"Cheap whores don't smell like that," Stinson said.
"Good point, but again, unprintable."
"Well... there is one other thing," Ronald said hesitantly.
"Lay it on me," Stinson said.
"Well... I had reason to believe that maybe there was a faulty toilet up in Ms. Brody's room."
"Oh really?" Stinson said, grinning.
"Yeah," Ronald said. "So I went up there to check it out. I knocked on her door and no one answered. In the interests of my guest's safety I went inside just to make sure everything was all right. Ms. Brody wasn't there."
"She wasn't, huh?" Stinson asked. "Can quote you on that?"
"As an anonymous employee, of course," Ronald said.
"Excellent," Stinson said. "Did you get any other information from her room?"
"Well... as a matter of fact, it seems that Ms. Brody left her purse open on the counter and her wallet lying out. I couldn't help but get a glance at the contents."
Stinson's grin widened considerably. This guy was one of the best sleazebags he'd ever employed as a snitch. "And what might you have observed?"
"Her full name is Helen Anne Brody," Ronald said. "Her address is 22355 Templeton Road in Ventura, California. Her date of birth is..."
"Slow down," Stinson said. "I need to write this down."
Ronald slowed down, repeating all the information again. "Her date of birth is 3-27-64. Her social security number is 346-66-2130. She has a MasterCard and an ATM card from the Bank of Ventura. She holds a pilot's license and an instructor pilot certificate."
"A pilot?" Stinson asked. "No shit?"
"I saw them with my own eyes. The number on her pilot's license if C7886554. It was originally issued to her on March 27, 1982. She received her instructor certificate on September 24, 1986. I also... uh... found a picture that had apparently fallen out of her wallet out in the hallway in front of her door."
"Did you now?"
"Yeah," Ronald said. "It's a picture of her and some old guy standing in front of an airplane. I'll fax it to you as soon as the line is clear."
"Excellent," Stinson said. "You've done well indeed, Ron."
"Do you have any idea what Kingsley is doing here?"
"Not yet," Stinson said. "But you can bet your ass we're going to find out. The public has a right to know after all."
Chapter 8a
Intemperance and their manager, Pauline Kingsley, now knew why National Records management had been so lackadaisical about the submission date for new songs for the next album. It hadn't been out of any concern for the health and well-being of the band or its members, nor had it been because they thought the band would produce better if they had a nice vacation prior to the composition process. No, National had kept nicely in character when they'd pushed the submission deadline back to November. It's In The Book was still high on the top ten list of album sales. Radio stations across the country, as well as in Europe, Australia, and Japan were still playing almost every song on the album multiple times a day. Even the deep cuts that had never been intended for radio play were being spun by disc jockeys and enjoyed by the listening audience. In short, Book had turned into the best-selling album that National had put out in more than a decade and, as a result, they didn't want to hamstring it by introducing any new Intemperance material too soon. As such, they'd decided long before sharing their strategy with the band itself that they were not going to release a new Intemperance album in the coming year. In effect, they'd bowed out of the 1988 option period and had instead decided to focus on a new project for the band.
"We're going to put out a live album early next year," Crow told them in a meeting one morning.
"A live album?" Pauline asked.
"You bet your ass," Crow said. "We've got almost sixteen hours worth of live tracks recorded in Detroit over the past three tours. We're going to compile them into a double live album and package it with a small photo book of band tour photos. The album will wholesale for eleven dollars and retail for sixteen. At the same time, we'll release a concert video that's also compiled of the video shoots we've done at the Detroit shows. This video will wholesale for six dollars and retail for nineteen."
The band had been suspicious about this idea at first — they were automatically suspicious of everything National came up with — but eventually they warmed to it, especially after National officially rejected the new album option for this year and relieved them of the legal obligation to submit new material by mid-November. All figured it was probably for the best anyway. The profit potential of such an album was hard to ignore. At a retail rate of sixteen dollars per album, that meant the band would receive $2.88 for each one sold — and such an album would probably sell three to four million at the very least. That did not include the video sales either. The band received eighteen percent royalties on all videos sold in their name. The money, however, was not the main reason why the band quickly embraced the idea of taking a year off from new material. The harmony that had once existed between them at jam sessions no longer seemed to be as harmonious as it once had.
The band had gotten together a few times to try to hash out some songs for the next album and these sessions had inevitably erupted into arguments over the material in question. Jake didn't like many of the new songs Matt was trying to introduce because they were too hard-core and most utilized a modification of the heavy palm-muted chords technique he was experimenting with. Matt didn't like most of Jake's new songs because they were too soft or too bluesy and a few of them did not have enough strong lead guitar for his taste. Nerdly wasn't fond of much of anything the two of them came up with, writing all of it off as too musically simplistic and bland. Nerdly wanted more complexity, more tempo changes, more four-part harmony backing up Jake's lead vocals, more different styles of music so that when he mixed it he could be challenged by the compositions. Nerdly longed to put together a musical masterpiece that would be remembered for hundreds of years after his death. And then there was Charlie. He was just strange, always worrying about tapeworms and bacterium and wiping off his bass guitar every time he had to go to the bathroom or turn up his amplifier. Coop, the only one without strong opinions, was just frustrated with the lack of progress and spent much of these sessions sitting behind his drum set smoking cigarettes and rolling his eyes.
"What the hell is happening to you guys?" Pauline had asked after three such sessions in which they'd only agreed to start working on a single song — Jake's She Cut Me Loose, the song he'd written about his failed relationship with Rachel. "Both you and Matt are telling me you've come up with nine to ten songs apiece for the next album and all you're doing is arguing about them?"
"I think we've grown too big for our condoms," Jake had replied.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"It's like this," he said. "Matt and I are the ones who compose the lyrics and basic musical melody of our tunes. Nerdly is the one with the best ideas about how to fine-tune those basic tunes into the end product that shows up on the albums. Sure, the other two throw in suggestions on minor points, but Nerdly is the one who has the best ear for mixing the various instruments together in a way that gives us our unique sound."
"Okay," she said. "It sounds like a system that's been working well ever since the D Street West days. So what's the problem now?"
"The problem now is that we've all grown — musically if not emotionally — and we've grown in different directions. We've all developed our own ideas about what we should be doing and those ideas tend not to jibe with each other. Nerdly is into mixing and utilizing the best new techniques of blending the music together. He wants to be a fucking maestro who turns us into a mixture of Boston and Pink Floyd with all the overdubs, synthesized voice and guitar tracks, and unnecessary tempo changes. Matt, on the other hand, is edging more towards the hard-core heavy metal sound, complete with palm-muted chords or approximations of them, a pounding back-beat, and two heavily distorted guitars on every track. He wants no overdubs of any kind and he's starting to push for Nerdly's piano to be more of a backing track instead of one of the main instruments. And then there's me. I'm not blameless in all of this either. Most of the songs I've composed for this next album are heavy on the acoustic guitar tracks and the piano and not as heavy on the harsh, crunching lead guitar. I'm starting to favor more of a blues approach to the lead guitar instead of the classic loud, overriding electric distortion. I'm also in favor of using Charlie's bass guitar as more than just a means to set the beat. The guy is one of the best bass players I've ever heard. He can do things with his instrument that Darren can only dream about. As long as he's in the band I think we should take advantage of that."