“I remember,” she sighed. “And it could’ve been even worse ... if not for Greg.”
Jake chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess we maybe underestimated him a bit?”
“We did,” she conceded. “I was pissed at him when he weighed in like that. I wanted to kill his ass right then and there, but ... he was right. He knew where and how to hit Obie so we could twist things in our favor—as much as things could be twisted in our favor, anyway.”
“We probably should have realized he would be a shrewd operator,” Jake said. “He has spent the past fifteen years negotiating movie contracts, after all. I guess you don’t get to be worth fifty million by being bad at making deals.”
“I suppose not,” she allowed. “I just wish he wouldn’t be so pompous. He drives me crazy with that snobbery sometimes. And when he starts telling me how to manage you and Celia ... that is infuriating. He knows nothing about managing musicians, about producing music. That was why we had to ban him from the goddamn studio, remember?”
“I remember,” Jake said. That had been an awkward and uncomfortable time in their relationship.
“He did a good thing yesterday, Jake, but he also did a bad thing. I can’t have him thinking he can undermine me when it comes to management decisions. I am in charge of the day-to-day operations of KVA Records. Only one person can be in charge. That needs to be made clear to him.”
“I’ll talk to C about the day-to-day things again,” Jake said, “but...” He took a deep breath.
“But what?” Pauline asked.
“Did I ever tell you the story about when we first signed up with Shaver, our so-called manager before you?”
“The guy who screwed you like a Bangkok whore,” she said. “No, you never told me that story.”
“Yeah,” Jake said with a sigh, “that was not the most productive business relationship we’ve ever forged, that’s for sure, but when we first met him, he tried to screw us even worse than what we ended up with. He tried to soak us for thirty percent, claiming that was his standard rate for signing an unknown band.”
“Thirty percent?” Pauline said. “That’s outrageous. Twenty is the industry standard for new bands. Successful established acts can actually get away with ten to fifteen.”
“And we knew that at the time,” Jake said. “Still, we were desperate to get signed and he flat out told us that it was thirty percent or he was going to hit the highway. You see, he saw our potential back then, and he wanted very badly to exploit us for every dime he could squeeze out of us. He ran a bluff on us. Matt—who was our leader at that time—wanted to cave to him. He didn’t want to risk losing our connection to a record contract.”
“But he didn’t cave,” Pauline said. “I remember your actual contract with Shaver was for twenty-one percent.”
“Matt did cave. So did the rest of the guys. I came to the conclusion that Shaver was bluffing us and I stepped up. I defied Shaver, told him I would refuse to sign a contract for anything more than twenty percent. Matt was pissed. He threatened me with violence, but I was right and I held my ground. It was Shaver who caved when he realized he might lose us completely. He held onto that one percentage point over twenty just so he could save face with himself, and I allowed it to stand, but he was the one to cave.”
Pauline looked at her brother, her expression unhappy. “I see the parallel with our situation yesterday,” she told him. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying there is a time and place for someone to step up and make themselves heard, even if they are not in charge. I did it with Shaver, and Greg did it with Obie. In both cases, the ends justified the means. We’ve got a lot of tough negotiations in our future, sis. We’ll need to negotiate with one of the record companies for royalty rates and distribution and promotion terms. We’ll need to negotiate the amount of control we retain over the manner of how our products are released. In all of this, you will remain firmly in charge, but I think maybe it might be a good idea to have an attack dog on a leash sitting in on those negotiations.”
She was clearly not happy with this suggestion, but she was smart enough to see the merits of it. “I suppose you’re right,” she allowed.
“I’ll talk to Celia about getting him to chill on the day to days,” he promised. “But I want him around when we sit down with the suits to talk terms, okay?”
She nodded. “Fair enough,” she replied.
Meanwhile, 610 air miles to the south, Matt Tisdale, former lead guitarist for Intemperance, a man who had once called himself Jake Kingsley’s brother, was suffering from a hangover of his own. He had celebrated the birthday of his country by partying at his two-million-dollar house on the beach just outside the town of San Juan Capistrano. Independence Day had only served as a titular theme of the party. Matt hardly needed to have a reason to throw one his infamous gatherings.
He opened his eyes, wincing at the light streaming in from the picture window is his master bedroom. He was naked and reeked of sexual musk, his head pounding rhythmically with the beat of his heart, his mouth as dry as the Sahara. He turned his head to the right and saw the equally naked body of Kim Kowalski—the former porn star known as Mary Ann Cummings—curled in a fetal position next to him. She was snoring slightly, her respiration deep and regular. Kim pretty much lived in Matt’s house now—she had been for the past year and a half—but she did not live there officially. Matt saw to that. She still owned her own house in Los Angeles, though she rarely visited it these days. He did not even refer to her as his girlfriend, though in some states they would actually be considered common-law spouses. No bitch was ever going to lay claim on Matt Tisdale.
He looked at the clock on the wall, seeing it was just past noon. Christ, he thought, what time did we go to bed? He wasn’t entirely sure. As often happened at one of his parties, his brain stopped recording memories at some point before he actually made it to bed, but he did have a reasonably clear recollection of doing shots of tequila with Kim and some stripper that she had been trying to recruit for a porn production her start-up company—Mary Ann Cummings Productions—was working on. That had been at 4:30 AM. He remembered looking at the clock in the living room. They had been discussing the possibility of a little threesome action to show her what could be expected of her if she agreed to sign on. Had that happened? He didn’t remember having a threesome, but he also didn’t remember not having a threesome.
He looked around the room. There certainly was not a stripper in the bed with Kim, although that was not proof one way or the other. All guests to Matt’s parties were invited with the understanding that they not let the sun rise on them there. Come in, party down, enjoy my hospitality, and then get the fuck out, was the motto that was made quite clear. Sometimes he even printed that on the actual invitations.
He looked to the right, to the nightstand on his side of the bed, and saw three condom wrappers crumpled up there. Ahhh, so there had been a little action up here at some point after 4:30. If he had just been boning Kim by herself, there would have been no condoms involved. Kim was on the pill—the only woman in his life he had ever trusted to actually be on it—and, since she no longer performed as an adult film actress, disease was no longer a worry—at least it wasn’t as long as Matt himself capped his weapon whenever he railed someone who was not Kim, and as long as Kim made sure any weapon other than Matt’s that penetrated her was capped as well. It was an unconventional relationship, but it worked.
I wonder how she was? he thought as he pulled himself out of bed. She was a pretty good looking piece of skank. A pity I can’t remember what we did. Oh well. Life was like that sometimes. Some days you remembered the threesomes, some days you didn’t. Maybe Kim would remember what had happened and would be able to fill him in.