Tanya got off the elevator on the sixth floor. O'Riley got off on the ninth. Jake then rode alone all the way up to the twenty-fourth floor, where the larger condos were. He stepped out into a spacious, lushly carpeted hallway that was lined with oil paintings and walked sixty feet to his front door. He opened it with a key and stepped inside the place he was currently calling home.
He had to admit, it was a really nice condo they'd set him up with. It had three bedrooms, including an eight hundred square foot master bedroom that featured an oversized bath, a separate shower, and a six-person Jacuzzi. The living room was quite large as well and was furnished in expensive leather. There was a sixty-two inch projection television with premium cable, a stereo VCR, and a laser-disc player. Next to that, in a separate cabinet, was a top-of-the-line stereo system that included a turntable, dual cassette players, a receiver, and even one of those new-fangled compact disc players, although this last was little more than a novelty since hardly any music was being released on CDs as of yet. All of these audio and visual components could be activated and adjusted by a variety of remote controls that stood on the smoked glass coffee table before the couch. On the far side of the living room were a huge picture window and a sliding glass door that led out to a spacious balcony that overlooked downtown LA. On the near side of the room was a fully stocked and operational oak wet bar.
Yes, it was a really nice place to stay and it was the only place Jake could refer to as "home" at the moment, but it wasn't really his. The luxury condo was leased by National Records and had been assigned to Jake as part of the "housing assistance" clause of his contract. What this clause stated was that if one of the undersigned were unable to secure housing between or during contract periods the label would provide housing appropriate to the "perceived public status expected of a person of their stature". The label would also provide necessary groceries, clothing, toiletries, grooming supplies, and, of course, "entertainment items". There was also a clause in there about providing a "manservant" if such a thing was deemed appropriate.
It went without saying, of course, that the cost of all of this was being deducted from the recoupable expenses account. Jake had asked for and received a copy of one of his monthly expense reports and was unsurprised to find that all of this luxury was running him an average of eight thousand dollars a month. And that did not even account for the cost of the limousines he rode in whenever he went somewhere or the cash allowance of one thousand dollars he was given every two weeks.
"Can't you set me up in a smaller place?" he'd asked at one point. "Just a little apartment in Hollywood somewhere? I can drive my own car and use my cash allowance for groceries."
"Remember the contract clause, Jake," Acardio responded. "We need to keep you in a place appropriate to your stature. People don't want to see a famous rock star living in some shithole Hollywood Boulevard dive. They want to see you in luxury. They don't want to see you driving some piece of shit car. They want to see you in a limo."
"But what about that manservant guy," Jake asked next.
"Manny? You don't like Manny? He came highly recommended."
"And he comes highly expensive as well," Jake said. "He's costing me two grand a month in salary and god knows how much in food. I can do my own laundry and clean my own house."
"We've found it best over the years if our musicians have someone take care of those duties for them. After all, we do have guests come over to your condo from time to time. We prefer that things remain professionally clean when such occurrences happen."
"So I can't get rid of Manny?"
"You're looking at this the wrong way, Jake. You're living in the lap of luxury. You should be grateful we're providing all of this for you."
And that had pretty much been the end of the discussion. Jake had made a phone call to Pauline later that day and asked her to peruse her copy of the contract again.
"Can they force me to live in this place and make me have to pay for everything associated with it?" he asked her. "Isn't there any way I can demand they put me in some place cheaper?"
She'd looked it over while he'd waited on the phone and her answer had been, incredibly enough, yes, they could and no he couldn't.
"They could put you up in some apartment in the middle of Watts or in a six million dollar mansion in Malibu with a complete staff of servants if they wanted to. Unless you're able to independently secure your own housing and pay for it out of your pocket, you have to live where they say."
And of course he couldn't pay for even the Watts apartment out of his own pocket. He had no cash flow of his own. Though the royalties were pouring in from the sales of the album and all the singles, and though the tour they'd completed had sold out every venue and had actually made money instead of losing it (a rarity among tours), the recoupable expenses were still eating up more than twice as much income as the royalties were bringing in. On the day Descent Into Nothing went platinum the band as a whole was more than ninety thousand dollars in the red. And now that the tour was over and the housing expenses were being deducted as well they were going even deeper into the hole.
As Jake closed the door behind him, Manny emerged through the kitchen door, smiling. Manny was forty years old but looked much younger. He was exquisitely fit, a flaming, lisping homosexual, and, like many menially employed people in the greater Los Angeles area, a frustrated actor. Though he was always polite — even when Jake wasn't — and though Jake had actually learned to like having a manservant, he instinctively knew where Manny's real loyalties lie. He was just another babysitter, just another spy for National Records who would report anything Jake said or did to Acardio if he deemed it something Acardio would want to know about.
"Jake," Manny greeted. "It's good to see you back. How was your trip?"
"Just groovy," Jake said, closing the door behind him and walking over to the couch. "What's that you're cooking? It smells funny."
"Hausenpepper," Manny said.
"A rabbit?" Jake asked. "You're cooking me a rabbit for dinner?"
"Oh, you've heard of it?"
Jake nodded. "Yeah, on a Bugs Bunny cartoon."
Manny looked at him strangely for a moment and then decided not to pursue the Bugs Bunny reference. Instead, he rushed over to take Jake's duffel bag. "Let me take this to the laundry room for you. I'll get everything washed up and put away before I go to bed tonight."
"Sure," Jake said, relinquishing possession of the bag.
"Can I get you a drink?"
"Naw," Jake told him. "You go back to stewing your rabbit. I'm gonna go take a shower and change. I'll get my own drink when I'm done."
"As you wish," Manny said, giving a polite little bow. With that, he whisked the duffel bag off towards the laundry room.
Jake locked the bedroom door behind him and then took a long, luxuriant shower, washing the smell of the redhead stewardess from his body. He dried off, dropping the towel into a laundry hamper Manny had installed and then put on a pair of baggy sweat pants and a loose fitting T-shirt. He sat down at his desk in the corner of the room and looked at the telephone. Like a Pavlov reaction, thoughts of Angie came flitting into his head. He still knew her telephone number. Assuming she was on the same schedule she had been on before the tour, he could dial that number right now and be talking to her in less than twenty seconds.