“We’re still working on the final lineup,” he said, “but there will be at least eight different acts on each day. You will be the headliner for both nights; I guarantee that, and it will be in writing on the contract.”
“I would expect so,” Matt said. “But you didn’t answer my question. Who else is onboard at this point?”
“So far, we have commitments from Alice in Chains, Dreamline, Backyard Dirt, David Gross, Seavey Circle, Hole, and The Dave Matthews Band. Lisa Loeb, No Doubt, Pantera, and Linda Perry are all considering.” He did not mention one other performer who was also considering, knowing that it would likely be a deal breaker. He would let Matt know about that particular performer after he signed the contract.
Matt nodded in appreciation at most of the acts, grimaced at a few, but was satisfied. “All right then,” he said. “I guess you can count me in as long as the terms you just laid down are in the final contract and you don’t try to slip any bullshit in on me.”
“We will slip in no bullshit,” Stillson promised. “The contract will be in plain English. That’s how we do things at Music Alive.”
“Uh huh,” Matt said skeptically. “I’ll believe it when I see it. For now though, we have a deal.”
Stillson smiled. “Welcome aboard,” he said, holding out his hand.
Matt shook with him. “Now then,” he said after. “You said something about some Peruvian flake earlier?”
“Indeed, I did,” he said, smiling.
“Let’s take it in the entertainment room and line up then,” Matt suggested. “You crunch it and I’ll make us a couple of drinks.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Stillson told him.
Two evenings later, Jake flew his plane from Oceano to Whiteman airport in the San Fernando Valley. Laura was with him. She, along with Celia and the rest of the band, were on tour break for three weeks between the first and second legs of the North American tour. They had arrived back in LA the day before Matt had his meeting with Stillson. Jake had picked up Laura from the airport and driven her to Whiteman. They had flown home shortly after that and had spent most of the ensuing two days either in bed or lounging around in their sweatpants and t-shirts.
Lounging, however, was not the only thing on the agenda for the tour break. Tom and Mary, Jake’s parents, and Cindy and Stan, Nerdly’s parents, had flown into LAX the day before. The Kingsley elders were staying with Pauline in her house. The Nerdly elders were staying with the Nerdlys in their house. But this was only until the next night, at which point Jake, Laura, and the parents would all board an Air New Zealand Boeing 747 and make the thirteen-hour flight to Auckland, after which they would catch another ANZ flight to Christchurch and stay for ten days in Jake’s hillside house there. All of the parents wanted to see Jake’s pad in the far corner of the Earth and experience the South Island autumn. The Nerdlys wanted to see it too, but they did not want to subject little Kelvin or themselves to the long, torturous airplane rides there and back and the mere thought of leaving their precious child with the nanny for ten days was unthinkable to them. They would stay home and spend most of their time administering and improving their website.
Jake and Laura flew back to Whiteman in the early afternoon on the day of their flight. They loaded their luggage into the back of Jake’s truck—one big suitcase for each of them, plus Jake’s battered old Fender in a guitar case (he was hopeful that he could begin composing some new material during the trip)—and made the drive to Pauline’s house where a farewell dinner was to be held before a limo picked them up for the trip to LAX at seven o’clock that evening. The Nerdlys were there along with Cindy and Stan, as were Obie and Tabby (who, by this point in her terrible twos, had been re-nicknamed “Satan’s Master” instead of merely “Satan”). Hugs and greetings were exchanged all around and then everyone settled into the entertainment room for cocktails and appetizers while Gloria the housekeeper prepared their meal of chicken marsala, garlic bread, and salad.
It was Obie who brought Jake the latest issue of Smooth Operator. Jake, who used to have a subscription to the publication (along with Hustler and Penthouse) before the proliferation of free and easy to access internet porn, had heard rumor of the Mindy Snow tell-all tales but had not seen or heard any of the details yet. He looked at the cover in interest, not even seeing the young lady on the cover, but focusing on the description of the article within.
“A ‘strong supporter of the working class’, huh?” Jake said with a smile and a chuckle as he took the glossy magazine.
“That’s what the man alleges,” Obie said with a chuckle of his own.
“Jacob, really,” his mother said from her seat on the couch across the room (she only used the name printed on his birth certificate when she was irritated or mad at him). “You’re going to look at a girlie magazine while your mother sits in the room?”
“Hey, we’re all adults here,” Jake said lightly, opening it to the table of contents. “Well ... Tabby excepted, but I’m not going to read her a story out of it.”
“But still...” his mother started.
“I just want to read the article, Mom,” he told her. “This is journalism here.”
“And when you’re done,” Tom said with a grin, “pass it over this way. I’d like to take a gander at that ‘article’ as well.”
That earned him a slap on the shoulder from his wife. It was not quite a good-natured slap.
Jake saw the page the article started on and began flipping through the pages, though, of course, this task was made a little more difficult because the actual page numbers were not printed at the bottom of every page, only about every five pages or so. Like Matt, he paused for a moment in the “Amateurs Show Their Smooth” section when a buxom, Amazonian brunette caught his eye. She was holding her glistening vaginal lips open and had a sexy smile on her face.
Nice! he thought appreciatively, careful to keep his expression neutral, not letting the thought that she strongly resembled Celia Valdez come to the forefront of his consciousness. Only when Laura, who was sitting next to him, elbowed him in irritation, did he move on.
“Right. The article,” he said.
He flipped some more and finally came to the first page of the story. He perused the picture of Stan Colder, the propane man, for a moment and then began to read, absorbing Stan’s story of his brief, intense sexual encounter with Mindy Snow. Jake had no trouble believing the tale. In fact, he became absolutely convinced it was true when he read the part about Mindy telling him to “fuck me like you hate me”. She had hit him with that line on more than one occasion as well.
After reading Stan’s tale, he flipped to the next section, this time passing right over the Ginny Jacobs pictorial without a glance. He picked up the story as the writer introduced one Malcolm Washington, who worked for the feed supply company that delivered bales of hay for Mindy’s horses. As had been the case with Colder, there was a picture of Washington. He was a dark-skinned black man, well-built, handsome, and powerful looking. The name of the feed supply company he worked for was printed on his work shirt, which he wore in the photo, but the printing was blurred out. The writer of the article reported that he had confirmed that Washington worked for the feed supply company and that one of his primary jobs at the time of the incident in question (two years ago now) had been to make deliveries. Furthermore, they had verified that Washington had been at work on the day in question and that he had made a delivery to Mindy’s Snow’s publicly recorded address.