"It's the way the game is played, Jake," Pauline told him, her eyes with large bags beneath them, her skin color unnaturally pale from the constant fatigue she was forcing upon herself. "Have patience. Eventually we'll get around to tossing some real figures onto the table. That's when the fun really begins."
"How long?" Jake asked. "Jesus, look at what you're doing to yourself. You never get any sleep, you're flying back and forth twice a week to go to these worthless meetings, and you're probably pissing your bosses off something awful."
"That ain't no shit," she said. "They are definitely not happy with me lately."
"Pauline, you're going to get fired," he said. "I don't want that on my conscience. I appreciate everything you're doing for us but you're destroying your career."
"I'm not doing it entirely out of the kindness of my heart, little brother," she said. "Did you forget that? If this thing works out the way I'm hoping, I won't need that career anymore anyway."
"But you're burning your bridge behind you," he told her.
"Sometimes that's the only thing you can do," she said. "Don't worry about me or my job. We started this thing and we'll see it through, one way or another."
And off she'd flown, to go put in another seventy hours in her corporate law office and do another twenty or so of research on her own on the subject of entertainment contract law.
"I have nothing new to add about the lawsuit filed against us," Jake told Audrey Williams now, his voice a little testier than it usually was when dealing with these types. "We're working to resolve the issue and making progress on it."
"So there will be another Intemperance album this year?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "There will."
"That's good to know," she said and then abruptly changed gears. "Have you seen Handle With Caution yet?"
She was the first reporter to ask him this question. Handle With Caution was the critically acclaimed film, just released the previous week, starring Mindy Snow as an abused wife trying to break free of the relationship. Jake had actually been hoping that the media, with its attention span similar to that of your average houseplant, might have actually forgotten that he used to date Mindy Snow. No such luck apparently.
"No," he said. "I've been rather busy lately and I haven't had a chance to take in any movies."
"Were you hurt that you weren't invited to the premier?" she asked. "After all, you and the star of the film used to be in an intimate relationship and Mindy herself has said that her experience with you helped her prepare for the role. Don't you think you were owed an invitation?"
"No, I wasn't hurt at all," Jake said. "Have you seen the movie?"
Again, asking her a question served to throw her off stride. "Uh... well... no, actually, I haven't." She recovered quicker this time. "What about the news that Mindy and John Carlisle are now engaged? Any comments on that?"
"None at all," he said. "I wish them nothing but the best. Now, if you'll excuse me, the bar is calling."
Before she could formulate another annoying, intrusive question, he quickly sidestepped around her and made his escape. He did not make it to the bar, however. Before he could get there, Darren waved him over to a corner of the room where he and Coop were talking to two other musicians. Jake went over to them.
"Dude," Darren said, "you remember Mike and Charlie, don't you?"
"Of course," Jake said, shaking their hands. Mike Landry and Charlie Meyer were the lead singer and bass player for Birmingham, the southern rock group who had opened for them on the The Thrill Of Doing Business tour. "How you guys doing?"
"Not bad," said Mike, who was sipping out of what appeared to be mineral water.
"Hangin' in here," said Charlie.
"Congratulations on your nomination," Jake said. Birmingham had been nominated for the Best New Artist award. The fact that their album had barely gone gold was, to Jake, further proof of the heavy-handed involvement of the record companies in the whole Grammy process. True, their single, Texas Hold-em, had done pretty well, parking itself at number one for a single week and selling well over a million copies but it had done nowhere near as well as the other nominees in the bunch. National had simply pulled the strings they had to pull to get one of their acts into the show, the same thing they had done with Intemperance.
"Thanks," said Charlie, who was smoking a cigarette in an inexpert manner and sipping from a fruity looking drink. "I really hope we win it."
"Me too," said Mike. "You think we have a chance?"
Jake knew they didn't have a chance in hell of taking that Grammy. "Well," he said, "the competition is pretty stiff for that award. You got Cyndi Lauper, Sheila E., The Judds, even that MTV weirdo Corey Hart, all going up against you for it. They all sold quite a few albums." A lot more than you did, he did not add.
The dejection in their faces was a little more than he'd expected.
"What's the big deal?" he asked. "It's just a stupid award that doesn't really mean anything. At least that's my take on all of this."
"They have to win the award if they wanna do another album," Darren said.
"How's that?" asked Jake.
"National said we didn't sell enough of our first album," Charlie explained. "They said they made a small profit from us but they don't anticipate a second album doing the same unless we pull in one of the Grammy awards."
"They're not going to utilize the second contract period?" Jake asked. That was, actually, well within their rights assuming Birmingham had signed the same contract Intemperance had.
"Not unless we take a Grammy," Mike said.
"And if we don't," said Charlie, "and they don't pick us up for another album, we won't be able to go sign with another record company. In fact, they told us we won't be able to work as musicians at all until the contract we have is expired."
"That six years, man," Mike said. "Six fuckin' years. Is that shit legal?"
"Unfortunately, at this point in time, it is," said Jake. "These record contracts are like indentured servitude, aren't they?"
"Yeah," Charlie said, taking a sip. "That's what we're finding out."
"You oughtta do what we're doing," Darren suddenly blurted.
"What do you mean?" asked Charlie.
"We threatened those fuckers with..." He got no further because Jake's elbow drove into his side nearly hard enough to break a rib. "Damn, Jake!" he yelled. "What the fuck did you do that for?"
Jake pulled him to the side, out of earshot of the two Birmingham musicians. "You need to keep your mouth shut about what is going on between us and National," he whispered to him. "You can't tell anyone anything. I thought you understood that."
"Aww, man," Darren scoffed. "That just means reporters and shit, doesn't it? Mike and Charlie are cool. They're brother band members, man! They're getting fucked just like we are."
"It means everyone," Jake said. "It doesn't matter if they're cool or not. You can't even tell your mom about it."
"That's fucked up," Darren said, shaking his head at the injustice of it all.
"Besides," Jake said, "it wouldn't do them any good anyway. They barely made gold. We're double and triple platinum, you know what I mean? It's only because we're so fuckin' good that we're able to pull this off."
This argument seemed to carry more weight with Darren. "Ohhhh," he said. "I guess that makes sense. You gotta be important to The Man before The Man will start taking you seriously. That's what Coop always said."