had been operating under their first contract and had had no official input whatsoever in how their songs were mixed.

"I'm telling you," Matt said for the tenth or twelfth time, "Time sounds perfect the way it's mixed now. There ain't no fuckin' reason to put any overdubs at all on it, let alone a goddamn synthesizer track."

An overdub was an additional track to a song put on after the basic tune was recorded and mixed. Generally the overdubs were minor enhancements that would be barely noticed by anyone but a professional musician or a professional sound mixer but that served to make the music blend together more harmoniously on the recording. All of the previous Intemperance albums had overdubbed additional guitar, cymbal, and piano tracks on almost every song. Matt hated the very concept of the overdub because by using them it meant more instruments were being played than the band actually possessed. Nerdly loved overdubs and thought they weren't used nearly enough. Jake was somewhere in the middle. He didn't have a problem with the concept of overdubbing when it served to smooth out the rough edges on the recorded tunes but he didn't want them used to the extent that the basic sound of the song was changed in any way.

"It's just a slight intro synthesizer track," Nerdly said, "and then a gentle background melody that will mix with the piano tracks. At least listen to what it sounds like before you start ranting about it."

"I don't have to listen to it," Matt said. "There's no fucking synthesizer in our band, Nerdly. Have you ever fucking noticed that?"

"Well maybe there should be," Nerdly said. "Led Zepplin used a synthesizer on their last two albums. Is there a law that says Intemperance can't use one too?"

"Yes, there's a law," Matt said. "It's my fucking law. There will be no synthesizers on any Intemperance song, period! That includes live and in the studio! And there's no fucking reason to put any overdubs at all into Time. The song is intended to be a simple piece."

Both of them began looking at Jake to support their respective positions. He sighed, knowing that the middle ground here was not really a fun place to be. "Look," he said. "I have to agree about the whole synthesizer thing, Nerdly. We're a hard rock band and we don't go there."

"You see?" Matt said triumphantly. "Even Jake agrees with me. No fucking overdubs on Time."

"Well, I didn't exactly say that, Matt," Jake said.

"What? What the fuck you talking about?"

"I said there should be no synthesizer overdubbing on Time. I do think we should do some basic acoustic overdubs to help back up my rhythm guitar on the piece."

"Acoustic overdubs?" Matt said. "Jake, that puts two guitars in the tune in addition to the harmonica. Two guitars! We can't reproduce that live unless we hire another fucking guitar player!"

"It's nothing that anyone is going to notice on the album," Jake said. "I'll just play an exact acoustic version of the rhythm and we'll blend it in on top of the main distorted version. We keep the level mid-range for the string strikes on the overdub and low for the follow-through. That way we'll have the string-strikes come through in a way they don't when the rhythm is distorted."

"But what about when we play it live?" Matt asked. "We can't reproduce that. It won't sound as good as the recorded version."

"People don't expect the live version to sound as good as the studio version," Jake said. "You should know that. As good as Nerdly is at concert sound mixing, we would never pull something like that off anyway. We've done this kind of overdub on quite a few of our tracks. Has anyone complained about how it doesn't sound the same in concert?"

Matt fumed but had to admit that Jake was right. Intemperance's reputation as a live act was irreproachable. "Fine," he said, throwing up his arms in surrender. "Put in your fucking overdubs. It's your goddamn song, isn't it?"

"It's our song, Matt, and I'm just trying to do what I think is best."

"That's what I'm trying to do too," Matt replied. "I gave in on this. You don't need to rub it in."

"So... do we have a consensus here?" asked George Harmon.

"Yeah," Matt said. "We have a consensus. Go ahead and start setting Jake up to record an acoustic overdub for Time. No fucking synthesizers though. I ever see you playing one of them things, Nerdly, and I'm gonna take a shit on it."

"I was just trying to do what's best too," Nerdly said softly, obviously upset that his plans had been voted down.

Their tempers calmed a bit over the next hour as they started the basic mixing process for Can't Chain Me. All agreed that no overdubbing was necessary in this tune since it featured two grinding electric guitars and had a passion to its sound that didn't require any kind of enhancement. There were some mild disagreements about the sound levels on the piano and drum tracks but they worked their way through these without too much strife — or at least they did by 5:45 PM, which was their official quitting time for the day.

"You want to go up and take a look at the album cover?" Jake asked Nerdly and Matt as they left the recording studio and waited for the elevator. "Jim and Sandy told me they should have the final version done and ready for approval by the end of the day."

"Sure, I'll check it out," Matt said.

"I'll have to made arrangements to peruse it at a later date," Nerdly said. "I have someplace I need to be tonight."

"Yeah?" asked Matt. "You getting some puss tonight?"

"Is the speed of light in vacuum a universal constant?" Nerdly asked.

"That means yes, right?" Matt asked.

"Yes," Nerdly allowed. "I'm taking two lovely young ladies to the planetarium for a romantic evening. We're then going to proceed back to my place to engage in extensive fornication of the quasi-legal variety."

"The planetarium, huh?" Jake asked. "Who could resist that?"

"Exactly," Nerdly agreed.

The elevator arrived. All three stepped inside. Nerdly got off on the first floor. Jake and Matt remained aboard until it reached the fourth floor, where the graphic arts department was located. They walked down the hall and entered the windowless, brightly lit room where most of the company's album covers were designed. Dozens of shabbily dressed graphic artists of varying age sat at desks with computer terminals working on a variety of projects. Most of them smoked and the haze of cigarette smoke in the room was on the same level as that found in a crowded bar on a Saturday night. They found Jim Handy and Sandy Pearl — the team assigned to the Intemperance album — sitting at their desks near the back of the room. Jim was about forty years old, a poor dresser, morbidly obese and poor on hygiene, but a very talented artist. Sandy was about thirty, almost anorexically skinny, a lesbian, and, if anything, even more talented than her partner.

"Hey, guys," Sandy greeted, putting out her smoke and immediately lighting up another one. "Glad you could make it up. We were just about to hit it for the day."

Jim had to finish the Twinkie he'd just crammed in his mouth before he could speak. When he did, he greeted them as well. "I think you'll really like what we came up with, Jake. It's pretty much just what you told us. I showed it to Crow earlier and he just about came in his panties."

"That's probably because he was checking out your ass, Jimmy," Matt said, making reference to the fact that Crow was a notoriously horny bisexual who hit upon just about anything that walked on two legs.

"Hey, there are some things that even I won't eat," Jim said, laughing much more than his joke actually warranted.

He reached into his desk and pulled out two sheets of photo paper, each the size of an album cover. They represented the front and back of what would appear on the next release. He handed them to Jake first, since it was Jake who had dictated what he envisioned.

"Wow," Jake said, impressed, as he perused the front cover. "You outdid yourselves on this one."

The centerpiece of the front cover was not a graphic design or a drawing but a photograph that Jake himself had taken. It was a picture of the cross that had been cemented into his front lawn on the night he'd moved into his new home. JESUS SAVES and REPENT SINNER! JOHN 3:16 were plainly visible in the photo, as was the front of Jake's house. Jake knew that most people, upon seeing the album cover, would know what this was a picture of since the incident had been reported on the AP wire the day following the event and published in newspapers throughout the nation, usually as a comedic type of piece in the back of the entertainment sections — a little amusing story about how the satanic domestic abuser Jake Kingsley had been put in his place by his virtuous neighbors.

Over the top of the album cover, above the cross, written in bold black calligraphy was the title: It's In The Book. Above that, in much smaller letters, was the band's name: Intemperance. Arrayed around the cross in overlapping fashion were multiple photographs and graphic representations of atrocities committed in the name of Christianity. There was a famous painting of the crusades in which Christian soldiers were slaughtering those who did not believe as they did. There was a picture of American Indians being marched off to a reservation under armed guard by American soldiers. There was a scene from the Holocaust of Jews being marched off towards the gas chambers of Auschwitz. There was a picture of Jimmy Swaggert crying as he confessed his sins to a nationwide audience. There was a picture of a water fountain in the White House that read "Whites Only". There were pictures of religious protestors outside of Intemperance concerts carrying their signs. There was a picture of protesters at the annual Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles holding a banner that read AIDS IS GOD'S PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR SINS!

There were also several pictures that were very personal to Jake. Just below the cross was a picture of a black bowling ball upon which someone had written in white paint: GET BACK TO BABYLON, SINNER! That particular bowling ball had been launched somehow through Jake's front window at 2:30 AM the second week he lived in his new house. The police had taken a report, dismissed the incident as mere vandalism, and no suspect had ever been caught or even questioned.

There was also a picture of five gallon sized containers of muratic acid lying overturned on a piece of stamped cement. This was perhaps the most personal of the pictures, and the most infuriating from Jake's point of view.

The incident that had led to this picture occurred a month after Jake had moved into his new house. At this point Jake had already been subjected to multiple visits by the LAPD as a result of calls placed by his neighbors. The patrol teams who showed up were usually accompanied by his good friend Lieutenant Baker, the watch commander who had shrugged off the cross-placing incident and suggested Jake should just do as suggested and repent. Three of these visits were for noise complaints about loud music — all of which had taken place in broad daylight when he'd had nothing but a radio playing at moderate volume while out in his back yard. Two had been because of reports that he was doing drugs (one had been because he'd smoked some pot out in his patio while cooking steaks and one of his neighbors had smelled it, the other had been completely unfounded — neither Jake nor Rachel had even been home at the time). The other visit had been just after nine o'clock one evening as he and Rachel had been swimming naked in the swimming pool. The complaint that time had been "indecent exposure", even though no one could have possibly seen anything that took place in his back yard unless they had climbed onto a ladder to peer over his privacy hedges.

In all of these cases no charges were filed — mostly because there were no grounds upon which to file any — but the cops had felt the need to give him stern lectures about watching his actions if he wanted to get along with his neighbors. They all suggested that maybe if he moved somewhere else — like Beverly Hills where such antics were commonplace — he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

And then came the morning of March 31. Jake and Rachel had just spent the week in Maui and had arrived back home around 10:00 PM, both of them still feeling like they were on Hawaii Time instead of Pacific Time. As a result, they had still been awake at 12:30 AM and had decided that maybe a little soak in the hot tub and a few glasses of wine would be just the ticket to get them re-aligned for the coming workweek in which Jake would begin the rigorous recording schedule. As they'd descended the steps from the bedroom balcony to the patio Jake spotted a large silhouette standing next to his hot tub, dumping something from a container into the water.

"Hey!" he'd yelled. "What the fuck are you doing?"

The figure dropped the container and began to run toward the back gate that led out to the street. Jake, dressed in nothing but a robe, chased after him, mostly out of instinct. The figure moved fast but was forced to a stop when he reached the closed gate. Jake slammed into him at top speed, finding that whomever it was he was chasing was well over six feet tall and weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds. Amped up, he ignored the danger to himself and threw the figure down to the ground. The person began to kick and punch at him, landing a few shots on Jake's legs and side. Jake — who had always tried to walk away from battle when he could but who was nonetheless a veteran of many brawls (usually fomented by Matt) — threw three punches, each of them landing squarely on the intruder's face. He felt the crunch of a nose, the shattering of a tooth or two, and the thud of a cheekbone. The intruder, dazed, gave up the fight and Jake was able to drag him back to the patio and confine him to a chair until the LAPD — summoned by Rachel this time — arrived ten minutes later.

It turned out that the intruder was the sixteen-year-old son of his across-the-street neighbor — a kid who probably wouldn't be able to solve any physics equations but who played linebacker for the local Jesuit High School. What he had been pouring into the hot tub was five gallons of muratic acid, more than a thousand times the normal amount, an amount that had raised the Ph level of the water up to a skin-blistering reading of 4.1 when it was tested two hours later. A hazardous materials team from the LAFD had to respond in order to safely drain it and the tub was deemed a complete loss due to the acid damage.

"What would have happened," Jake asked one of the fire department's HAZMAT specialists as they did their work, "if we would have gotten into that hot tub with that much acid in there?"

"You would have gotten second degree chemical burns all over your bodies," the firefighter — an Intemperance fan as it turned out — replied matter-of-factly. "More than likely you would have been permanently disfigured everywhere the water would have touched and there's a good chance that you," he looked at Jake, "would have lost function of your... you know... your male parts."

"Jesus Christ," Jake said, shuddering at the thought.

"And that's not even the worst," the firefighter said, almost gleefully.

"What's the worst?" Jake asked him.

"You would've gotten really severe respiratory burns if you'd breathed any of those fumes in. The way the wind is blowing tonight, I'm thinking there's a good chance you wouldn't have smelled anything funny until it was too late. Once you got in the spa and got a good whiff of something this acidic you're talking chemical pneumonia at the very least, possibly even... you know... death from respiratory failure."

"This is attempted murder," Pauline told the detectives who responded to the scene. "Attempted mayhem at the very least. And I think we all know who is behind it."

Jake certainly had no doubt who was behind it. The father of the linebacker was Frank Overland, the owner of several car dealerships throughout Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. Overland was the vice-president of the homeowner's association and one of the most vocal protestors regarding Jake's presence in the house. He was also a notorious bible-thumper. He had been accused several times of firing employees when he found out they were homosexuals or atheists. His car lots were always closed on Sundays — one of the biggest car-buying days of the week — and had large signs placed in front that read: CLOSED TODAY — SEE YOU IN CHURCH! Jake had no problem envisioning Overland instructing his teenage son in how to put the mark of God upon that heathen sinner with five gallons of muratic acid.

The police — unsurprisingly — did not see things quite the same way. They refused to file felony charges against the linebacker and refused to even entertain the idea that his father might have put him up to it. They told Jake he could make a citizen's arrest of the linebacker for misdemeanor vandalism charges, but that if he were to do so the boy's father might be inclined to push for felony assault charges against Jake.

"He was trespassing in my backyard," Jake said, quite exasperated by this point. "Did we forget that little tidbit of information?"

"That doesn't mean you have the right to beat him senseless," Lieutenant Baker said. "Truth be told, if I thought the DA would actually file felony charges for this I'd personally arrest you right now. But the DA's one of those puke-sack liberals and he'd more than likely just reduce it down to a simple assault that those high-priced mouthpieces of yours would get dismissed at the first hearing."

So in the end, no charges were filed against anyone and both sides agreed to avoid civil proceedings as well. Overland paid for his son's medical bills and Jake paid for a new hot tub (as well as enough security lights and motion detecting intrusion alarms to open his own prison).

The news reports of the incident all read something along the lines of "JAKE KINGSLEY BEATS A NEIGHBORHOOD CHILD HE CAUGHT IN HIS BACKYARD." The accompanying articles would always mention the broken nose, the broken teeth, and the broken cheekbone Jake had inflicted, but none mentioned that the "child" in question was a linebacker on the football team who was taller than Jake, outweighed him by fifty pounds, and who had started fighting first. There was also never any mention of exactly what the "child" had been doing in Jake's backyard other than to mention that he had been vandalizing the hot tub. They always made it sound as if he'd been dumping dish soap or some other harmless substance into the water as a friendly prank.

The picture of the five muratic acid containers on the album cover was taken from the official crime-scene investigation photos and, per Jake's request, Jim and Sandy had made it a little larger than most of the other pictures. Just above it was a shot that Jake had taken of one of Overland's Sunday signs for his car lots — CLOSED TODAY, SEE YOU IN CHURCH!

"I like the pictures," Matt said, looking over Jake's shoulder at the representation of the cover. "Especially the one with the KKK burning a cross. The bible verses are a nice touch too."

"Yeah," Jake said, "that's my favorite part."

Arrayed in random patterns between the pictures were graphic printings in blood red of various biblical verse numbers. All of them were verses in which some form of discrimination or violence in the name of God or Jesus were spelled out. There was Leviticus 18:22, which was the main verse used by Christians to condemn homosexuality. There was Exodus 22:18, which had been the basis of the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century. There was Leviticus 20:24 which advocated racism against blacks. There was John 8:44 which advocated persecution of Jews. There was Exodus 23:24, which advocated intolerance of all non-Christian religions. The verses themselves were not printed out, just the numbers. Printed across the middle of the entire album in large, gray lettering that blended in with the basic color of the cover and was barely visible unless you viewed the cover under the right type of lighting, was a different verse, one that many Christians seemed to forget about even though it was supposedly one of the tenets of their religion. It was Matthew 7:1, part of Jesus' Temple on the Mount sermon, the part that read: Judge not, lest ye be judged.

"I like it," Jake said. "That's a particularly good effect with Matthew 7:1. It's symbolic of the whole shitstorm I'm going through with these freaks. It's the biggest verse there, taking up most of the cover, yet it's hardly visible."

"That's fuckin' deep, Jake," Matt said. "How did you know all those bible verses anyway? Your old man didn't use to send you to Sunday school, did he?"

"No, I have actually read the bible several times in my life."

"No shit? Why would you do something like that?"

Jake shrugged. "So that when some Christian fundamentalist starts preaching to me I'm already pre-armed. I can out-debate most bible thumpers with one hand tied behind my back. It's come in handy on more than one occasion."

"Screw debating," Matt said. "I just punch those fuckheads in the mouth when they start that shit with me."

Jake smiled. "Sometimes I think that's not a bad philosophy either."

Jake arrived home just before seven o'clock. There were no protesters, news crews, or police cars in front of his house as he pulled into the circular driveway and took the narrow cement driveway that led to the garage. For a while the homeowner's association had kept up a daily picket of his property during the day (when he usually wasn't even there) but their enthusiasm for that had pretty much died out after only a few weeks, especially when the news crews stopped covering it. After that they'd satisfied themselves with calling the LAPD on him every few days and performing acts of vandalism at night.

So far there had not even been an incident of any kind since the night of the muratic acid in his hot tub. He had smoked pot in his backyard, had sex with Rachel on his patio furniture, and played his music loudly during the day on several occasions but no cops had shown up. Nor had there been any further acts of vandalism of any kind. Jake wasn't sure why they'd stopped calling the cops on him but he had a reasonably good idea of why the vandalism had stopped. Three days after the muratic acid incident — just as the issue had finally died in the press — Jake had spotted Frank Overland out walking his dachshund and had gone out to have a little chat with him.

"What do you want?" Overland said toughly as Jake put himself on the sidewalk before him.

"We need to talk," Jake said. "Or rather, I need to talk and you need to listen."

"I have nothing to speak with you about," Overland told him. "Now move out of my way or I'll have you arrested."

"But I have something to say to you and I'm not moving until you've heard it. Don't worry, it's short and quite to the point."

"Are you going to threaten me?" Overland scoffed.

"Yes," Jake said, staring into the man's eyes. "That's exactly what I'm going to do."

The first hint of disconcert appeared in his eyes at this point. "I should warn you," he said, "that I..."

"No," Jake interrupted, "I should warn you, which is exactly what I'm doing. I'm going to say this once and once only. You stepped way over the line when you had your kid come over to my house and try to burn me with acid. The bowling ball and the cross I can forget about if not forgive, but trying to disfigure me..." he shook his head. "You're no better than those assholes in the inquisition. I think you would've fit right in with them."

"I had nothing to do with any of that," Overland said.

"I think you did," Jake said. "And it will stop as of this moment. I'm a very rich man, Overland, richer than you could ever hope to be with your sleazy car lots. I also know a lot of people who would be willing to commit any number of criminal acts for the right amount of money. From now on, if something happens to my house, to me, to anyone associated with me, and I have a reasonable suspicion that you are behind it, I am going to talk to a few of my people, pass a few envelopes full of money, and there is going to be retaliation that is at least twice as bad as whatever you did to me."

"You can't threaten me like that," Overland said.

"Yes, I can," Jake said. "And I am entirely serious about this. If a bowling ball comes flying through my window again, a stolen car is going to go crashing through yours. If a cross should appear on my lawn, a pipe bomb is gonna go flying into your living room. If your son should appear on my property again for any reason — if I even suspect he's been creeping around on my property — a couple of thugs with prison tattoos are gonna grab him a few days later and put him in the hospital. And if I or anybody I know is injured in any way because of one of your stunts — if I even think that you're responsible in some way — your wife and your kid are gonna end up in the fuckin' morgue. Do I make myself clear, Overland?"

"You wouldn't dare," Overland said, trying to maintain his tough persona but doing a poor job of it. He had paled considerably during Jake's speech and fear was plainly evident in his eyes.

"Try me," Jake said. "The gloves are off now."

And before Overland could even respond to him, Jake had walked away. He was bluffing, of course. He knew no thugs willing to break bones or toss pipe bombs, let alone willing to kill a prominent local businessman's family, and he wouldn't go to such extremes even if he did, but it seemed that Overland had believed him, or at least was unsure enough not to risk the consequences Jake had outlined. In this case Jake's reputation — that he was a badass, quick-tempered, violent Satanist — worked for him.

As he parked his Corvette in the four-car garage next to Rachel's Cabriolet and his housekeeper's Toyota Corolla, he was tired and hungry, his nerves on edge from another day of arguing with Matt and Nerdly. He trudged from the garage across the open cement path that led to the main house and entered the side door into the kitchen. His mood immediately improved when he smelled the mouth-watering aroma of garlic and tomato sauce in the air.

Elsa Tyler, the woman he'd hired as his live-in housekeeper and cook, was standing at the counter in the middle of the kitchen, cutting up romaine lettuce and fresh spinach greens for a salad. A pot of something was boiling away on the stovetop alongside a huge covered skillet.

"What is that smell, Elsa?" he asked, putting his car keys on a hook next to the door (failing to do this would incur the unencumbered wrath of Elsa when he asked her where his keys were). "It's Italian with lots of garlic, but I can't quite pin down the actual dish."

"Welcome home, Jake," she said. "It's Chicken Parmesan cooked in extra virgin olive oil with freshly grated Parmesan and homemade Italian breadcrumbs. I'll be serving it in exactly ten minutes with garlic-laced rigatoni and a fresh garden salad. I also have two bottles of Italian Chardonnay from the southern vineyards chilling in the refrigerator."

Elsa's accent was upper class British — proper Queen's English taught to her in the finest finishing schools of London. Elsa herself, however, was not British. She was Nigerian and the blackest woman Jake had ever seen in person. Her skin was as dark as could be found on planet Earth, so dark that light didn't seem to reflect off it at all.

She was fifty years old and had lived most of her life in England where she'd been educated and had made a career of housekeeping and cooking for many of the movers, shakers, and entertainers of Britain through the sixties, seventies, and early eighties. She had been the live-in help for two members of the House of Lords, one member of the House of Commons, one member of Monty Python, and had even done a two-year stint working for Roger Waters of Pink Floyd before emigrating to the United States to be near her daughter and granddaughter who lived in Orange County. She had a bachelor's degree in literature and a degree from a prestigious British culinary school.

Jake had decided to hire a live-in housekeeper when it had become apparent that his thrice-weekly maid service was simply inadequate to keep up with the demands he placed upon them. He'd discovered Elsa through the same ad agency that Pauline had used to hire her domestic help and had interviewed her using much the same process that Mindy Snow had used to find hers — namely, he'd made her cook for him as part of the interview. She'd prepared a complete meal of Filet Mignon, marinated garlic mushrooms, rice pilaf, and salad, every bite of which had melted in Jake's mouth. The housekeeping questions had been almost secondary after that.

She had expressed a certain amount of trepidation at first about working for a musician as notorious as Jake until he'd assured her that nine out of ten of the stories she'd heard about him were nothing but fabrication on the part of the media.

"What about the story of you snorting cocaine from the buttocks of that common trollop?" she'd asked. "Is that a fabrication as well?"

"Uh... well... unfortunately that one is kind of true," he'd responded. "That was in my early days. You know how it is?"

"Actually I don't," she said. "I've never imbibed in cocaine use before, neither from a mirror or a buttock. I trust you would not engage in such behavior in my presence?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," he assured her.

"Then I guess you have yourself a housekeeper," she said. "If you'll have me, that is?"

Jake wanted her, and, like anyone in his employ who maintained loyalty to him and did not try to screw him, he made sure she was well compensated. Her base salary was $2500 a month. She was given the downstairs bedroom and bathroom as her own and she paid not a penny in rent. She was given a budget of $800 per month for household groceries, including her personal groceries but not including any alcohol except for wines to be served with dinner (the bar stock came out of a separate budget that was currently running in the vicinity of $1100 per month). Whatever she didn't spend of the budget was hers to keep — which wasn't very much right now, but when Jake left to go on tour for five or six months it would be considerable. Since she used her personal vehicle to go shopping and to take care of other household errand, Jake had also given her a gas station credit card to use for fueling it and he had agreed to pay for any repairs the vehicle might need. He also paid the one hundred and twelve dollar a month premium on her health insurance. Basically, except when Jake was entertaining, the entire downstairs portion of the house belonged to Elsa. She was particularly protective over the kitchen and everything in it.

In exchange for all this Elsa cooked dinner for him every weeknight and on the occasional weekend, she did all of the laundry, including folding it, ironing it, and putting it away, she kept the entire house clean enough to perform surgery in, and she oversaw the landscaping service that kept the grounds in good repair and the pool service that kept the pool and spa operating. She also kept her mouth firmly closed whenever a reporter tracked her down in the grocery store or the fish mongers or the butcher shop and wanted to squeeze details out of her about Jake and/or Rachel's private lives.

So far she was working out much better than Jake would have ever thought possible. She took her job very seriously and she was an amazing cook. She hardly blinked an eye at some of the more sordid things her employer engaged in. When Jake had given his housewarming party after all of his new furniture arrived she had served appetizers to the guests while walking through thick clouds of marijuana smoke. When she had walked in one day and found Jake screwing Rachel atop the pool table her only comment had been "Do you have any idea what that is going to do to the felt? Did it occur to either of you to put down a towel first?"

Now, she was wearing a simple pair of jeans and a white blouse and had an apron tied around her waist. Jake walked up behind her and took a good smell of her chicken Parmesan. "What can I have a bite of?" he asked her, reaching for the diced tomatoes she'd just added to the salad bowl.

She slapped his hand away before he could get within a foot of his target. "You'll have a bite of nothing until dinner," she scolded. "Who knows where your hands have been today."

"Mostly on mixing boards," he said, shifting his attention to the right. "How about some of this garlic bread? It looks like it just came out of the oven."

"One small piece," she said sternly, her brown eyes watching as he reached for one. "Smaller! Take the end piece!"

"Yes, Elsa," he said with a grin, taking the tiny end piece and putting the moist, garlic and oregano slathered bite into his mouth. He chewed slowly, savoring the burst of flavor across his taste buds. "Damn, Elsa," he said when he was done. "This is some good shit."

"You mean it is excellent garlic bread," she corrected. "I do not cook anything that should be referred to as 'shit'."

"Sorry," he said. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. "It's excellent garlic bread. I can't wait to taste the rest. Is Rachel upstairs?"

"Yes," she said, smiling at his praise and his kiss. "She was down her mooching things a few minutes ago and then went up to change for dinner just before you came in."

"Groovy," Jake said, heading toward the staircase in the other room.

"Dinner in ten minutes," Elsa called after him. "So if you choose to engage in any sort of squalid activities please make them quick."

"Yes, Elsa," Jake dutifully replied.

He found Rachel in the bedroom, sitting at one of the desk chairs writing a letter to someone. She smiled as she saw him, standing up to walk across the room and greet him. She was wearing a pair of white shorts and a sleeveless blouse, her blonde hair flowing down around her shoulders. She kissed him, welcomed him home, and handed him a fresh rum and coke on the rocks — a drink she knew he was partial to after a long day of recording.

"Thanks, babe," Jake said, taking the drink and enjoying a long sip of it. "How was your day?"

"Just perfect," she said. "I went shopping this morning at Nordies and got this new outfit. Do you like it?" She gave a quick spin.

"It's very nice," he said, giving a little pat on her ass.

"Thank you," she said. "After I got home and ate lunch I worked out for an hour on the treadmill and then laid out by the pool for a bit. Then I went and visited Mom at the restaurant. I just got home about an hour ago."

Jake took another drink and then set the glass down. He asked a few questions about her mother, mostly because it seemed expected of him. As she chattered on he removed his wallet and the loose change from his pockets and then undressed to his underwear. He put on a fresh shirt and a pair of shorts. Rachel followed him around as he moved in and out of the walk-in closet, continuing to talk.

Rachel was pretty much living with him in all but officialdom at this point. She still maintained her apartment with Maureen (who was over to visit no less than three times a week), still paid rent on it (or rather, Jake did), but she hadn't actually slept there in months. Most of her clothes, makeup, and personal hygiene items were now kept in Jake's dresser drawers, bathroom drawers, and walk-in closet. She slept in his bed, ate meals prepared by Elsa, went shopping and to hair appointments with a credit card Jake had given her, and occasionally entertained her friends in the backyard or the entertainment room.