— Go on, Jim, Melanie urges.
Franco reluctantly takes the plugs. — I’ve never really been yin for dance music.
— You still a Rod Stewart fan?
— Aye, still dinnae mind a bit ay Rod, but have ye heard Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy?
— Wisnae too keen. It’s no a real Guns N’ Roses album, it doesnae have Slash oan the guitar.
— Aye, but the boy who plays guitar is fuckin better than Slash, he says, suddenly sounding like Begbie again, before inserting the plugs to eradicate any objections I might make.
Carl is a bit fucked and his hour warm-up set, spinning old vinyl on record decks that naebody has used for a decade or more, doesnae go doon that well. I always phone ahead to tell them to dig out old-school Technics turntables as the cunt still insists on spinning vinyl. They think it’s a joke at first, then they generally curse me tae fuck. Some flat refuse: albino Luddite intransigence has cost us bookings. And it’s not as if anybody here gives a fuck about his deep-house music. The Vegas weekend shagger crowd craves only the big names in EDM. They sit at their tables getting loaded on peeve, and hit the floor en masse when Conrad waddles intae the booth tae replace Carl. The star’s gig is pretty damn good if ye like that sort ay seedy table-service pseudo-prostitution deal, which I dinnae. Tae me, the brand ay jumpy cut-up EDM shit Conrad has adopted – lucratively, so I cannae criticise him – is a fucking misnomer. It’s totally undanceable, but the brostep frat-boy crowd and the husband-hunting suburban bimbettes lap him up.
Chanel, the journo, seems to have absconded, so Carl sits drinking steadily, making heavy-handed passes at the hostess. He’s pretty fucked off. His heart wisnae in that gig. In order tae gie the lassie, whae’s just daein her job, some respite fae his predatory attentions, I pull him aside and try tae say reassuring things. — Vegas will never be acid house.
— What the fuck am I doing here, then? he shouts as Conrad cuts up some more pop hits tae a dangerously rammed and intoxicated dance floor.
— Making money. Getting your name back out there.
Carl took the split with his missus Helena very hard. I got him this gig supporting Technonerd, which neither of them is happy about. But it’s Surrender at the Wynn, one ay the best nightclubs in the USA. So the term ‘ungrateful cunt’ resonates in my head a little.
Surrender is opulence personified, and we are making a fortune, but as usual, it’s no enough. It’s never enough. Not for Carl, and not for Conrad, who after the gig, is singing the same old tune as we have a drink before making our way tae the airport. — Why do I not get a residency in XS? Guetta has one in XS!
XS is the Wynn’s other nightclub, which is even bigger and more opulent than Surrender. It’s bigger and more opulent than anywhere, an ancient Roman palace of vice and decadence. — Because Guetta’s Guetta and you’re Conrad Technonerd, I snap in tetchy exhaustion, climbing down in face of his pout. — Next year you’ll be up with him, mate. Let’s just enjoy that express elevator ride to superstardom.
— So next year we will play in XS?
Jesus fuck. Greedy fat cunt. — We’ll see, buddy boy. But the prognosis is good.
— There is a girl… I said that I would take her and her friend back to LA. He nods over to a storm of sexy in the form of two lassies, all tans, hair, teeth, eyes, breasts and legs, who have managed to slip past security into our box.
Fucksticks. It means I have tae arrange passes, documentation and insurance for these sleazy-but-hot youngbloods who have targeted the fat Dutch boy. And I’ve already set the gluttonous cunt up wi an expensive hooker back at the Standard. I hope they all like the taste ay pussy and polder plug. We get into the minibus. Carl is pished, slumped in the very back seat and shouting about coke. At least Emily is quiet; she’s talking to Melanie.
— It must be so shit to know that you are finished as a DJ, Conrad shouts back to Carl, as Jensen chuckles and the two girls gasp in fake admiration.
— Fuck off, dickhead. Play some music, and he pulls out his phone, showing pictures of Conrad with the dildo attached.
I roll my eyes as the storm of squabbling builds. Franco turns to me, nods behind us. — However much you make, you deserve it, having to babysit them!
I learned fae babysitting the master; trying tae have a night oot withoot you cutting some cunt’s heid off. — I keep telling myself that, I say.
The private airfield is adjacent to McCarron, and thus a short hop from the Strip. I’m on the phone the rest of the way, trying tae arrange clearance for the two lassies, one of whom Conrad is sweatily pawing, while Jensen is hanging on Emily’s every word as she pontificates about her influences, no realising that he has zero chance. Carl has fallen intae silence. I dinnae like seeing him in that frame ay mind. We get into the jet and are LA-bound with minimum fuss. Melanie is impressed, and so is Franco. He keeps looking at me with that you flash cunt expression of disbelief.
— It’s a tax write-off against expenses, I stress. — Uncle Sam pays us to fuck up the environment, so we can get to our beds without having tae spend another sleepless night as high as kites in an oxygenated Vegas hotel room.
— Aye, right, Franco says doubtfully.
Although it’s a short flight, I’m jittery without the Ambien, and feel my mitt sweaty on the yellow container in my pocket. We land at the private airport in Santa Monica, where I say goodbye to Franco and Melanie, who are getting picked up by obviously loyal friends at this hour. Emily has hooked up with her party pals and Carl has a couple of sleazy druggies meet him and vanishes into the dark LA morning. I’m about tae get Conrad, Jensen and the girls intae a taxi and myself intae an Uber, but he’s having nane ay it. — You must come with me to the Standard, to make sure that the bitch whore you hired shows up, he commands, pushing a Hershey bar he got from the vending machine into his clammy pus.
My Santa Monica pad is ten fucking minutes away. I’m beyond exhausted and my jaw rattles as I think ay that bed. No a particularly great structure, but boasting a very expensive mattress. West Hollywood is around thirty minutes away, even in the clear roads at this time of day, and the same back. But he’s the talent. This fat, obnoxious, spoiled misogynistic little prick who calls women ‘hoes’ and ‘bitches’ because he’s a stupid rich white kid, trying to imitate some dumb black rapper twat he once met at a hip-hop conference: he is the fucking talent.
— Okay, I say, feeling my soul wither a wee bit mair.
I zone out at the front by the driver, trying tae block out Conrad’s charmless patter, and the fake, sycophantic laughter of Jensen and the girls. I’m already looking forward tae getting back tae Edinburgh for the New Year. I’ll even kip on the dodgy mattress in my old boy’s spare room. But then I think of Victoria, and realise that LA has its charms.