“No shit?” Jim whispered in awe. “I always thought that squirting was a myth.”
“So did I until I saw it,” Jake said.
They talked about Helen’s squirting, and Kim’s response to the hoity-toity housewife at the softball game (“at least I get paid to take a cock up my ass,” she’d told her. “You let your husband do it for free”). From there, Matt told the story of the time he and Jake and the rest of Intemperance had hotboxed the limousine on the way to the Grammy awards and then stepped out in front of the cameras while a cloud of marijuana smoke came pouring out.
“Those were the fuckin’ days,” Matt said nostalgically.
“Yep,” Jake agreed. “Remember when you asked Steve Billings to toke up with us?”
“I still think that would’ve been epic,” Matt said.
“It would have,” Jake agreed. He looked back at Jim again. “And then Coop askes Steve Billings to tell us some stories from Vietnam. He actually believed that old urban legend about how Billings had been a sniper there!”
“Billings was fucking cool about it though,” Matt said, laughing. “A shame what happened to him.” Billings had died last year in a plane crash when he ran out of fuel over Flathead Lake in Montana.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “You should always check your fuel level before you take off, on the gauges and visually. That’s like the first lesson Helen’s dad taught me.”
By now, they were on 6th Street, just passing Pershing Square. Matt’s condominium building was right in front of them. Jake pulled into the entryway and stopped in front of the doors. He put the truck in park.
“Well ... here you are,” he said.
“Yeah,” Matt said, nodding a little. “Here we are.”
Jim opened the back door and climbed out. He pulled his suitcase out and sat it on the ground next to him.
Matt looked over at Jake. “Thanks for the ride, dude,” he told him.
“No problem,” Jake said.
“I still fuckin’ hate you. You know that, right?” Matt asked him.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “The feeling is mutual.”
“But ... we had some good times together before shit went south, and ... while I might hate you these days ... I respect you. I always have. Always will. You dig?”
“I dig,” Jake said. “And that feeling is mutual as well.”
Matt made a fist and held it out to Jake. Jake looked at it for a moment and then made one of his own. He tapped his fist to Matt’s a single time.
“Take it easy, Matt,” Jake told him.
“I’ll take it any way I can get it,” Matt replied. He closed the door and headed for the entrance. Jim fell in behind him. Jim looked back at Jake’s truck once, as if to confirm that the last twenty minutes had really happened.
Matt did not look back.
Jake and Laura stayed in their house in Oceano for the next week, neither of them climbing into their cars a single time. They slept in until late morning each day, enjoyed meals prepared by Elsa, went for long hikes on the trails through the sand dunes, frolicked on the beaches, had hot, steamy sex at least once per day, and stayed up late every night, drinking wine and smoking pot in their hot tub. They basked in the isolation of their new home. And Elsa was quite happy to have them there as well.
Alas, their solitude was destined to come to an end. At the end of that week, Jake got a phone call from Pauline.
“Aristocrat has the lowest bid for our CDs,” she told him. “They’re offering twenty-three percent, plus a fully funded Celia Valdez eighty date tour, plus a fully funded Jake Kingsley eighty date tour if you’re willing to do at least half of each set as Jake Kingsley written Intemperance material. They will pay all relevant licensing fees to National Records if you agree to this.”
“I already told them no on that shit,” Jake told her.
“I know, and I told them as well,” she said. “I’m just morally and ethically obligated to bring it up.”
“I understand,” Jake said. “What’s the next step?”
“We need to meet them on Monday for negotiation of the contract,” she said.
“There shouldn’t be much to negotiate, should there?” Jake asked.
“There shouldn’t,” she said, “but you know how those assholes play the game. We’ll need Celia, the Nerdlys, and Greg there, if he can make it.”
“His movie premier is on Thursday night,” Jake said. “He should be free.”
“I can’t wait for the premier,” Pauline said excitedly. “I’m sure it will be better than when you took me to The Northern Jungle premier. It would have to be.”
“Agreed,” Jake said. “Although that is where you signed up Celia as your client. That worked out pretty well, didn’t it?”
“Yes, it did,” she said. “How about you? Is it going to be awkward seeing Mindy again?”
“Undoubtedly,” Jake said. “But Greg is my friend and he really wants me to be there. If I can deal with seeing Matt Tisdale again, I can deal with Mindy Snow. Besides, I kind of want to check out this flick.”
“Because of Mindy Snow’s titties?” she asked. He could almost hear the smirk on her face.
“Been there, done that,” he said. “Got the fuckin’ t-shirt. A couple of them, in fact. No, because it really sounds like a good flick. I’m willing to suffer being in the same room as Mindy and watching Greg’s bare ass up on the big screen to see it.”
“Fair enough,” Pauline said.
And so, Jake and Laura climbed into the plane and flew to Whiteman Airport on Monday morning. They took Jake’s truck to Hollywood and met Celia, Greg, Pauline, Obie, and the Nerdlys at a hole-in-the-wall diner a few blocks away from the Aristocrat offices. They went over strategy for the upcoming meeting, agreeing on such things as deal-breakers (as any insistence of Jake doing Intemperance tunes would be) and non-negotiables (like any attempt to surrender promotional control or to micromanage Celia’s tour would be).
As it turned out, the meeting was almost anticlimactic. Fox and his merry men only suggested a Jake Kinsley tour doing Intemperance tunes once, and only tried to insert themselves into the promotional aspects of the CDs twice. And they tried no funny business with the contract wording at all. They were also more than happy with KVA’s proposal for the Celia Valdez tour. The two-and-a-half-hour set, no opening band, and, most importantly, the market value ticket prices, were music to Aristocrat’s ears. By the time the clock reached 1:30, the contract was signed by all parties and in effect.
“Now we need to start working on the tour,” Celia said.
“We’ll lease the same warehouse for you as last time,” Fox promised. “Is Larry Candid acceptable as your tour manager for this round?”
Celia nodded. Candid had been the manager for the last tour and, though he was an Aristocrat suit and a weasel, he was an experienced and effective tour manager who knew how to manage things on the road and, most importantly, knew that Celia was ultimately the one in charge. “He’ll work,” she said.
“We’ll have him start putting together a crew right away,” Fox said. “I’m assuming you want these CDs to start getting airplay and be released as soon as possible.”
“That’s right,” Jake said. “What’s the soonest that can happen?”
“We should have them manufactured by the first of November,” Fox said. “Distribution could be done by November 14th. The promotions department should be able to do their job and get all the stations briefed in by November 21. That means you’ll be getting airplay just before Thanksgiving weekend and the CDs can be released for sale the first Tuesday in December.”
“That sounds doable,” Jake said. “I’ll start working on the promotional instructions tomorrow.”
“We can’t wait to see them,” Fox said, almost managing to sound sincere. He then turned back to Celia. “Do you think a first concert date of January 1st would give you enough time?”