"Uh huh," Jake said. "And strangely enough, I'd be making more money than I am now, wouldn't I?"
Acardio stammered for a moment, obviously unsure how to answer that one. Finally, he just changed the subject to the one he really wanted to discuss. "Where have you been all day, Jake?"
"Out," Jake said.
"That's not good enough," Acardio told him. "You sneak out of your condo, take off on foot without telling anyone where you're going, and then don't come back for seven hours? I'm afraid 'out' isn't going to cut it. Where were you, who were you with, and what were you doing?"
"None of that is any of your business, Max," Jake said calmly.
"Anything you do is my business," Acardio told him. "We can't allow you to just go wandering around the city wherever and whenever you please. Anything could happen to you!"
"Your concern is touching," Jake replied. "But you and your babysitters and your spies down in the lobby are just going to have to get used to it. I will be coming and going as I please from now on."
"You can't do that!" Acardio yelled.
"Sure I can. I believe we abolished slavery and indentured servitude a few years back, didn't we?"
"Your contract..."
"Doesn't say shit about me having to ask your permission to go out or about having to get your approval to see any particular person."
"That may be true," Acardio said, "but it doesn't say we have to give you a spending allowance either. That is completely at our discretion. If you do not abide by the rules we set down I will cut off your allowance."
"Do what you need to do, Max," Jake told him. "But since you're planning to declare a breach of contract anyway, that's not really much of a threat now, is it?"
"Jake," Acardio said, "you know as well as I do that you're not going to let us file a breach of contract on you. You're not going to give up this lifestyle we're allowing you to live for a life of poverty and misery. We've been over this before. You're not fooling us. We're calling your bluff."
"We're not bluffing, Max," Jake said. "I would have thought you'd realized that by now. All five of us are quite prepared to go down with the ship before we play any of that shit you call music."
"Listen, Jake," Acardio said. "You've had your little rebellion against our authority, okay? We've been treating you with kid gloves through it but it's getting old. Don't make us get nasty with you."
Jake sighed. "You know something, Max," he said. "I was in a really good mood when I came in my house just now, the best mood I've been in in years. That mood is starting to fade a little and this conversation is directly responsible for that."
"You need to face reality, Jake," Acardio said.
"So anyway," Jake continued, ignoring the interruption, "before my mood fades even further, I'm going to end this conversation. Call me back when you're ready to talk about which three of our songs you want to record."
"Jake, I'm warning you..."
"And cut off my allowance if you think you need to," he added. "It'll probably do me some good to stay home at night more.
"Jake!" Acardio yelled. There might have been more but Jake didn't hear it because he hung up the phone again.
"Jake," said Manny, who had been hovering nearby during the entire exchange, "I think you're making a big mistake. Nobody talks to Mr. Acardio that way."
Jake looked at him with contempt. "When I want advice from you, Manny, I'll ask for it. In the meantime, I'm accepting no calls from Acardio unless he tells you they've given in. Do you understand?"
"I can't refuse to..."
"Look, Manny," Jake told him. "I just had one of the best days of my entire life, you dig? And I refuse to have it spoiled. I refuse. Now I understand where you're coming from. You're an employee of Acardio and National Records."
"No, Jake," he said. "I'm not. I'm..."
"Let's not play games," Jake said. "You're an ass-sucking mole planted here by Acardio to keep an eye on me and babysit me. I've known that since the first day. I'm not stupid, okay? And while I can never respect you for what you do, I can at least understand your position. I'm sorry I'm forcing you to be in the middle of this dispute between myself and the executives at National Records, but it's the life you chose and you're going to have to deal with it. When he calls back you need to ask him if he's given in to our demands in full. If the answer is anything but yes, I will not talk to him. Period."
The phone began to ring.
"You'd better get that," Jake said. "In the meantime, I'm going to go out on the balcony, drink my drink, smoke a few cigarettes, and reflect upon my day."
And with that, he took his drink, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and walked across the room to the balcony door. He stepped outside and sat in his favorite chair. He stared out at the smog choked downtown buildings and sipped rum and coke. Manny did not disturb him.
Eighteen hours later, Jake and Matt stepped out of limousine in front of the National Records building. They had been summoned to a meeting though told nothing about what the subject of it would be. Jake knew, however, that it could be only one of two things. They were either giving in, or they were announcing an official breach of contract.
"How was your date with the little cutesy actress?" Matt asked as they waited for the elevator.
"It was good," he said. "Very good. But my ass is so sore right now I can barely sit down."
"Your ass is sore?" Matt asked, interested. "What kind of kinky-ass shit were you doing with her?"
"It's from the horseback riding," he said. "She owns this huge piece of property up near the Angeles National Forest. We rode for a couple of hours and had a picnic."
"A picnic?" Matt asked, as if he'd never heard of such a thing.
"Yeah, by a stream. It was nice."
"It was nice?" Matt said. "What the hell does that mean? Did you nail her, or what?"
"I kissed her," Jake said.
"On her pussy?"
"On her lips."
"And then what?"
"And then we rode back to her house. Like I said, it was nice."
"You didn't bang her?" Matt asked, appalled.
"No, I didn't bang her. We had a picnic, we kissed a little, and I came home."
Matt shook his head in disbelief. "I thought you said you had a good time."
Jake chuckled, not bothering to explain any further. Matt simply wouldn't get it. Instead, he turned the subject over to more serious matters. "What's your guess," he asked him. "Are they caving or not?"
Matt shrugged. "At this point I'd just be glad if they made a decision of some sort. I'm tired of having these fucks call me up and threaten me all the time."
In the end, it turned out to be almost anti-climatic. They were led into the office of James Doolittle, the head of National's A&R department, a man they had never met before in person but that both had talked to on the phone several times during the crisis over Matt's refusal to play anything but his Strat onstage.
"It's good to meet you boys at last," he said as they sat down in chairs before his large desk. He was a short man in his mid-forties, his graying hair neatly styled, his clothing a power-suit right out of Dress for Success.
They shook with him but did not return the sentiment that it was good to meet with him at last. Instead, Matt got right to the point.
"If you brought us in here to threaten us some more, we'll just leave now. We're not bluffing and we're not giving in on this. We will not perform any song we haven't written."
"I understand completely," Doolittle said.
"Oh you do, do you?" Matt asked.
"Yes," he said. "I do."
They waited for the punch line. Apparently, however, there wasn't one.
"You guys are artists," he said. "It's understandable that you're unwilling to compromise your art for strict commercialism. I get where you're coming from and I respect you for it."