He read the article inside, shaking his head from time to time, reading between the lines quite easily. Apparently when Jake met the bitch she was boning her married dentist, letting him come over and drill her in places other than her teeth during his lunch hours. Everyone in his office knew they were playing fill the cavity with each other but they thought they were being discrete. Right about the time Jake started tuning her up, the dentist came back to the office one day with a black eye he claimed was from running into a door (that the best you could come up with? Matt wondered with contempt). Had Jake done that? The article didn’t say, but it certainly said that the visits and phone calls from the sexy saxophonist had come to an abrupt end at that point.
The dentist claimed that he had never had anything to do with her, that she had been a crazy-ass bitch of a stalker. He had no answer, however, to the questions of why he did not report her to anyone, why he had not discontinued the doctor-patient relationship, why he always took her phone calls when she made them, and where he was always going during his lunch breaks. The saxophone bitch, on the other hand, simply denied everything, claiming that she was just a patient of the dentist and nothing more and she had no idea where all these accusations were coming from. Matt did not believe that for an instant, of course, but he couldn’t help but admire her response in the matter. Fucking deny everything even if caught red-handed. A tried and true strategy that left you with at least a little wiggle room in the renunciation game.
After finishing the article, he tossed the paper down and took a few thoughtful drags on his smoke. Thoughts of Jake and his current life and career always made him feel a little conflicted. He wanted to hate the man, and he did, but somewhere, deep inside of him, there was always a little part of him that cheered his former brother on. The two of them had been through a lot of shit together over the years—they had banged groupies together, been beaten up by cops and thrown in jail together (more than once), they had smoked weed and drank together, and, most significantly, they had made some damn good music together. If only that fucker hadn’t sold out Darren! Why the fuck had he done that?
They arrived at the National Records Building and Matt made his way up to the top floor conference room where Crow, Doolittle, and Bailey were waiting.
“You have the tape?” asked Crow, who was always a little leery when dealing with Matt.
“Got it right here,” Matt told him, tossing the envelope on the table. “Lyric sheets and musical scores are included.”
“Very nice,” Crow said, picking it up. “Can we get you any refreshments, Matt? A drink or perhaps a line or two?”
“You know the answer to that, Crow,” Matt said with a tired sigh.
“I do,” Crow agreed. “I’m still compelled to ask though.”
“I suppose you are,” Matt grunted.
“And how is that lovely lady of yours?” asked Doolittle. “Is everything well with her?”
“What lovely lady?” he asked.
“Uh ... the uh ... former adult film actress you’ve been seeing for quite some time?” Doolittle clarified. “Are you still seeing her?”
“Oh, you mean Kim?” he said. “We’re not really seeing each other in the strict sense of the word. I don’t hook up with bitches on that level. She just hangs out with me and fucks me and shit and I help her with her business.”
“Of course,” Doolittle said. “She’s well then?”
“Actually, she’s been kind of sick for a few days,” he said. “We ate at this new place on Alvarado last Wednesday and ever since then she’s been barfing up everything she puts in her stomach and shitting out her guts. We think those fuckers served her some bad shit.”
“That’s horrible,” Bailey said.
Matt shrugged. “Shit happens,” he said. “I took her to the hospital the other day and they pumped a couple of liters of IV fluids into her to rehydrate her. She’s doing a little better now. I was able to bang her last night for the first time in a few days.”
“Uh ... that’s good,” Bailey said.
“Had to wear a fuckin’ rubber though,” Matt said with a shake of the heat. “That was a bitch. But that doc at the hospital said that since she couldn’t keep her fuckin’ pills down we’d better use ‘alternate methods of birth control’ for the next four weeks. Ain’t that some fuckin’ Nerdly talk there? And ain’t that some fuckin’ shit, having to use a rubber with your primary snatch?”
“Uh ... yes,” said Bailey. “That is indeed some shit.”
“Anyway,” Crow said. “How about we give those tunes a little listen?”
“How about it,” Matt agreed.
They gave it a listen, stopping frequently and then rewinding to listen to certain parts again. The suits were impressed.
“Interesting guitar work you’ve got going on some of the solos, Matt,” Crow said.
“You like that?” he asked brightly. “I’ve been experimenting with chaining multiple effects pedals together and then playing around with the pre-amp and the output settings. I got some really cool sounds out of that old Strat and it’s all shit I can reproduce live.”
“It’s quite amazing,” Doolittle said without a hint of condescension. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anything quite like it.”
“It’s the direction I’m taking my guitar solos,” Matt said. “I’m going to create a new trend.”
“You just might do that,” Doolittle said. “Now, about the riffs and the other instruments...”
“I’m keeping my end of the bargain, Doolittle,” Matt assured him. “I’ve been listening to ... well ... other albums that have been released lately, and I’m ready to try some engineering and overdubs. Let’s see what we can do with this raw material.”
“That’s the attitude we like!” Crow said happily.
“My terms still apply,” Matt said. “Any guitar overdubs will be me playing for the recording. Now, the way I’m envisioning this thing is with a solid backing guitar during the solos. I will play it on the album, as I said, but in order to reproduce it live, I’ll need to have another guitar player in the band when we hit the road to promote.”
“That’s no problem at all, Matt,” Crow said. “We’ll get you whoever you want ... uh ... assuming he is available, of course.”
“Of course,” Matt said. “And it needs to be someone who can sing. I’m planning to do some double-tracking of vocals when we mix. I’ll need a backup singer. If that backup singer is also the backup guitarist, so much the better.”
“We’ll get you a whole fucking nigger choir out of a Watts church for backup if that’s what it takes,” Doolittle promised. “As long as you’re playing ball on this engineering thing, we’ll get whatever you want.”
“You can keep the nigger choir,” Matt said. “At least for this album anyway. But start looking into guitar player/singers I can audition. I get to make the final choice. I insist upon that. And don’t bother trying to hook me up with one of your ass-sucking moles. I’ll see right through that shit and we’ll be back at odds in no time. Legitimate talent is what I’m after. You understand?”
“We understand,” Doolittle promised.
“Excellent,” Matt said. “Is the meeting over now?”
“I suppose it is,” Doolittle said.
“Good. I’ll take those lines then, and maybe a little Chivas and Coke to go along with them.”
“Coming right up,” Crow said, picking up the phone.
Los Angeles, California
May 16, 1993
She woke up at 6:50 AM, her stomach churning, her skin clammy with sweat. A male body was sleeping soundly next to her, snoring lightly, bundled in the covers.
“Oh, God,” she muttered. “Not again.”
She fought against the nausea for a few moments, trying to will it away, and then realized she was fighting a losing battle. She rolled out of bed and made her way as quickly and as silently as possible to the downstairs bathroom, the toilet that was well separated from the master bedroom. Naked as the day she was born, she tore open the door and dropped into a kneeling position before the porcelain god. She barely managed to kick the door shut behind her before the retching began. There wasn’t much in her stomach, but all that was there came up. She recognized a remnant of the chicken parmesan and green salad they’d had for dinner last night.