"I know, man," Coop said. "I fuckin' know that. That leaves it to either me or Nerdly to break this fuckin' stalemate and keep us playing music and making money. Nerdly ain't willing to change his mind. I talked to him last night and he's as willing to go down with the ship as you and Matt are."
"Nerdly has a strong sense of what's right," Jake said.
"Yeah," Coop said, "and so do I. And what's right is keeping the band playing and getting our asses into that recording studio and out on tour. That's why I've decided to be the one to put an end to this shit."
"What do you mean?" Jake asked, although he had a pretty good idea. He prayed he was right.
He was. "I'm changing my vote," Coop said. "I'll vote to kick Darren out and keep Charlie. That'll put it four to two in your favor, Jake. I hate like hell to do something like this to Darren. You don't have any fucking idea how much doing this hurts, what kind of a fuckin' asshole I feel like — but I'm gonna do it."
Jake breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief. "You're sure about this, Coop?" he asked. "Have you really thought this thing through?"
Coop nodded. "I've been up all goddamn night thinking it through," he said. "Like I said, it's the right thing to do."
"Have you told Matt yet?"
"No," Coop said. "You're the first one I've told. I was kind of hoping you'd try to talk me out of it."
"Unfortunately, I can't do that," Jake said. "I think you're doing the right thing and I applaud you for the courage it took to change your mind on this."
"Yeah," Coop said sourly. "I get lots of fuckin' applause, don't I? But it ain't the applause that keeps me from going bankrupt, is it? It's making records and going out on tour."
Jake nodded in respect. Sometimes it was easy to think of Coop as just a dumb drummer, a marijuana addicted conspiracy theory freak with a borderline paranoid disorder. But every once in a while he came up with something pretty profound. "That's true, Coop," Jake told him. "That's very true."
"I need to tell Matt," Coop said. "And I need to tell him today — as soon as possible."
"Yeah," Jake said. "You'll need to do that."
"I want you to go with me."
Jake looked at him, his mind already trying to formulate excuses for why he couldn't or shouldn't be there for that conversation. He was unable to come up with even a single one. Slowly, he nodded. "All right," he said. "Why don't we have breakfast and then give him a call? We'll go over there before noon."
Matt was spending most of his days and nights these days at his rented Los Angeles penthouse instead of his mansion in San Juan Capistrano. This was primarily due to the loss of his driver's license and the fact that Buxfield Limousine Service — which the band held an endorsement contract with — could not drive him back and forth on the long trip on a daily basis. Jake and Coop, each in their own vehicles, pulled into the building's underground parking garage just before eleven o'clock that morning and parked. They got out and met near Jake's car. Silently, they walked to the elevators, both of them dreading the conversation they were about to embark upon.
Matt had said little when Jake had called him earlier and asked if he and Coop could come over. He had simply told them to be there at eleven and hung up. He hadn't sounded happy. When they knocked on his door he opened it, wearing a tattered pair of sweat pants and nothing else. He was smoking a cigarette and sipping from a bottle of beer.
"Come in," he told them, shutting the door behind them. He waved them to seats in the living room and then sat down in a leather recliner.
"How you doin', Matt?" Coop said softly, trying to break the ice a little.
Matt just glared at him. "Let's get to the meat of the matter here, why don't we?" he told Coop. "You're gonna sell Darren out, ain't you, Coop?"
Coop couldn't meet his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "I'm changing my vote to Charlie. I'm sorry, man, but I'm just doing what I think I have to do."
Matt looked up at the ceiling and took a deep drag of his smoke. He looked back down again and glared at Jake this time. "You fuckin' got to him, didn't you?" he said. "You called him up and kept picking at him and chipping away at him until you turned him against his two best friends in the world! Are you fucking proud of yourself, Jake? Did you come in your fuckin' panties when he finally agreed to go along with you?"
Jake said nothing but he didn't drop his eyes.
"Jake didn't talk me into anything," Coop said. "I didn't talk to him after our meeting yesterday until a few hours ago. By then, I'd already changed my mind."
"Right," Matt said. "Like I believe that. How did he talk you into it, Coop? Did he get you fucked up first? Or did he just use his little lawyer sister to start talking legal shit to you?"
"That's enough of that, Matt," Jake said. "Coop came to his decision on his own for reasons of his own."
"The fuck he did," Matt spat.
"Hey, fuck you!" Coop suddenly yelled. "I've been up all night agonizing over this shit! Jake didn't talk me into anything! He didn't talk to me at all, unlike you who fuckin' called up Nerdly and tried to get him to change his vote!"
Matt paled the slightest bit. Jake's eyes widened.
"What was that?" Jake asked.
"He called Nerdly up while I was over there talking to him last night," Coop said. "He spent fifteen fuckin' minutes trying to tell Nerdly how he should change his vote over to Darren to keep you from taking over the whole goddamn operation and turning us into some easy-fuckin'-listening band."
Jake looked at Matt, feeling some of his own anger starting to rise now. "Oh really?" he asked. "You called up Nerdly to get him to change his mind and then when Coop actually does change it — through no effort on my part — you start playing the fuckin' martyr to me? You're the biggest fuckin' hypocrite I've met since that asshole Frank Overland."
Matt stood up suddenly, falling back on his instincts now that he was cornered. "Don't be calling me no fucking hypocrite!" he yelled at Jake, pointing an angry finger at his chest. "I'll cram my fuckin' hand down your throat and rip your trachea out and shove it up your fuckin' ass!"
Jake continued to look at him placidly. "Are you done?" he finally asked.
Matt's face was red, his eyes bulging, but he didn't take another step forward.
"The decision is made, Matt," Jake said. "Are you going to abide by it?"
"Why the fuck should I?" he asked. "This shit ain't right! You guys know I'm the leader of this band and you just used a technicality to take my authority away from me. How am I supposed to keep band discipline after this? How are we supposed to get anything done?"
"By doing what we did on the last album," Jake said. "We go in that warehouse and we put our songs together and we record them. What's so hard about that?"
"What's so hard about it is I don't want to play with that faggot freak anymore!" Matt yelled. "He gives me the fuckin' creeps and I don't like him. I can keep Darren in line and I ain't afraid he's always looking at my crank in the shower!"
"You've never been able to keep Darren in line before," Jake pointed out.
"It's different this time," Matt insisted.
"It isn't different, Matt!" Jake shouted at him. "And why don't you admit that Darren isn't really the issue here. You just don't want to lose. You grew up a little rich boy who always got everything he ever wanted in life and then you became a rock star and had even more shit handed to you. Now you're so used to always getting your way that you just can't stand the thought that someone is going to overrule you on something."
"You're full of shit!" Matt yelled. "This issue is about who is control of this band! This is my band and I've always been the leader of it and now you're trying to take over."