Jake had six stitches put in the top of his head. An x-ray revealed three broken ribs. Matt was a bit worse. He had a major concussion, a bruised kidney, and required twenty-eight stitches to close off the bleeders in his head. He was held overnight, under guard, in a hospital room.
Late the next morning all five of them were brought before a magistrate and were formally charged with possession of cocaine for sale, possession of marijuana for sale, and being under the influence of cocaine and marijuana. In addition, Matt and Jake were both charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. None of the five made any statements, all invoking their right to an attorney. And attorneys were what they got. A veritable team of high-priced mouthpieces arrived to represent them. The prosecution asked for the defendants to be held without bail, citing the seriousness of the drug trafficking charges and the high flight risk a traveling band entailed. Intemperance's attorneys then had their say and, in the end, all five were released on ten thousand dollars bail and with special permission to leave the State of New York and continue their tour.
"This is outrageous!" proclaimed the prosecuting attorney when the ruling was handed down. "These men are sex criminals, drug traffickers, and complete menaces to society! Furthermore, your acquiescence to their request to leave the jurisdiction while out on bail is unprecedented. I must protest you allowing them continue performing their concerts and receiving twenty to thirty thousand dollars a show while these heinous charges are pending against them."
Matt, wearing an orange jumpsuit, his face a kaleidoscope of bruises, stitches, and hematomas, his hands and legs in shackles, suddenly stood up. "Protest this, motherfucker!" he yelled, reaching his shackled hands down just far enough to grab his crotch and squeeze it.
The judge banged his gavel and angrily found Matt in contempt of court, but he also rejected the prosecutor's plea. "The ruling stands," he said. "This court is adjourned."
All five of them were bailed out of jail less than thirty minutes later. Though their performance was a just a bit more sedate than usual, they managed to go on stage, as scheduled, in Philadelphia that night. Meanwhile, the team of lawyers went to work on their case. The first thing they looked at was the writ that had led to the warrant that had allowed the NYPD narcotics and sex crimes units to search the hotel room. It took them only two days to expose the entire thing as a collection of lies, innuendo, and speculation designed to do no more than get a judge to allow them to raid a hotel room without probable cause. A motion to dismiss all charges on the grounds of illegal search and seizure was filed with a superior court judge. The judge looked over the evidence presented to him and not only dismissed the charges, he charged two police investigators with perjury, requested an investigation by the New York state BAR of the judge who had signed the warrant, and ordered the New York City police commissioner himself to extend a public apology to the members of Intemperance.
Of course the entire episode was reported on with glee by the national media. INTEMPERANCE MEMBERS ARRESTED ON DRUG CHARGES, KINGSLEY AND TISDALE WENT DOWN FIGHTING, ROCK AND ROLL HEROES FACING TEN TO TWENTY FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING, INTEMPERANCE OUT ON BAIL AFTER SEX ORGY, and ALL CHARGES AGAINST INTEMPERANCE DROPPED ON A TECHNICALITY were the headlines shouted on front pages throughout the nation as the week-long saga unfolded. Glittering descriptions of the orgy the police found upon entering the room were described over and over, as was the inventory of the drugs found in their possession. When the dismissals came there were cries of outrage from the law and order types about the liberal search and seizure restrictions in the United States constitution.
Greg, of course, loved every bit of the entire thing. "You can't pay for this kind of publicity! I swear to Heavenly Father, you boys don't even have to put music on those records for them to sell!" His attitude was undoubtedly a reflection of the rest of National Records' executives.
Two days after watching the NYPD commissioner's televised apology to the members of Intemperance, Jake was lying in his hotel bed in Boston. They had just enjoyed one of the rare extended travel days off and he was well rested and sober for the first time in two weeks. His phone began to ring. He picked it up, expecting it to be Greg, or Janice, or maybe Matt, but it wasn't. It was Mindy.
"How did you know where to get hold of me?" he asked her, surprised, and a bit trepidatious to hear her voice.
"I have a copy of your tour schedule, remember?" she asked. "I knew you just had a day off and were probably relaxing and I had some people I know find out where you were staying."
"I see," he said slowly.
"So, how are you doing?" she asked him. "It looks like you ran into a little trouble there in New York, huh?"
"That's a good way of putting it," he allowed.
"I heard you got banged up a bit by the cops. Are you okay?"
"I'm healing," he said. "Matt's worse than I am, but we still manage to get out there on stage every night."
"The show must go on," she said, uttering the sacred decree of performers.
"The show must go on," he agreed. "So how are you doing? Did you get that role you were after? That incestuous time-travel movie?"
"No, they turned me down for it. I did great at the audition but they decided to cast an unknown in the part. They said they didn't want to overshadow Michael J. Fox. It's understandable I suppose. I'm trying out for a part in another movie this weekend. This one looks a lot better."
"I'm glad to hear it," he told her.
"Listen," she said, "the reason I called is that I'm going to do an interview on The Tonight Show."
"With Johnny Carson?" he asked, surprised.
"The one and only," she giggled. "I'm scheduled for next Friday. The subject of our relationship is going to be discussed."
"I see," he said slowly.
"Neither one of us has talked about our break-up or our relationship to the media. I just wanted to let you know what I was going to say before I said it. It's nothing bad or anything."
"Okay," he said. "And what are you going to say?"
"That we felt a strong infatuation for each other and fell into a hot, torrid love affair."
"It starts off good," Jake told her.
"And truthful," she said. "Anyway, I'm going to tell him that we just weren't compatible in the long run and that we both realized that. We couldn't spend enough time together, we were both too into our careers to make sacrifices for the other, and, since we knew you were going to be heading out on tour we thought it best to just be friends from that point on. Does that sound good?"
"It sounds more than good," he said. "It sounds perfect."
They talked for a few more minutes and said their good-byes. That Friday night, after the show in Montpellier, Jake left the party in Bill's suite after enjoying only a quick blowjob from a redheaded groupie and went back to his own suite alone. He tuned in The Tonight Show on the large screen television and watched as Johnny went through his monologue and then introduced his first guest of the evening: Mindy Snow. She was wearing a sequined gown and looked absolutely stunning. He felt a tinge of black desire for her as he watched her take her seat. And, as usual, she hadn't told him everything about what her intentions were.
Johnny asked her early in the discussion about what attracted her to Jake. "What makes a beautiful, innocent, successful young actress hook up with a scrungy, bad-boy rock star like Jake Kingsley?"
"Passion," she told him. "Jake is dangerous, and a horrible influence, and everything else that he's accused of. He drinks too much, he smokes too much, he does drugs and gets irrational at times, sometimes even belligerent, but he's an incredibly passionate, alive man all the same."