"No, it's okay," she said, plucking the joint from his fingers. "I've kinda gotten to like it."
"Well all right then," Jake said as she took a medium sized hit and held it in.
Rachel was looking particularly lovely on this night. After more than a week of sampling different dresses from more than two dozen dressmakers she had finally selected a maroon, sequined formal dress designed by Gianni Versace for the pre-Grammy party and a red strapless dress designed by Sergio Valenti for the awards ceremony itself. The Versace was backless and sleeveless, displaying an ample amount of her impressive cleavage — a cleavage made more alluring by the custom-designed push-up bra she wore beneath it. Her hair and make-up had been expertly applied by none other than Deloris Riolo — the band's hairdresser — who had been ecstatic to have an actual girl to work on for once instead of a scrungy musician.
The word that Jake was dating Rachel had already been leaked out to the media — probably by the Grammy committee, who had issued her invitation, or perhaps by an employee of one of the dressmaker companies. Reporters, once armed with Rachel's name and age, had quickly ferreted her address, telephone number, and employer out of whatever sources they maintained and had been hounding her ever since. They gathered in groups before her apartment, snapping pictures of her and shouting questions whenever she appeared. They showed up at Brannigan's, coming inside and demanding to know how she had met Jake, how long they had been dating, and, of course, how many times he had beaten and raped her. They had been up at the UCLA campus, interviewing her fellow students, her professors, the cafeteria workers, wanting to know if she ever showed up with mysterious bruises upon her, with black eyes, with broken bones. Did she ever start crying for no particular reason?
Rachel, understandably overwhelmed by all the attention, had been somewhat of a nervous wreck the past two weeks. The only statement she'd issued to them had been in the first days of the harassment when she'd proclaimed that, yes, she was dating Jake Kingsley, and that no, he had never beaten her or raped her. Her standard response since then had been the phrase that Jake and Pauline had drilled into her: No comment.
This did not stop them from tracking down Jo Ann, Rachel's mother, and Maureen, Rachel's roommate. To Jo Ann they asked how she could condone her only daughter going out with a perverted, violent, and satanic rock musician who had once snorted cocaine out of a girl's butt crack and thrown another girl into the Sacramento River for breaking up with him.
"I have seen no evidence that Jake is even remotely like the person you are describing," Jo Ann had stated for the record. "He has shown her nothing but kindness and has treated her like the lady she was raised to be for as long as I'm known him."
To Maureen, they asked if Rachel had ever come home bleeding or crying or if she'd ever had to take her to the hospital after one of her dates with Jake.
"She usually seems pretty happy when she comes home from a date with him," Maureen had responded. "In fact, I've never seen her as giddy before."
"So sometimes she doesn't come home happy?" one of the reporters asked. "Can you elaborate on those times?"
The intrusions did not end with harassing his girlfriend and her family and friends. On February 3 Jake put down $175,000 on his new house and entered a thirty-day escrow. The very next day there were articles in all the Los Angeles newspapers describing the house Jake was buying, including pictures of it. They published the address, how much he was paying for it, and his close of escrow date.
"How in the hell did they get all this information so fast?" Jake asked Pauline when the reporters began calling her later that day, asking for a statement in regards to some of the reactions Jake's future neighbors were having to the news.
"It's all public record," Pauline replied. "In a place like Los Angeles County I'm sure that every records clerk who works in real estate transactions, marriage licensing, death certificates, and a few other departments have arrangements to get little envelopes full of money from reporters whenever something interesting — like Jake Kingsley buying a house — comes drifting through their files."
The reaction of those future neighbors was quite similar to what it had been back in 1969 when the first black family purchased a house in the neighborhood. Neighbors began picketing out in front of the house, carrying signs that read things like: THIS IS A FAMILY NEIGHBORHOOD or DEATH METAL HAS NO PLACE IN MY BACKYARD or NO SATANIC RAPISTS HERE! The actual homeowner's association itself used the law firm they had on retainer to file for an injunction forbidding Jake from closing escrow on the house or to at least extend the escrow period while the legalities of the situation were worked out. The very shaky grounds for this were an obscure section of the CC&R for the neighborhood, which proclaimed that no house could be sold to a sexual deviant or someone with a felonious criminal record.
"It doesn't have a hope in hell of succeeding," Jake's father and sister both assured him. "That section of the CC&R are part of the leftovers from the forties when the neighborhood was first built. It's the part Congress struck down in the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the part they used to use to keep out blacks and Asians and Jews."
The homeowner's association, knowing that their legal argument would most likely fail, simultaneously tried a different tactic, this time without the advise of their attorney. They contacted the bank that was financing Jake's loan and threatened to organize a boycott against them unless they refused funding. They contacted the cardiac surgeon who was selling the house and threatened him with a similar boycott unless he pulled out of the deal. Before either of these entities had a chance to respond to these threats Pauline issued one of her own on her brother's behalf. She sent a letter to the bank and the surgeon explaining that if they were to withhold funding or try to pull out of the deal without just cause now that it was in escrow they would be guilty of violations of the Fair Housing Act. In the case of the bank they would be subjected to stiff financial penalties. In the case of the doctor, he would subject to monetary fines and potential criminal charges under federal law. She sent another letter to the homeowner's association itself informing them that their threats of boycotts to lending institutions and homeowners in order to foment discrimination against a home buyer constituted the most grave violations of the Fair Housing Act and that every signatory whose name appeared on their letter was subject to immediate arrest and trial under federal law if Mr. Kingsley, the bank, or the cardiac surgeon decided to press charges. When a quick consultation with their attorney informed them that Ms. Kingsley, attorney-at-law, was entirely correct in her assessment of their actions, they immediately dropped plans for a boycott and simply continued picketing and waiting for the official court decision on the matter.
And now Jake and Rachel were about to go right into the teeth of the lion. Hundreds of entertainment reporters would be present at the party they were attending and Jake had been forced to warn Rachel that they would try anything, do anything to elicit some kind of damning statement from her, up to an including sending an undercover reporter to befriend her and get her talking while her lips were loosened with alcohol.
"Are you ready for this?" he asked her as they pulled onto the Hollywood strip and headed for the Hollywood Hilton Hotel.
She was quite stoned, a goofy smile showing on her face. "Oh yes," she said. "Bring 'em on."
"That's the fuckin' spirit," Matt said, popping one of the roaches into his mouth and swallowing it. "If you have to say anything tell them how good Jake munches out your bearded clam. They'll be in awe of his skills and they won't be able to print it because it's too graphic."