"There are a few other things too," Bill said.
"Such as?"
"I've noticed both of them have burns on their fingers and burn holes in their clothes. That's from cigarettes that they've forgotten about because they were too zonked-out to remember or that they've dropped the embers from. They don't notice it right away because of the pain-killing effects of the narcotic and the sedation of the drug effect and they end up with burns. I bet if you lifted their shirts up you'd see a dozen cigarette burns on their stomachs and chest."
"Hmm," Jake said. Again, not that it was mentioned, he had noticed several nasty looking burns on both of their hands, including nearly identical blistering burns between the index and middle fingers of their right hands — right where a cigarette would normally be held.
"And then there's their shirts," Bill said. "Have you noticed that they're both always wearing long-sleeved shirts now?"
"Yeah," Jake said. "I guess I have."
"They wear them even though it gets a bit warm in the warehouse. They don't want us to see their arms."
"So, when you're talking heavy narcotics here," Jake said, "you're not talking about just pills, are you?"
Bill shook his head. "Heroin," he said. "It's the only thing that makes sense."
"Jesus fucking Christ," Jake said. "And you can bet who is supplying them with it."
"And who is ultimately paying for it," Bill added.
The National Records building was now in sight, rising above the concrete of Hollywood Boulevard ahead. They made it through the next light and then settled in to wait for the next.
"A couple of heroin addicts in the band," Jake said. "That's just beautiful."
"I just thought you should know what I suspect is taking place," Bill said apologetically.
"Yeah, I know," Jake replied. "And there's not a goddamn thing we can do about it either."
By the time the five of them assembled in Crow's office for the meeting, Darren and Coop were a little livelier than they had been at the jam session. Though they were still quite a bit on the lethargic side, they were at least talking now, and in sentences of more than six syllables even. Their liveliness kicked up a few notches when Crow, as was his custom preliminary to any meeting, offered them a few lines of cocaine. Matt, Jake, and Bill all respectfully declined — as was their custom during official meetings of any kind with any record company representative — but Coop and Darren both snorted right up.
"Good fuckin' shit, Steve," Darren complimented as the drug began to take effect.
"Fuck yeah," agreed Coop. "You got anything to drink in this place?"
Coop and Darren were served twelve year old scotch over ice cubes with coke. Matt, Jake, and Bill all accepted alcohol-free drinks, not even bothering to cast discouraging looks at their companions. Things had gone way beyond that now.
"First of all," said Crow once the preliminaries were complete, "let me congratulate you all on the continuing success of Thrill, the album. As of ten o'clock this morning, total sales were just one hundred and fifty thousand shy of two million. My guess is that you'll go double-platinum late next week or early the week after."
"No shit?" said Matt.
"No shit," confirmed Crow.
"Wow," Matt said. "And you told us our songs sucked ass, didn't you? I bet we'd be at quadruple platinum by now if we would just listened to you and used those hacker songs."
Crow cast a mildly contemptuous look at Matt but didn't bother to answer him. "And as for Crossing The Line," he continued. "It's still hanging in at number thirty-two on the Top Forty and is still in the top ten most requested on rock radio stations nationwide. There's even some talk of it being nominated for record of the year."
"We'd never win it," Jake opined. "Tina Turner has it in the bag."
"Nevertheless," Crow said, "it would be a great honor just to be nominated, wouldn't it? The publicity angle alone would be almost priceless."
"Isn't Crossing The Line one of those songs you initially rejected?" Matt asked. "You know? One of the ones we fought and struggled and issued ultimatums to get included?"
"I seem to recall something like that," said Jake. "I'm not sure though. My memory gets fuzzy at times."
"Yes," confirmed Bill. "It was definitely among the forbidden artistic efforts we initially presented for consideration."
Crow sighed, shaking his head and feeling the ulcer in his stomach start to flair — as it always did when he had to deal with this troublesome but hugely profitable group of musicians. "All right, guys," he said. "You've made your point and hammered it home quite nicely. We were wrong about those tunes. Are you happy?"
"Rapturous," said Matt. "So what else is up?"
"Well, as you know," Crow said, "Rules Of The Road has been moving up the charts as well. This week it cracked the top ten at the number nine position."
"Rules Of The Road?" asked Matt. "No shit? Hey, Jake, isn't that another one of those songs that they initially rejected? I mean, there were so many of them I can't keep track. Refresh my memory for me."
"Yes," said Jake. "I believe they said it was too complex of a song, that there were too many changes in tempo for the average consumer to appreciate it."
"There is a lot of fucking tempo changes in it," Darren muttered.
Jake and Matt gave him a dirty look this time but otherwise ignored him. Crow did as well.
"Can we let the past drop?" Crow asked them.
"Who's bringing it up?" Jake asked innocently.
"In any case," Crow said, letting a little of his irritation slip through, "Rules is finding itself locked into the same stiff competition as Thrill. Namely, a tune by La Diferencia just happens to be moving up the chart at the same time."
This was a sour spot with Matt. "That fuckin' Venezuelan bitch again. Her and her crappy ass happy tunes."
"Uh... please don't say something like that in front of a member of the press, Matt," Crow warned. "But yes, La Diferencia seems to be acing you out of positioning yet again. Their new tune is called Young Love and the pop demographic are buying it up like mad. It's only been played on the radio for the past three weeks and already it's in the top ten — at number eight, I might add. That's one of the fastest selling singles of all time."
"And it's a stupid fucking song," Matt said. "Holy shit, have you heard this thing?" He sang, viciously mimicking the accent of the female lead singer. "Young love, burns like a fast flame. Hot and strong, but dies without tending."
Jake hadn't heard the song, but he had to agree that the lyrics — if Matt had sung them accurately — were pretty simplistic. But then, pop music was simplistic, wasn't it? He had, however, finally listened to La Diferencia's first hit, I Love To Dance, which had aced CTL out of the number one spot back in September. As much as he hated to admit it (and he hadn't admitted it, at least not to anyone other than himself) he had actually found himself liking the tune a little bit. Not just not hating it, but liking it, singing along with it after a few repetitions, and even appreciating some of the musical qualities of it. The most striking thing about the tune was the vocals put down by Celia Valdez, the lead singer. Her voice was beautiful. There was no other way to describe it. It was rich and pure, sweet sounding, with considerable range for a pop singer. She had a strong Hispanic accent that was noticeable in her vocals but not to the point of distraction. It came through just enough to remind you that she was not American or English. And though the rest of the song consisted of a bland, formulistic backbeat, passable piano, weak lead guitar, and the inevitable synthesizers, there was a strong acoustic guitar backing that spoke of someone with some talent strumming the strings.