Chapter 12a

Newport Beach, California
May 22, 1989, 11:00 AM

Jake had finally made the decision to get rid of the Corvette that Mindy Snow had bought him years before. It had been an agonizing decision. Though the relationship with Mindy was a semi-painful, semi-lurid memory, he had truly loved that car. But, after almost six years and ninety thousand miles of being driven hard and well, the car was starting to fall apart. The interior was trashed and worn, the paint was fading and chipped, and some major component in the engine would fail every two thousand miles or so, requiring costly and time-consuming repairs. And so, with a heavy heart, he had let it go, selling it for an absurdly large amount of money — more than three times the Kelly Blue Book for that model, year, and mileage — to a collector who wanted to own a genuine Jake Kingsley vehicle.

He had debated buying another Corvette to replace it but had reluctantly decided that another maintenance intensive sports car was not something he wanted to deal with at this stage of his life. After considerable deliberation over different makes, models, and styles of automobile, he finally decided he wanted a high-end luxury car, something that would haul ass if he wanted it to, but that would also have a reliable, low-maintenance engine, comfortable seating, and all the bells and whistles that someone with his income would expect from a motor vehicle.

He was behind the wheel of his choice now. It was a royal blue, 1989 BMW 750 iL. It was the top of the line model for BMW and it was loaded with virtually every accessory available. The sticker price, which Jake had paid in cash, had been sixty-four thousand dollars. It featured leather seats that were electrically adjustable and heated, a $2000 Blaupunkt sound system complete with twelve-CD changer and six speakers, and a twelve cylinder, five liter engine that produced three hundred horsepower and was capable of propelling the car to speeds of one hundred and seventy miles per hour. Not quite as fast as Matt's Maserati, but pretty damn close. He had picked the car up just two days before. The odometer was now showing ninety-three miles on it, more than half of which had been put on during this trip to Newport Beach. As Jake felt the smooth handling of the car, as he felt the barely restrained power of its engine, as he listened to the virtual absence of outside noise that the sound insulation gave him, he thought that maybe he could fall just as much in love with this car as with the Corvette.

He was a little nervous about the trip itself, however. He was on his way to the Gallahad Gardens Correctional Institute to visit Matt, who had been incarcerated there for a week now. Three days after returning home from their international tour, Matt had had his sentencing hearing before Judge Waters and officially received his punishment for the little incident back in November. He had gone in on May 15 and, assuming he did not get into any trouble (something that was doubtful, considering it was Matt they were talking about here), he would accrue one "good time day" for each actual day he served and be released on June 29. And though the GGCI, as it was known, was a privately run jail facility that was reputed to be worlds apart from the county facility Matt could have ended up in if not for the plea bargain, it was still a jail. Jake had been in jail three times in his life — once in Texarkana, once in New York City, and once in Cincinnati — and his memories were of orange suits, horrible food, bars on the doors and windows, guards who liked to thump on people with telephone books, and absolutely no privacy of any kind. He knew that Matt had to be miserable in there and Jake himself was not looking forward to entering such a stifling environment, even as a visitor.

He was on Highway 1, just outside of Newport Beach and just west of Costa Mesa. This part of the coast was very hilly and rugged. As the highway crested one of the hills, giving a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean, Jake found himself driving alongside an ornate wrought iron fence surrounded with shrubbery. The fence was about ten feet high and small signs every fifty feet or so proclaimed that there was no trespassing as this was private property. Since the turn-off to the entrance of the GGCI was supposed to be less than half a mile in front of him, Jake was forced to conclude that he was looking at the security fence for the facility. He found it strange that there was no razor wire atop the fence, no chain link beyond it. If someone wanted to escape from the facility it would be child's play to scale the fence.

Exactly half a mile from the first sighting of the fence, a paved access road led off to the northeast from Highway 1. A simple sign with an arrow proclaimed that this was the Gallahad Gardens Correctional Institute and that you should turn right if you wanted to go there. Jake turned right onto the road, which was lined with date palms on both sides. Another sign told him there was a guard booth ahead and that all visitors much check in and were subjected to search. His nervousness ramped up a few notches. He was entering a goddamn prison.

The first surprise of the day came when he stopped at the guard booth. It was a simple glass and steel booth with two men inside of it. They were not wearing the uniforms of prison guards, but were instead dressed in suits and ties. They carried no weapons upon them. Their faces were neatly groomed and their expressions were subservient instead of interrogating.

"Good morning, sir," one of them greeted Jake as he stopped and rolled down his window. "Are you here to visit one of our guests?"

"Your guests?" Jake asked.

"Yes, sir," the guard said. "If you'll forgive my impertinence, I do recognize you, sir. You are Jake Kingsley, correct?"

"Uh... yeah," Jake said. "I am."

"Then you would be here to visit Mr. Tisdale?"

"Yeah, that's right," Jake said.

"Very good," the guard said, tapping a few things on a computer screen. "I have you registered as a visitor today. You may proceed to the visitor parking area. Just follow this road and there will be signs in front of the main entrance."

"Uh... okay," Jake said.

The guard pushed a button and the gate slid open, allowing him access. Jake was puzzled. Weren't they going to look under his car with a mirror on a pole? Weren't they going to check his identification? Weren't they going to look through his trunk?

"Is there something wrong, Mr. Kingsley?" the guard asked.

"Uh... no," he said. "I guess not."

He dropped the BMW into first gear and pulled forward. The access road wound through a small grove of trees and then came out into the open ground on the other side of it. Now Jake was able to see the prison grounds for the first time. It looked absolutely nothing like a penal institution. The main building was a sprawling, eight-story complex of classic Spanish architecture. There were lots of windows on the building. It looked more like a luxury hotel than anything else. Surrounding the main building were acres of meticulously groomed lawns, gardens, tree groves, and even a putting green and a row of tennis courts. There were no gun towers anywhere that he could see, no guards roaming around with rifles.

The access road led him to a large circular driveway in front of the main entrance. A sign here read VISITORS AND NEWLY ARRIVING GUESTS, PLEASE WAIT HERE FOR VALET SERVICE.

"Freakin' valet service?" Jake muttered. "You gotta be shittin' me."

They weren't shitting him. The moment he stopped his car, two men dressed in the same style of suit as the gate guard emerged from a small booth beside the building. They walked over and opened Jake's door for him.

"Welcome to GGCI, Mr. Kingsley," the first man said politely. "I am Richard. The admission booth let us know you were on the way up."

"Uh... thanks," Jake said, slowly stepping out.

Richard handed him a claim ticket. "I'll park your car in the visitor lot for you," he said. "Daniel here will escort you inside to the visitor check-in desk."

"Sure," Jake said. "Sounds good."

"Nice car, Mr. Kingsley," Daniel said with obvious sincerity. "It appears to be new?"

"Yes, I just picked it up the other day."

"You have excellent taste in automobiles," Richard told him. "And don't worry. I'll take great care of it."

"Thanks," Jake said.

Richard climbed behind the wheel and drove off with Jake's car. When he was gone, Daniel said, "If you'll follow me, Mr. Kingsley."

Jake followed him. They went through a set of doors and entered a spacious lobby. Once again, the impression was that this was a luxury hotel instead of a jail. There were no bars on any of the windows, no security cameras anywhere, no one in a uniform of any kind. All of the male staff members in view wore suits and all of the female staff members wore business dresses. Jake was led past a marble fountain to a desk labeled VISITOR CHECK-IN. PLEASE HAVE PICTURE IDENTIFICATION READY. The desk was staffed by a young, attractive woman in her late twenties. She gave Jake a friendly, professional smile as he approached.

"I'll leave you here, Mr. Kingsley," Daniel said.

"Okay, thanks," Jake said.

Daniel gave a polite little nod and then retreated back the way he'd come. Jake looked back at the woman.

"Good morning, sir," she greeted. "Are you here to visit one of our guests?"

"Yes I am," Jake said. "I'm here to see Matt Tisdale."

"Of course," she said politely. "You're Mr. Kingsley. I thought I recognized you. May I see your identification please?"

He pulled out his wallet and removed his driver's license from it. He handed it across to her and she quickly typed his name into the computer before her desk. She handed it back and then typed something else. After peering at her screen for a moment she said, "Mr. Tisdale is currently in Lounge C. I'll have one of our counselors escort you to him."

"You mean... I'm going inside?" Jake asked. "Isn't there like a visiting area where we talk to each other through glass and all that?"

She chuckled a little. "No, sir," she said. "We don't have anything like that here. We have an open visitation policy for our guests." She punched a button on her phone, waited a few seconds, and then picked it up. "John," she said into it. "I have Mr. Kingsley here to visit Mr. Tisdale, who is currently in Lounge C. Would you escort him over there? Okay, thanks." She hung up the phone.

Jake was now feeling considerable anxiety. They wanted him to go inside the prison? To be in the same proximity as the convicts? Was that safe?

A mid-thirties Hispanic man suddenly appeared beside him. He was dressed in the requisite three-piece suit. He had a polite smile on his face. "Mr. Kingsley?" he said.

"Yes," Jake affirmed.

"It's an honor to meet you, sir," John told him. "I've enjoyed your music for years."

"Thank you," Jake said.

"I'll take you to Mr. Tisdale. If you'll just follow me?"

"Sure," Jake said slowly.

John led him past the fountain again and to a doorway that was guarded by another suited counselor and a metal detection frame. Jake expected that they would make him empty his pockets out and then they would search him. They did no such thing. They simply had him walk through the metal detector and, when that triggered no alarm, John opened the door and led him into a lushly carpeted hallway lined with oil paintings.

"This is just too weird," Jake said as he followed behind.

They passed a bank of elevators, several offices, and several doors marked as storage or break room or things like that. Finally they came to a sliding glass door marked LOUNGE C. They walked through and Jake found himself looking at circular room about the size of a skating rink. Several pool tables, pinball machines, shuffleboard courts, and dart boards took up one side of the room. A bandstand, currently empty, stood on the other side. In the middle were wooden card tables of all shapes and sizes. There were thirty or so men that Jake was finally able to identify as prisoners in the room. They did not wear standard prison garb like orange jumpsuits or denim pants and shirts. Instead, they wore fashionable khaki slacks, tennis shoes, and handsome white polo shirts with GGCI stenciled on the breast. Many of the prisoners had visitors with them — dressed in standard street clothes like Jake — including women. Two or three of the suited staff skirted around the edge of the room, looking very subservient and non-threatening.

"This is a prison, right?" Jake had to ask John.

"It's a private correctional institute," John corrected. "We find the word 'prison' to be very offensive here."

"I see," Jake said, still tying to process it all.

John looked around for a few moments and finally spotted Matt near the far end of the room. He led Jake over to where his friend was playing a game of pool with three other men.

"I'll leave you now, Mr. Kingsley," John told him. "When you're ready to leave just have Mr. Tisdale lead you back to the door you came in through."

"Right," Jake said. "Thanks."

"Jake!" Matt said gladly, setting his cue stick down and walking over to greet him. "It's good to see you, brother! How the hell are you?"

"I'm good," Jake said, shaking with him. "How are you doing? It looks like you're doing some hard time here."

"Yeah," Matt said. "This place is something else, ain't it? Thank God I'm a rich motherfucker."

"Amen to that," one of fellow pool players said. The other two chuckled.

"Let me introduce you to the guys," Matt said, leading him over to the table. He pointed to a middle-aged man with graying hair. "Jake, this is Ernest Willington. He's a real estate developer here in Orange County."

"Nice to meet you," Jake said. "You look familiar to me."

Willington gave a chuckle. "You probably saw me on the news last year. It's nice to meet you, Jake."

"Ernie's the guy that got popped by the grand jury for bribing one of the county supervisors to get him to change a zoning law," Matt said.

"I told you, Matt," Ernest said with a humorous whisper and a slight jab of his elbow into Matt's side. "That was a campaign contribution. Fred just forgot to report it."

"I got them to change that zoning for you though, didn't I?" asked one of the other players, this one in his late thirties. He and Ernest both had a friendly laugh over this.

"And this," Matt said, indicating the man who had just spoken, "is Fred Basil, the county supervisor in question. He's doing some time for taking the bribe."

"Campaign contribution," Fred said with a grin. He turned to Jake. "Nice to meet you, Jake. I'm not much of a rock music fan, but your friend here is a breath of fresh air in this place."

"He does have a way of livening a place up, doesn't he?" Jake said.

Matt then pointed to a tall, skinny man in his early forties. "And this geeky looking motherfucker here," he said, "is none other than Bobby Smithson. Remember him from last year?"

"Oh yeah," Jake said, recognizing him now that he was looking at him. "I remember." Smithson had been the CEO of a major Orange County manufacturing corporation. The previous year he had been caught siphoning money from his company's pension fund into a private account in the Grand Caymans. In all, it was estimated that he had screwed his employees out of almost sixteen million dollars. He had pled guilty to grand theft and wire fraud and had been sentenced to a year in jail. And here he was, doing his time in this miserable place.

"It's nice to meet you, Jake," Smithson told him, shaking his hand. "Matt was telling me that you musicians don't have any sort of retirement fund."

"Uh... well... yeah, that's right," Jake said.

"Maybe I could help you guys set one up," Smithson said. "I have a lot of experience in that area."

Jake looked at him in disbelief for a moment and then all four of the prisoners started cracking up.

"Holy fucking shit, Smitty," Matt said, clapping him on the back. "That was a good one. Did you see the look on Jake's face when you said that shit?"

"Hey," said Smithson. "Who says I was kidding?"

This caused another round of laughter. This time, Jake reluctantly joined in.

"Let me finish kicking Smitty's ass here and then I'll show you my cell," Matt said.

"Sure," Jake said.

They were playing eightball and Matt already had most of the stripes in while Smitty had five of his solids still on the table. Matt quickly and efficiently sank his last two but didn't have a shot on the eightball. Smitty managed to sink one solid but then flubbed his next shot, causing the cue ball to drop into a corner pocket.

"That's your ass, boy," Matt told him as he retrieved the ball and placed it on the table. "Corner pocket," he said, pointing with his cue stick. Smitty nodded, resigned to his fate.

Matt lined up almost carelessly and shot the cue into the eight. It struck with an authoritative clack and the eight shot across the table where it dropped into the pocket dead center.

"Damn," Smitty said, shaking his head good naturedly.

"That's two grand you owe me now," Matt told him.

"Will you take a check?" Smitty asked, causing another round of laughter to erupt.

"All right then," Matt said, putting his cue back in a rack next to the table. "I'll catch you corrupt motherfuckers later."

All three of them told Jake they were glad to meet him and then began racking up a new game.

"Come on, Jake," Matt said. "Let me show you the misery I have to live in."

"Is it okay for me to go to your cell?" Jake asked.

"Hell yeah," Matt said. "I'm paying eighteen grand a week for this fuckin' place. They'd better let me have visitors. Follow me."

Jake followed him. They went to one of the side doors where one of the suited counselors was manning a check-in booth.

"Back up to your room, Mr. Tisdale?" he asked.

"Fuckin' aye," Matt said.

"Very good, sir," the counselor told him. He opened the door, revealing yet another hallway.

"It looks like they're treating you well," Jake observed as they walked.

"Yeah," Matt said with a shrug. "It beats the shit out of the Orange County jail, or the Texarkana jail. If you gotta do time, this is the way to do it."

"Do all of the guards wear suits here?"

"They don't like to be called 'guards'," Matt warned. "They're rehabilitating us, remember? They like it if you refer to them as counselors."

"I see," Jake said.

They reached an elevator and Matt pushed the call button. When it arrived, they stepped inside and he pushed the button for the sixth floor. The car rose smoothly and quickly upward. When it reached six, the doors slid open and they were standing before another "counselor" before another computer terminal. This one was vaguely Asian looking and only in his late twenties.

"Gene, my man!" Matt said, stepping out and holding out his right hand.

"What's up, Matt?" Gene replied, slapping his hand into Matt's. They gripped each other in several different ways and then slammed their fists together.

"My dick, like always," Matt replied. He turned to Jake. "This is Gene. He's the day shift counselor for this floor. He's the one that makes sure we hardened criminals stay in our cages."

"We have to beat Matt sometimes to keep him in line," Gene said. He held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Jake. I'm a big fan of Intemperance. Matt's been teaching me some stuff on the guitar."

"Well... uh, he's the one to learn from," Jake said.

"That ain't no shit," Gene agreed.

"Can you unlock my door for me, Gene?" Matt asked.

Gene reached down and pushed a button on his control panel. "Done," he said.

"Thanks, Gene," Matt said. "C'mon, Jake. Let's go check out my pad."

They walked down another carpeted hallway lined with oil paintings. Doors were spaced every thirty feet or so. They did not look like prison cell doors. There were no bars, no slots, no locking mechanisms. Instead, each one looked like a standard, everyday hotel door.

"This is F wing," Matt told him. "It's a little nicer than D and C wing, but not as nice as G and H wing."

"Who decides what wing you get to stay in?" Jake asked.

Matt rubbed his thumb and middle finger together — the universal sign for money. "That's what determines it," he said. "You get what you pay for."

"I see," Jake said.

They stopped at a door labeled 647. M. TISDALE was printed on a plaque below the door number. Matt reached down turned the doorknob, opening the door and leading Jake into his cell.

"Jesus Christ, Matt," Jake said as he got a look around. "This is a jail cell?"

"That's what they tell me," Matt said.

The room was nothing more nor less than a standard hotel suite, not as nice as the ones the band typically stayed in on tour, but much nicer than a standard room. There was at least twelve hundred square feet of living area. The door opened up onto a sitting room complete with a large screen television, stereo system, refrigerator, and leather furniture. A large window at the front of the room provided a view of the facility's front lawn, Highway 1 passing beyond it, and the Pacific Ocean beyond that.