Jake had finally allowed Elsa to clean out his closets and remove all of the expensive clothing Rachel had purchased while they were together. Most were being donated to various charities to be re-sold in thrift stores although a few of the outfits Elsa had kept and given to her granddaughter, who was sixteen and about Rachel's size. Seeing the half-empty closet and the empty drawers had helped convince Jake that she really wasn't coming back, that she really didn't 'want him anymore'.
This concept had been something he had been unable to accept at first. He was Jake Kingsley, millionaire, rock god, and famous celebrity. Women did not break up with Jake Kingsley. Jake Kingsley broke up with them. What woman in her right mind would walk away from the lifestyle he'd been providing Rachel with? She had been pissed off about his public indiscretion in Mexico, that was true, but once she got over that she would forgive and then come back, wouldn't she? Wouldn't she?
She didn't. Once Jake came to accept that fact he was forced to do a little self-examination — a post-mortem of the relationship if you will — and he was shocked to discover that Rachel had been right. He had treated her like an employee, he had, in effect, hired himself a girlfriend when he needed that particular service in his life. The most damning evidence of this realization came from the fact that he didn't miss Rachel after she was gone. He missed the companionship she'd represented, he missed having someone to talk to, someone to accompany him the places he wanted to go, someone to sleep in his bed with him at night, but he didn't miss Rachel the person. Any woman could have filled the role of his girlfriend as long as she was nice, attractive, and reasonably good at conversation. If he hadn't found Rachel he would have found someone else.
It was this epiphany that bothered him more than the actual break-up, more than the hole in his life her departure represented. He had treated a woman badly, not on purpose, but that hardly mattered to the woman in question. Jake was blessed, or cursed if you looked at it a different way, with a great deal of empathy for other people. He knew everyone had their own views and perceptions of things and he could usually put himself in their shoes with little effort. Once he did that with Rachel he was actually ashamed of himself and more than a little surprised that she'd put up with his shit for as long as she had.
And so, since the break-up and the loss of the domestic tranquility that had gone with the relationship, Jake had been staying home as much as possible. He started drinking usually before 10:00 AM each morning and kept it up throughout the day. He never became shitfaced drunk, but he maintained a strong buzz that, as his lyrics suggested, made 'those feelings go away'.
He puffed his cigarette again and then strummed out the opening of the song. Now that the chorus was pretty much nailed down it was time to start working on the verses. He was just getting the first line together when Elsa appeared at his side, holding the cordless phone in her hands.
"It's Mr. Tisdale for you, Jake," she said. "He says it is an urgent matter."
"Thanks, Elsa," he said, taking the phone from her. She smiled and then proceeded to empty his ashtray into the garbage can behind the bar (carefully keeping the half joint out of the garbage can — she had learned that Jake didn't like it when she threw perfectly good pot away).
"What's up, Matt?" Jake asked.
"I think we got trouble," Matt said.
"Great," Jake mumbled. "I hate it when people say that to me."
"Yeah, it's a blowjob with broken braces, that's for damn sure."
"All right, lay it on me."
"It's about Darren," Matt said. "I think he might be on the shit again."
"Fuckin' wonderful," Jake said, knowing, of course, that by 'the shit', Matt meant heroin. "And right before we start putting the tour together too. What makes you think that?"
"Ever since we finished the album he hasn't come out of his house for anything," Matt told him. "I've called him half a dozen times these past few weeks trying to get him to go out to the Flamingo or fishing with me and he always says he has something else to do. The last few days, he hasn't even been taking my phone calls at all. Every time I call there I get that asshole Cedric who says Darren ain't feeling good or he's napping or he ain't there, even though I know he is there because I called Buxfield and asked if he'd gotten a limo. Buxfield says Darren hasn't ordered a limo for more than three weeks now."
Jake nodded. "So he's shut himself up in his condo. What else?"
"I went over there today, just so I could see what's up with him. I didn't call first, I just showed up. Fuckin' Cedric wouldn't let me in the house. He said that Darren's sick and not accepting any visitors. I threatened to kick his fucking ass if he didn't let me in but he didn't budge."
"Sick, huh?" Jake asked. "Did he say with what?"
"The flu," Matt said.
"The flu?" Jake said. "Yes, there's certainly a lot of flu going around Los Angeles in September, isn't there?"
"Exactly," Matt said.
"So what are we going to do about this?"
"I think we need to go talk to Crow," Matt suggested. "Cedric's his little spy and you can bet your sacred sack that if Darren's on the horse again Crow knows about it. We need to find out how bad it is and try to get his ass back in rehab before the tour."
"Okay," Jake said. "Should we have Pauline come with us?"
"Yeah. Nerdly too. How about we head down there at about three o'clock today? We'll storm his fuckin' office and lay into him."
"Sounds like a plan," Jake said. "I'll call Pauline and make sure she's there."
"Right," Matt said. "I'll call Nerdly. Three o'clock, the National Records Building. I'll see you there."
Jake hung up the phone and put his guitar up on the bar. It seemed that his creative mood had just been effectively cancelled.
"You can't go in there!" Crow's secretary cried when Jake, Matt, Nerdly, and Pauline came bursting into the office just after three o'clock. "Mr. Crow is in a meeting right now!"
"He can postpone his meeting for a while," Matt said, walking around her desk. "We're his most important band and we need to talk to him."
"No!" the secretary cried. "You don't understand. He's in a very... private meeting."
"Well, it's about to become a public one," Matt said. He grabbed the door handle and threw open the door to Crow's office. Jake, Pauline, and Nerdly were right behind him.
"Holy shit," Jake said as he got a good look at what was going on.
"Oh... my God," Pauline said, wanting to turn her eyes away but unable.
"Maybe we should have knocked first," said Nerdly.
Crow was sitting in his desk chair, just like expected, but the chair had been pushed away from the desk and over by the window. Crow's pants were down around his ankles and a dark haired man was kneeling on the floor between his legs, orally servicing him.
"What in the hell?" Crow grunted at them.
The figure between his legs raised his head up and looked at them, startled, scared. They saw that it was Mikey Garcia — the nineteen-year-old teen heartthrob who was the lead singer of the popular boy-band Urbano, which National had signed the year before.
"I knew you was a fuckin' faggot, Garcia," Matt said, shaking his head in disgust. "What a fuckin' waste. All that teenage poon dying to get a piece of you and all you wanna do is smoke somebody's joystick."
"Uh... this isn't what it looks like," Garcia said.