Everyone looked at him in stunned silence—everyone except for Obie, who was sizing him up as one poker player did to another.
“May I make a counter proposal?” Greg asked him.
“I’m listening,” Obie said softly.
“The financial terms are as negotiated,” he said. “The royalties, the rental, the auditing, all of that, just as proposed. Those are not unreasonable terms.”
Obie nodded. “Go on.”
“As for the Nerdlys, they will train your teams during the production of the two albums we are here to record. They will do all they can to instill their knowledge and experience to your people. After that, the deal is done. If these albums sell like we’re hoping they will, we’ll be back for second albums within the year. The training can continue at that time.”
Obie chewed his lip for a moment and then took another sip from his drink. He continued to stare at Greg the entire time. Finally, he shook his head. “I want the Nerdlys on my upcoming album at the very least,” he said. “I’m doing some experimental stuff and I want them involved. I’ll drop Appalachia from the proposal.”
Greg thought that over for a moment and then nodded. “That is reasonable,” he said, “if we place a cap on the amount of time you can have them. How about one hundred hours maximum?”
“Two hundred max,” Obie countered.
“One-fifty max,” Greg countered back, “and, of course, you will pay them for their efforts at the standard audio engineer rate plus ten percent.”
“Pay them?” Obie barked. “Are you out of your mind? Pay them for the privilege of me doing y’all a favor?”
“A favor is in the eye of the beholder,” Greg said.
Obie took a deep breath and let it out. “Standard rate only,” he countered.
“Standard plus five,” Greg shot back.
Obie continued to stare. Ten seconds passed. Everyone was now staring in awe, caught up in the drama.
“All right,” Obie said, holding out his hand. “I think we got a deal.”
Greg shook with him. He then turned to Pauline and Jake. “And that is how you do that,” he said smugly.
The next day, just past noon, Jake’s plane was back in the air, heading south toward Santa Monica airport, where it was based. Only Jake and Pauline were aboard for this flight, as Celia and the Nerdlys had all chosen to go back home with Greg aboard his chartered Lear. Jake didn’t blame them. The ride would be faster, more luxurious—there would be an actual bathroom aboard, for instance—and drinks would be served, although it was likely that if everyone else was feeling the way Jake did, there probably wouldn’t be much of that occurring.
Jake and Pauline both were suffering from hangovers of moderate intensity. Obie, after getting a contract drawn up by Pauline (“Put it in plain English that spells out the terms we’ve agreed to,” he had insisted. “Don’t try putting any of that fancy lawyer speak in it. If I have to call my lawyer to interpret it, the deal is off.”) and signed by all participants, had proven himself a generous host. Since it was Fourth of July, he had used his personal limousine and hired driver to take them all out on a tour of his town—which was to say they toured his favorite bars and drank like fish. Everyone in town knew Obie and he was a well-liked figure, partly because of his celebrity status, partly because he donated heavily to town programs such as the library, the hospital, and the high school music program, but mostly because he was a friendly, down to Earth guy who would strike up a conversation with anyone and would usually buy them a drink in the process. By the time they made it to the town waterfront for the impressive fireworks display (said display was also heavily funded by Obie), all of them were roaring drunk. And they had not stopped drinking during the celebration of America’s independence by means of air launched explosives. It had been close to eleven before Jake had finally poured himself into bed.
“All right,” Jake told his sister now as he watched the winding of the altimeter. “We’re past ten thousand feet now. The cockpit is no longer sterile.”
“Bleah,” Pauline said sourly. “If we keep bouncing around like this, this cockpit is going to be seriously unsterile in a minute.”
“It’s the turbulence caused by the onshore wind pushing up over the coastal range,” he told her. “It should smooth out a bit as we get further inland.”
The aircraft took another impressive lurch, making Pauline groan. “Let’s hope so,” she grunted.
They bounced and banged their way onward for a few more minutes, but by the time Jake leveled them off at sixteen thousand feet, the worst of it was indeed behind them. Pauline finally opened her eyes again.
“You doing okay, sis?” Jake asked her.
“I’m not used to drinking like that,” she said. “I should’ve stopped after the second bar.”
“You certainly seemed to be having a good enough time,” he pointed out. “It looks like you and Obie kind of hit it off. Any chance he’ll be joining the Kingsley clan at some point?”
“Yeah,” she said sourly, “like I’m looking to be some horny old goat’s fourth wife—especially since the prenups he makes his women sign are legendary.”
“Oh yeah?” Jake asked.
“Fixed alimony that is negotiated prior to the marriage, paid for a duration of two-thirds the length of the marriage, coupled with an immediate payout of one half of all net salary that Oren Blake II the individual, not the limited liability corporation, made during the course of the marriage. Child support, if any, to be negotiated at the time of the divorce. And, of course, the standard agreement that the undersigned wife will forfeit all of this in the event of infidelity.”
“I’m assuming that clause does not apply to infidelity on Obie’s part,” Jake said. Obie was absolutely notorious for his womanizing, particularly when out on the road.
“That would be a correct assumption,” she confirmed.
Jake nodded appreciably. As far as prenuptial agreements went, that was a good one. He couldn’t imagine having the balls to actually ask a woman to sign something like that. How would you even bring it up? When would you bring it up? Right after you proposed? And what kind of woman would even sign something like that?
“Well, anyway,” Jake said, “I’m glad we were able to come to terms with him. The use of that recording studio is going to make our music shine. And most of all, we can put it all together in reasonable privacy.”
“We’re certainly going to be paying a steep price for it,” she said. “You’ve done the math, I’m assuming? Five hundred an hour times two hundred hours of commitment is a hundred grand, payable in advance. That is not a paltry amount.”
“Oh, it’s going to be more than that,” Jake said. “There’s no way in hell we’ll be able to get two albums laid down and mixed with only two hundred hours of time. Hell, we spent nearly three hundred hours on Lines on the Map alone, and that was when we had Nerdly somewhat reigned in. We’re going to have to release his bonds on these albums.”
Pauline looked at him sharply. “How much time are we talking about?” she asked.
Jake considered for a moment. “Well, the digitization of the studio will cut down somewhat on the mixing time once we get the basic tracks laid down, so maybe it won’t be that bad in the end, but ... well ... I don’t think that two hundred hours per album is an unreasonable estimate.”
“So ... at least two hundred grand just to get masters in hand,” she said. “And then we’ll have to pay Obie three percent royalties on all sales forever.”
“That’s the deal,” Jake said. “You wrote it down yourself, remember?”