Chapter 12: Sympathy For The Devil

San Luis Obispo, California
January 26, 2005

The Navigator crunched to a stop on the gravel drive of the Nerdly Compound just as the clock slid past 5:30. The late-January sun hung low over the western hills, spilling orange light across the main house and the cluster of outbuildings scattered down the slope.

Jake climbed out first and circled to the back to help Pauline, Obie, and Tabby with their overnight bags. He had cut out of rehearsal at the Campus at three, left the band in Nerdly’s hands, and flown from San Luis Obispo Regional to Whiteman. By 4:15 he had them aboard, and now, after the return flight north, he was delivering them to their first visit to the Compound. They would be staying the night here, and tomorrow, after rehearsal, he would fly them home to Los Angeles.

The front porch door swung open before they reached the steps. Nerdly appeared in a flannel shirt and jeans, Sharon just behind him. Laura’s SUV was already parked near the garage—she, Celia, Caydee, and Cap had driven up earlier after finishing up rehearsal. Tif and Owen were here as well, having made the Compound their permanent home.

Warm greetings filled the entryway: Sharon hugged Pauline tightly, Nerdly shook Obie’s hand with genuine enthusiasm, and Tabby squealed when she spotted Caydee coming around the corner. The two girls latched onto each other immediately, their giggles carrying out into the yard.

It was the first time Pauline, Obie, and Tabby had set foot here, though the rest of the group had made the trip often enough. The Compound was more retreat than residence—Nerdly’s big house anchoring the hilltop, with workshops, guest quarters, and music rooms spread across the square footage. Remote, private, and secure, it made an ideal backdrop for this quarter’s meeting.

Dinner would be served at 6:18 (Nerdly had done research and found that empirical and repeatable evidence suggested that was the perfect time for routine dinner operations). Sharon and the chef she kept on staff had the kitchen well in hand, the air already carrying the savory scent of roasted chicken and garlic bread. That left just enough time for the business at hand.

“Let’s give you the grand tour,” Nerdly announced, his eyes bright. “First time here, you need to see everything.”

Pauline smiled and took Obie’s hand, not out of affection but to keep him from escaping the tour. “Lead the way.”

Tabby grabbed Caydee’s hand before anyone could stop her, and the pair darted after the adults. Nerdly ushered them all inside, his voice already launching into a proud narration about the design of the main hall.

Jake lingered behind with Jill, who had been waiting in the living room. She had flown up on a charter flight from Heritage Municipal two hours ago and been picked up by Owen, the studio runner, from there.

Jake was dreading what he had to share with her.

Laura and Celia joined him on the couch with Cap, settling in for what they knew would be at least a half-hour before Nerdly’s tour reached its end.

Jake leaned back in the chair and gave Jill a faint smile. “How was the flight?”

“Very nice,” she said, crossing one leg over the other. “Smooth, comfortable, quick.” Then her expression soured. “And eight thousand dollars. Eight thousand, Jake, just to fly me down here. I was the only one in the plane. A big twin-engine plane with nine other seats. So wasteful. You should have just put me on a Southwest to Burbank and then had me hop a commuter flight up to San Luis Obispo. It would’ve been fine.”

Jake chuckled. “That would’ve taken you all day. Instead, you were here in an hour and a half. One hop. Done. Free drinks on the plane too.”

“Doing it my way would’ve only cost about thirteen hundred,” she shot back.

“That right there,” Jake said, pointing at her, “is the fundamental difference between accountants and the rest of the human race.”

Jill’s eyes narrowed, but there was humor under it. “Without accountants, society would have long since collapsed into barbarism.”

“I know,” Jake admitted. “I’m not saying accountants aren’t useful. You’ve certainly kept my ass from collapsing into barbarism more than once over the years.” He gave her a gentle look, the kind a psychiatrist might give a patient right before confirming, yes, you’re batshit crazy. “But you have to admit—you’re... different, right?”

She looked at him, holding his gaze. “The man who has two wives and bought his plane from a Colombian drug lord is calling me ‘different’?”

“Alleged Colombian drug lord,” Jake clarified.

Footsteps sounded from the hall, and Tif and Owen appeared. Both wore jeans and snug sweaters, the knit clinging to them in ways that left little doubt about what lay beneath, though for once Tif wasn’t advertising nipples, ass cheeks, or the occasional flash of her vulva.

“Hey,” Tif said with a faint smile, offering a half-wave.

“Hey,” Owen echoed.

The greetings were soft, almost perfunctory—Jake, Laura, and Celia had just seen them both at the Campus earlier in the afternoon.

Jake couldn’t help thinking back to what Sharon had told him in confidence the week before. She had finally stumbled on a way to keep Tif dressed: keep the thermostat set at sixty-two degrees. The house was cold enough to almost see your breath, but Tif covered up. Neither she nor Owen had the faintest idea Sharon had engineered it that way. As far as they knew, the Nerdlys were just cheap. They were Jews, after all.

Laura tilted her head, giving Tif an appraising glance. “You look warm and cozy,” she remarked.

Tif nodded eagerly. “Sharon keeps the thermostat low. Says it saves money. Winter is such a bummer, isn’t it?”

Celia hid a smile. Jake kept his amusement to himself.

Jill perked up at Tif’s remark about the thermostat. “Actually, Sharon is absolutely correct,” she said, folding her hands over her notepad. “Keeping the winter setting at sixty-four or below and the summer setting at eighty-two or above makes a tremendous difference. Based on their cubic footage, insulation rating, and PG&E’s rate structure, Bill and Sharon are saving approximately seven hundred and sixty-two dollars a year with that policy.”

She said it with the precision of a courtroom accountant, as if the number were a divine truth.

Jake raised his eyebrows. “That’s it?” he scoffed. “I spend more than that on ganja from Nico—that doesn’t even include the Tater and Asshat runs.”

Jill gave him a flat look. “I don’t understand the point you’re making.”

Kelvin piped up from the bar, where he was sipping on a bottle of Sprite. “Is marijuana tax deductible? Father says it’s a critical part of the musical composition process.”

Jill opened her mouth, then closed it again. For once, she had no answer.

“Sadly, no,” Jake said with mock gravity. “Though you’d think, in this day and age of 2005, it would be. Especially for musicians and graphic artists like Grace.”

Kelvin considered this. “Well, Mother and Father only imbibe in the ritual at night. Or sometimes in the morning on weekends. Or sometimes in the early morning hours.”

Jake tipped his head. “But never at dusk?”

Kelvin looked at him seriously. “No. I’ve never observed the behavior during civil post-sunset twilight hours.”

Jake smiled faintly, the Steve Martin line drifting through his head. Kelvin had apparently never heard it. Not surprising. The kid wasn’t into humor. He was more into chemistry and physics and psychoacoustics.

Tif leaned her elbows on the back of a chair, eyes bright. “So ... did you happen to bring any of that Purple Poopalicous stuff?”

Owen gave her a sideways look. “It’s Purple Tokalicious, not Poopalicous, Pookie.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, lips quirking.

“He’s sure,” Jake said, amusement in his voice.

“Okay,” she said, undeterred. “But did you bring any?”

Jake nodded. “I brought an eighth from my last Tater and Asshat run, last week. I’ll give it to Sharon to put in the family stash. Do you two have access to the family stash?”

Tif grinned. “Of course we do. Sharon keeps it nice and neat—everything arranged and all the pot labeled in its little baggies.”

Laura smiled into her wineglass. “Sharon is known for keeping a good kosher home.”

Kelvin lifted his Sprite bottle in a mock toast. “Baruch Hashem.”

The tour finally wound down a little after six. Nerdly marched Pauline, Obie, Tabby, and Caydee back into the living room like a docent returning his charges from a battlefield. They all looked shell-shocked, their eyes glazed from thirty minutes of reclaimed beams, soundproofing coefficients, and an extended digression about the benefits of balanced electromagnetic power distribution and allotment.

“Drinks before dinner,” Nerdly announced cheerfully, as if nothing unusual had occurred.

He moved behind the wet bar with purpose. For the others he mixed traditional cocktails with an almost old-fashioned flair—martinis, gin and tonics, a whiskey sour. For himself, he poured prune juice over ice and mixed in a healthy shot of Grey Goose on top. He then shook it (no stirring) and strained it into a martini glass.

“I need to encourage digestive movement instead of retarding it this week,” he explained matter-of-factly.

Sharon looked up from arranging salad bowls. “Have you been logging your bowel movements in the spreadsheet?”

“Of course I have,” Nerdly replied, mildly affronted.

Before the conversation could veer any deeper into his colon, Jake cut in smoothly. “So, Pauline—what did you think of the guest suite? Pretty nice, huh?”

“Yes, yes,” she said, a hint of desperation in her tone. “I think we should talk about it.”

That mercifully redirected things until Sharon called them to the table.

Dinner was served at precisely 6:18, as Nerdly had promised. Louis, the chef, was already gone for the evening—Sharon and Nerdly themselves brought the food out. Platters of roasted chicken, garlic bread, and bright salads filled the table. The aroma alone was enough to quiet everyone as they dug in.

Conversation flowed easily over the meal, though it kept skirting back toward Nerdly’s monologues about recording philosophy until Sharon gave him a look that pulled him back into line.

When the last of the salad plates had been pushed aside, Sharon set down her fork and turned to Kelvin. “All right, young man. Dishes are yours tonight.” She had recently decided that Kelvin needed to do more chores and kitchen cleaning was one of them.

Kelvin looked up, scandalized. “Mine? We had guests.”

“Yes,” Sharon said evenly. “And Louis already cleaned the kitchen before he left. All the pots and pans are done. You just have the dinner dishes.”

Kelvin straightened, adopting the air of someone presenting a well-reasoned case. “Mother, Father, I have been blessed with a life in which it is highly unlikely I will ever need to perform my own kitchen chores. I thank you sincerely for bringing me into such a life. But forcing me to clean while there is staff perfectly capable of doing so is a waste of my valuable time.”

“Being grounded from your computer for two weeks would be a waste of your valuable time too,” Sharon said flatly. “And that’s the road you’re traveling right now. Clear the plates and clean the kitchen, please.”

Kelvin glanced at his father, looking for support. Nerdly adjusted his glasses and gave a sage nod. “It builds character. Get to work.”

Kelvin sighed dramatically, but before he could launch into a further rebuttal, Caydee piped up. “I’ll help. I get kitchen duty too.”

“Me too,” Tabby added quickly.

Kelvin gave them both a look, suspecting they were just fucking with him, but the two girls were already gathering glasses, chattering as they carried them into the kitchen. With his case clearly lost, Kelvin slid out of his chair and followed, shoulders slumped like a man condemned.

Once the table was cleared and the kitchen put back in order—Caydee insisted on wiping the table down herself with a Lysol-soaked rag—it was time for the KVA quarterly meeting.

Jill retrieved her briefcase from the corner and began handing out packets. Each one contained graphs, figures, and neatly tabbed subsections, the pages stapled at a precise forty-five-degree angle in the upper left corner. She moved with the same calm authority she always brought to these gatherings, though Jake could see the faint gleam of satisfaction in her eye at the perfection of her handiwork.

“This wasn’t your best quarter,” Jill said, once everyone had their packets.

Jake leaned back, unsurprised. “That’s not exactly shocking. We had no one on tour, no new CD releases, nothing to bring in the big chunks of revenue.”

“Correct,” Jill said. “The only real income this quarter came from residual CD sales. Never Say Never is still the top seller.”

Jake smiled, proud. “It went sextuple platinum last month. Six million copies sold domestically. Though the biggest sales right now are in Europe and Japan.” He tapped the table with a fingertip. “We’re really going to need to do an Asian and European tour once the new album’s out.”

Jill nodded briskly, making a note in her margins. “All the other CDs—dating back to your first two solo releases—are well into post-peak numbers, but they’re still respectable. And despite all of your wild spending, the vineyard project, the unnecessary retreat in Oregon, and ongoing studio operations times two, KVA is still eight-point-three million dollars in the black for the quarter after royalties and ongoing expenses are deducted.”

“That is respectable,” Jake said.

That was the bottom line right there. Eight-point-three million dollars. In Jake’s opinion, that was all that really needed to be discussed. The money was there, the quarter was closed, and the only question was how to distribute it. And there was no reason to distribute it any differently than they had last time: keep four million in the KVA coffers for ongoing operations and then split the remainder equally between the four board members: Jake, Celia, Pauline, and Nerdly. Simple.

Jill, of course, did not see it that way.

She went through the entire packet, number by number, line by line, section by section, as if they were preparing for a cross-examination. There were charts of CD sales broken down by quarter, pie graphs showing revenue sources, bar graphs comparing domestic and international sales. She had another set of charts on the interest-bearing accounts and how much they’d contributed. And then the international sales sheet: a list of every country that had bought KVA CDs in Q4. If one single CD had been sold on the open market in Rwanda or North Korea or Kiribati, Jill had it charted, annotated, and filed.