Chapter 15B: Crossing The Line

Jake, Matt, and Bill all received multiple phone calls over the next two days. They received them from Doolittle, from Crow, from Shaver, even from William Casting, CEO of National Records — the big guy himself. These phone calls were all in the same vein — demands to submit recordable music by the deadline, threats of what would happen if they didn't, promises that National would not cave on this issue no matter what, that they would sacrifice the millions they stood to make even if they did renegotiate the Intemperance contract just to avoid setting a precedent other bands might try to take advantage of in the future. In addition to the phone calls, they began to get the same speeches from Darren and Coop, both of whom had been told by Doolittle and Crow that they had been used to hatch an insidious plot against the record company that was providing them with food, shelter, and, most importantly, heroin.

"Dudes, that was like totally uncool of you to make us submit that crappy music," said Coop to Jake and Matt.

"Yeah, dudes," agreed Darren. "We're not like pawns on a chessboard and shit. I thought we were friends!"

Through all this Bill, Jake, and Matt stood firm in their convictions and refused to even acknowledge that there was a plot in progress. They made no demands of National Records and made no admissions of deliberately sabotaging their music to Darren or Coop. To do so would have destroyed the legal basis of their "good faith" argument. The demands, when they came, would have to come from a mouth other than theirs and even then would have to be circumspect.

National, however, certainly had no problems making demands. On Thursday afternoon Manny once again handed the phone to Jake.

"Who is it this time?" Jake asked. "Doolittle, Crow, Shaver, or Casting?"

"It's Mr. Casting," Manny whispered, obviously in awe of having talked to the head of one of the largest record companies in the world.

Jake nodded and took the phone. He lit a cigarette and took a few puffs and then finally put it to his ear. "Wassup, Cassie?" Jake asked him.

"That's Mr. Casting to you, Kingsley," Casting said icily. "What are you doing at home?"

"Well," said Jake, "right now I'm enjoying a cigarette. After that I'm going to go into my bedroom and check out the new issue of Hustler and probably jack off. What are you doing?"

"Why aren't you in the warehouse producing new music for us?" Casting asked.

"Why would we do that?" Jake asked. "We submitted new material to you, you rejected it, and you don't want to wait three or four months for us to come up with something else. There's no reason for us to be in the warehouse."

"Oh, but there is," Casting said. "I'm told you had six songs in progress before you decided to pull this little stunt of yours."

"We're not pulling any stunts," Jake replied, "but your spies do have their facts correct about the six songs. We were working on them but we decided they sucked ass and abandoned them."

"I'm told by two of your bandmates that they didn't 'suck ass', as you put it. In fact, I'm told they were quite good."

"As I said before, sucking ass is in the eye of the beholder. Darren and Coop are so strung out on that heroin you assholes are pushing off on them that they wouldn't know a good song if it reached out and took their syringes away from them."

"Nevertheless," Casting said, "I want you in that warehouse rehearsing those six tunes. We're going to record them."

"Oh we are, are we?" Jake asked.

"Yes," Casting said. "Since you're refusing to submit acceptable material to us for your next album, we're going to have you record all of the rejects you previously submitted — with the exception of that anti-bible piece — and those six songs. That will give us ten for the album."

"Sorry," Jake said. "We rejected those six songs. We're not going to do them."

"I'm ordering you to do them," Casting said. "You have material available to you and we have the right to order you to record it."

"That would be true if we had ever recorded those six songs and submitted them to you and your boys on an audio cassette. We did not do that, however, so those songs do not yet belong to you."

"You rehearsed them in our warehouse," Casting said. "We know you composed them and that they're viable. That makes them our property."

"Really?" asked Jake. "Do you have a lyric sheet on them?"

"No," said Casting. "But that doesn't matter."

"Do you have a written composition of the basic melody?"

"No, but that doesn't matter either."

"Okay then," Jake said. "Here's the most important question. Have we ever recorded those tunes in any form?"

"You know you haven't."

"Then, according to my legal source — you might want to check with yours to confirm this — those tunes do not belong to you, they still belong to us — the songwriters. They only become your property when we actually record them and submit them to you or one of your representatives. We have not done that, so we still retain the rights to those songs. And as the songwriters of un-submitted pieces, we still retain the absolute right to do with our compositions as we please. And what we please is to not record them or to offer them to any entity. We've rejected them."

"Jake, I'm ordering you to record those songs!" Casting yelled.

"And I'm ordering you to rip your cock off and shove it up your ass," Jake replied. He then shook his head. "Jesus, I've been hanging out with Matt too much."

His conciliatory statement did not mollify Casting much. He was infuriated. "All right," he said, sounding like he was speaking through gritted teeth. "You want to play hardball? We'll play hardball. We're done screwing around with you. As of this moment, your weekly allowance is cut off, your limousine service is cut off, your nightclub privileges are cut off, everything is cut off! Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," Jake said mildly. He hung up the phone.

When Casting said "everything", he literally meant everything. The phone rang again less than a minute after Jake hung up and Manny answered the kitchen extension, but he did not tell Jake to pick up. Instead, about ten minutes later, Jake heard him shuffling around, making lots of noise. He went into the kitchen and found him taking food out of the refrigerator and putting it in boxes.

"What you doing, Manny?" Jake asked him.

Manny was in quite the state. "I'm taking all of the food out of the house," he responded.

"Why would you do something like that?" Jake asked.

"Mr. Casting ordered me to," he said. "He apparently means to starve you into submission." He shook his head fretfully. "Oh this is just such a mess. I'm sorry, Jake. Why don't you just do what they want?"

"For the same reason you don't go out and score yourself some pussy," Jake told him.

"Huh?" Manny asked.

"Because I'm just not into it," Jake clarified. "You know what I mean?"

Manny didn't know what he meant. He picked up a jar of mayonnaise and put it in the box.

"Oh, and Manny," Jake said.

"Yes?"

"Put all that shit back right now."

Manny shook his head. "Jake, I have to take everything out of here. Mr. Casting ordered me to. All the food, all the liquor, all the cigarettes, all the stuff in the safe — the drugs and that envelope full of money you have in there."

Jake didn't ask how Manny knew what was in the safe. He had the combination to it and it was undoubtedly part of his daily duties to snoop through it and report on its contents. Knowing that this was coming (although not suspecting that National would actually try to remove the food from the building) Jake had saved most of his allowance over the past few weeks. The envelope that Manny was referring to contained almost three thousand dollars in cash.

"You're taking none of that," Jake told him. "None, do you hear me? Especially not the contents of the safe."

"Jake, I've been ordered to," Manny insisted. "Everything in this condo came from National and now they want it back."

"Too bad," Jake said. "They can't have it."

"I'm taking it, Jake," Manny said nervously. "National is my boss, not you."

"But I'm the one who will throw your faggoty ass off the fucking balcony if you put so much as one more condiment container in that box."

"Jake," Manny said, his nervousness increasing but his determination steadfast, "I'll call the cops if I have to."

Jake smiled. He was not a legal expert by any means but, having grown up in a household headed by an ACLU lawyer, he did possess a bit more than the layman's knowledge of the laws regarding personal privacy, search and seizure, and landlord/tenant disputes. "Why don't you do that, Manny? Let's get them over here so we can hash this thing out in a proper manner."

Manny looked at him as if this were some kind of a trick. "I will, Jake," he said. "I'm not kidding. I have my orders and I intend to follow them."

"And I intend to solidly kick your ass and possibly throw you off the balcony if you try to remove one more thing from this condo. So instead of resorting to physical violence, how about we get a legal opinion? Call them."

Manny sighed. "All right," he said. "I guess you're forcing me. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"I would never say that, Manny."

Manny walked across the kitchen and picked up the phone extension. While he was dialing, Jake went quickly into the office and opened the safe. He left the envelope full of money where it was but took out the bags of marijuana, the cocaine kit, and all of the pill bottles. He carried this into his bedroom and put it in a shoebox in his closet. When he returned to the kitchen Manny was still on the phone, his conversation indicating he had just made contact with the police dispatcher. Jake suspected he had not called the police outright but had called Casting first to clear it with him.

"They on their way?" Jake asked, lighting a cigarette.

"Yes," he replied. "I'm sorry it had to come to this, Jake. It would be so much easier if you would just do what they told you."

"Uh huh," Jake replied. He went back in the living room and sat down to wait.

It took less than fifteen minutes before there was a knock on the door. Manny answered it and two uniformed LAPD officers came in, their mannerisms and expressions telling Jake they were somewhat less than thrilled to be here.

"What seems to be the problem?" asked the lead cop, whose name was Officer Yamata.

Manny told his side of the story and then Jake told his. The cops listened carefully and then asked a few questions about who the condo was actually leased to. Jake produced the paperwork from his desk and showed it to them.

"So it's leased by National Records and they pay the rent," Yamata said after skimming the documents, "but Mr. Kingsley here is listed as the tenant in occupancy of the residence."

"Yep," said Jake.

"And nowhere in here does it mention your name," Yamata said, looking over at Manny.

"That's true," Manny said, "but I'm an employee of National Records and I'm authorized by them to oversee everything that takes place in this condo. In effect, I'm Jake's immediate supervisor."

"It doesn't say anything about that in the lease," Yamata said. "You need to leave his stuff alone. You can't remove anything from this residence except for the contents of your own bedroom."

"But everything in here is National Records property!" Manny insisted.

"But it's in Mr. Kingsley's residence," Yamata returned. "If National Records wants anything in here back, they'll have to go to court and get a judge to say they can have it back."

"Hey," said Jake, as something occurred to him. "Since it's my residence and all, can I kick his ass out of here? He is here against my will after all."

Yamata shook his head. "In that case the landlord/tenant laws work in his favor. He has established residency here so if you want to kick him out, you'll have to go through the eviction process. That can take as much as six months."

"Oh well," Jake said. "It was a thought." And then something else occurred to him. "On that same note, doesn't that mean that National can't just kick me out of here either? If they want me out they'll have to go through the same eviction process?"

"That's correct," said Yamata's partner, a cute bleach blonde female cop named Rogan.

"Very interesting," Jake said thoughtfully.

"All right," said Manny, "I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this, but I'm left with no choice."

"What are you talking about?" Yamata asked.

Manny took a deep breath. "Mr. Kingsley has drugs in this condo," he said. "In the safe. He has cocaine, marijuana, illegally acquired prescription drugs, and a large amount of cash."

Neither Yamata nor Rogan reacted strongly to this information. Neither did Jake, for that matter.

"Is that true, Mr. Kingsley?" Yamata asked.

"There is a couple thousand in cash in there," Jake said, "but its not drug money. I'm a rich rock star, remember?"

"I'm telling you, there are drugs in there," Manny said. "I'll open the safe for you." He started to walk in that direction.

"Mr. Kingsley," Rogan said, "do you want him to open your safe? He really doesn't have the right to access it under this lease."

"Is that so?" Jake asked.

"That's so," she said.

"If I say no and he tries it anyway, will you shoot him?"

Rogan smiled. "If necessary," she said.

"Then no, I don't want him to open the safe."

The two cops went after Manny and caught him just as he was starting to spin the dial.

"What the hell are you doing?" Manny asked. "He has drugs in here! I'm trying to show them to you."

"That is Mr. Kingsley's safe," Yamata said. "He has told us he doesn't want you opening it."

"But there are drugs in there!" Manny yelled. "Don't you care about that?"

"Not really," Rogan said. "And even if we did, you are not authorized to open that safe. So if you did, and there were drugs in there, we wouldn't be able to use that as evidence against Mr. Kingsley because he didn't authorize you to open the safe for us. It would be an illegal search and seizure."

"That's insane!" Manny said.

"That's the American justice system," Rogan said.

"Why does he have access to your safe?" Yamata asked Jake.

"National Records sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong," Jake said. "They provided the safe for me and he's here to spy on me. You know how it is."

"Why don't you just change the combination so he doesn't know it?" Yamata asked.

"Can I do that?"

"Well, I'm not sure if you're talking legally or physically," said Yamata, "but the answer to both questions is yes. It's your safe in your residence. You can do whatever you want with it."

"Do you guys know how to do it?" Jake asked.

They looked at each other and shrugged. "I'm sure we could figure it out," Rogan said. "You'd have to open it for us first though so we could see the mechanism."

"Right," said Yamata. "And if you did have anything illegal in there and we saw it after you voluntarily opened it for us... well... then we'd be forced to act on that."

"I see," Jake said as if contemplating. He looked over at Manny. "Manny, go ahead and open that thing up."

Manny had already figured out that Jake had moved anything incriminating. "Open it yourself," he said, stepping away.

Jake shrugged and opened the safe. As soon as it swung open and Manny saw that the drugs were indeed gone, he said, "The drugs are probably in his room somewhere now."

"Very nice," said Yamata as he stepped up to look at the mechanism of the safe.

"If you looked, I'm sure you'd find them," Manny hissed.

"We have no probable cause to search through Mr. Kingsley's bedroom," Rogan said. "The only way we could look in there is if Mr. Kingsley granted us voluntary consent for a search."

"Do you guys really want to search my room?" Jake asked.

"Not really," said Rogan.

"Okay then. I guess I won't give you consent then."

Manny stormed towards the door. Before he made it there, Rogan stopped him. "Oh, by the way," she said. "If you were to go into Mr. Kingsley's bedroom yourself and come out with drugs in your hand, not only would you be subject to a trespassing charge, but we would probably conclude that any drugs found were actually yours and that you were trying to frame him." She smiled. "Keep that in mind."

Manny's neck was now bright red. He walked out of the office and disappeared.

"So this is what being a rock star is like, huh?" asked Rogan, her blue eyes shining at Jake.

"Not quite what you expected, huh?" he asked her.

"Not at all," she said. "And by the way..." She blushed a little. "I love your music."

"Thank you," he said.

It took them less than five minutes to figure out how to change the combination on the safe. Jake learned the procedure and then followed it, changing it to something Manny would never guess.

"Anything else we can help you with?" Rogan asked when they were done.

"Yeah," Jake said, looking at her. "You ever date a musician?"

She shook her head. "I never have."

"I never dated a cop either. Maybe we should do a couple of firsts?"

She was blushing quite strongly now, her confident demeanor driven underground. "I wouldn't be opposed to that," she said.

Before she left she handed him a business card with her name and current assignment printed on it. Below that, in a neat, feminine hand, she had printed her home telephone number.

Jake managed to call both Matt and Bill in time to prevent their respective manservants from removing all property from their condos. In the case of Bill, another call to the police was required to physically enforce the prevention. In the case of Matt, a threat to perform an emergency tracheotomy on the manservant with a butter knife and then fornicate with the resulting hole was enough. Jake also called Coop but Coop wasn't home, he was at Darren's. When Jake called Darren's, he got Cedric, who was undoubtedly already in the process of removing everything. Cedric informed him that both Darren and Coop were "indisposed" at the moment — which meant they were flying high on their latest shots of heroin. No matter how much Jake threatened and yelled, Cedric refused to put either of them on the phone.

"It is against the law for you to remove anything from their condo, Cedric," Jake warned. "You better leave their shit alone."

"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Kingsley," Cedric replied in his cultured, pompous tone. He then hung up. And, of course, he removed everything he had been told to remove — all the groceries, all the booze, and all the drugs, up to and including their beloved China White.

It was only twelve hours later when Jake received the first phone call. It was from Darren and he was angry — murderously angry — that Jake's actions had resulted in the loss of "all my shit". He threatened to come over and kick Jake's ass if he didn't agree to settle this dispute with the record company immediately and convince Bill and Matt to do the same.

"We're not having a dispute with the record company, Darren," Jake told him, keeping with the plan of admitting nothing. "They didn't like our tunes and now they're playing games with us."

There were a few more threats and then Darren hung up. A few minutes later, Coop called threatening to kick Jake's ass as well.

Twelve hours after that, neither one of them were in any kind of shape to kick anyone's ass. For the next three days both of them went through the hell of heroin withdrawal. Their bodies ached and trembled and shook and sweated. They suffered explosive diarrhea. They vomited up everything they attempted to put in their stomachs — which wasn't much since they had no appetites whatsoever, nor did they have much food available in their condos. On the fourth day these physical symptoms began to subside a bit but the mental symptoms — depression, suicidal thoughts, self-pity, anger, shame — were only just beginning. The phone calls began again, both of them calling Jake, Matt, and Bill in turn. They would beg pitifully for their fellow band members to end this thing and then angrily threaten when they were told there was nothing to end. The three core members did what they could. They used some of their squirreled away money to buy basic groceries for Darren and Coop so at least they wouldn't starve to death. They instructed them to call the cops if either of their manservants attempted to remove or sabotage these groceries. But as for getting their heroin and their pot and their booze and their limousines back, they simply told them to hang in there until National was done having their little fit. This did not make Darren or Coop feel better.