"I have utmost confidence in you," Remington said. "Now then, is there anything else?"
There was nothing else.
"Okay then," Remington said. "This hearing is adjourned. And I will ask both parties in this dispute to please come to a settlement before this comes to trial. It is my sincere wish to see none of you in my courtroom ever again." He banged his gavel and left the courtroom. Once in his chambers he put on a Gershwin album from his collection and spent the next twenty minutes cleansing his auditory canals of that rock and roll trash they had been contaminated with.
Meanwhile, out in the hallway, Matt made a point to call out to Frowley again.
"Round two to the band, bitch!" Matt yelled at him, showing both middle fingers. "To the fuckin' band!"
Chapter 16B: Pauline
Frowley was still infuriated when Pauline called him two hours later. She was forced to endure a five-minute lecture about lack of decorum and uncouth behavior and proper legal procedures and judges who didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
"That's all very interesting, Frowley," she said when he finally wound down. "Now, if we could get to the point of my phone call?"
"What do you want?"
"I would like to arrange a meeting between you, myself, and at least one member of National Records management with decision-making capabilities. I would like for this meeting to take place today, preferably before the close of business hours."
"You're out of your mind," he replied. "We'll meet you in court. Round two might have gone to you but the fight will go to us and you know it."
"This meeting," Pauline said, ignoring his speculation about what she did or did not know, "will be to discuss a possible settlement to this matter, something that will get the band back to work and the next Intemperance album back in production."
There was a long pause. Finally, "If your settlement involves changing the band's contract in any way, you can forget it."
"I will discuss the terms of the settlement during the meeting and only during the meeting, and only if National management is present."
On his end of the phone line, Frowley opened his mouth to tell Pauline to take a flying fuck. He closed it before anything could come out. Something occurred to him. If they did meet and this so-called lawyer from Bum-fuck Egypt actually admitted that the band was producing sub-standard material — something it seemed quite likely she would be dumb enough to do — they would be able to go back to Judge Remington and get their court order. He smiled. "Let me see what I can do," he told her. "Is there a number I can call you back at?"
They met at the National Records Building at four o'clock. Hoping to impress and overwhelm Pauline — who they viewed as a small-town, small-time, hick lawyer similar to Gregory Peck's character in To Kill A Mockingbird — the meeting took place in the executive briefing room on the top floor. Both Casting and Doolittle were present, backed up by Frowley and his entire entourage. The lawyers and the executives were all decked out in their best power suits. They greeted Pauline warmly and sat her in a small chair that faced all of them in their raised chairs, forcing her to look upward just to talk to them.
"Is there anything we can get you before we begin?" asked Casting, ever the perfect host. "A drink perhaps?"
"No, thank you," Pauline replied.
"How about a line or two of our best cocaine? I've found that these things sometimes go smoother if everyone is a little relaxed."
"Again, no, thank you," Pauline said. "I have a nine o'clock flight back to Heritage so I'd just assume get this over with."
"As you wish," Casting said.
"Do you have any objection to the meeting being recorded?" asked Frowley.
"None at all," Pauline said. "In fact, I was going to ask you the same thing." With that, she opened her briefcase and removed a small micro-cassette recorder. She gave it a quick check, turned it on, and spoke softly into it, reciting the time, date, place, participants, and purpose of the meeting. She then sat it on the table before her, leaving it running.
Frowley gave her an isn't-that-cute look and then repeated the procedure with his own micro-cassette recorder.
"Now then," Frowley said. "It is my understanding that you have come here today with a settlement proposal. Is that correct?"
"Yes it is," Pauline said.
"Well, let's hear what you have to say and we'll consider it."
"Very well." She took a deep breath. Her wording here would have to be very cautious and very precise. To make an admission of any kind that the band was doing any of this purposefully would be an automatic disqualification from the game now afoot. Yet she still had to convey her demands to them and offer them reassurance that if they played ball things would return to normal. As such, she had carefully composed and rehearsed the manner in which she was about to present her case to them. "My clients seem to be suffering from a very bad case of creativity block, wouldn't you say?"
Frowley fielded her serve and neatly volleyed it back to her. "That is one way of putting it," he said.
"I can't think of any other way," Pauline told him. "That tape they submitted to you was awful. It was the worst thing they've ever done."
Frowley raised his eyebrows a tad. Was it really going to be this easy? "So you admit they are deliberately sabotaging their music?"
She smiled, letting him know that it wasn't really going to be that easy. "No, of course not," she said. "They are not deliberately sabotaging their music. Quite the contrary. They honestly tried their best to be creative in their latest endeavor. They are very upset that you do not consider it to be acceptable. I'm afraid they've lost confidence in their abilities to produce any more music."
"I see," Frowley said. "So this is a crisis of confidence, is it?"
"Partly," she said. "Although I think this current crisis is simply a symptom of a much larger problem."
"And what might this much larger problem be?"
"Stress," said Pauline. "Stress caused by the way they have been treated by National Records under their current contract."
Frowley rolled his eyes. "Stress caused by the contract, huh? I knew it would come down to this. My clients will not renegotiate the Intemperance contract in any way, shape, or form. That is set in concrete, my dear. We will reject any settlement offer in which that is one of the terms."
Pauline simply shrugged. "Your contract is exploiting the band quite dreadfully. You are making millions of dollars in album sales, singles sales, concert revenue, and merchandising revenue while the band is going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to you. They are being treated in a manner that is frightfully unfair and they are resentful of this. I, for one, know that Jake, my brother, has a particular hatred of being treated unfairly."
"So he decided to sabotage his music in response to this perceived unfairness?" Casting asked.
"No," Pauline said. "I don't believe that to be the case at all. I believe the stress and humiliation of being little better than indentured servants to a greedy corporation has caused the band to lose their creative edge."
Frowley gave her another eye roll, a bigger one this time. "And whatever might we do, Ms. Kingsley, to give these poor boys their creative edge back?"
"It's quite simple," she said. "You need to start treating them fairly."
"And how, may I ask, might we do that?"
Pauline smiled sweetly. "Well, I think renegotiating their contract might just do the trick."
Casting and Doolittle groaned. Frowley shook his head in disgust.
"This meeting is now over," Casting said. "I should have known better than to agree to it in the first place."
"I quite agree," said Doolittle.
"Your clients have two choices, Miss," Frowley said. "They can submit acceptable material in the next two weeks and record it at National's direction or they can be sued for breach of contract. I'm sure even a small-timer like yourself knows they don't have a chance in hell of winning a breach of contract suit at trial."