Jake talked to several musicians and other celebrities who had either been nominated for Grammy awards or were slated to be guests at the ceremony show. Weird Al Yankovich — who struck Jake as decidedly un-weird in person — discussed politics with him for almost twenty minutes. He held a five-minute conversation with Lionel Richie on the subject of the dress Sheila E. was wearing. He found himself next to B.B. King at one point and they talked for more than half an hour about the Les Paul guitar and the best means of reproducing sound through an amplifier with it.
After B.B excused himself and headed off towards the men's room, Jake lit a cigarette and headed for the bar to get himself another drink. Halfway across the room he was intercepted by a tall, heavily made-up brunette. He recognized her as Audrey Williams, a reporter for the Hollywood Reporter news show. Her cameraman and sound technician trailed behind her, shooting and recording.
"Jake? How are you doing?" she asked, stepping neatly in front of him and blocking his path.
"Just fine," he said, trying to step around her. She didn't allow it. She simply moved to keep her body in front of him.
"How about a brief word about the upcoming awards?" she asked.
He suppressed a sigh. He really hated dealing with reporters of any kind and these gossip show reporters were the worst. "Sure," he said. "What do you want to know?"
"There are many people who say that an act such as yours — you know, with the way you rampantly advocate immoral sexuality and drug use — should be banned from participation in the awards. What do you think about that?"
He shrugged. "I think some people worry too much about stuff like that. Obviously two million people liked our album enough to buy it."
"So you think you stand a chance to walk away with one of the coveted gramophones on February 26?" she asked. "You've been nominated for three but you've got some pretty stiff competition."
"I don't know," he said. "You tell me. What do you think our chances are?"
This threw her off stride. She was not used to people asking her questions.
"Well, if there's nothing else," Jake said when she failed to answer him, "the call of the spirits is beckoning to me."
"The call of the spirits?" she said, her brow wrinkling in confusion.
"The bar," he clarified, holding up his empty glass to her.
"Oh... I get it," she said and then gave a dutiful giggle. "Actually, there is one more thing."
Of course there was, Jake thought. There's always one more thing with these people. "And what might that be?"
"It's about the lawsuit that National Records filed against you and your band," she said.
Jake sighed, completely unsurprised. The plan that the dispute between Intemperance and their record label would remain secret had turned out to be quite naïve. As soon as it was realized that the band had not entered the recording studio on the date that National publicists said they were going to, the reporters began flocking around, demanding to know why. The pat answer — that the band was unhappy with a few of their songs and we're taking the time to rework them — satisfied the enquirers for less than a week. At that point an investigative reporter for the American Watcher tabloid got wind of the lawsuit somehow (probably from a court clerk, Pauline speculated, they were notorious for blabbing information to reporters for money). Once alerted to the possibility that National was suing its most profitable band it took the reporter less than a day to dig up the actual filing paperwork which was, of course, a matter of public record. They broke the story the first week of February with a copy of the lawsuit reproduced within their pages. Fortunately they had been unable to get their hands on the actual transcript of the hearings that had taken place since both parties had agreed to keep them sealed.
As soon as it became public knowledge that a lawsuit had been filed, the reporters and paparazzi began hounding the band almost as badly as they'd done during the peak of the Jake and Mindy relationship. National cried foul before negotiations for the new contract could even get properly started. Now that the word was out about the dispute, they said, there was no point in negotiating anything since one of the key terms of the agreement had been violated. Frowley told Pauline they were back to square one — either the band honor their existing contract immediately or they would go forth and sue the band for breach of contract. Pauline got them back to the table by pointing out that the media discovering the lawsuit was not the fault of either her or the band, that just because they knew there was a lawsuit didn't mean they knew the band and the label were renegotiating, and, most important, that if they did go back to square one there was still the significant possibility of a future California Supreme Court ruling in the band's favor. This argument didn't sway Frowley, who had been against renegotiation from the start and still was, but it did sway Casting, the National Records CEO who feared such a precedent-setting Supreme Court ruling the same way medieval Europeans used to fear the black plague. A press conference, attended by Jake, Matt, and Pauline as well as himself, was held, and it was announced that, yes, there were some disagreements about new material that would be recorded for the next Intemperance album, and yes, these disagreements had led to the filing of a lawsuit when the band did not present enough acceptable material by their contractual deadline, but that both parties were working hard to settle these disagreements so the lawsuit could be dropped and the band could get back into the studio.
"That should hold them for a little while," Casting said after the press conference. "But there had better not be any leaks about the negotiations we're having. If they get confirmation we're doing that, the whole deal is off and we'll take our chances with Rosie and The Supremes."
And so far, no word had leaked. The gossip press enquired almost daily as to what exactly was going on between the warring factions but they were given nothing but vague answers and reassurances that reconciliation was "progressing". There were rumors of a contract renegotiation — that was pretty much inevitable under the circumstances — but both parties emphatically denied this when they were asked. Even Coop and Darren, both potential weak links in the secrecy agreement, managed to keep this to themselves, mostly because both were back on the heroin and spent most of their time shut up in one of their condos instead of going out to get drunk in the clubs where a wily reporter posing as a groupie might be able to loosen their lips.
Jake himself hardly thought of it as a lie when he denied that a contract renegotiation was in the works because to him it seemed the entire thing was a farce anyway, a huge exercise in frustration that would probably end up leading nowhere. Twice a week Pauline, himself, Matt, and Bill would meet with Casting, Doolittle, Crow, and Frowley for eight hours and toss terms of an agreement back and forth. This had been going on for almost a month now and so far the two parties had not agreed to a single thing. Neither side had even progressed to bargaining in good faith yet. Pauline would demand that the band's royalty rate be increased from ten percent to thirty percent. National would call this ridiculous and offer to increase the rate to eleven percent. Pauline would demand the band's royalties be based on full retail album price plus two dollars. National would say that since they were willing to increase the royalty rate to eleven percent the band should accept the wholesale album price as the base. National would demand that any new contract signed be extended to eight more contract periods and Pauline would say that they would only accept a single album and tour contract only. They would argue and bicker about these points all day long and get nowhere at all and at the next meeting they would do more of the same.
"Why?" Jake had asked Pauline after the last session of negative progress only two days before. "Why are both of you making such ridiculous offers? You know they're not going to accept thirty percent royalties. They know we're not going to accept wholesale album rate. So why the hell are either one of you even making those offers? We've done nothing but waste everyone's time."