Manny had already figured out that Jake had moved anything incriminating. "Open it yourself," he said, stepping away.
Jake shrugged and opened the safe. As soon as it swung open and Manny saw that the drugs were indeed gone, he said, "The drugs are probably in his room somewhere now."
"Very nice," said Yamata as he stepped up to look at the mechanism of the safe.
"If you looked, I'm sure you'd find them," Manny hissed.
"We have no probable cause to search through Mr. Kingsley's bedroom," Rogan said. "The only way we could look in there is if Mr. Kingsley granted us voluntary consent for a search."
"Do you guys really want to search my room?" Jake asked.
"Not really," said Rogan.
"Okay then. I guess I won't give you consent then."
Manny stormed towards the door. Before he made it there, Rogan stopped him. "Oh, by the way," she said. "If you were to go into Mr. Kingsley's bedroom yourself and come out with drugs in your hand, not only would you be subject to a trespassing charge, but we would probably conclude that any drugs found were actually yours and that you were trying to frame him." She smiled. "Keep that in mind."
Manny's neck was now bright red. He walked out of the office and disappeared.
"So this is what being a rock star is like, huh?" asked Rogan, her blue eyes shining at Jake.
"Not quite what you expected, huh?" he asked her.
"Not at all," she said. "And by the way..." She blushed a little. "I love your music."
"Thank you," he said.
It took them less than five minutes to figure out how to change the combination on the safe. Jake learned the procedure and then followed it, changing it to something Manny would never guess.
"Anything else we can help you with?" Rogan asked when they were done.
"Yeah," Jake said, looking at her. "You ever date a musician?"
She shook her head. "I never have."
"I never dated a cop either. Maybe we should do a couple of firsts?"
She was blushing quite strongly now, her confident demeanor driven underground. "I wouldn't be opposed to that," she said.
Before she left she handed him a business card with her name and current assignment printed on it. Below that, in a neat, feminine hand, she had printed her home telephone number.
Jake managed to call both Matt and Bill in time to prevent their respective manservants from removing all property from their condos. In the case of Bill, another call to the police was required to physically enforce the prevention. In the case of Matt, a threat to perform an emergency tracheotomy on the manservant with a butter knife and then fornicate with the resulting hole was enough. Jake also called Coop but Coop wasn't home, he was at Darren's. When Jake called Darren's, he got Cedric, who was undoubtedly already in the process of removing everything. Cedric informed him that both Darren and Coop were "indisposed" at the moment — which meant they were flying high on their latest shots of heroin. No matter how much Jake threatened and yelled, Cedric refused to put either of them on the phone.
"It is against the law for you to remove anything from their condo, Cedric," Jake warned. "You better leave their shit alone."
"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Kingsley," Cedric replied in his cultured, pompous tone. He then hung up. And, of course, he removed everything he had been told to remove — all the groceries, all the booze, and all the drugs, up to and including their beloved China White.
It was only twelve hours later when Jake received the first phone call. It was from Darren and he was angry — murderously angry — that Jake's actions had resulted in the loss of "all my shit". He threatened to come over and kick Jake's ass if he didn't agree to settle this dispute with the record company immediately and convince Bill and Matt to do the same.
"We're not having a dispute with the record company, Darren," Jake told him, keeping with the plan of admitting nothing. "They didn't like our tunes and now they're playing games with us."
There were a few more threats and then Darren hung up. A few minutes later, Coop called threatening to kick Jake's ass as well.
Twelve hours after that, neither one of them were in any kind of shape to kick anyone's ass. For the next three days both of them went through the hell of heroin withdrawal. Their bodies ached and trembled and shook and sweated. They suffered explosive diarrhea. They vomited up everything they attempted to put in their stomachs — which wasn't much since they had no appetites whatsoever, nor did they have much food available in their condos. On the fourth day these physical symptoms began to subside a bit but the mental symptoms — depression, suicidal thoughts, self-pity, anger, shame — were only just beginning. The phone calls began again, both of them calling Jake, Matt, and Bill in turn. They would beg pitifully for their fellow band members to end this thing and then angrily threaten when they were told there was nothing to end. The three core members did what they could. They used some of their squirreled away money to buy basic groceries for Darren and Coop so at least they wouldn't starve to death. They instructed them to call the cops if either of their manservants attempted to remove or sabotage these groceries. But as for getting their heroin and their pot and their booze and their limousines back, they simply told them to hang in there until National was done having their little fit. This did not make Darren or Coop feel better.
Christmas day came. The entire band spent it together at Jake's condo. They ate a roast turkey dinner that Jake had bought and prepared himself (Manny was forbidden by the record company to lift a finger to do any cleaning or cooking or other chores — he spent the majority of each day in his room). They sipped from glasses of white wine and drank liquor from the still reasonably stocked bar. Coop and Darren didn't eat much and both were more than a little whiny but they kept to their manners for the most part. It wasn't the greatest Christmas Jake had ever spent, but it wasn't the worst either.
The next day was a Wednesday and throughout the Los Angeles region, business as usual resumed. At 9:00 AM sharp, there was a knock on Jake's door. This was unusual in and of itself since the doormen downstairs were supposed to be controlling access to the residential floors and calling him when unexpected visitors showed up. Jake was unshaven, slightly hung over, and wearing a pair of tattered sweat pants and no shirt. His long hair was ragged and unkempt. He walked across the living room and opened the door, finding a neatly dressed man of about thirty standing outside.
"Can I help you?" Jake asked him.
"Are you Jake Kingsley?" the man asked.
"I am."
The man dropped an envelope at his feet. "You've been served, my friend. Have a nice day."
"But..." Jake started, but the man had already turned and walked away.
Jake reached down and picked up the envelope. He opened it and found an official paper notifying him that he had been subpoenaed to appear before the Honorable Joseph Cranford on January 3, 1985 in regards to a breach of contract charge filed by National Records Corporation.
He called each of the other band members, finding that they had all been served as well, pretty much at exactly the same instant he had. He then placed a phone call to an office building in Heritage and asked to speak to Pauline Kingsley. He was put on hold and forced to listen to the Muzak version of Elton John's Daniel for the next three minutes. Finally his sister came on the line and he explained what had just happened. She had him read the entire subpoena to her.
"Just what I thought they would do," she said. "They're going to try to get this judge to declare you in breach of contract and order you to produce acceptable music. Failure to do so will result in a contempt of court violation."
"So this is where the good faith effort saves our asses, right?" Jake asked.
"Yes," she said, "assuming this judge deems the music you submitted as a good faith effort. If he feels that you were deliberately making sub-standard music then good faith goes out the window."