INTEMPERANCE II - The Top of the Rock

INTEMPERANCE II

The Top of the Rock

Alan G Steiner

Intemperance II Copyright © 2006 by Alan G Steiner. All Rights Reserved.

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

 

Cover designed by Alan Steiner

 

 

 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

Alan G Steiner

Email me at alsteiner237@gmail.com

 

Printed in the United States of America

 

First Printing: September 2017

 

 

ISBN 9781720036036

 

Dedicated to my loyal readers, who have kept me going all these years and, without whom, this book never would have been started.

CHAPTER 1

The End of the Road

November 12, 1986

High in the sky

 

Jake Kingsley, lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the rock band Intemperance, sat in the plush seat of the Lear jet, looking out the left side window. He could see the farmland of California’s Great Central Valley some forty-two thousand feet below, could see the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the distance. On the table before him was an ashtray with a smoldering cigarette in it and a fresh glass of Chardonnay that Julie, the Lear’s cabin servant, had just placed before him. It was his second glass of wine of the day, his fourth drink. He had started the flight from Seattle with two pale bloody Marys. He had a very mild buzz going. These days it took a little more than three drinks to get his motor running.

“This is the way to travel, ain’t it, Nerdly?” Jake asked Bill Archer, who was affectionately known as

“Nerdly” by the rest of the band. Bill was the group’s pianist and, as of the Balance Of Power tour they’d just finished up, their unofficial concert sound technician.

Bill, like Jake, was dressed casually for the flight, wearing only a pair of loose-fitting sweat pants and a button down, collared shirt. His hair was cut militarily short and he sported large, horn-rimmed glasses over his eyes. Currently he was sipping from a glass of milk and running his hand up and down the lovely upper thigh of Julie beneath her skirt. “Oh yes,” he said dreamily as Julie giggled. “Private luxury aviation is far superior to even first class commercial air travel.” He ran his hand up a little higher, making it disappear completely from sight and making Julie squeal a little. “Far superior.”

Jake smiled and turned back to his view out the window, taking another drag from his smoke, another sip from his wine. This really was the way to travel, especially after spending the last six months traveling by tour bus all over the country. The bus was comfortable, and with only seven people in it, not very

crowded, but it was slow. The trips from each venue to the next took anywhere from four to sixteen hours.

Intemperance’s last show of the tour had been in Seattle the previous night. All of the tour trucks, the roadie buses, and the main tour bus would be pulling out of the rainy city soon and starting the twenty hour drive back to Los Angeles.

Jake and Bill had decided not to be a part of it. They were making good money from their latest album and had raked in quite a bit from tour profits and merchandising as well. Though their first royalty checks in July had been completely negated by the “recoupable expenses” clauses in their contract, their October checks had been quite healthy indeed, especially considering that Balance Of Power, the album, had gone triple platinum and two of their singles had sold over four million copies as well.

The last he’d checked, Jake had just under one point six million dollars sitting in his bank account, although a good portion of that needed to be earmarked for taxes. Even so, he thought that splurging on a chartered air flight to get him home as quickly as possible would not bankrupt him. Bill had come to the same conclusion and had gone in half with him on the eighteen thousand dollar bill. Matt Tisdale, John Cooper, and Darren Appleman—the band’s lead guitarist, drummer, and bass player, respectively—had all been offered the chance to get in on the flight as well. Matt declined because he had arranged his own private flight to Cabo San Lucas to get out of the winter conditions they’d spent the last two months in and try some sport fishing in what was reputed to be the fisherman’s paradise. Coop—as John Cooper was known by friends and fans alike—had elected to go with Matt. Darren, who had been sullen and rather unpleasant for most of the tour, had declined everyone’s offers, electing to just stay with the tour bus.

“I don’t make enough fuckin’ money to be blowin’ it on six thousand dollar airplane rides,” he’d told them. “I don’t have the fuckin’ endorsement contracts or songwriting royalties that some people have.”

“Your choice,” Jake responded to him, giving him nothing more than a simple shrug. It was the way he’d developed to deal with most of Darren’s tantrums. In truth, however, he worried about Darren. The bass player had developed a hefty heroin habit after their second tour and had been forcibly removed from the habit after Intemperance renegotiated their original contract with National Records. Though Coop had gone through the same thing, Coop seemed to be happy to be off the heavy drug and back to the normal intoxicants like alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. Darren, on the other hand, seemed like he was nothing but resentful.

“We’re going to have to keep an eye on Darren,” Jake told Bill as the Lear had roared into the sky from Seattle-Tacoma airport two hours ago. “I don’t think he’s meant to walk the straight and narrow.”

“I agree,” Bill agreed. He then turned to more important things. “Did you see the spherical quality of the mammaries on our flight attendant? I’d love to palpate them in more than a clinical manner.”

And now, as the plane banked gently to the right, making a miniscule course change that would put it on its final heading for Los Angeles, Nerdly seemed to be well on his way to that goal. Jake heard the wet smacking sound of lips in contact with each other. He turned and saw that Nerdly now had the stewardess straddling his lap while they sucked on each other’s tongues. Bill’s hands had pushed her dress all the way up over her ass and he was squeezing her cheeks through her panties.

Their kiss broke. Julie was flushed and a little breathless.

“Let’s go visit the lavatory,” Bill suggested, nibbling on her ear.

“I can’t,” she said. “I could get fired just for doing this. If one of the pilots catches me, it’s my ass.”

“But I want to penetrate your vaginal orifice,” Bill told her. “It’s been almost twelve hours since I last copulated.”

“How about after we land?” she asked. “We’re laying over in LA for about six hours to pick up another client. I can come over to your place.”

Bill thought this over a few moments, no doubt wondering if he should go for the easy score or go out to one of the clubs and hunt up something better once he got back home. Even though he was nerdly, he was also “Nerdly” of Intemperance—one of the hottest rock bands of the year—and, like every other member of Intemperance, when he wanted some sex, he got it.

He decided to go with the easy score since he knew he probably wouldn’t feel like going out once he arrived home. “Okay,” he told her. “It’s a rendezvous. But how about a little oral copulation at least?

I’m really feeling congested in my nether regions.”

“Right here?” she whispered.

“Right here,” he confirmed. “Jake won’t mind, will you, Jake?”

“Not at all,” Jake said truthfully. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’d been in close proximity when one of his bandmates was getting his helmet buffed. Such was the life of a rock star.

Julie required a little more convincing, but soon she was down on her knees between Bill’s legs, her head bobbing up and down, wet slurping sounds emanating from Bill’s lap. Jake looked out the window again and sipped his wine, wondering for perhaps the thousandth time just what it was about rock musicians that made perfectly ordinary women—which was what Julie seemed to be—act like the most depraved sluts when in their presence.

Julie had already offered herself to Jake. This had been while they were still taxiing to the runway back in Seattle. That was part of the persona. Women always went for Jake or for Matt first, dependent on their personality, but readily accepted Bill, Coop, or Darren (in that order generally) as secondary prospects.

They just had to screw rock stars.

Jake had turned her down, politely but firmly. During the last six months they had hit every large and medium-large city in the United States and Canada, playing before well over a million people. He had fucked or had at least some sort of sexual contact with more than two hundred women during that time period, every last one of them a girl he’d known for less than an hour, every last one of them a girl he didn’t dare kiss on the lips since the groupies, as they were called, gained admission to the backstage area where the band changed and partied by orally servicing members of the road crew and security force. The tour was over now. Jake was more than ready to deprogram himself from the road. He was burned out on meaningless sex. He wanted a real woman, someone he could have meaningful sex with.

Nerdly began to grunt in that high-pitched whine of his right about the time that Jake felt the plane heel forward and start its descent toward the Los Angeles region. The whines grew louder and more frequent before being climaxed (as it were) by a high-pitched teakettle noise.

“Exquisite,” Bill sighed when he got his breath back. “Your oral skills are first rate.”

“Thanks,” Julie said shyly, as if unable to believe what she’d just done. Quite possibly she couldn’t.

Jake finished his wine and handed Julie his glass when she went by on the way to the bathroom to freshen up. “How about another shot?” he asked her.

“Of course, Mr. Kingsley,” she said, taking it from him. She smiled sheepishly. “I don’t suppose you’d care for a little of… you know… what I gave Mr. Archer?”

“Some other time, perhaps,” Jake told her, lighting a fresh cigarette. “Now, I’d really love another glass of that Chardonnay.”

“Right away,” she said, not the least bit perturbed by his refusal. She disappeared into the bathroom.

“Jake,” Bill said once the door was closed behind her, “have I ever thanked you for talking me into this band thing?”

“A couple times,” Jake said, taking a deep drag and blowing the smoke at the window.

“Allow me to express my gratitude yet again,” Bill said, sipping from his milk. “If I would have listened to my mother and kept up with my studies at UCH, I would right now, at this moment, be a computer systems engineer in some office building in Heritage and probably still a virgin. Now, I’m getting oral copulation from flight attendants on a Lear Jet. This is the life.”

“Yeah,” Jake said with a smile. “It is, isn’t it?”

 

*****

The Lear Jet circled in over the smoggy San Fernando Valley and touched down gently at the Van Nuys Airport. It taxied over to the general aviation terminal where a stretch limousine waited. Jake, Bill, and Julie stepped out onto the tarmac. The air temperature was sixty-six degrees, not exactly balmy but, compared to the forty-two degrees it had been in Seattle and, especially the eighteen degrees it had been the week before in Minneapolis, it was paradise. Jake turned his face to the sun and luxuriated in it. He had never thought of Los Angeles as home and probably never would, but at least it had pleasant weather most of the time.

The limousine driver was named Mark. An aspiring screenwriter, he was one of the regulars that drove for Buxfield Limousine Services—the small, family-owned company that all five of the band members used on an unlimited basis without charge. This was a deal that had been brokered by Pauline Kingsley—Jake’s older sister and the band’s manager—in which they allowed Tom Buxfield to film and photograph the band in his limousines and to use their images for advertisements in exchange for the service. So far, it had been mutually agreeable to all parties. Jake and the rest of the band (as well as Pauline) got free limos and Tom’s business had increased by eighteen percent since signing with them.

There was also the added benefit that the drivers were not snitches for National Records executives as they had been when National had provided the limos (and, adding insult to injury, had actually charged the band’s recoupable expenses account for each ride).

“Wassup, Mark?” Jake greeted as Mark held the rear door open for him. He held out his hand and shook with him.

“Jake, my man,” Mark replied. He had long since been forbidden to call him ‘Mr. Kingsley’ when the boss wasn’t around. “Welcome home. How was the tour?”

“Full of sex and drugs, like usual,” Jake told him. “Such is rock and roll. Did you catch the show when we came through?”

“Damn right,” Mark said. “That bunch of tickets you guys scored for us were premo seats. Right up in front.”

The tickets he was referring to had been for one of the three shows in Los Angeles near the beginning of the tour. Against National Records’ stern objections, Jake and Matt had reserved forty-six tickets in the first two rows—two for each driver employed by Buxfield Limousines and one for each member of the Buxfield family. A few of the drivers had sold their tickets, fetching more than $500 apiece for them, but most had attended the show.

“I’m glad you had a good time,” Jake said. “Did Alex go with you?” Alex was Mark’s ‘life partner’, as he called him.

“Sure did,” Mark agreed. “He’s got the total hots for Darren. He just loves the way he looks in those tight jeans.”

Jake chuckled. Darren was perhaps the most homophobic member of the band and the one who still hadn’t accepted that the entertainment industry was full of gays and bisexuals. “I’ll be sure to tell him that next time I see him.”

“Tell him if he wants to borrow Alex for a night, it’s okay with me. I don’t mind… as long as I get to watch.”

Jake wasn’t sure if Mark was joking or not. He simply chuckled again and sat down in the plush seat of the custom limo. Bill stepped up to Mark next and they greeted each other as well.

“What are you doing after you drop Jake and I off?” Bill asked him.

“I was just gonna go grab some lunch,” Mark replied. “I have a pick-up in Beverly Hills at five tonight.

Until then, I’m pretty much free.”

Bill reached in the pocket of his sweatpants and pulled out his wallet—a nylon, Velcro closure job his mother had given him when he was fifteen. He pulled a one hundred dollar bill out of it. “Any chance I can get you to swing back by the airport, pick up my stewardess friend over there, and bring her over to my place for me?”

“Well sure,” Mark said. “Anything for you guys, but why doesn’t she just come with us now?”

“She has to help put the aircraft back into serviceable condition and replace all the booze that Jake drank.”

“Hey now,” said Jake, who was mixing up a rum and coke from the bar, “no cheap shots.”

Mark took the C-note and made it disappear. Technically only the band members and Pauline were allowed the use of the limousine service but Mark, like most of the drivers, was usually more than happy to provide a little extra service during down times, especially when hundred dollar bills were added as an enticement. “I’ll have her to you fresh and hot in less than an hour,” Mark promised.

He closed them into the limo and then spent five minutes collecting their luggage from the cargo hold of the Lear Jet and putting it in the trunk. Once that was complete, he pulled out, heading for Bill’s house first.

Nerdly lived in a luxury apartment building on Mulholland Drive near Mt. Olympus. It was a fifteen story structure that featured apartments ranging anywhere from 1500 square feet to 2500. Bill had one of the 2500 square foot ones. He hopped out and retrieved his own luggage, slinging one bag over his shoulder and hefting one in his hand. A doorman rushed out from the front of the building and quickly relieved him of them.

“Catch you later, Nerdly,” Jake said, draining the last of his drink.

“Yep,” Bill said. “It’s good to be home.”

Mark dropped the limo into gear and drove off, heading back down Mulholland Drive to the Hollywood Freeway. A short drive through the congested traffic brought them to Franklin Avenue where they cut across North Hollywood to Beachwood Drive. From there, they headed north, into the exclusive neighborhood of Hollyridge nestled in the Hollywood Hills. Jake’s condo building was on the east side of Beachwood, just a hundred yards from the rugged terrain of the western edge of Griffith Park. Mark pulled into the entryway and came to a stop, jumping out to open Jake’s door.

Jake got out and looked at the eleven-story building he was currently calling his place of residence (not his home). It was of classic sixties architecture, the colors pale earth tones, the windows large. It was one of the first residential buildings in Los Angeles to feature a rooftop swimming pool. Eduardo Guerra, one of the doormen, saw Jake get out and came rushing over to him.

“Welcome home, Jake,” he greeted, holding out his hand for a shake.

“Thanks, Eddy,” Jake said, shaking with him. Though he was universally disdained by the other residents of the building—most of whom were doctors, lawyers, business types, and moderately successful real estate moguls—he was very popular with most of the staff who worked in the building, the majority of whom were Mexican nationals who had a decent command of English. “I got my bags.”

“Are you sure?” Eduardo asked. “It ain’t no thing for me to haul them upstairs for you.”

“I’m sure,” he said, hefting the two bags onto his shoulders. “I’ve carried these two bags all over the damn continent. I guess I can carry them for another five minutes.”

“Whatever you want, Jake,” Eduardo said. He looked around, seeing that Mark was the closest person.

He lowered his voice a little. “How you fixed for buds?” he asked. “I got a line on some premo greenbud from Humboldt County. The shit’s so sticky you can take it out of the bag with one finger.”

“Yeah?” Jake said, interested. “How much is it going for?”

“Forty an eighth,” Eduardo told him. “Pricey, but worth it.”

Jake considered for a moment. He knew Eduardo wasn’t overstating the price because Jake was rich.

Those on the staff who offered illicit or semi-illicit services to him had long since learned not to screw with Jake Kingsley on the price if they wanted to keep doing business with him. Jake could afford to be screwed, but he greatly disliked having it done to him. The pot and cocaine dealers of Hollyridge Condominiums were not the first to have had that lesson imparted to them. “Sounds good,” he said, pulling out his wallet. He fished out a C-note of his own and handed it to the doorman. “Get me a quarter,” he told him. “Take a couple nice buds out of it for yourself and keep the change.”

“Thanks, Jake,” Eduardo said, pleased. “I’ll have it up to your condo in an hour.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Jake said his goodbyes to Mark and then turned and walked into the lobby of the building. Several of the residents were milling around, mostly the wives who had attached themselves to the young urban professionals since, it being mid-afternoon on a weekday, the young urban professionals themselves were all at work. They made a point to shoot disapproving looks at him. He ignored them and simply pushed the elevator call button. When it arrived, he pushed the button for floor number eleven—all the way to the top.

The condo Jake lived in was 2800 square feet, the largest in the building. It featured a huge master suite and two smaller, though still considerable secondary bedrooms. It had an office, a large living room, an even larger entertainment room, a fully equipped kitchen, and a spacious balcony that ran the length

of the top floor on his side of the building. Jake did not own the condo. He rented it from a real estate development agency his sister Pauline had established contact with shortly after taking over management of the band. The rent was four thousand dollars a month, plus utilities. It was money Jake paid gladly. He had developed a taste for luxury living over the past two years.

Jake dug his key ring out from the bottom of his bag and fished through the keys for a few moments until finding the one that opened his door. He went inside, the entryway leading to a spacious living room that was filled with the post-modern furniture he’d purchased shortly after moving in. The condo was empty but clean, dusted, and sweet smelling. This was the work of the maid service he’d hired to come in once a week during his absence. Now that he was home, they would come in three times a week, maybe more if he threw a party.

He tossed his bags down on the foot of his bed, making a vow that at some point he would actually unpack them and put the clothes in the laundry hamper. He opened the blinds on the large window to let some of the sunlight in and took a moment to stare out at the view that had become so familiar to him.

He could see Griffith Park, the Hollywood Hills, and Mount Hollywood itself. It was a nice view, but it was full of reminders that he was in Los Angeles, a city he loathed with every fiber of his being. He kicked off his shoes, socks and all of his clothes and left them near the foot of the bed, next to his bag. He walked into the master bathroom, which featured a large, glass-walled shower, a sunken Jacuzzi tub large enough to hold three people (and which had held three people on several occasions) and marble countertops. As with the rest of the house, everything in here was sparkling clean. He turned on the shower to as hot as he could stand and spent the next fifteen minutes just luxuriating under the spray.

When he got out, he dried off, dropping the towel to the floor.

He pulled a white terrycloth robe from his closet and put it over his body. He then walked through the house to the largest room, the entertainment room. This part of the house was stocked with the majority of the expensive items Jake had purchased during the wild spending spree he’d engaged in upon becoming a new millionaire. There was a pinball machine, a regulation sized pool table, a shuffleboard table, a grand piano, a large screen television set complete with laser disc player, VCR, and stereo speakers. The audio system was first rate, containing a six hundred dollar turntable, a twelve-disc CD player, dual cassette players, a high-fidelity receiver, and the best speakers commercially available. Racks next to the audio components contained over six hundred records and one hundred compact discs. The walls were decorated not with artwork but with many of Jake’s collection of musical instruments—several electric guitars, several acoustic guitars, a violin, a mandolin, a ukulele, a banjo (a recent acquisition that he was teaching himself to play), and, the centerpiece: a Les Paul guitar signed by Les Paul himself. This last, which was kept in a glass case, was a gift from Gibson Guitars, whom Jake held an endorsement contract with. Two instruments were conspicuously absent from the collection. They were the Les Paul Jake played on stage, which was currently in a truck being shipped back from Seattle, and the battered old Fender Grand Concert acoustic that he’d had since he was seventeen years old, the guitar he still composed much of his music on. Both of these instruments held a place of honor in his office.

Jake glanced around a little, smiling in satisfaction at his decorating scheme and all of his toys. He then walked over to the most important feature of the entertainment room: the bar. It was of genuine oak and ran the length of one wall. Stocked with every kind of liquor imaginable, it also had a large refrigerator complete with an automatic icemaker that could produce an almost unlimited supply of

either cubes or crushed ice. He opened up the fridge and saw, with satisfaction, that it had been stocked according to the specific directions he’d given the maid service. There was a case or so of various sodas—

coke, 7-up, and ginger ale mostly—and a case of his favorite beer, an import from Mexico called Corona.

There was also a bowl full of fresh limes. He took out one of the limes and cut it into six slices, which he put in a small bowl. He then grabbed a bucket from a shelf behind the bar and dropped six of the bottles of Corona into it. He filled the remainder of the bucket with ice and then dropped a bottle opener in. He pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from another shelf and carried his acquisitions across the room to the balcony door.

The hot tub that Jake had originally wanted to put out here was one that held twelve people and more than fifteen hundred gallons of water. Unfortunately, the building’s engineer had nixed the idea on the grounds that the structure of the balcony could not handle that much weight. Instead he’d been forced to go with the California Hot Spas model 27x, which only held nine hundred gallons of water and could only fit eight adults in comfort (and it had done that on one occasion just prior to leaving on the tour—an occasion that had ended with the arrival of the LAPD, who had been called by his rather jealous downstairs neighbor). Jake flipped the cover up on it now revealing one hundred degree water that was lightly scented with chlorine. He set his bucket and his smokes down on a special shelf designed just for that purpose and then grabbed an ashtray from one of the redwood lounge chairs. He took off his robe, unmindful that anyone out in the western edge of Griffith Park who might be equipped with a telephoto lens (as some of the more aggressive paparazzi were prone to doing) would have a clear shot of him. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t taken pictures of his penis before. He dropped the robe on the lounge chair and then climbed the steps into the Jacuzzi.

“Ahhh,” he sighed as he felt the warmth permeating his tired body.

He turned on the jets and opened a beer. He dropped a lime inside and had a large drink. He then lit a smoke and stared out at the scenery, unable to believe that there was no show to do tonight, that there was no show to do tomorrow, that the tour was really over and he was in what passed for home.

He made it through three beers and five cigarettes before a buzzer mounted above the balcony door began to sound. This was the doorbell alert. He stepped out of the tub, water cascading off of his skin, and put his robe back on, tying it tightly around his midsection. He opened a fresh beer, dropped a lime in it, and then went back in the house, making his way to the front door. As expected, his visitor was Eduardo, delivering the item he’d purchased.

“Check it out, homey,” Eduardo said, unrolling a plastic baggie about a third filled with green buds.

“Out of sight,” Jake said, taking it from him. He could tell just by looking that it was approximately a quarter ounce. He opened it and one sniff told him it was premium shit, as promised. “You’re a good man, Eddie. A credit to your profession.”

“I try,” Eduardo said. “You been in the hot tub?”

Jake nodded. “Trying to soak away the aches and pains of travel. You wanna burn a little with me?”

“I’d love to, but I can’t. I’m not off duty for another three hours. The boss don’t like it if I’m stoned on the door.”

“Understandable,” Jake said with a nod. “Did you pull some out for yourself?”

“Sure did,” he said. “And I thank you for that. You’re my favorite resident of this tight-assed place, Jake. Hands fuckin’ down.”

“I’m just me,” Jake said. “Hopefully I’ll never be anything else.”

“Amen to that. You need any blow? I got a line on some premo Peruvian too. It’s three bills a gram, but it’s worth it. Hardly any cut.”

“I’ll take a rain check on that one, Eddy,” Jake said. “I’m a little burned on the blow after the tour. I always am. Check back with me in a week or so. I might score some if I decide to throw a party or something.”

“Damn right,” Eduardo said with a grin. He had seen the sort of people who showed up for Jake’s parties. “Well, I’d better get back to work now.”

“All right,” Jake told him, giving him a handshake. “Thanks for the shit.”

“Anything for you, Jake,” Eduardo told him. “Anything for you.”

After he left, Jake locked the door behind him and went back to the entertainment room. He pulled a water bong from beneath the bar and carried it over to the couch where he promptly tested out the marijuana Eduardo had just sold him. It was every bit as good as it smelled.

For the next two hours Jake watched old movies on his television set, smoked cigarettes, drank beer, and occasionally took a few hits of greenbud. By five o’clock he could hardly keep his eyes open. He went to his bedroom and lay naked on his bed.

He slept for the next fifteen hours without stirring.

 

*****

 

The next morning, at ten o’clock, Jake called the storage facility where his Corvette was being kept and asked them to deliver it to him. It arrived thirty minutes later, freshly washed and waxed, the battery charged, the fuel tank and all of the fluids full. It had cost him two thousand dollars to keep his vehicle in such a place but he considered it worth it. They treated the Corvette almost as if it was alive.

Jake tipped the delivery team twenty dollars apiece and then climbed into the car, thrilled to be behind the wheel again after so long being shuttled around in buses and limos. The Corvette was an eighty-four, metallic blue, with every option available installed. It had been a gift from Mindy Snow—an actress he had dated for a time—back during the height of their relationship. He roared out of the parking garage of his condo building and down the winding Beachwood Drive, coming out of the Hollywood Hills and into North Hollywood.

When he turned left onto Los Feliz Boulevard the traffic thickened up considerably, restricting him to no more than third gear, forcing him to stop at every intersection and wait through at least two light changes. He sighed and lit a cigarette, adjusting his sunglasses on his face and his San Francisco Giants baseball cap upon his head. Twenty minutes and four and a half miles later he entered the neighborhood of Silver Lake, just east of Hollywood. There, nestled up against Silver Lake Reservoir, was the 3200

square foot home his sister Pauline was currently living in. He pulled into the driveway and stepped out.

Pauline’s house was located at the north end of the neighborhood, which was the most exclusive part.

She had purchased it a month before Jake and the rest of Intemperance had gone out on the Balance Of Power tour. It was a two-story of late seventies architecture that sat on a large lot which sloped down to

the shore of the small reservoir. It wasn’t the nicest house Pauline could have lived in—after all, she received twenty percent of all band profits and was therefore as rich as any of the band members—but it was hers and not a rental. She had put down sixty thousand dollars and signed a mortgage for the remaining three hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the purchase price. It wasn’t her dream house, but it was a start.

Gloria Garcia, Pauline’s housekeeper/cook/butler opened the door to his knock. She smiled when she saw him. “Mr. Kingsley,” she said, her accent thick. “Welcome home. How was your concert tour?”

“Long but satisfying,” he said. “And please, call me Jake.”

“I could never do that, Mr. Kingsley,” she said. “Come in. Ms. Kingsley is expecting you.”

“Thank you,” he said, stepping into the entryway.

“I hear you had trouble in Cincinnati,” Gloria said. “They said you were obscene?”

“They have a strange idea of what constitutes obscene in Cincinnati,” Jake told her. “Nothing I couldn’t handle though.”

“Very good,” she said. “You like chili relleno? I’m making some for lunch.”

“I’d love some chili relleno,” he said. “Or anything else that you make.”

She beamed at him. She was justifiably proud of her cooking. She led him through the house to Pauline’s office, which was in the back, overlooking the lake. The office was equipped with a large desk, complete with the most modern computer system commercially available, a printer, and a fax machine.

Next to the desk were several large file cabinets and a water cooler. Pauline was sitting at the desk. She smiled when she saw him and stood up to come give him a hug.

“You look great, sis,” Jake told her. “It seems the good life is agreeing with you.” He was telling the truth. Pauline had always been attractive—she had, in fact, been Nerdly’s ultimate fantasy girl since he was about twelve years old—but she was positively beaming these days. Her brunette hair was neatly styled in the latest fashion, her skin was receiving the benefits of regular spa treatments, and her clothing was nothing but custom-fitted designer wear.

“Thanks,” she said, looking her brother up and down. “You look a little haggard yourself.”

Jake shrugged lightly. “It’s always like this after a tour. Too much exercise from jumping around on stage every night, too much crappy food, too much coke and alcohol and cheap, meaningless sex. Give me a week or so to detox and catch up on some sleep and I’ll be my old self again.”

“Are you going to be able to detox?” she asked a little worriedly. “I’ve been getting the ‘entertainment expenses’ reports from when you were out there. You guys were spending an average of four thousand dollars a week on coke, pot, and booze.”

“They didn’t itemize that out, did they?” he asked.

“No, of course not, except for the booze anyway, but is there any reason to question the amounts?”

He shook his head. “We do love to party out on the road,” he said. “That sounds about right to me.”

“And just like that… you can give it up?”

“Well… I didn’t say I was giving anything up,” he told her, “but I will be slowing down once I get back into the rhythm of being home. We’re gonna have to start working on material for the next album, after all.”

She looked like she had her doubts about that but she kept them to herself. “Well anyway, it’s good to have you home. I actually missed you, if you can believe that.”

“No, I don’t believe it,” he said.

She laughed and they sat down at the desk. Gloria stuck her head in and asked if either of them would like something to drink.

“I’ll have another cup of coffee, Gloria, thanks,” Pauline replied.

“I’ll have a beer if you got one cold,” Jake said. Pauline glanced at the clock on the wall—it read 11:05—but said nothing.

“Coming right up,” Gloria said. “Corona with a lime?”

“You read my mind,” he said.

She smiled and made her retreat. Once she was gone, Jake turned back to his sister/manager. “So, how are we doing?” he asked her. “Lay some management shit on me.”

She laid some management shit on him. “As of last Sunday, Balance Of Power, the album, has sold three million, four hundred thousand copies, making it number three for all-time fastest to go triple platinum. It has been at number one on the album sales chart ever since it was released and shows no signs of being dislodged any time soon. Not even the last La Diferencia album, your closest competition, could ace you out this time.”

“Ha,” Jake barked, grinning. “We finally beat those fuckers. They knocked us out of the number one album spot the last time we were there.” La Diferencia was a pop band from Venezuela that had become quite the sensation over the last three years with their feel-good, formulistic music. Their lead singer, Celia Valdez, was the reason for the runaway success of La Diferencia. Her voice was beautiful and she knew how to use it to the best of her abilities, to draw out any intrinsic value contained within the catchy, record-company written tunes she performed. Without her, they never would have left Venezuela. She was also very attractive. Jake had met her twice the previous year during the Grammy Awards and she had shot down his advances firmly but kindly.

“They gave you a run for your money,” Pauline agreed, “but album sales are not quite the strong point of La Diferencia’s fan base. They kicked the shit out you in singles sales though. Every time one of your singles from Balance Of Power started moving up the charts, one of their songs was already there to keep it from making number one.”

Jake nodded. “That’s what happened the last time we went head to head with them. It’s just part of the business. A hard rock band relies on album sales to make money while pop bands rely on single sales.

Frankly, I think it shows how much crossover we’re getting that our tunes are even appearing on the single sales charts at all. I mean Led Zeppelin and Van Halen didn’t get as many singles out of their albums.”

“That’s true,” she agreed.

Gloria came back with their drinks, setting a bottle of Corona before Jake and a steaming cup of coffee on a saucer before Pauline. They both thanked her. When she left Jake took a drink of his beer, draining it well past the neck. He stifled a belch.

“Anyway,” Jake said, “I guess that damn Tipper-sticker on Balance Of Power didn’t do us too much harm, did it?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll admit that you were entirely correct about that. Balance is your fastest selling album so far.”

The “Tipper-sticker” he was referring to was the explicit lyrics or content sticker that was placed on any album that the Parent’s Music Resource Center, or PMRC, deemed offensive to young minds. The PMRC was a group headed by several prominent politicians’ wives—Tipper Gore, wife of Senator Al Gore, chief among them, thus the name “Tipper-sticker”—that had declared themselves the guardians of community standards of decency in regards to music. They had formed the previous year in response to a growing media frenzy about satanic and sexually explicit lyrics in rock music which, it was claimed, were leading to teen suicide, teen rape, teen pregnancy, and the downfall of the American family.

During the latter part of 1985 the PMRC actually managed to get senate hearings opened up on this subject, their goal to put ratings on albums and to censor those that earned the explicit lyrics definition.

Frank Zappa, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and John Denver all testified before this senate committee, all of them vehemently opposed to any sort of labeling or censorship of music. A variety of psychiatric and educational experts testified as well, most of them with the opinion that modern rock music was harmful to adolescent development and family values. The Recording Industry Association of America—or RIAA—who spoke for the musicians but who actually represented the record companies’ interests, actually caved to the PMRC before the senate hearings were even completed.

Or perhaps ‘caved’ is not the best choice of words. They made a deal in the finest tradition of American politics. They agreed to voluntarily label any album the PMRC deemed “explicit” with a warning label in exchange for the passage of the so-called “blank-tape tax”, which added a percentage onto every blank cassette tape sold in the United States. The revenue from this tax was then given to the RIAA to distribute among the record labels they represented, the justification being that it was compensation for the millions of dollars they were losing by people using those blank tapes to record and distribute copyrighted albums.

In any case, the Tipper-stickers were born and Intemperance’s third album, Balance Of Power, though it contained no profanity other than the words “damn”, “hell”, and “ass”, was declared by the PMRC to be explicit because of the lyrics to one of Matt’s songs called Service Me, which was about having sex with groupies out on tour. National Records put the Tipper-sticker on each one that was produced, warning parents that the contents might corrupt their children and lead to the downfall of the American way of life. This wasn’t so bad in and of itself since the Tipper-sticker meant that parents would not approve of the album, which was an almost guaranteed way to get teens to buy it. It was the stigma that went with the Tipper-sticker that had potential financial and legal problems. Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, refused to sell any album with a Tipper-sticker on it. And there were many members of congress and of various state legislatures who were attempting to either forbid the sale of Tipper-sticker albums to minors or to out and out declare them obscene and ban them entirely. Pauline, when the album was in production and it was first announced that Service Me was earning them a sticker, had wanted to cut the song from the album, fearful that if Walmart didn’t sell it, they would be missing out on hundreds of thousands of potential buyers in the more rural portions of the country where Walmart was often the only place to buy music. But Jake and Matt had both held their ground, insisting that the sticker would do nothing but help them.

“If people want the album, they’ll find a way to get it,” Jake said. “Our sales won’t suffer, and even if they do, I will not have Walmart or any other corporation dictating what should and should not go on one of our albums.”

“A-fucking-men to that, brother,” Matt had replied. “Service Me stays.”

“You have to admit though,” Pauline said now, as Jake took another long pull of his beer, “it was that damn Tipper-sticker that led directly to your arrest in Cincinnati.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, frowning. “What a bogus bunch of shit that was.” He shrugged. “Oh well. What’s an Intemperance tour without getting arrested at least once? At least the cops didn’t beat my ass this time.”

The arrest she was talking about was on a public obscenity charge. Weeks before the scheduled concert date, several prominent citizens of that most conservative city had tried to get an ordinance passed banning any musical act from performing in the city limits if they had an album with a Tipper-sticker on it. When this effort failed, the mayor declared that any musician uttering “profane or explicit lyrics” in concert would be arrested and charged with obscenity. Intemperance was specifically warned that several of their most popular tunes— Service Me, The Thrill Of Doing Business, Descent Into Nothing, and, incredibly enough, I Found Myself Again (which the PMRC had apparently decided was about masturbation)—would meet this definition and result in charges if they were performed. The band refused to alter their song line-up and, immediately after the show, Jake, who had been the one to sing the lyrics in question, was arrested by Cincinnati police officers and taken to jail for booking on the charge. He was bailed out within an hour, but the charges were still pending.

“You’re scheduled for your preliminary hearing there on December 16,” Pauline told him now.

“National threatened not to use their legal team to represent you until I got in a pissing match with them on contract language.”

“I’ll beat the rap,” Jake said, unworried. “After all, if Larry Flynt can beat them, so can I.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Pauline said. “If they convict you of the charge you could end up doing a year in an Ohio prison.”

“It’ll never happen,” Jake said. “If there’s one thing National’s lawyers are good at, it’s keeping the talent free of convictions in courts of law. They’ll go in there and bribe the jury members if they have to.”

“You sound proud of this,” Pauline said.

“I’m just pointing out a fact of life,” he said.

“Well anyway, be sure to mark December 16th on your calendar. National is making sure it will be a media circus.”

“Of course they are.”

“I’ve got some other dates you need to mark down as well,” she said. “On December 13th you and the rest of the band are going to fly to New York and do two songs on Saturday Night Live.”

“Cool,” Jake said. “That was a blast the last time we did that.”

“Each of you has also been scheduled for a couple of record store signings over the next few weeks.

I’ll get a print-out and your plane tickets to you by tomorrow.”

“Those suck ass,” Jake said with a frown.

“At least you’re getting paid for them now,” Pauline reminded him. “Remember, that was one of the sticking points during the contract negotiations.”

“How could I forget?” he said.

Under the original contract—which Pauline had been instrumental in negotiating an end to—the band was required to attend any and all promotions National set up for them and would not be paid a dime

for their time. Under the new contract, National could only schedule them once a week for such events, had to fly them there first class or private, had to book them in first class accommodations, and had to pay each band member $500 per day.

“I’ve got all the dates and times written down for you,” Pauline said. “Be sure you don’t forget it when you leave.”

“I won’t,” Jake promised. “How have you been getting along with Crow and Doolittle?”

She frowned. Steve Crow was the Artists and Repertoire representative from National Records who was assigned to look after Intemperance. James Doolittle was the head of the A&R department. “It’s been trying at times,” she said. “I’ve pretty much learned to just go directly over Crow’s head and onto Doolittle for most things. I wouldn’t say there’s been anything like cooperation between us. I take a hard line with them because of their propensity to screw people whenever they can. They, in turn, make every request I ask of them seem like an act of Congress is required because they’re punishing me for taking over as your manager.”

“Yes,” Jake said. “They sure loved it when Shaver was our manager. It was almost like having one of their employees doing the job. Have they tried any more games with the money?”

“Nothing since that little incident when Balance was first released,” she said. “That right to audit clause was one of the best things we put in that contract.”

Jake chuckled. Under the original contract the band had the right to request an audit of National Records’ finances as they related to the band but National reserved the right to deny the request if they didn’t deem an audit necessary. And strangely enough, they just didn’t seem to deem them necessary very often. Under the new contract, the band had the right to conduct audits at any time using any auditing firm they wished as long as the band paid for it. In the first month of Balance Of Power’s release, after it had gone gold in two weeks and platinum in four, Pauline started using that right. The first audit immediately caught multiple forms of questionable product tracking and monetary distribution practices that would have cost the band hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid royalties and overpriced expenses. These practices (which National claimed were simple “oversights”) were corrected when Pauline threatened to pursue a breach of contract lawsuit against National and to have Crow and Doolittle charged criminally for embezzlement.

“They’re probably screwing every artist who ever signed with them out of millions in sheer embezzlement alone,” Jake said.

“Undoubtedly,” Pauline said. “In all my years of doing corporate law I have never run across a corporation as greedy, sleazy, and corrupt as this record company. And from everything I’ve learned, National is far from unique in this corruption. It amazes me they’ve gotten away with it for so long, that they continue to get away with it.”

“But they’re not getting away with it with us anymore, right?”

“Right,” Pauline replied. “I’ve audited them four times now, including just last month. They whine and complain every time I disrupt their workday, but I think they’ve learned to play straight—at least with us. Every penny we’re entitled to is rolling in our direction, just like it should.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jake said. “So… how much did the tour make for us?”

Pauline gave him a funny look, one he wasn’t quite sure how to interpret. “What if I told you,” she asked, “that our cut of concert profits, including merchandising, was five hundred thousand dollars?”

“Is that what it was?” Jake asked.

“No,” she said. “But for the sake of argument, let’s say that I said yes. Intemperance made half a million in tour profits. Would that sound reasonable to you?”

Jake shrugged, uncertain exactly what she was getting at. “Sure,” he said. “That sounds reasonable.”

“Does it? And why does that sound reasonable?”

“Well… because there weren’t as much overhead expenses as last tour since we didn’t use all the laser and pyrotechnics that National wanted us to use, but it’s still really expensive to truck a concert from city to city.”

“Then you were prepared to have a little profit from the tour and half a million doesn’t sound like an unreasonable number, right?”

“Right,” Jake agreed.

“And because I told you it was half a million, you just accepted that?”

“Well… yes,” he said. “You’re not just our manager, you’re my sister. We’re family. I don’t think you’d lie to me about money or try to screw me.”

“Ha!” she yelled, loud enough to startle him.

“What?” he asked, wondering if she’d been dipping her beak into some white powder.

“That’s where you’re making your mistake,” she said.

“What mistake?”

She pulled a piece of paper from one of her desk drawers. It was an official looking legal form with numbers printed all over it. “This is a breakdown of your tour revenue as of last week. It lists all forms of expenses and all forms of income, including merchandising. When you read the bottom line it says that we made $1,118,428, or, to round up a bit, $1.12 million.”

“Wow,” Jake said, whistling. “That’s not bad.”

“Not bad at all,” Pauline agreed. “It’s a little over one hundred and eighty grand for each of us, but it kind of disturbs me how willing you were—how willing all of you are—to just accept my word about how much money you’re pulling in.”

“Why does that disturb you?” he asked. “You’re my sister. You’re not gonna embezzle from us.”

“How do you know that, Jake?” she asked. “Am I not just as prone to temptation as anyone?”

“I’ve known you all my life, Pauline,” he said, more than a little exasperated by this conversation. “I know what kind of person you are.”

“You don’t know what’s in anybody’s heart, Jake, nor do you know what limits of temptation that anyone is able to resist. When you’re talking about this kind of money, you shouldn’t trust anyone blindly.

Not even your sister.”

“Are you saying you’re going to screw us?”

“No,” she said. “I haven’t screwed any of you out of so much as a penny, nor do I have plans to do so, but I could screw you if I wanted to. It would be absurdly easy to do so. I could’ve told you all we made half a million on the tour, given you each eighty grand, and then pocketed the rest and none of you would have ever known. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. I could be skimming off your royalties and your off-tour merchandising profits too. All of your money comes to me first and then I divide it up and wire it into your accounts. Quite frankly, Jake, in the amounts we’re dealing with now, I’m no longer

comfortable doing this. I’m basically an honest person and I like to think I’d never embezzle money, but I’d feel better if there was some kind of oversight.”

“What are you suggesting?” he asked.

“You need to get an accountant,” she said. “All of you need someone to help manage your money for you and it would make sure that I stay honest. It would remove any temptation I might ever feel for helping myself to a little more than my share.”

“An accountant?” Jake said distastefully. “I’ve heard horror stories from some of the other second contract bands about accountants. They say you should never trust any of them. They’ll cheat you blind, steal all of your money, and then send you a fucking bill for their services.”

“That’s because those other bands are letting their accountants run their money the same way you’re letting me do it. I’m not suggesting you simply transfer responsibility from me to some bean counter you find in the Yellow Pages. I’m suggesting you find someone with good references who seems at least superficially trustworthy to help manage your money for you. He’ll also be able to figure out how best to pay your taxes come next year—what you can deduct, what you can’t, how you can set yourself up so you don’t owe as much. This is something that I’m not qualified to do. In fact, I’m planning to utilize an accountant myself when it comes to taxation issues. In any case, I will be able to keep your accountant honest because I will know how much money I’m turning over to him. He will be able to keep me honest because he will see all the financial paperwork and wire receipts I get from National. Both of us, working together, will be able to keep National honest.”

“Why can’t I just be my own accountant?” Jake asked. “I can go through receipts and paperwork, couldn’t I? I’m not an idiot. I’m sure I could research the tax laws as they relate to…”

Pauline was laughing.

“What?” he asked, angrily.

“I’m sorry, Jake,” she said, “but would you recognize a forged accounting sheet if I showed you one?

Would you recognize fake wire transfer receipts?”

“Well… probably not,” he admitted.

“And as for managing your own money…” She laughed again. “I’m sorry, but that’s just hysterical.”

“What’s so fuckin’ funny about it?” he asked.

“Jake,” she said, “you have pulled in just over a million and a half dollars in the past seven months, right?”

“Right,” he said.

“And where is that money right now?”

“You know where it’s at,” he said. “It’s in my bank account.”

“Exactly,” she said. “You have a million and a half dollars sitting in the same checking account you opened when you were sixteen. It’s earning no interest for anyone but the bank and it’s fifteen times the amount the FDIC even insures. That is not very good money management. This is not income from a paper route or from flipping burgers at McDonalds we’re talking about here. We’re talking about more than a million dollars, with much more on the way.”

He had to admit that she had a point there. He had meant to start looking into managing his money a little better—he wasn’t a complete idiot financially—but he’d just never found the time. Maybe this was like looking after his car or cleaning his house or getting from home to the airport. Sure, he could do it

for himself if he took the time to learn how, but why not hire someone to do it for him? After all, he was rich now, wasn’t he? Wasn’t that what rich people did?

“Hmm,” Jake said after running these thoughts through his head. “I find you make a good point, Pauline.”

“Good,” she said. “I thought you’d see things my way. Now the next step is to start looking into accounting firms in the area, filtering through them one by one until…”

“No,” Jake interrupted, “I think I already know who I want doing my accounting.”

Pauline looked at him sternly. “You do?”

“Yep,” he said, nodding in confidence. “I think I do.”

“Jake,” she asked carefully, “do you even know any accountants? I mean certified ones with cards and everything?”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “I know one.”

“One? Jake, this isn’t like picking someone to cut your grass while you’re away. An accountant needs to have references and we need to check out his background.”

“We’re getting the cart ahead of the horse here, sis,” he said. “I don’t even know if she’s really an accountant or not. I don’t know if she’d even do it. I do want to look into it though.”

“She?” Pauline asked. “A female accountant?”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying a female couldn’t possibly be a good accountant?” he asked.

“Pauline, I’m shocked at you.”

“Shut your ass,” she said. “You know that’s not what I meant. Is this a woman you used to fuck?”

“I’ve never fucked her,” he said. “I wanted to once, but that was back in sixth grade.”

“Sixth grade?” she asked. “Who is this woman?”

“Jill Yamashito,” he said. “My twin.”

“Your… twin?”

Jake smiled, draining the remainder of his beer. “Yep.”

 

*****

 

Heritage, California

November 26, 1986

 

 

It was Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving, when Jake pulled his father’s Chrysler LeBaron to the curb at 29th and N Streets in Heritage’s semi-fashionable mid-town section. A small, nondescript office building stood on this corner. The sign out front read: YAMASHITO, YAMASHITO, and YAMASHITO. CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS.

Jake got out. He was dressed in a conservative pair of dress slacks and a long-sleeved, button-up shirt. His dark glasses were upon his face despite the overcast sky. A few pedestrians were walking by but none seemed to notice that the longhaired freak they were crossing the street to avoid was Heritage’s

most famous personality. Pauline stepped out of the passenger seat. She was adorned in one of the business dresses she used to wear when she had worked for Heritage’s biggest corporate law firm. The two of them—along with Nerdly, who was at his parent’s house—had flown into their hometown six hours before in order to share the Thanksgiving holiday with their families.

“This is where your twin works, huh?” Pauline asked, looking the building up and down.

“This is the place,” Jake said. “Her parents have run their business out of here since before Jill and I were born.”

“And now she has her name on the sign too. How fifties of them.”

“Yes,” Jake agreed. “It’s kind of quaint, ain’t it?”

Jill Yamashito was a girl Jake had known since kindergarten. They had attended the same elementary school, the same junior high school, and the same high school. They had been jokingly called twins in their elementary school days because they shared the exact same birthday—March 7, 1960. The two of them had been reasonably close friends through eighth grade as they shared a birthday and a similar intellect. Both were always the ones who seemed to know the answers when called upon but both had always been painfully shy. Jake had never been as good of a student as Jill. He was more the classic underachiever while she had been brought up to revere education and excel. They had drifted apart in high school as Jake discovered the joys of marijuana, cutting school, and hanging with his stoner friends while Jill had buried herself in academia, striving for that coveted academic scholarship to the Stanford University School of Business and her eventual place in the family CPA business. Still they had continued to share several of the college prep classes in their junior and senior years and had kept on nodding acquaintance with each other. The last time he’d seen her was the night of high school graduation when they’d hugged briefly after the ceremony. When Pauline told him he needed an accountant, Jill’s face had popped immediately into his head, the first time he’d thought of her in years.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Pauline asked him now as they headed toward the small building.

“You checked her out, didn’t you?” Jake asked. “You tell me.”

Pauline still maintained close contact with Steve Marshall, the head of Investigative Services at Standforth and Breckman, the corporate law firm she used to work for before dedicating herself full time to Intemperance. He had done a background check on the Yamashitos, utilizing all of the resources of the S&B empire—which were considerable (and some of questionable legality)—to see if they were worthy of counting beans for Jake Kingsley. He had turned up a wealth of information on them.

John and Laura Yamashito, Jill’s parents, had both done time in a Japanese internment camp as children, having been placed there by the American government in early 1942 along with their parents.

Though they had been in the same camp, they had never known each other back then. Both managed to rise from the poverty they’d been a part of after World War II and attend the University of California at Heritage’s School of Business on academic scholarships. This was where they’d met—two of only eight Japanese-Americans in their graduating class of 1955. They married shortly after both had passed the California CPA exam and, the victims of blatant prejudice by all firms corporate and family owned, had instead opened their own small bookkeeping business in downtown Heritage in 1958. There they’d been ever since, slowly developing a reputation as honest, hardworking, and, most of all, resourceful accountants who specialized in small businesses.

Jill, after graduating high school in 1978, fourth in a class of 308 (Jake was 220 in the class with his 2.13 GPA) had gone on to Stanford University on a full academic scholarship and had graduated seventh in her class in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree. After passing the CPA exam and receiving her card she could have been hired at any number of corporate auditing or accounting firms but she’d instead joined the family business and had been there ever since, handling an increasing amount of their accounts as her parents groomed her to take over once they retired.

She had one brother, born in 1962, now twenty-four years old. He had shunned the family business, dropped out of college in his junior year, and was now a rookie officer with the Heritage County Sheriff’s Department where he was putting in his time working in the county jail.

The firm itself was moderately successful; its clients mostly small businesses of less than twenty employees, the majority of them businesses with five to ten employees. There had never been a single complaint lodged against them with any government agency at the local, state, or federal level, accusing them of any malfeasance.

The elder Yamashitos, despite a net worth of nearly three quarters of a million dollars, still lived in the house they’d bought back in 1959, a house that was just around the corner from where Jake and Pauline’s parents lived. Jill, who was unmarried and, as far as could be determined, unattached in any way, lived alone in a modest 1700 square foot house in an area of Heritage known as “The Pocket”, which was nestled in a bend of the Sacramento River.

“They seem to be as honest as the day is long,” Pauline said, “but they’ve also never dealt with money in the amounts we’re going to be presenting them with. Their most successful client is Ralph Polesco, the guy who owns those high-class restaurants downtown. His annual revenue is a little over a million dollars or so. They have no experience with the amounts we’re going to be pulling in and no experience with entertainment revenue.”

“They’re accountants,” Jake said. “They’ll figure it out. They’re honest and hard working. That’s what I remember most about Jill. If they agree to accept me as a client, I feel confident they’ll do the best they can for me.”

Jill sighed. She still thought her brother was being impulsive. “I suppose,” she said. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” he said.

They stepped up to the door and opened it, walking into a small lobby with a few chairs and magazines.

Behind a partition, working at a desk with an IBM computer atop it, was a woman Jake instantly recognized as Jill. She was dressed in a black business suit, her hair tied tightly into a bun. She was not exactly a pretty woman—she never had been—but she was not ugly either. Plain looking was perhaps the best way to describe her. She looked up at the sound of the bell on the door and her breath seemed to catch in her throat for a minute.

“Hey, Jill,” Jake greeted her, smiling. “How you doing these days?”

“Jake?” she asked, her eyes widening in surprise. “Jake Kingsley?”

“That’s me,” he confirmed. “This is my sister, Pauline. How are you doing? Haven’t seen you since graduation.”

“Oh my God,” she cried, actually blushing a little. “I’m… I’m… well, I’m fine. It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too,” he said. “I suppose you’ve heard I’m a musician now?”

“Uh… yes, of course,” she said. “Everyone knows that. My God. What are you doing here?”

“Well,” he said, “I have a little business proposition for you.”

“A business proposition?”

“Yep. I need an accountant. I hear you’re quite a good one.”

“An accountant?” she said, as if she’d never heard the word before.

“That’s right,” he confirmed. “Are you accepting new clients?”

 

*****

 

It turned out the firm of Yamashito, Yamashito, and Yamashito were accepting new clients, but they were a bit trepidatious about what Jake’s intentions were. After spending a few minutes catching up with each other’s lives since high school—Jill already knew about Jake’s life, of course, including the infamous sniffing coke out of a girl’s ass-crack incident and his three arrests, and Jake already knew about Jill’s life, since Pauline had backgrounded them—she brought her parents out to meet the famous rock star and his sister. John and Laura were very polite and excellent hosts to the business meeting. They brewed coffee and served it with fresh pastries from the bakery next door. They sat them down at a conference table in the back and listened politely to Jake’s proposition. That was when the trepidation began to appear.

“Mr. Kingsley,” John said, looking at him carefully. He was dressed in slacks and a collared shirt and wore a conservative tie. Despite his heavily Japanese features, his voice carried not a trace of an accent.

“I’m a bit confused as to why you came to us with this business proposition. Surely there are hundreds of accounting firms in Los Angeles who are more familiar with handling large amounts of money from an entertainment personality?”

“I’m sure there are,” Jake said, “but I don’t know any of those people. I do know Jill. I’ve known her since we were both in kindergarten. Do you remember when I used to come over to your house to play when we were kids?”

“I do remember,” John said. “That was back in the second and third grade, as I recall. You’ve certainly changed a lot since then… and so has Jill.”

“I knew Jill all through school,” Jake said. “We weren’t really close friends anymore after sixth grade or so, but I still knew her. She was always one of the smartest girls in class, always dedicated to whatever it was she was doing, and it is my belief, based on what I knew of her and her upbringing back then, that she is a fine accountant. I prefer to go with people I know rather than people I don’t know. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time in Hollywood, it’s that everyone is trying to take some sort of advantage of everyone else. I don’t want a Hollywood accountant. I don’t want a large firm. I want someone with some humanity.”

“Jill is indeed a fine accountant,” John said, “but again, we’re not used to dealing with the amounts of money you’re talking about, nor are we the least bit familiar with taxation of entertainment revenue.

We keep books for small businesses here—restaurants, hardware stores, bakeries, that sort of thing.”

“Accounting is accounting, isn’t it?” Jake asked. “And tax laws are something that people like you are supposed to be good at looking into, right?”

“Well… yes,” John agreed, “but… well…”

“Look,” Jake said, “in the first place, the amount of money we’re talking about is probably not nearly as much as you seem to think it is. I have a million and a half in the bank and Pauline is about to deposit another hundred and eighty grand in tour profits. My next royalty check should be coming in sometime in January and it will be somewhere around a hundred and fifty grand, depending on how many albums we sell. I’m not a Rockefeller or anything.”

“Is that all?” Laura, Jill’s mother asked, surprised. “You’ve sold millions of albums.”

“It’s a long story,” Jake said. “The people making most of the money from those albums are the kind folks at National Records. A good chunk of my income came from an endorsement contract I have with Gibson Guitars.”

“Interesting,” said Jill, who had been mostly silent to this point.

“What exactly do you want us to do?” John asked. “If you’re looking for us to engage in any sort of

‘creative’ accounting or to help shield you from taxation, I should let you know right now, we do not condone or participate in that sort of thing. We play completely straight with our clients. We are honest people and we do not help others engage in dishonesty.”

“That is exactly what I’m looking for, Mr. Yamashito,” Jake said. “I want an accountant who will keep me out of trouble, who will keep the IRS from ever being able to say I’m not paying my taxes and who will keep me from spending more money than I should be. I want advice on how to distribute my money, how to invest it. I will be a pain in the ass at times, I have no doubt about that. I like to spend money frivolously.

For instance, I spent nine thousand dollars to pay for a ride home from Seattle in a Lear Jet just so I wouldn’t have to sit on the bus another day. I like to live in nice accommodations, drink the finest wines, smoke the finest cigars, and go on spur-of-the-moment trips to exotic locations. When I’m involved with a woman, I want to spend outrageously on her. I don’t want lectures on how to best conserve my money and make it grow, but I want an accountant who will tell me when I’m starting to go overboard and head toward debt. That is what I’m looking for. And I want Jill to be that accountant. Do you think she can handle it?”

“I know she can handle it,” John said. “The problem is that I don’t think this firm is prepared to handle you. I’m sorry, but I must respectfully decline your offer. If you’d like, I can give you the name of several Heritage firms where I know the accountants to be above board.”

“You haven’t even heard how much I’m willing to pay for your services,” Jake said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Laura said. “My husband is right, Mr. Kingsley. We are a small business oriented firm and representing a rock and roll musician is just beyond our capabilities.”

“Uh… Dad,” Jill suddenly spoke up. “Could we maybe talk about this a little?”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Jill,” John said gently. “Your mother and I have made our decision.”

“I think you made a poor decision,” she said.

Her parents looked shocked at her words. “Jill,” John said firmly, “I’ve said no to Mr. Kingsley. That is the end of the discussion.”

“No,” she said, “it’s not. I think Jake is offering us a unique opportunity to expand into new areas here. I think we would be unwise to dismiss him without at least a sober consideration of his offer.”

“Jill,” Laura said, “this is not…”

“I want to do this,” Jill said stubbornly. “This is something different than the restaurants and the hardware stores that are barely in the black. I can do this and I want to do this.”

John and Laura were obviously quite upset and embarrassed by the failure of their daughter to provide a united family front. “Jill,” Laura said through clenched teeth, “we can discuss this later. For now, the answer is still no.”

“I think we should talk about this now,” Jill said. “I think it’s time you stopped treating me like an apprentice and started treating me like what I’m supposed to be here—a partner in this firm. I want to take Jake as a client. I think it will be good for the firm in many ways beyond the money he would be paying us. I will take responsibility for his account and I will do all the necessary research on entertainment income.”

“What about our other clients?” John asked. “It sounds like Mr. Kingsley’s account would take up a considerable amount of time. Our core clients cannot be made to suffer because of this.”

“They won’t suffer,” Jill said. “I’ll work whatever hours need to be worked in order to get everything done on time. You should know that.”

John reluctantly nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I guess I do know that.”

“Well, what’s the word?” asked Jake, who had watched the entire discussion the way one watches a tennis match, his head looking from one to the other.

John and Laura looked at each other, having a silent conversation in a way that only long-married couples can. Finally, they seemed to reach some sort of consensus. “Okay,” John said. “We’ll give it a try, Mr. Kingsley.”

Jake smiled. “Very good,” he said. “I take it that Jill does not rebel against you too terribly often?”

John laughed. “This is the first time,” he admitted. “I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Jill said, blushing, looking down at the ground, her bravado now safely buried again.

“I didn’t mean to… I mean I shouldn’t have… I mean…”

“It’s okay, Jill,” John said. “It’s obvious you feel strongly about this so we’ll let you run with it.” He looked sharply over at Jake. “Of course, I’ll be supervising what occurs to make sure no funny business is being suggested to her.”

“Of course,” Jake said, nodding. “And, of course, Pauline here will be providing oversight for everything. All of the money comes through her first. You will keep Pauline honest and she will keep you honest and I will go about the lifestyle my talent has graciously provided me with. Shall we talk terms now?”

“We can talk about setting up a date to talk about terms,” John said. “Jill and I need to look into just what we’re going to be doing and how much work it will entail before we are able to quote a bid for you.”

“No need to quote any bids,” Jake said. “Let me just tell you what I’m willing to pay and you can take it or leave it.”

“Uh… that’s not really how we do business, Jake,” Jill said shyly. “You see, there’s a process we have to go through in which…”

Jake named off a figure to them. It was a figure he had arrived at by polling several of the Los Angeles area CPA firms and getting estimates for their services. He had taken the highest bid, increased it by fifty percent, and that was the number he gave to Jill and her parents. It was an amount that was more than

four times what their current biggest client—restaurateur Ralph Polesco—was paying. Their mouths dropped open as they heard it.

“You heard him correctly,” Pauline said with a slight frown. “You can be assured I tried to talk him into offering considerably less, but he insisted on that amount.”

“What… what exactly is it that you want us to do for that sort of money, Mr. Kingsley?” John asked.

“Just keep track of my finances to the best of your abilities,” Jake said. “And most of all, keep honest, both with me and with the IRS.”

“And you’re willing to pay that much?” Jill asked. “That’s what we would have done anyway.”

“I know that,” Jake said. “Or at least I suspect that, otherwise I wouldn’t have come to you in the first place. I’m not a stingy man and I doubt I ever will be. I’m young and I’m kind of new to this whole business of being rich, but my philosophy on the matter is that I should make those who work for me in any way happy with how I’m compensating them. Happy people stay loyal and on the straight and narrow. As Pauline has pointed out to me on several occasions, we’re talking about a lot of money here.

I want you to be happy that you take care of it for me, to know that I’m paying you very well for what you do. I also don’t want you to be tempted to start playing games with me. I don’t like games. I can afford to be screwed out of a thousand dollars here and there and, in truth, I probably wouldn’t even miss it, but if I ever find out that someone is screwing me in any way, even a little bit, my relationship with that person will end right there forever.”

“Then you’re buying our loyalty?” Laura asked.

Jake shrugged. “If you want to put it that way,” he said.

“And you don’t plan on asking Jill or us to do anything illegal?” John asked.

“I would never do that,” Jake said. “My greatest wish is to never have problems with the IRS as long as I live.”

“In that case,” John said, “I think we have a deal. Of course, our contract will specify that it can be terminated by either party?”

“Of course,” Jake said. He held out his hand and there were handshakes all around.

“I’ll get a copy of a contract to you by the end of the next business week,” Pauline said. “Once it comes back signed and proper, Jake will make arrangements for Jill—and one of you if you so desire—to fly to Los Angeles and start making some sense out of the mess he calls his finances.”

 

*****

 

Malibu, California

December 6, 1986

 

 

The house that Matt Tisdale—lead guitarist for Intemperance—was renting for $6000 per month sat right on a bluff overlooking the beach. It was a 5200 square foot, two-story complete with wraparound redwood decking and situated on an acre of prime, beachfront land in one of the most expensive zip codes

in the United States. Matt staffed his house with an elderly Italian cook, an even more elderly Mexican housekeeper, and an elderly Englishman who served as butler.

“Why,” Jake asked him once before going out on the Balance Of Power tour, “did you hire nothing but people over sixty to staff your house for you?”

“Well in the first place,” he’d replied, “they’re all career servants. Louisa has been cooking for rich pricks since she was twenty. Carmen has been cleaning up rich pricks’ houses since she was fifteen, and Charles has been opening doors and laying out clothes for rich pricks since he was twenty-five. They know what the fuck they’re doing.”

“Uh huh,” Jake replied. “But what’s the real reason?”

Matt chuckled. “The real reason is I don’t want no fuckin’ sex going on with my servants. I don’t ever wanna get drunk and be horny some night and decide to stick my salami into the fuckin’ housekeeper or the cook. If they’re old bitches, I won’t be tempted. And I don’t want them fucking each other either. I want nice, sedate, post-menopausal geezers working for me so I won’t have no fuckin’ soap opera drama going on to detract from my own sex life.”

And so far, that was exactly what he’d gotten. Louisa, Carmen, and Charles were the epitome of efficiency and service—even if they were a bit scandalized on a regular basis by some of Matt’s wilder exploits—and so far Matt had not fucked any of them, or even tried, and they had not fucked each other.

On the first Saturday of December, three weeks after the end of the tour, Matt threw a party at his house for all of the roadies, sound techs, and security force that had worked the tour and made it the overwhelming and profitable success it had been. Using sixteen thousand dollars of the tour profits Pauline had wired into his account, he financed an extravaganza complete with open, unlimited bar, valet parking, bartenders, and cocktail waitresses. The side dishes were all provided by one of the most expensive catering services in Los Angeles County but the main dish—barbequed ocean fish—was being supplied by Matt himself. He had shipped to his house over three hundred pounds of frozen marlin and rock cod filets from fish he had caught on his vacation in Cabo San Lucas.

Each of the seventy-eight road crew members (this did not include Greg Gahn, the hypocritical Mormon road manager that National sent with them, nor did it include anyone else who worked directly for National management) had been given two private invitations to the gathering and as of 6:00 PM, there were one hundred and forty-three people in Matt’s house, or on the deck, or out on the beach behind the house. They were all drinking Matt’s booze, smoking Matt’s marijuana, and snorting Matt’s cocaine.

The stereo system was blaring loudly with Master Of Puppets, the latest album by Metallica and the first to achieve something like commercial success. Matt was out on the deck standing before a huge barbeque and flipping the marinated fish fillets at precisely timed intervals. He was working on his eighth beer of the night and smoking his twenty-fourth cigarette of the day when the title cut of the album began to play.

“Yes!” Matt said, dropping the smoke and making a guitar out of his spatula as the main riff began to pound out. “I love these guys! Listen to that fuckin’ guitar, Jake! Just when I thought that we were the only ones making any progress in the shitheap that is modern music, a ray of fucking hope comes along.

I want to do some heavy palm-muted shit on our next album. I fuckin’ love it!”

Jake was standing next to him, sipping from a bottle of beer and smoking a cigarette of his own. He was pleasantly drunk and slightly stoned, although he had managed to stay away from the cocaine. “I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “You think we could pull something like that off?”

Matt looked insulted at the suggestion. “Can we pull it off?” he asked. “Are you fucking high?”

“Actually, I am,” Jake said.

“Oh… yeah, but what are you trying to say? Kirk Hammett is a bad-ass guitarist, but I can blow his ass away with one hand tied behind my back and my guitar pick taped to my cock.”

“I know that,” Jake said, and this was true in all respects, “but will our fans like it if we start doing heavy palm muted shit? I mean we’ve done basic palm muting on Thrill and Service Me, but nothing like Hammett’s. Won’t they think we’re trying to imitate Metallica?”

“I don’t imitate anyone,” Matt said self-righteously. “I’m talking about improving on it, making it my own sound. I’ve been practicing the last few days. When we get together to jam I’ll show you some of the riffs I came up with. They’re fuckin’ tight, dude.”

Jake was still doubtful but he nodded, conceding for now. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I got two tunes I’ve been working on too. We still up for a session next week?”

“We’d fuckin’ better be,” Matt said. “If Darren tries to flake out of it like he did this party I’m gonna kick his ass.”

“We’re going to have problems with him,” Jake said.

“Going to? We already have problems with that asshole. He barely said a word to any of us during the whole fuckin’ tour, just moped around, drinking and smoking and eating. He stopped moving around on stage, his voice on harmony sounded like shit, and when he did talk it was just to whine about something.”

“Usually his damn ear,” Jake said. Near the end of the Thrill Of Doing Business tour in 1984, a pyrotechnic explosion onstage injured Darren, who had been drunk and stoned at the time. He had suffered second-degree burns over a good portion of his body and his right eardrum had been massively ruptured. It was the burns that got Darren started on the injectable narcotic painkiller Demerol but it was the chronic ear pain that remained after the burns had healed that had eventually led him down the road to heroin use and a hefty addiction that had included Coop, their drummer, as well. It was only after the new contract had taken effect that Jake, Matt, and Bill had been able to force the two of them into rehab at the Betty Ford Clinic by threatening to kick them out of the band. Both had been off the heroin ever since and Coop seemed to have recovered nicely and was now back to his old self. Darren, on the other hand, had been nothing but resentful ever since and still, to this day, had yet to admit that he’d even had a problem with the drug.

“Yeah,” Matt said, “his fuckin’ ear. I’d like to stick a screwdriver in that goddamn ear and show him what pain is really all about.”

“He’s hardly left his condo since we’ve been back,” Jake said. “He’s still got that same spy for National Records working as his manservant and he’s still going into debt because he’s living outside his means.”

“I think we need to sit his ass down and have a talk with him,” Matt suggested. “All of us, maybe Pauline too. He needs to get his shit together and start being a member of this band like he used to be or his ass is out of here. There’s a million bass players out there who’d love to take his place.”

“How about on the flight to New York next Friday?” Jake suggested.

“We’re going private, right?” Matt asked.

“Hell yeah,” Jake said. “NBC is paying for it too. That was part of the deal Pauline worked for us to appear on Saturday Night Live. Fifty grand for the band, deluxe accommodations at the Plaza Hotel, and private air travel to and from.”

“That sister of yours is all fucking right. Remember last time we were on SNL? They fuckin’ flew us down on a flight that had to make two connections because National wanted us to get mobbed in four airports and then they put us up in some fleabag place in Queens.”

“And we didn’t get a dime for any of it,” Jake said. “I remember.”

“National sure got paid well for that gig though,” Matt said. “Are they getting a cut of this one too?”

“Of course they are. They own the rights to the songs. They don’t do anything for free.”

“How much are they getting?”

“We’re not privy to that,” Jake said. “It’s a private matter between NBC and National is what they told Pauline.”

“Fuckin’ scumbags,” Matt said. “I bet they’re pulling in a hundred grand for doing absolutely nothing.”

“That’s the way they like to make money,” Jake agreed. “So anyway, we should have enough alone time with Darren to have a talk with him. Hopefully he’ll listen this time.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” Matt said. “I wouldn’t count on it though. My guess is we’ll be looking for a new bass player soon. If he keeps acting the way he’s been acting while we’re trying to put together the next album, I’ll sure as shit vote to send his ass packing.”

“Me too,” Jake agreed. “But I think he’s still salvageable. He tends to change his act when he knows we’re serious about kicking him out.”

Matt shrugged and flipped a few more of his fish fillets. “Time will tell,” he said. “Time will fuckin’

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