"Well... there's nothing in their contract that says they can't," Crow allowed.
"They can't play each other's instruments!" Doolittle said. "It sounds like shit. Bill can't sing, Coop doesn't know how to play the piano, Darren sure as shit can't play a lead guitar, and Matt has never held a set of drumsticks in his life! And while I'm sure that Jake could play the bass if he really wanted to, he doesn't seem to be making much of an effort here."
"No, he really doesn't," said Crow.
"Do you really think they thought this was a good idea?" asked Bailey. "Are they that taken with themselves?"
"No," said Doolittle. "They're not. They're fucking with us deliberately."
"What do you mean?" asked Bailey. "Why would they do that?"
"Their contract," said Crow.
"Right," said Doolittle. "They're firing a shot across our bow."
"Huh?" asked Bailey, not quite catching the analogy.
"They're giving us crappy tunes, knowing that we'll reject them," said Doolittle. "They're unhappy with their contract and they think that playing this little game with us is going to make us renegotiate with them."
"They can't do that!" Bailey exclaimed. "We've got them scheduled to go into the studio the first week in January."
"And they will go into the studio the first week in January," Doolittle said. "You can mark my fucking word on that."
"Let's listen to the rest of the tunes," Crow suggested. "Maybe we're jumping to conclusions here."
"I don't think so," Doolittle said, "but go ahead." He waved at the boombox.
Crow pushed the play button and then fast-forwarded to the next song. It was penned by Matt and called The Discovery. The instrumentation was half-assed and the lyrics seemed to be dealing with the subject of finding lint in one's belly button. The song after that was another piece by Matt called Lighting Up. It was lengthy dissertation with four verses and two bridges on the mechanics of lighting a cigarette. The next four songs were all in the same genre. There was one by Jake about fluffing his pillow before retiring for the night. There was one by Matt about moving his bowels the first thing in the morning. Another by Jake dealt with the age-old concept of picking one's nose and what to do with the booger once it was extracted. And then Matt touched upon the subject of proper condom disposal after a sexual encounter. For the last three songs, two of which were Matt's and one Jake's, they switched back to the genre of Fuck The Establishment by submitting angry, profanity-ridden tunes about getting fucked by corporations and contracts and rich white guys in suits. Though these tunes had decent instrumentation the lyrics were quite outside the realm of what could reasonably be put on a mass-produced piece of vinyl that would be sold to teens.
"Yep," said Crow when the last of the songs — White Suits — was finally finished. "They're playing games with us all right."
"They're going to regret this," vowed Doolittle. He picked up his phone and got his secretary on the line.
"Yes, Mr. Doolittle?" she asked.
"I want to know where every member of Intemperance is right now," he told her.
"Yes, Mr. Doolittle," she replied.
It took her less than two minutes to check with the various resources they had to keep track of that information — namely the limo drivers and doormen of the buildings they lived in and, especially, the manservants. The phone buzzed and Doolittle picked it up.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"Darren and Coop are at Darren's house," she reported. "They've just shot up some heroin and are watching MTV."
"And the rest?"
"They're all at Jake's house, shooting pool," she said.
"Are they intoxicated?"
"According to Manny they've been doing nothing but drinking soda and smoking a lot of cigarettes. They're cold sober."
Doolittle nodded. "Yep," he said. "They know we're going to be calling them soon." He thanked his secretary and then hung up. He then consulted his Rolodex and looked up Jake's phone number. "Let's get this shit over with," he said. He picked up the phone and began to dial.
"I swear to God, Nerdly," said Matt. "You are un-fucking-natural at this shit."
Bill smiled. He had just successfully sunk the eight ball into the corner pocket by making the cue ball bank three times off the rails, slide neatly between groups of Matt's solids still left on the table, passing by one with less than a quarter of an inch to spare, but never touching anything until contacting the eight with just enough force to push it into the pocket. "It's all a matter of simple geometry," Bill told him. "You see, the angles of a pool ball bouncing off the rail and imparting momentum to the other balls on the table are a perfect example of both geometric formula and Newtonian principles in action. When I make a shot I simply check my angles, calculate the action and reaction of the spheres and adjust accordingly. It's a mathematic certainty that my shot will be true. The only real variable is my aim, which, as you've seen, is also quite true. You owe me five bucks. Pay up."
"I got your fuckin' Newtonian principles right here," Matt muttered. He pulled a five-dollar bill out of his wallet. He rubbed it across the back of his jeans as if wiping his ass with it and then handed it over.
"Thank you," Bill said, pocketing it. He turned to Jake. "Ready for another?"
"What the hell?" Jake asked, lighting another cigarette. "I still got twenty bucks on me. That's four more games I can lose."
While Matt — as loser — went about the process of gathering the balls and pushing them to the center of the table and Jake — as challenger — went about the process of racking them up so Bill could break for the new game, they talked of the tape they had just submitted, their voices low to avoid being overheard by the spy Manny.
"I think The Switch is going to be what clues them in," said Jake. "That was an absolutely horrible song."
"Except for the singing, right?" asked Bill. "I mean, my voice ain't that bad, is it?"
"You got a good back-up voice, Nerdly," said Matt, "but when you sing lead you sound like a fuckin' train full of cattle colliding with a chicken truck."
Bill looked hurt at this.
"Of course, you were trying to sound bad on the recording, weren't you?" asked Jake. "The way I was on the bass guitar?"
"Uh... yeah, of course," said Bill, who had thought he'd been singing his best.
"And you succeeded," said Matt. "But anyway, I think you're giving them more credit than they deserve, Jake. They'll probably get all the way to Bedtime Ritual before it starts to occur to them that something is wrong."
"You ever thought about what would happen if they actually like those songs?" asked Bill. "What if they really want us to record them?"
"Like them?" said Jake. "I seriously doubt that."
"Well, maybe not like them," said Bill. "But what if they think they're acceptable?"
"I wrote a song about taking a shit, Nerdly," Matt said. "And Jake wrote one about slinging a green booger against the wall. You don't really think they're gonna deem that recordable, do you?"
"I suppose you have a point there," Bill allowed.
All three of them were a bit giddy as they waited for the phone call from Crow or Doolittle that they knew had to be coming. The proverbial line had been crossed and their bosses were sure to be pissed off once they realized what was taking place. At the same time they were absurdly proud of the considerable effort that had gone into composing and producing such horrible songs in the first place while keeping the master plan of what they were doing secret from Darren and Coop, who they knew were now nothing more than another set of spies for National Records.
The first part of the plan had been the easy part. It had been with considerable glee that Matt and Jake — the songwriters and melody composers of the group — had come up with the tunes in the first place. Once the plan had been agreed to after Jake and Bill's return from the visit with Pauline, they had each sat down and simply started strumming and playing, coming up with an average of two songs per night by simply picking a random subject out of the air and setting it to music. They had rejected anything that could have remotely been classified as musical or deep or acceptable and had utilized rhythms and riffs that encompassed everything they hated about pop music.