"Especially not you," Darren said, getting a little dig in on Pauline, who he most definitely did not like.
She did not take the bait. "Especially not me," she agreed.
"We'll have a submission for them by the deadline," Matt said. "It may not be early, but it'll be there."
"When do you guys plan to start working on your submissions?" she asked. "Just so I have something to tell them when they call me tonight at the Plaza."
"We'll start working full-time as soon as Jake's preliminary hearing is done with," Matt said. "As you can imagine, having the lead singer up on an obscenity charge in some fuckin' Victorian-American shithole of a city is a bit stressful."
"Fair enough," Pauline said. "And you do have some tunes to work on when you start?"
"I've been strumming some out at night," Jake said. "I have three solid pieces and two more in the beginning stages."
"I've got three good ones too," Matt said. "I've also got two more riffs I've composed that I haven't put any words to yet."
"How are the tempo changes in yours, Jake?" asked Darren, who preferred solid tunes with little variation in beat. Jake, to his chagrin, was quite fond of multiple tempo changes in his compositions.
"Only one with radical tempo changes so far," Jake told him.
"I guess I can live with that," Darren said, lighting another cigarette.
"Glad to hear it," Jake said.
"Okay then," Pauline said. "I'll let Doolittle and Crow know that you'll hit the warehouse as soon as the preliminary hearing is settled."
"Unless they throw Jake's ass in some jail cell and deny bail for him," Coop said. "I hear that's what that fuckin' prosecutor is shootin' for."
"Thanks for reminding him of that, asshole," Matt said.
"I ain't sweatin' it," Jake said. "My dad's an ACLU lawyer, remember? He tells me they don't have a prayer and I believe him."
"As do I," Pauline said. "If there's one thing Dad knows, it's First Amendment legal precedents and he's been making sure the National legal team defending Jake knows about them too. Jake will never do any time over this. That's pretty much guaranteed. All this thing is doing is giving you guys free publicity."
"And making more people purchase our albums," Bill said.
"God love 'em," Matt said. "What else you got for us, Pauline? I wanna burn this thing before it starts to dry out."
She flipped a page in her notebook and then smiled apologetically. "Once again," she said, "I hate to be a nag, but how is everyone coming on getting accountants lined up for oversight and taxation of your income? As I told Jake, this is something that I really have to insist on."
"I'm looking into it," Matt said. "I've called a couple of them firms you suggested and they quoted prices to me but I haven't decided on one yet. I just know they're gonna try to fuck me somehow."
"I'm in place to keep them from fucking you," Pauline said. "Just let them know that and make sure you have me look over any contract before you sign it and you'll be fine."
"All right," he sighed. "I'll write their names on a piece of paper when I get home and then throw a fuckin' dart to decide."
"I suppose that's as good a way as any," Pauline said. "How about you, Bill? How you coming?"
"My mom is going to be my accountant," he said.
"Your mom?" Pauline said. "She's uh... not an accountant, Bill."
"She's always done the household finances and she served four terms as treasurer for the philharmonic," Bill said. "And I'll be assisting her. I'm not exactly a slouch when it comes to monetary figures and the calculation of profit and loss ratios. In fact, I've even purchased The Principles of Accounting from the UCLA bookstore. It's fascinating reading, really."
"I've said it before, Nerdly," said Matt, "but I have to say it again. You are a fucking party animal."
"Thank you," Bill said. "The book is tax deductible too, I might add."
"Well, let's see how you do come next April 15th," Pauline said. "How about you, Darren? You working on an accountant?"
"Cedric's gonna do it for me," Darren said.
"Cedric?" Matt asked. "Your fucking manservant? Are you out of your mind?"
"What's wrong with him?" Darren asked.
"He's not an accountant," Jake said. "Why don't we start there?"
"And he's a fuckin' National Records employee," Matt added.
"He is not!" Darren insisted. "I don't know why you guys are always saying that!"
"Remember when he took all your shit out of your house, Darren?" Jake asked. That had been during the impasse over the contract renegotiation when National had tried to throw their weight around. "He did that because National told him to."
"He was just following orders," Darren said. "He didn't like doin' that. Anyway, he did my taxes for me last year. I got fuckin' raped like everyone else, but he didn't fuck nothin' up. I trust him."
"Jesus Christ," Matt said, shaking his head.
"Well, at least I'll be able to have oversight," Pauline said with a sigh. "And you, Coop? Do you have someone in mind?"
"I'm gonna use whoever Matt uses," he said.
"That works for me," she said. "And Jake already has the prestigious firm of Yamashito, Yamashito, and Yamashito, so I guess that covers that subject."
"What did that jap bitch say about your finances, Jake?" Matt asked. "She figure out a way for you to screw the government out of what's comin' to 'em?"
"No," Jake said, "she won't go there and I wouldn't want her to anyway. She went over everything I have — it took her six hours and three beers — and came to the conclusion that I'm just fucked this year. I'm gonna owe The Man about three hundred and twenty grand come April 15th."
"Fuck me," Matt said. "Is that what I'm lookin' at too?"
"Pretty much," Jake said with a sigh. "We don't have nothing to defer the taxes in any way. We don't own our homes, we don't have any business expenses, we don't have any investments, we don't have any travel expenses. We're all pretty much stuck just paying a strict percentage of what we made this year."
"That bites ass," Matt said.
"No shit," Jake said. "Pauline's the one who had the right idea with buying that house. All the points she paid and all the interest she's paid is deductible."
"What the fuck's a point?" Darren asked.
Jake ignored him. "She also invested in some kind of wind generated fund that deferred another eighty grand of her money."
"That was rather genius on my part," she said proudly.
"Oh shut the fuck up," Jake said, not unkindly. "Anyway, tell these guys how much you will be paying in taxes."
"About a hundred and sixty grand total," she said. "It should be better next year if Reagan gets those new tax cuts for us rich people in place."
"That's like half of what Jake's paying," Matt said.
"Yep," Jake said with a nod. "The first thing I'm doing come our January royalty check is buying a house and furnishing it with a home office. Then I might invest in some windmills."
"Windmills are fuckin' cool," Matt said, nostalgia in his voice. "I remember this one time on some fuckin' school field trip to the art museum me and my bud did some shrooms on the bus and when we went inside I started looking at this painting of a windmill and it started moving and water started coming out of the spout. I stared at that for like a half an hour. Man, that was a trip."
"Sounds like a good reason to invest in them to me," Pauline said with a shake of the head.
"Yep," Matt said, in all seriousness. "Count me in on the windmill shit."
"All right then," Pauline said. "On that note, I've pretty much wrapped up what I need to talk about." She looked at Matt. "Anything that you need to talk about, Matt?"
"Yeah," he said. He looked toward the front of the plane. "Hey, fruit fly! Where are them fuckin' drinks?"
"Coming," shouted Roberto right back at them. A moment later he appeared, drink tray in hand. He distributed a rum and coke to Jake, a Manhattan to Pauline, beers for Matt, Coop, and Darren, and a Cognac and apple juice on the rocks for Bill. "Anything else?" he asked. "How about some caviar or some goose liver pate?"