“Nothing,” Matt said. “She’s not my manager anymore. But the money I get from Intemperance only exists because of her and, even if I didn’t feel fuckin’ honor-bound to keep giving it to her because she was a badass bitch who got up there and fuckin’ rammed it home to those suits and their lawyers, we signed a contract with her. She was our manager, and she gets to take twenty percent off the top of everything we earned from Balance of Power onward. That’s in writing and I couldn’t change it even if I wanted to.”
“Twenty percent is a lot of money, Matt,” Andy told him. “I appreciate your sense of honor—truly I do—but I think that if I got my legal team looking into this issue there is perhaps a fifty to sixty percent chance we can get a legal ruling that will separate Ms. Kingsley from your Intemperance revenue on the basis that she no longer represents you or your interests. You’ll get to keep everything if that happens. Everything.”
“No,” Matt said without even pausing to consider this suggestion. “I don’t work like that. Pauline may have sold out Darren and helped kill his stupid ass—something I’ll never forgive her for—but she earned that fuckin’ money and I’m not going to try to take it away from her. I’m not like she is, you dig?”
Andy sighed but he nodded. “I dig,” he said. “It was just a suggestion and I’ll drop it.”
“Good,” Matt said.
“Will you at least let me start working on ways to separate Pauline from your Intemperance revenue stream?”
“What do you mean?”
“All of the income you receive from Intemperance-related contracts still comes through her office first before it comes to me.”
“Well ... yeah,” Matt said. “That’s because the entire band as a whole is paid and then she breaks it up into individual royalties. That would be her keeping up with her part of the contract. What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s a potential weak point in the chain of your income,” he explained. “By having that money pass through Pauline first, you are vulnerable to fraud and deceit on her part. She could be skimming off more than her twenty percent.”
The glare returned to Matt’s face. “Do you have any evidence that she is doing something like that?” he asked.
“No, of course not. If I had such evidence, I would have informed you the moment it came to my attention. The problem is that she could be cleverly concealing such skimming and there is no evidence. By removing her from the equation I can guarantee that such a thing is not occurring.”
The glare increased in intensity. “Doesn’t she provide you with all the paperwork and wire transfer shit that itemizes each and every penny of that income?” he asked.
“Yes, she does,” Andy said. “And when I look at them, everything seems to be in order so far. I’m just saying that such documents could easily be forged or altered. I’m not saying she would do it, but it is possible. If we have National just wire your share of the profits directly into your account each quarter instead of sending them to Ms. Kingsley first, we can be absolutely sure that she is not pilfering more than her due.”
Alarm bells and flashing red lights were now going off all over the place in Matt’s brain. Red flags were popping up as well. “Look, dude,” he told the accountant, “I may not have a fucking Master’s degree in taxation. In fact, I only have a high school diploma to my name and I barely managed to score that. Still, I’m not a dumbshit. There’s this thing called ‘checks and balances’, you know what I’m saying? Pauline is part of that system. She makes sure that National Records is not playing games with my Intemperance money and your job is to make sure that Pauline is not playing games with my Intemperance money and, in turn, Pauline is there to make sure that you’re not playing games with my Intemperance money. It’s a system that’s worked pretty fuckin’ well for me over the years, you dig?”
“I dig,” Andy said, “but...”
“No fuckin’ buts,” Matt interrupted. “Pauline may be a sellout bitch that helped kill one of my best friends, but she’s honest. I trust her.”
“I’m not suggesting she’s not trustworthy,” Andy said, “I’m just saying...”
“I trust her a fuck of a lot more than I trust you,” Matt told him. “Even though I ain’t seen her or talked to her in almost five years, I kind of like having her look over my shit before it gets to you. We ain’t changing anything about that.”
“All right then,” Andy said, the grin returning to his face in an instant. “I’ll drop the subject then. We keep things the way they are with the Intemperance income.”
“Goddamn right,” Matt said.
Ten minutes later he was back in his limousine, snorting a few lines of cocaine off a CD case. He congratulated himself for not taking any shit from Andy the Second. You just had to know had to deal with assholes like that.
And the news that he wouldn’t be paying as much in taxes was good to ponder as well.
Shrine Auditorium
Los Angeles, California
July 16, 1994
The hosts of the 1994 Soul Train Music Awards were Patti Labelle, Gladys Knight, and Johnny Gill, all of whom Jake and Laura had had the pleasure of meeting prior to the start of the ceremony. Laura had been quite awed by them, almost to the point of being tongue-tied. Jake, who was more accustomed to meeting legendary musicians, had maintained his calm demeanor but had still felt a little intimidated himself. The greats had actually conversed with him, had actually spoken to him as if he were a peer. It was a very odd sensation.
As guests of Bigg G, who was nominated for the Best Rap Album category for his multi-platinum release Bring It, as well as Song of the Year, for Step Inside, on which Jake had played the acoustic guitar, they had really good seats. Fourth row back, on the center aisle. Gordon and Neesh sat on the aisle itself while Jake and Laura sat next to them. Janet Jackson was sitting on Jake’s right and Toni Braxton was sitting just in front of him. Toni and Laura had actually been chit-chatting with each other during the commercial break periods, their conversation beginning with Laura’s dress, which had been designed by Versace and was quite alluring on her, and then rolling into anecdotes of recording and touring after that.
Jake was not the only white man in the audience, but he was one of the few. If all of them got together, they wouldn’t have been able to field all the positions in a baseball game. Still, he was unintimidated by his minority status, at least in the audience. In a few minutes, however, he was going to step up on that stage with Gordon and the rest of Gordon’s band and they were going to perform Step Inside for the crowd and the national television audience watching the show. Jake would be the only white performer to appear on that stage tonight. That thought was a little nerve wracking.
Gladys Knight handed out the award for Gospel Album of the Year and the members of the group Mississippi Mass Choir made their speeches. The show went to commercial and the gospel singers left the stage, award in hand, to go back to their seats. This was the cue for Jake and Gordon.
“All right,” Gordon said, standing up from his chair and adjusting the bow tie of his tuxedo. “You ready for this shit, white boy?”
“Hell to the yeah,” Jake told him, standing as well and taking a deep breath.
“You’ll do fine, hon,” Laura told him, giving his hand an affectionate squeeze.
Jake laughed. “Since we’re only lip synching what we recorded earlier, it would be really hard to screw it up.”
“There are those who have found a way though,” Gordon said. “Come on. Let’s hit it.”