Chapter 17: Make Me an Offer

August 27, 1999

Beverly Hills, California

Jake pulled his F-150 into the valet parking area of Mundane Mary Sue’s Brunch restaurant on the south end of Rodeo Drive at 11:30 AM. The name of the eatery was intended to be ironic. The cuisine was reputed to be the absolute best brunch available in the greater Los Angeles area and possibly on the entire continental landmass west of the Mississippi river. The waiting list for reservations at Mundane Mary Sue’s was months long at any given time. Jake had called the day before, dropped his name to the hostess who had answered the phone, had spent another three minutes convincing her that he really was the Jake Kingsley, and had been given a table for four at 11:45, the peak of the brunch period on a late summer Friday. It was one of the favorable aspects of the life he had chosen.

Jake could see the clear look of distaste on the valet’s face as he approached the semi-battered truck that had dared to pull into the sacred queue. He smiled and rolled down the window.

“The employee parking is around the back,” the valet told him with a clear tone of irritation.

“I am not an employee,” Jake told the late-twenties man. “I have a reservation.”

The valet looked at his face for the first time. His eyes then widened almost comically. “Oh ... you’re Jake Kingsley ... uh...” He looked at the truck again. “ ... uh ... aren’t you?”

“I am,” Jake assured him. “I had to borrow my limo driver’s truck today. You know how it is?”

“Uh ... sure, of course,” the man said, as if that explained everything. He then ran around to the passenger side and opened the door for Laura, who was dressed in a fashionable green and white summer dress that fell to her knees. Instead of heels or pumps, she had walking shoes on her feet. She knew she would doing a considerable amount of walking today.

“Thank you,” she told him, stepping out and moving toward the door.

Jake exited the truck on his own, getting out before the valet could make it back. He was dressed in a nice pair of slacks and a button-up shirt. He left the engine running. When they had left Whiteman Airport after the flight from SLO forty minutes before, he had removed the truck’s key from the ring so that no one in the valet lot would be able to duplicate his house keys while they were eating. “Thanks,” he told the man, handing him a ten-dollar bill. “Take good care of it. My limo driver is very possessive of his pickup.”

“Of course, Mr. Kingsley,” he promised.

He took his claim check and then walked over to his wife. As the valet drove off in the truck, they entered the restaurant. It was quite crowded, with nearly every table occupied, mostly by women but with a random man thrown in here or there. There were no children to be seen. Everyone who was seated and everyone sitting at the bar looked to be quite hoity-toity.

“Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley,” the hostess greeted without asking their names. “We’ve been expecting you. Welcome to Mundane Mary Sue’s.”

“Thank you,” Jake said.

“Would you like to wait for the rest of your party at your table?”

“That sounds like a plan,” Jake agreed.

They were led to an empty table in the center of the room—a table that was visible to pretty much all of the seated customers. That was the unwritten rule when you got a table by name-dropping. They got to seat you in a highly visible place. The reason they encouraged celebrities to book such tables was to achieve the reputation as a place where celebrities could be spotted. Tucking Jake’s party away in a corner booth would not advance that cause.

They sat down and their waitress—a beautiful young woman with large, artificially enhanced breasts who was named Gigi—was there before the hostess was even back to her little podium. She welcomed them to Mundane Mary Sue’s and asked if she could offer them any refreshments while they waited for the rest of their party. They replied that she certainly could. Laura ordered a bloody Mary Sue (as they were called here). Jake, who would be flying them back home at the end of the day ordered iced green tea.

The rest of their party arrived five minutes later, walking in the door after being dropped off out front by a limousine. It was Neesh Paladay and her best friend and maid of honor at her wedding, Tally Livnat (now Livnat-Meir, she had gotten married to a fellow computer nerd a year before), who was visiting from her home in Palo Alto for a week while she had vacation time. The two women had arranged to have the same time period off a month before. Jake did not think it was a coincidence that this time off period just happened to occur two weeks after Gordon went on the road for a tour of Canada. He knew, after all, that the two women were lovers and had been so since their teen years. He had only met Tally at the wedding, had not interacted with her much there, and had not seen her since, but he still felt a little stirring of lust as he looked at her. She was attractive and she was bisexual. And he knew that she had eaten out Neesh on her wedding day while Neesh had been dressed in her wedding dress and Laura held her hands. And then, after getting Jake’s permission to do so, she had eaten out Laura in her bridesmaid dress while Neesh watched.

Hot shit, he thought, a little smile coming to his face.

The two women were dressed nicely. Neesh wore a skirt and a blouse that showed off a modest amount of her impressive cleavage. Tally also wore a skirt that fell to just above her knees. Both women had sensible walking shoes on their feet. Jake and Laura stood as the hostess led them over. Neesh embraced Laura and then Jake, kissing both of them on the cheek. Laura and Tally then shared a hug as well. Tally did not hug Jake, but she did shake his hand and smile for him.

“Fancy place,” Neesh commented, looking around. “I do seem to be the only person of color present. Even the staff are all whities.”

“We could drive over to Watts or South Central and find a place there if you want,” Jake suggested.

“Fuck that shit,” she said, shaking her head. “I wasn’t complaining, just making an observation. I’m used to this kind of situation. Get it every day I go to work.”

Gigi the waitress appeared and both women ordered bloody Mary Sue’s as well.

“All right, girlfriend,” Neesh said, “are we ready to do some serious shopping?”

That was the reason for the meeting. Laura needed a new formal dress for a black-tie event that she and Jake would be attending tomorrow evening. Since she had little to no fashion sense of her own, she relied on her friends to help her pick out clothes. Usually that duty fell on Celia, but since Celia was currently in Nantes, France, she had called on Neesh to perform the duty. Jake’s plan was to leave the women on their own after brunch and then head to Pauline’s house for the bimonthly KVA business meeting. Neesh and Tally would drop Laura there after the shopping trip. Assuming, of course, they didn’t stop somewhere for a little lesbian love-fest on the way. Though the thought was arousing and fun to contemplate, he knew it would not really happen. Jake and Laura had both promised to be faithful to Celia (as had she to them). Jake knew that Laura would not break that promise. And even if that promise had not been made, there was no way she would get involved with Gordon’s wife. That would just be too awkward.

“My credit card is already getting warmed up,” Laura told them.

“What kind of soiree are you going to?” asked Tally. “It sounds pretty fancy.”

“My brother-in-law would say it was highfalutin,” Jake said.

“And he would be right,” said Laura. She turned toward Tally. “We’re going to a black-tie party at a house on the country club in Avila. The guy who owns the house is a big-time real estate developer in our county. He’s the one who sold us the land where our house is.”

“And you’re friends with him?” Neesh asked.

“Apparently,” Jake said with a shrug. “He went out of his way to meet us a few months back. I’ve played golf with him a few times at the country club after that. He called me up last week and invited me to his little shindig. He said there’s going to be traditional Greek food and drink there and a modest gathering of fifty or so.” Another shrug. “I’m not really one for these highfalutin get-togethers, but I didn’t want to insult him by saying no. We’ll go, have some food, some drinks, mingle a little, and then make our way to the exit once we can.”

“Well, it is an excuse to go shopping,” said Neesh.

“Like we need an excuse for that,” Tally agreed.

They made idle chitchat with each other while they waited. The ladies drank their bloody Mary Sue’s and started to loosen up a bit. Laura showed them some pictures of Caydee and they fawned over how cute she was. Jake stayed mostly out of the conversation, just smiling or laughing when appropriate. He saw that people were constantly staring at them and many were whispering to each other, but no one approached other than the restaurant staff. That too was part of the unwritten rules.

Jake had the brioche with prosciutto, gruyere, and a farm fresh poached egg on top. It was pretty amazing as far as taste went, but not that hearty due to the portion size (and quite expensive, the small meal had run eighteen dollars, the side of fruit he had ordered with it eleven). He knew he would have to score a ham sandwich or something from Pauline’s house before they headed back to SLO for dinner.

Jake paid the bill with his credit card and left a healthy tip for Gigi and her cohorts. The four of them left the restaurant together and gathered at the valet station. Jake handed his ticket to a different valet than the one who had checked them in. While he was retrieving the truck, Neesh hugged him again, Tally shook his hand again, and Laura gave him an affectionate kiss on the lips.

“Have fun, hon,” he told her.

“We will,” Laura said.

He leaned close and whispered into her ear. “But not too much fun.”

She giggled and gave him another kiss. “Party pooper,” she told him playfully.

The three ladies began walking north on Rodeo drive, which, in this section, was lined on both sides with high-end shops of all shape, size, and function. Many of the storefronts were empty as the famous shopping district had taken quite a hit during the recent recession, but there were certainly enough remaining to keep three women with large credit limits occupied for a few hours.

The valet brought the F-150 to him. He tipped the man a ten spot and then climbed in to start the thirty-minute (at best) drive to Silver Lake.

Since Celia was in Europe and Nerdly could not bear to leave the new recording studio while Brainwash was laying down tracks (even though they were still working on the very basics of the rhythm section), it was only Jake and Pauline at the meeting. Obie joined them to keep up on his information, even though he was not one of the owners of KVA and, as of this next CD, would not even have any financial interest involved in what decisions were being made. As such, the meeting was very informal. Jake enjoyed a glass of fresh squeezed lemonade as it was called to order and Pauline drank a gin and tonic. Obie had some aged bourbon, neat. They sat at the dining room table for the discussion. Behind them, in the entertainment room, Tabby was watching Toy Story on the DVD player and munching on crackers with peanut butter.

“I hear they’re working on Toy Story 2,” Jake said as the first statement of the meeting.

“Me too,” said Pauline. “It’s supposed to be out by Christmas. I can’t wait.”

“I don’t know if it can measure up to the first one,” Obie opined.

They talked a few minutes more about Toy Story and how it was revolutionary in putting the humor on both a child and an adult level simultaneously. This led into a discussion of the Powerpuff Girls, which both Tabby and Caydee loved, and that led into a discussion about good old classic Loony Tunes cartoons, which both of their children also watched.

“I will confess,” Jake said. “I still love watching the Roadrunner cartoons. They’re like fucking Wizard of Oz or Gone With the Wind. Multigenerational shit that has stood the test of time.”

“I like the crossovers with Bugs Bunny and Wile E Coyote,” Obie said. “It’s even better than the Roadrunner cartoons because Wile E talks in them.”

“I like those ones,” Pauline said, “but I don’t know about calling them better than the classic Roadrunner shorts. That’s a pretty bold statement there.”

This important discussion of crucial KVA business matters went on for the better part of twenty minutes, long enough that everyone had to go refill their drinks when it finally wrapped up.

“All right then,” Pauline said once they all settled back in. “Let’s talk some shit now. Matt’s tour is now underway in Europe. He continues to sell out all venues in a matter of a few hours once the tickets are released for sale. How is his health holding up?”

Jake shrugged. “So far, so good I guess,” he said. “I have not heard anything to the contrary, although, in all honesty, Matt would still go out there even if he was heaving for breath and having chest pain and wouldn’t mention anything about it as long as he survived.”

“That is true,” Pauline agreed. “In any case, with National picking up the bulk of the travel expenses, we’re pulling in an average of five hundred thousand dollars per performance once all the expenses KVA is responsible for are deducted. We are obligated to give half of that to Matt, of course, but we are operating well in the black.”

“I’m assuming the boys over at National are in the black as well?” asked Obie.

“You know it,” she said. “Trust me, we’d be hearing about it if they weren’t. They’re pulling in around three hundred k per performance. Not as much as we are, but they don’t have to share their cut with anyone. And remember, these figures do not include merchandising, which adds another sixty or seventy thousand to each show. National gets to keep all of that.”

Jake nodded. Full merchandising rights for Matt’s foreign tours had been something that National had insisted on and had been unwilling to negotiate on. KVA had finally caved and allowed it. National had not insisted on the same for Celia’s foreign tours, probably because Celia did not sell even half as many t-shirts and hats as Matt. Heavy metal fans liked such things more than pop and alt-rock fans.

“CD sales of Faithless are still good, but are now officially post-plateau in the US,” Pauline went on. “We’re selling thirty to forty thousand per week. And with each week that goes by, that number decreases measurably.”

“I’m hoping that putting a few of Matt’s live cuts on the Napster will bump those sales back up again,” Jake said.

“Putting his live cuts on the Napster?” Obie asked. “What’s this about?”

Jake looked at his sister in surprise. “You didn’t tell him about it?” he asked.

“He didn’t need to know,” she said, giving her standard attorney-at-law answer.

“But now I do know,” Obie said, unoffended by her closed lips. “You’re suggesting releasing live tracks for people to pass around for free?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “I sent the Lux we bought for the TSF to England with the rest of Matt’s gear. Nerdly trained up his sound team on how to use it. He recorded the two shows in London and we arranged for the Lux to be flown back to us on a cargo plane. Those tracks are in our studio right now. The Nerdlys are working on mixing them into a high-quality master that we can convert to MP3 and put on the Napster.”

“The MP3 will be low quality though, right?” asked Obie. He was familiar with the free advertising concept that Napster was now providing and his own CDs had ticked up in sales thanks to it.

“No,” Jake said. “It will be the highest quality we can make it from the Lux tracks. Something that will take the average Napster user eight to twelve hours to download if they’re using dialup, the better part of two hours if they have DSL.”

“Nobody is going to download that,” Obie protested. “Not very many people anyway. What’s the point?”

“Radio stations will download it,” Jake explained. “And then they will play it. And that will continue to keep hearts and minds on Matt Tisdale and his music. I’m predicting it will halt the drop in post-plateau sales at a minimum, and possibly even drive a new upsurge in sales. It will also help sell concert tickets and CDs in the foreign markets. Remember, Napster is international now.”

Obie thought this through for a few moments and then nodded. “An interesting theory,” he allowed. “Is this shit legal though? Don’t you have an exclusivity clause in your contract with National?”

“We do, but it is now expired—at least for Matt anyway,” Pauline said. “We only agreed to granting exclusivity to National for the initial promotional period. That period has now come and gone and we can do whatever we want with Matt’s tunes from here on out, as long as Matt agrees.”

“And Matt does agree,” Jake said.

“National is going to bitch about it, I’m sure,” Pauline said. “But they ultimately won’t have a leg to stand on as long it’s material from Faithless that we put out there.”

“And I’m pretty sure they’ll change their tunes when they see the positive effect on sales the release and airplay will have.”

Obie smiled in respect. “I’ll be interested to see how all this plays out,” he said.

“Me too,” Jake admitted. It looked good on paper. Would it go down that way in reality though?

“All right,” Pauline said. “Let’s talk a little Winter Frost here.”

“The CD or the song?” Jake asked, smiling. He already knew how both were doing.

“Both,” Pauline said. “You’ve created quite the sensation with that song, little bro. People who fucking despise Intemperance, you, and everything you stand for, are loving the shit out of that tune. It has been parked in the number one spot for five weeks now. There are virtually no bad reviews of it, not even in the rags that traditionally trash everything you do. They’re calling it ‘a masterpiece for the Gen-X musical generation’, ‘the greatest tribute to fatherhood since Cats in the Cradle’, and ‘a touching soliloquy of the love between a father and his child’. My contacts report that you’re likely to spend another three to four weeks at number one. The tune is getting airplay across the entire freaking free world. And that is driving unprecedented CD sales of Winter Frost, the CD. We are moving more than ninety thousand per week with the numbers going up with each new period. And we haven’t even started to play the second promotional tune yet.”

“When will it clear triple platinum?” Jake wanted to know.

“Well before November at this rate,” Pauline told him. “You’ve created a monster.”

He nodded. “I did, but I really did not want to promote Winter until near the end,” he said. “I’m worried that it will outshine everything to follow.”

“It kind of got out of your control,” Obie said sympathetically.

“It certainly did,” Jake agreed. “I think the best way to counter this is to hold all new promotions from the CD until Winter has completely fallen off the Top 40.”

“That might take a while,” Pauline said doubtfully. “A few months minimum. Won’t that hurt CD sales? Those sales, after all, is how we make our money.”

“They might take a hit in the short term,” Jake allowed, “but I want people to be almost sick of hearing Winter before we start pushing the next tune. That way, their minds will have almost gone through a reset and they’ll be hearing the next cut with a fresh perspective. Once the second cut is out there, I think the CD sales will pick back up.”

“If you say so,” she said, bowing to his witchlike sense of playing to the psychology of the average music consumer. “What will the next tune be? Go back to Got Away?”

“No,” he said. “I’ll have to follow it up with something that will pack another big punch. I’m thinking The Song.”

Pauline chuckled. “The meaningless tune you composed so you could win a fucking case of Scotch?”

“It’s a powerful song that I specifically designed to chart well,” he said. “True, it is meaningless, but people are going to love it.”

“Once again, I’ll take your word for it,” Pauline said. “I talked to the suits over at National day before yesterday. They’re really clamoring for you to hit the road.”

“I’m sure they are,” Jake replied. “It’s not going to happen though. Not until we’ve mastered Brainwash III and negotiated an MD&P contract for it.”

“That’s what I told them,” Pauline said. “They accused you of blackmail, claiming that you’re withholding a tour in order to secure more favorable terms for the Brainwash III CD when it’s finally finished. They all but cried that by the time Brainwash III is finished and negotiated, there will be no public interest whatsoever in a Jake Kingsley tour—certainly not enough that the market would support $150 cheap seats and $500 VIPs.”

“They can shove that bullshit right up their collective asses,” Jake said. “By the time we’re done with Brainwash III and it’s mixed, mastered, and a contract is signed, it’ll be almost Christmas. By that point, no less than three tunes from Winter Frost will have been promoted and will still be enjoying considerable airplay. If anything, that is the best time to go out on tour. The suits are still locked into the idea that the best time for the tour is at CD release. But that became traditional because the purpose of the tour used to be to promote album sales, not to make profit. They’re locked into this line of thought simply because that’s how it’s always been done, not because of any consideration of whether or not it makes sense.”

“I agree completely,” Pauline said. “And fortunately, our contract gives us complete control over these sorts of decisions.”

“That is the beauty of being independent,” Obie said with a nod.

“Yes it is,” Jake agreed. “Just keep telling them to pound sand. I’ll tour when I’m ready to tour and not a day before.”

“Pound sand it is,” Pauline said. “And that brings us to V-tach. Their CD is selling quite well and we’re only on the first promoted track. That track, Alluring Obscurity, is in the Top 10 and still moving up. It will likely make it to the number two spot in the next few weeks and may even be the tune that will finally dislodge Winter Frost from the number one position.”

“It’s a brilliant tune,” Jake said proudly. Though he had not written it, he had produced it into what it was and he knew he had done an exceptional job. “I did well promoting that one first.”

“National agrees with you,” Pauline said. “They want to talk V-tach tour as soon as possible.”

“I’m open to a discussion about that,” Jake said. “I talked to Lenny the other day. He says they’re ready to start working up a tour whenever the word is given.”

“Good to know,” Pauline said. “National wants to send V-tach out to be the opening band for Neanderthal.”

“Neanderthal? Seriously?” Jake asked, shaking his head in disgust. Neanderthal was a heavy metal band formed in the late 1980s who had reached huge popularity in the early to mid-1990s before putting out a couple of dud CDs and acrimoniously breaking up. Their classic albums were still very popular and their live performances back in the day had been legendary—right up there with Intemperance live. Recently the band had gotten back together and had been working on a new CD, undoubtedly because they were a little short on cash now that they were well beyond peak sales and National, who held the rights to all their material, had offered them a contract for a new CD and, most importantly, a celebrated reunion tour. Pauline, who kept her ear pretty close to the ground, had heard that the bandmembers could barely stand being around each other and that the CD they were working on was nothing but a collection of older tunes they had rejected for previous CDs. In other words, it was the token CD that needed to be released in order to justify an extremely lucrative reunion tour.

“He was dead serious about it,” Pauline assured him. “It seems they have their doubts about the ability of the Neanderthal members’ ability to maintain a two-hour performance every night so they’ll need an opening band to fill the time in order to justify the ticket prices. The boys are not in the same shape they used to be, apparently.”

“I’ve met them before,” Jake said. “Good musicians but they party hard. They make Motley Crue look like a bunch of fuckin’ Buddhist monks.”

“Apparently that is still the case,” Pauline said. “The biggest challenges in recording this little token CD of theirs is to keep everyone sober enough to actually lay down some tracks on any given day and to keep John Groman and Gabe Straus from killing each other.”

Groman and Straus were the lead singer and bassist of the group, respectively. Straus was also the primary songwriter. It was well known that they hated each other thanks to a clash of wildly inflated egos.

“Imagine what it’s going to be like on the road,” Jake said. “It’ll be a fuckin’ nightmare. Worse than that whole Veteran debacle that Coop was involved with.”

“Don’t remind me of that,” Pauline said, shaking her head. She had been Veteran’s manager back in those days. And, while she had made a considerable amount of money from that particular project, the aggravation it had caused had not been worth it.

“I’m going to vote for a firm rejection of that deal,” Jake said.

“Me as well,” Pauline said. “And not just because it will be a nightmare. If we send V-tach out as an opening band for a National Records signed act, there is no way we’ll be able to negotiate a favorable contract. They’ll just claim that Neanderthal is the primary draw for ticket sales and V-tach is just support. The best they would probably offer would be twenty percent of ticket sales and they would want us to pay for most, if not all, of the V-tach travel expenses. We would probably be in the black on a deal like that, but not by very much, especially since we’ve already verbally promised V-tach half of any touring revenue they generate.”

“Fuck that,” Jake said. “I don’t think we really even need to consult with Nerdly and Celia over this, but I’ll do it anyway. You can pretty much assume they’ll reject the deal.”

“Already assumed,” she said. “And I’ve already told Crow not to get his hopes up.”

“I’ll call Bill before I fly home today,” Jake said. “And I’ll call C before she leaves her hotel tomorrow. Once the deal is rejected, try to make a date for negotiations on a solo tour for V-tach.”

“No opening band at all?” Pauline asked.

“No opening band at all,” Jake said. “They have enough material to pull off a two-hour set. They can play everything on both CDs and intersperse some of their unrecorded material in there with it. They have six or seven good solid tunes that just haven’t made their way onto CDs yet.” Jake smiled suddenly as inspiration struck him. “In fact, we can use the Lux to record some of those unreleased tunes early in the tour, get them out on the Napster, and that would drive CD sales and demand for concert tickets!”

“That makes sense,” Obie said, nodding. “This Napster is really kind of turning out to be an asset, isn’t it?”

“It really is,” Jake agreed. “At least at this stage of its existence.” He looked over at his sister. “Any legal issues with this plan? V-tach will still be under the exclusivity clause, but we can send material that does not appear on V-tach II out into the world without violating that, can’t we?”

“National can make an argument that we would be in violation of the exclusivity clause,” she replied, “but it won’t hold water if push comes to shove. That clause is only valid during the promotional period and only applies to the copyrighted original tracks on the CD. That is plainly spelled out.”

“All right then,” he said. “What kind of numbers do you think we can get for a V-tach solo tour?”

“Your guess is probably better than mine,” she said. “What do you think the market will support for V-tach ticket sales?”

Jake thought about this for a few moments. “I think that by the time they’re actually ready to hit the road, they’ll have two tunes from the new CD getting airplay. That’s where the real magic starts to happen. I’ll have them start promoting Autopsy once Obscurity starts to fade.” Autopsy of a Dream was a dual acoustic guitar ballad (with quite a few acoustic guitar overdubs thrown in by Jake himself during the recording process) which laid down a poetic post-mortem of a romantic relationship. It was one of the deepest, most meaningful tunes Lenny had composed so far and Jake expected it to be extremely popular. “That is when the CD sales will start to climb. That is when interest in V-tach performances will be at their greatest. At that point, I think the market will support $80 cheap seats and $250 VIPs in major venues and we’ll be able to sell them out.”