Intemperance IX - the Inner Circle
Copyright© 2025 by Al Steiner
Chapter 13: Damage Control
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 13: Damage Control - The ninth book in the long-running Intemperance series finds Jake Kingsley balancing family, music, and media chaos as his world grows stranger—and more fiercely loyal—by the day. With fame fading and life deepening, the Kingsleys and their inner circle face new challenges in love, trust, and the price of peace.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa BiSexual Fiction
Santa Clarita, California
July 7, 2004
It was 8:45 AM on the Wednesday after the 4th of July holiday weekend. Tuesday had been a business day and a scheduled studio day for Intemperance, but they had not spent much time at The Campus. Coop and Matt, hampered by the standard OR release rules that forbade them from leaving Orange County, had not been able to make it to the studio until well after noon when the judge assigned to the case—The Honorable Hue G. Johnson (that was his real name) finally granted an exception to allow the notorious defendants to travel to and stay in San Luis Obispo County as long as they promised to immediately return when ordered.
Today, they had been so ordered. Their preliminary hearing to face charges of malicious mischief, theft of religious property, and trespassing, would be heard on this day. The hearing was scheduled for 3:30 PM. There was a lot to do and a lot to discuss before then. And so, instead of being productive and laying down tracks, they had flown with Jake back to Whiteman Airport immediately after breakfast and made the drive to the KVA office in Jake’s F-150.
Jake opened the doors to the office and came inside. He was freshly showered but he had not shaved in more than three days now so his face was quite scruffy. It was the look he tried to keep when out on tour as the fans really liked it for some reason (particularly the female fans). It was not deliberate now, however. He just hadn’t had the energy to shave.
Matt Tisdale and Coop followed behind him—both upright, technically, but not exactly radiant with virtue. Coop was wearing a wrinkled polo shirt like a man who at least remembered what public looked like. Matt was in a 2002 Mardi Gras tank top and cargo shorts that looked like they’d slept under a pool table. The image on the tank top was of a bosomy young cartoon woman baring her breasts on a balcony. She had a gold stud in her left nipple and a dozen or more bead necklaces around her neck.
Barb Macready glanced up from her desk, where a stack of tabloid clippings had been meticulously organized into piles labeled “Freakout,” “Snark,” and “Catholic Rage.” She didn’t need to guess who the two walking violations were.
“Well, if it isn’t the Holy Water Boys,” she said, standing up and folding her arms.
Coop gave her a sheepish grin. “You must be Barb.”
“Yep. You ruined my hump day.”
Matt gave her a slow, appraising look. “You’re the gatekeeper of the place, huh? I’ve heard legends spoken about you.”
“You don’t know shit about me yet, Baptism Boy,” she said, stepping out from behind the desk. “But let me catch you up. Before you two jackasses turned my lobby into a media command post, I was answering, maybe, two calls a day. Since Monday? It’s been non-stop. Vatican News. Entertainment Tonight. Fuckin’ Inside Edition called me three times. All because you two decided God’s sacred water was compatible with weed rituals.”
Matt blinked. “That shit was taken out of fuckin’ context.”
Barb laughed. “Sure. And OJ just needed to return a pair of gloves.”
Coop chuckled. Matt raised his hands in surrender. “Fair.”
“Don’t let her make you feel bad, boys,” Jake said. “Barb is fucking loving this shit. She gets to let out twenty years’ worth of demons and send them chasing after the biggest pricks on earth. Tell me I’m wrong, Barb.”
“Well ... the place is a bit less boring when there’s a scandal underway,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t excuse the fuckin’ catalyst. Did you assholes really try to steal holy water so you could put it in your fuckin’ bong?”
“Like I said,” Matt said. “The shit was taken out of fuckin’ context.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “Just like when I asked that moron what had his butt plug too far up his ass.”
Matt grinned. “That’s fuckin brilliant,” he said.
“I know,” she told him.
Jake, behind them, checked his watch. “We got fifteen minutes before the lawyers get here. Pauline’s already in her office. I saw her car out front. Let’s move.”
Barb reached over and grabbed a manila folder from her desk, waving it toward Matt. “Here. Fan mail. Someone in Arizona wants you crucified. Someone in San Francisco wants to marry you. Pretty even split so far.”
Matt took the folder with a grin. “You sure you weren’t in the band before me? You sound like family.”
Barb leaned in slightly. “You call me ‘Barb,’ I’ll call you ‘Dumbass,’ and we’ll get along just fine.”
Jake opened the hallway door. “Let’s go, Dumbass.”
Before they could make it a step, however, the phone on Barb’s desk rang.
She picked it up with crisp professionalism. “KVA Records, this is Barb Macready. How can I direct your call?”
She listened for a few seconds, her eyes closing for a moment like she was meditating.
“Yes, sir. I understand. At this time, KVA has no comment on the incident.”
She listened again, nodding once, then twice, still polite.
“That is all I’m authorized to release at this time.”
There was a pause. A longer one.
Barb’s posture shifted slightly, her spine straightening with the precision of a coiled spring.
“I said,” she repeated, still even, “that is all I’m authorized to release.”
Another pause.
And then—
“Oh for fuck’s sake, you moron. What part of ‘no comment’ are you struggling with? I know Latin’s a dead language, but English is still fuckin’ kicking and I’m speaking it right in your fuckin’ ear. No fucking comment at this time.”
Jake smiled. It was a pleasure watching Barb work. Matt grinned wide, learning that in real-time.
“Do you think screaming sacrilege at the receptionist is gonna unlock some hidden scroll of divine press releases? This is a record label, not the fuckin’ Vatican switchboard.”
Her voice rose another octave.
“No, I don’t care what your official title is. You could be the Pope’s fuckin’ ghostwriter and I still wouldn’t read you in the shitter.”
She slammed the receiver down with surgical precision and took a deep breath. She looked almost serene.
“Jesus,” Coop said, impressed.
“That was fuckin’ badass,” Matt said, obviously feeling a kindred spirit.
“Who was that?” Jake asked.
Barb looked at her boss. “That was some fuckin’ Monsignor,” she said, opening a desk drawer.
“A Monsignor?” Jake asked. “No shit?”
“No shit,” she said. “From the Los Angeles offices of Catholic Monthly. Apparently they’re very ‘revered’ in the Catholic community and they take umbrage to their holy water being used in such a manner. He wanted a quote.”
Matt looked awed. “Wow,” he said. “You better hope none of that Catholic shit turns out to be true.”
“That ship has long since sailed, my dumbass friend,” she told him.
They grabbed coffee from the dispenser and went into Pauline’s office. She was indeed in there, looking harried and tired. She was dressed in a business professional pantsuit and blouse, her hair done up just so. It was her professional look. The look she presented when she needed to lay down some serious law shit.
“If it isn’t Ren and fuckin’ Stimpy,” she said when they entered. “Did you two throw away the rest of the Brain Ripper like I told you to?”
“I’m not gonna throw the shit away,” Matt said. “It’s the best fuckin’ bud in human history!”
“That shit’s bad news,” Jake warned. “Laura took two hits and invited fuckin’ Mormons to visit our house, sleep in our guest beds, and judge our lives. We call that ‘pulling an Asshat’. You two pulled a major Asshat because of that shit.”
“I’m just gonna make a vow not to leave the house after I smoke it,” Matt said. “Fuckin’ fair?”
“Not really, but there’s no point in arguing over it.”
The lawyers arrived a few minutes later. Redwood and Marwood were both dressed for success. They looked, felt, and smelled like the high-powered, high-priced criminal defense attorneys they were. They exuded confidence and competence. And they had been at work. They had a plan.
“Gentlemen,” Marwood announced once the obligatory preliminaries were over with, “let’s see if we can keep you out of prison and off the Vatican’s official jihad list.”
“Already off to a good start,” Matt said. “Barb just told off some fuckin’ Monsignor before coffee.”
Redman set his leather briefcase down and opened it with quiet precision. “We’ve reviewed the facts and the initial statement from the arresting officers. The DA is still considering whether to formally pursue the hate crime enhancement.”
Jake groaned. “Seriously?”
“They probably won’t,” Marwood said. “There’s no indication of malicious intent. No way they could prove it. Mr. Tisdale and Mr. Cooper here did not do any damage other than the priest had to drain and clean the basin and bless up a new batch. But that’s not the real problem.”
“What’s the real problem?” Coop asked.
“The real problem,” Redman said, tapping the stack of papers in front of him, “is the public narrative. Right now, you look like two unapologetic, arrogant rock stars who thought it would be funny to mock Christianity and defile a Catholic church.”
Matt frowned. “We didn’t think it was funny. It was just one of those weird fuckin’ ideas you get on the Brain Ripper.”
Redman nodded. “Good. Because your only way out of this is sincerity.”
“You mean tell the fuckin’ truth?” Coop asked.
Marwood leaned forward. “Yes,” she said. “Let me be clear: if you lie, minimize, or act like you’re too cool to care, we will lose the public. And that will cause every label, sponsor, and ticketing partner to distance themselves from you like you’ve got leprosy and a crucifix fetish. It will also contaminate any jury pool in the United States if this thing should ever go to trial.”
“Going to trial is the last thing in the world you want,” Redman said. “It would be a spectacle on the level of OJ vs Lorena Bobbitt. Nobody but the media wants that.”
Jake rubbed his eyes. “So ... what’s the play?”
Redman steepled his fingers. “Mr. Tisdale and Mr. Cooper must tell the truth. With a twist.”
Matt blinked. “What kind of twist?”
Marwood gave a small, almost-smile. “Spirituality.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Come again?” Coop asked.
“You said you wanted to smoke weed with holy water,” she continued. “Why?”
Matt shrugged. “It was Brain Ripper logic. We were high as fuck, and Coop said something about how fuckin’ rad it would be to use holy water in our bong. It sounded cool. We were doing it just to say we did it.”
“And it woulda been cool,” Coop said. “If we woulda got to do it.”
Marwood shook her head. “Wrong,” she said. “You’re weren’t doing it just to say you did it. You don’t get much sympathy from the public or a jury with that kind of explanation. You need to cater to your jury pool, blow some smoke up their asses while still technically telling the truth. You focused on holy water because it is something spiritual and sacred. Isn’t that what you did?”
“Well ... yeah, I fuckin’ guess so,” Matt said, trying to play along.
“There you have it,” Redman said. “That’s the core of it right there. You weren’t trying to desecrate anything. You meant no disrespect. You were trying—however dumbly—to elevate the experience of imbibing in cannabis. You were trying to blend modern herbal ritual with established spiritual symbolism.”
“We call that sincerity,” Redman said. “The press and the court eat that shit up.”
“Jesus,” Jake muttered. “You’re gonna make them sound like high priests of the Holy Leaf.”
Pauline leaned back in her chair. “That’s not a bad angle.”
Matt scratched his head. “So ... what? We tell people we were trying to be respectful?”
“Yes,” Marwood said. “You express regret for trespassing. Apologize sincerely. And explain that you thought the water was publicly accessible. Your goal was to honor—not mock—a sacred tradition by integrating it into your personal spiritual practice.”
Matt opened his mouth. Closed it again. “That’s ... kinda brilliant.”
Redman nodded. “And you’ll need to stop using the word ‘bongwater.’”
Matt blinked. “It’s water that goes in a bong. What the fuck else are we supposed to call it?”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Pauline said it: “Sacred cooling medium.”
The room went still.
Jake looked at her. “You’re not serious.”
“Oh, I’m deadly serious,” she said. “It’s not a bong. It’s a spiritual inhalation device. And it’s not bongwater. It’s a sacred cooling medium used to transform the essence of cannabis into the touch of the holy spirit.”
Matt’s face showed clear respect. “That’s fuckin’ poetry.”
Coop nodded slowly. “I can get into that.”
Marwood smiled. “Good. Because that’s your story now. And we’re all gonna make sure it lands. We need to go over it until you got it down pat and then we need to get over to the sheriff’s substation in Aliso Viejo to give your official statement to the detectives working the case. That needs to be filed before the preliminary hearing.”
“What are we gonna fuckin’ plead?” Matt asked.
“Not guilty for now,” said Redman. “We’re hoping that we’ll get a deal long before an actual trial is even on the radar.”
“What kind of fuckin’ deal?” Matt asked. “The last deal I made I had to spend ninety fuckin’ days in prison.”
“It wasn’t prison, Matt,” Jake said. “It was the Gallahad Gardens Correctional Institute. You had a view of the ocean, a suite that had fuckin’ room service, and a fully stocked mini-bar. You were even allowed to have sex with Kim in your room.”
“That’s hard fuckin’ time for me,” Matt said. “I couldn’t fuck any of the staff members until I got out and I couldn’t smoke ganja or snort my fuckin’ coke at all.”
“And that produced the hardened, institutionalized ex-con we see before us today,” Jake said with a roll of his eyes.
“Nobody will be doing any time,” Redman said. “The worst case scenario is you end up picking up trash on the side of the roads in the OC for a stretch of weekends. I don’t even think it will come down to that.”
“You seem confident,” Pauline told them.
“We are,” Redman said simply. “Now, let’s start getting the fine details of your spiritual adventure down on paper so we can rehearse it.”
They worked on the story for two hours, drilling it into the heads of the two defendants, making them memorize it, recite it, provide details when questioned about it. They developed the backstory of the spirituality, honing the claim that Coop and Matt were both very spiritual by nature and had been studying the major religions for the better part of a decade, trying to find truth and enlightenment. They considered cannabis to be a sacred plant (at least that was true) and the idea to use holy water to enhance its theological nature had come to them after imbibing in a vision quest at Matt’s house, just two miles from the church in question.
Jake thought that for a plan to “tell the truth” they were spreading an awful lot of bullshit around, but he kept this to himself.
They went over a mini-instructional brain dump on the basic tenets of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and various Native American beliefs that encompassed cannabis use. This was done just in case a sly investigator wanted to hear some support for the assertion that they had been studying religion for ten years. Whether the two lifelong stoners would actually remember any of these facts and figures remained in question.
“Okay,” Redman said. “I think we’re ready to start blowing some smoke up some asses. Let’s go to Orange County.”
Detective Ron Vargovich watched the drummer settle into the metal chair across from him, curly blonde hair bobbing like a poodle fresh from the dryer. John “Coop” Cooper, age 45, sat with the posture of a man who either had nothing to hide or couldn’t remember what hiding was.
Vargovich had already been at this job longer than most marriages. He’d worked his way up from patrol to sergeant and now ran the Special Investigations Division—SID, for the cases that didn’t fit anywhere else. Celebrity fuckups. Political gaffes. Weird shit that might hit the news. This was weird shit.
Coop had ridden two hours in a Ford-F150 from Santa Clarita to get here. With him had come two attorneys, Jake Kingsley as representative of the label, and Jake’s older sister, who apparently ran the whole damn operation. They were all behind the glass now—watching through the one-way with the same expression Vargovich had seen on parents at school board hearings: exhausted, impatient, but very invested in making sure their little monsters didn’t do anything to get expelled.
He glanced at his counterpart, DA Investigator Melinda Ruiz, sitting beside him in the interrogation room. She nodded. They knew what this was: a box to check before the case got dropped, dismissed, or turned into a PSA about responsible cannabis use in a semi-legal environment.
Coop’s lawyer, Charles Redman, sat to his right, legal pad in front of him, looking as calm as a cop at a donut shop.
Vargovich clicked on the recording system that would document the interview in grainy video and crystal clear audio.
“This is Detective Sergeant Ron Vargovich, Orange County SID, with DA Investigator Melinda Ruiz. Time is 11:55 AM on July 7th, 2004. This is the interview of John Cooper regarding incident #04-19833, unauthorized entry and attempted theft at Mission Basilica Catholic Church in San Juan Capistrano, an incorporated city within the county of Orange that has contracted with this department for law enforcement services. Mr. Cooper, you are here voluntarily, your attorney is present, and you’ve waived your right to remain silent for the purposes of this conversation. Is that correct?”
“Sure is,” Coop said, smiling.
Vargovich flipped his folder open like it mattered. “Why don’t you tell us, in your own words, why you were at Mission Basilica last Sunday?”
Coop leaned back slightly. “We were on a vision quest.”
Vargovich looked up. “A vision quest.”
“Yeah,” Coop said. “Cannabis-fueled. The strain was some medicinal shit we got our hands on. Uh ... I don’t want to answer any questions about where we got it.”
“I don’t have any questions about where you got it, Mr. Cooper,” Vargovich said. “The issue of the marijuana’s origin is not our concern.”
“That’s fuckin’ cool, dude,” Coop said.
“Isn’t it?” Vargovich replied. “Now then ... you were on a cannabis-fueled vision quest with this medicinal shit of mysterious origin. Please continue.”
“Right,” Coop said. “So ... like I was saying, this was a real spiritual strain. Makes you look inward. Like a soul kaleidoscope, but, y’know ... through the lens of weed.”
Vargovich didn’t blink. He just wrote down “soul kaleidoscope” and kept going.
“Okay. What led you to the church?”
“Well,” Coop said, folding his hands like a professor about to drop knowledge, “Matt and I, we’ve been studying world religions for years. Buddhism. Hinduism. The Abrahamic traditions. Shinto, even. Trying to find the intersection of personal truth and external cosmology.”
Ruiz arched an eyebrow. “You were looking for God?”
“Something like that,” Coop said. “Anyway, Matt brought up the idea of holy water. And it kinda made sense—cannabis is sacred, right? A divine plant. So we thought, what if we combine sacred water and sacred herb? Merge the spiritual symbols of East and West.”
Vargovich tapped his pen. “And your plan was to smoke with it?”
“Technically, to use it as a sacred cooling medium in our spiritual inhalation device,” Coop said seriously.
Redman, to his credit, didn’t even smirk.
“You mean a bong,” Vargovich said flatly.
“We don’t like to use that term,” Coop said. “It has party connotations. This wasn’t about getting high. This was about seeking clarity and function in the universe.”
“By filling a Costco thermos with holy water.”
“We didn’t know it wasn’t allowed,” Coop said. “The fuckin’ church was open to the public. And the water, too. Like a fountain. We weren’t trying to steal anything.”
Vargovich scribbled “not theft / public access belief.”
He let the pause hang for a moment. “Tell us about your religious studies.”
And damned if Coop didn’t start spouting real stuff. Not bullshit, not Wikipedia-level babble, but actual references to religious cannabis use in Sufi mysticism, Shaivite sects of Hinduism, and Rastafarian ital purity concepts. He even quoted from Genesis. Vargovich had expected one or two talking points. He got a whole semester of Weed and Worldviews 101.
Ruiz leaned in close to him and whispered, “Jesus. Did they cram for this?”
“They had two hours in the car,” Vargovich whispered back. “And I guarantee you someone made flashcards.”
After about twenty minutes, they wrapped. Coop asked politely if he could get a coffee now. Vargovich told him that someone would bring him some shortly.
Coop nodded and slumped down in his chair.
Vargovich stepped into the observation room and looked at Jake and Pauline.
“Well?” Pauline asked.
“He’s a true believer,” Vargovich said. “Or he’s been trained like one.”
“Are we buying any of this shit?” Ruiz asked.
Vargovich shrugged. “Don’t have to. My job’s not belief. It’s closure.”
“Good point,” Ruiz allowed.
He looked toward Interview Room B.
“Let’s go see how the poodle-haired philosopher’s guitar-slinging buddy holds up.”
The entire group went from one interrogation room to the other. Matt and his lawyer were sitting at the table, waiting patiently—or at least as patiently as a rock musician who needed a few drinks to keep the shakes away possibly could. Jake and Pauline once again gathered behind the glass while Vargovich and Ruiz stepped inside.
He was already bracing for a show.
Matt Tisdale sat slouched in the chair like it owed him rent—aviators perched on his chest, rockstar hair in full disarray, mouth already smirking like he knew this would be fun.
To his right sat Celeste Marwood, looking cool and composed, her legal pad open and pen poised. Her body language said: Say what you want, just don’t get us indicted.
“Matt,” Vargovich said, greeting him in professional manner. The two of them had some history. On that ill-fated day in November of 1986, Vargovich had been a patrol officer on the south side when Matt and Kim Kowalski, the porn star known as Mary Ann Cummings, had fled from a traffic stop and led him and his colleagues on a lengthy high speed pursuit. Matt, in his Maserati and driving with a fearsomely reckless disregard for life and liberty, managed to get away (though the company line had been “we terminated the pursuit in the interests of public safety”) but they had gotten his license number and were waiting for him when he finally returned home. By that point, cocaine had been found in his house and a warrant for the search of his safe had been in progress.
Matt and Kim had both chosen to go down the hard way. And the hard way was what they got. It had been pre-Rodney King in those days and it was still a free-for-all out on the streets of Southern California, especially when it was a couple of white people with far more money than common sense. Vargovich had been one of the dozen or more deputies thumping on Matt’s person with his baton in order to beat him into submission and deal a little payback. He had also testified against Matt at his sentencing hearing.
“Ronnie,” Matt replied. “I was starting to think you didn’t love me anymore.”
“It’s been almost eighteen years,” Vargovich said, taking a seat. “I figured you’d grown out of this kind of shit by now.”
“You would’ve fuckin’ thought, wouldn’t you?” Matt replied.
Behind the glass, the observers hovered—Jake, Pauline, Redman, and Ruiz, arms crossed, all watching closely.
Vargovich clicked the recorder. “This is Detective Sergeant Ron Vargovich, Orange County SID, with DA Investigator Melinda Ruiz. Time is 12:25 PM, July 7th, 2004. This is the interview of Matthew Tisdale regarding incident #04-19833. Mr. Tisdale, you are here voluntarily, your attorney is present, and you’ve waived your right to remain silent for this conversation. Is that correct?”
“Fuckin’ A,” Matt said.
Marwood nodded. “Confirmed.”
Vargovich opened the folder. “Why were you at the Mission Basilica last Sunday?”
Matt cracked his knuckles. “We were chasing transcendence, dude. We were on a fuckin’ vision quest. You know—trying to connect to the deeper shit. Like fuckin’ monks, but louder.”
“And cannabis was involved?”
“Oh, fuck yeah. Not just any cannabis though—the best fuckin’ shit that has ever existed in human horticultural fuckin’ history. I’m talkin’ shit that turns your thoughts into slow-motion fireworks. It’s like psychedelia without the goddamn puking.”
Marwood shifted slightly, reminding him—stay on course.
“It sounds like high quality weed indeed,” Vargovich said. “Anyway, this cannabis somehow led you to a Catholic church?”
“Fuckin’ A,” Matt confirmed. “Coop and I were talking about symbols. You know, sacred stuff. Rituals. Water, fire, earth. Then I had this idea—what if we combine the sacred traditions? Like a unity rite. Holy water and the sacred herb.”
Vargovich scribbled while pretending not to twitch.
“You mean, you wanted to smoke weed using holy water,” he said flatly.
“No,” Matt said. “We wanted to pass the divine vapor through a sacred cooling medium in a spiritual inhalation device.”
“A bong?”
“That’s your word,” Matt replied. “It’s no more just a bong than the fuckin’ Eucharist is just a fuckin’ cracker.”
Marwood didn’t intervene. She was watching him like a hawk. Letting him go—so long as he stuck to the script.
Vargovich tapped his pen. “So you took a thermos—”
“A vessel.”
“—to collect water from the font?”
“Right. It was like ... a fuckin’ pilgrimage and shit.”
“You didn’t think you needed permission?”
“It’s a fuckin’ church, isn’t it?” Matt said. “The doors were unlocked. There’s a fuckin’ sign on the door that says everyone is welcome. We figured that welcome extended to the plumbing.”
Vargovich raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. “Tell me about your religious background.”
Matt leaned in. “Raised Protestant, rejected that shit by twelve. Got into Eastern mysticism in my twenties. Lately I’ve been into entheogens—substances that open you up to divine presence. I study comparative religion on the road. I’ve read the Vedas, the Torah, and the fuckin’ Tao Te Ching, cover to cover. Twice.”
Vargovich had to give credit where it was due. Matt knew his shit. He cited specifics—Zarathustra, Soma rituals, Sufi poetry, Catholic mysticism, even fringe Gnostic cannabis theories. It was erratic, rambling, and laced with f-bombs, but it wasn’t bullshit.
“Goddamn,” Ruiz whispered to her counterpart. “Asshole’s almost got me convinced he’s not full of shit.”
Vargovich didn’t speak for a moment. Then he closed the folder.
“All right. Anything else you’d like to say?”
“Yeah,” Matt said. “We were not trying to fuckin’ offend anyone. We just wanted to understand God on our own terms and using established practices in combination with each other. I mean, isn’t that what fuckin’ religion is all about?”
Vargovich nodded slowly. “Interview concluded. Thanks, Mr. Tisdale.”
Matt stood, stretched, and offered a handshake. Marwood gave the slightest nod: approved.
They walked back into the observation room.
“Well?” Ruiz asked.
“Don’t believe a word of it,” he said. “But if I had a jury full of baby boomers and burnout priests, I’d start sweating.”
Ruiz chuckled. “So...?”
He shrugged. “Kick it. Let the DA toss it quietly. No jury’s convicting these two for being too spiritual in public.”
Ruiz smiled. “Sacred cooling medium?”
Vargovich shook his head. “This fucking state, man.”
They’d left Aliso Viejo just after one o’clock and stopped at Norma’s Grill & Griddle, a tucked-away diner just off Main Street near the I-5 merge in Tustin. Jake had discovered the place years ago on a trip home from Matt’s—back when he (Jake) still lived on Nottingham Drive in the Hollywood Hills and Intemperance was riding its first triumphant wave, just before the acidic breakup of 1990. Norma’s was a narrow, neon-signed time capsule with red vinyl booths, laminated menus older than the Internet, and the best sourdough patty melt Jake had ever eaten outside San Francisco. They’d ordered iced tea and burgers, swapped a few jokes, and tried not to think about the absurd legal theater waiting for them.
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