Chapter 9
On Saturday morning at 8:00 AM, I entered Yuliya behind a group of four people wearing Tech-Temp shirts. One of them, a young Latino woman, asked if I was new. “First day on the job,” I replied, and got directions to the men’s room. I wandered around a bit, getting a feel for the layout of the plant. It was a two-story structure, encompassing about 20,000 square feet. Along the wall bordering the street were eight offices, four downstairs, and four upstairs. Only one of the offices was lighted. I assumed this belonged to the weekend boss. The men’s room was directly across from the offices, about forty feet away. All of the offices had large picture windows looking out over the main floor. One of the windows had a nice set of drapes. This was my target. My problem was that I could be seen from the main floor if I tried picking the lock to get into the office.
When I was in my first year of college at UCSD, I cruised through my General Education subjects until I got to College Algebra. There, I hit a wall. By midterms I knew I needed help. Since I was earning decent money with my band, I hired a tutor, Carl Jaffe, who had a rather nerdy appearance and personality. One day I asked him what he did for fun and he invited me to his dorm room. I was sure it was going to be a favorite computer game, but instead, Carl put on an astounding magic show. For the grand finale he had me put him in handcuffs, then wrap a chain around him and secure it with a big Yale lock. I then walked out of the dorm room to the end of the hall and back, as instructed. When I returned, Carl was lying on his bed with his uncuffed hands behind his head and said, “What took you so long?”
He swore the locks were real and I begged him to teach me how to pick a lock. Carl told me he would do so if, and only if, I passed Algebra with a B or better. It was a huge struggle, but I got my B. Carl taught me everything he knew and I’ve owned a set of burglary tools ever since. Today, I would see if my countless hours of practice paid off. But I still had to figure out a way to do it without being seen.
I looked around the restroom and saw a freestanding cabinet. Inside were cleaning and bathroom supplies. I grabbed a bottle of Windex and a rag, then walked out of the restroom and up the stairs like I owned the place. No one said a word. I went directly to the draped office and looked back toward the assembly floor. A couple of women were looking my way and one of them pointed at me. I pulled out my Windex and began squirting the picture window. I worked my way across the pane, periodically glancing at the floor. The women were apparently satisfied that I was on the cleaning crew and went back to work. It took about 30 seconds for me to unlock the door.
Inside were two rooms. The outer reception area held a desk with two chairs to the right, and a large leather couch against the left wall. In the middle of the room was an oak door leading to the inner office. Fortunately, the drapes were drawn, so I didn’t need to worry about being seen. I relocked the door and went into Peter Chofsky’s office. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the computer was still on and I didn’t need to call my computer geek friends to help me get past a security system.
Since I didn’t see my stolen computer lying around, I did the next best thing and brought up the My Documents files. There I found a folder named Duffy. The first file I selected was named Pix. Inside were images of the pictures Cory took outside Cerise’s building. This was hard evidence that the Russians had done the robbery. As I neared the end of the picture files, I found one of Kelly and I walking out of her condo building the evening we met my parents at the Padres game. There was also a picture of the four of us at the game, and a shot of Jeannine outside of her apartment house. This was getting scary. I could handle them coming after me, but my anger boiled over at the thought of them stalking my loved ones. I flashed on an image of Kelly minus half a pinky and felt like ransacking the office. When I got my emotions under control I emailed the file to myself.
Next, I opened a file called Bio and, sure enough, there was the kind of background information about me that I would supply a client as a private detective. I’m sure all of this stuff is somewhere in cyber space, but it sure looked like they hired a PI to check me out. I emailed the whole folder to myself and moved on to a folder named Cerise. This was huge, holding maybe 75 files. I started clicking through but found that most of the text was in Russian. I recognized one of the Tass news accounts of the kidnapping. I emailed the folder.
There was nothing labeled Doberman’s Stub, but I found a folder named Tucker. Inside was a bio, much like my own, along with a copy of all four of the contract proposals. In another file was every newspaper account of Terry’s murder. There was a separate file on Chelsea, complete with bio and pictures. I started to click through when I heard keys in the office door. I clicked off the computer screen, then moved with speed and stealth behind the inner office door, which was ajar. Through the door jam I could see the empty couch on the far wall. I looked around and saw a hockey stick with CCCC written on the side, mounted on the wall a few feet away from me. I heard a male and female in the front room. Quietly, I slipped the hockey stick out of its mounting brackets and inched my way back to the door jam. When I peeked through I saw the weekend boss unhooking the bra of an attractive young Latino woman. Her face was rather plain, but strippers would kill for that body. As they got settled onto the couch, I turned away, fearing I would be unable to defend myself if I was discovered with a boner bigger than the hockey stick I was clutching.
About five minutes later I heard the Latino woman yelp and shortly thereafter heard the boss say that he needed a smoke. He took a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt that had been lying on the carpet, then pulled a green lighter out of his pants pocket. He flicked three times and got nothing but sparks.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, “You got a light?”
“Sure,” she said, “I always keep one in my thong for this kind of occasion.”
“Shut-up,” he said and walked toward me. I straightened up as best I could and held the stick in front of me. The door was at about a 45 degree angle. I wasn’t sure if it completely covered me. He must have walked around the left side of the desk, otherwise I would have seen him round the near corner. Luckily, the room was pretty dark because of the closed drapes.
I heard the weekend boss opening drawers in the desk. First he said, “God damn it.” Then he said, “What the fuck?”
Next thing I saw was a large naked man pulling the door away from me with his left hand as he took a full-strength swing at my head with his right. I instinctively ducked and spun away from the wall all in one motion. When I did this, with no intention whatsoever, I inadvertently brought the hockey stick up hard into the weekend boss’s package. He made a guttural scream, grabbed his crotch, and dropped to his knees, then toppled over sideways.
As I exited through the outer office, Miss Augusto was stepping into her thong. When she saw me look, she stopped what she was doing and gave me a smile. Once I was out of the upstairs office I walked quickly across the walkway and down the stairs.
“Stop him!” echoed throughout the plant.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, three of the male workers were waiting for me, one holding a huge pipe wrench. In these situations my motto has always been: Why fight when you can bullshit your way out? I jerked my thumb toward the upstairs office.
“That Russian fuck has been screwing my wife! He was on one of your coworkers when I punched him out! Why don’t you guys go rescue her and finish the job?”
The fact that the four of us were wearing Tech-Temps shirts worked in my favor.
“I hate that asshole!” yelled a large guy with an anchor tattoo on his arm. “Let’s go guys!” he exclaimed as he bounded up the stairs two at a time.
The other two followed and I walked out the door, then broke into a sprint for my car. But there was no chase. I expect my fellow Tech-Temps turned a white Russian into a black & blue Russian.
I had about six hours to kill before meeting my friends at Jake’s restaurant, then adjourning to The Belly Up for a Steve Poltz concert. I needed some more advice and determined that a night out with a couple of my friends could help to solve my problems.
I returned to my office and read everything written in English in the folders I had emailed to myself. The pictures were slow to load, so after looking at just a few, I decided to check them out after the weekend.
When I arrived at Jake’s, Justin Emerson was sipping a Heineken and schmoozing with a cute brunette bartender. Justin, now in his mid-thirties, was managing a huge club in the Kearny Mesa section of San Diego when my band first started playing the local circuit.
“Hey Justin, you’re looking great,” I said.
“Wish I could say the same,” he replied, then stood up and gave me a bear hug. “Just kidding. Actually, now that you’re not burning the candle at both ends anymore you look a lot healthier. You didn’t go and get married or anything like that did you?”
“Still single, but I don’t know about the healthy part,” I said, lifting myself onto the stool next to him.
“Please don’t tell me you asked us here to say you have some terrible disease.”
“No,” I said, “nothing like that. It’s just that I’m working on Terry Tucker’s murder and there are a lot of dangerous dudes involved.”
I remember Justin mentioning Terry in a casual conversation a few years ago. I was hoping they kept in touch.
“Terry had more than his fair share of enemies, but what a talent,” he said.
“Did you hear from him at all in the months before his death?”
“As a matter of fact, he called me about three weeks before the tragedy. We talked for about 15 minutes about the interests, concerns, and passions of the late teen/early twenties age group. I hear Calvin’s joining us for dinner tonight, he’ll be able to tell you a lot more about that stuff than me.”
Justin was about to ask a follow-up question when Calvin walked in and we exchanged formalities. Justin let the hostess know our party was ready to be seated and we were off to our table almost immediately.
Since we were seated within earshot of twenty strangers I kept the conversation away from the investigation. There would be time to talk with Calvin later.
I had almost forgotten how much fun these guys could be. Since we all had music in common, that was the main topic for the evening. We arrived at the Belly Up in time to get one of the last vacant tables. A few minutes after our drinks arrived, Calvin excused himself to go for a smoke. I followed him outside.
“When did you take up this nasty habit?” Calvin asked as he lit up.
“I didn’t,” I replied. “I want to ask you a couple of questions that might help with a case I’m working.”
I told him about Doberman’s contract situation and asked, “What’s your take on how they would have fared on the open market if Terry was still alive and they were able to dissolve their contract with Cerise?”
Calvin replied, “The file sharing problem is still huge, but the demographic profile of Doberman’s Stub is through the roof. Their first CD was very good and performed beyond expectations with their target audience of males in their 20’s. The second CD performed very differently. They expanded their demographics tremendously. They held strong with their core audience while they also developed a surprising appeal among women, ages 15 to 35. Sales of the second CD were almost double those of the first CD.”
“That’s really strange,” I said. “I looked at some numbers last week and I could see that the second CD outsold the first, but I don’t recall it being by a big margin.”
“That’s because all those hot new fans ran out and bought the first CD after they fell in love with the second one. You’d be surprised how often that happens.”
“So they were on a major roll?”
“Big time,” he said. “When you cross demographics, all of a sudden you can quadruple the number of radio stations playing your stuff. This creates residual income from airplay, increases downloads, boosts CD sales, and drives up demand and the asking price for concerts.”
“What brings in the most money?”
“Concerts” Calvin said. “Over 80% of the top 50 acts last year saw at least two-thirds of their income derived from concerts, and merchandising at concert venues. Doberman’s Stub was on the verge of being a headliner on the stadium circuit. They were looking at $25 to $50 million in tour income in the next year.”
“Now I’m totally lost,” I said, showing my exasperation. “If the big bucks are in touring, why are they in the studio instead of riding the money train?”
“It’s a little complicated,” Calvin said, “but I assure you there is no active performer who could come close to Terry Tucker in his understanding of what it takes to become a star and stay on top. He was like a chess master in his ability to think eight moves ahead at all times. When their first CD, Biscuit, was released, they established themselves as an up and coming metal band. They were the warm-up act for midrange bands attracting the same audience. When their second CD, Don’t Bury Your Bone Alone came out, they didn’t have the leverage yet to be a headliner at major venues. But it was important that they toured right after the release to plug the album to the fans they had recently established.”
“To keep the momentum going?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he said. “I’m sure Terry was hoping the second CD would take off, but there are never any guarantees. Doberman made the right choice of being warm-up at stadium concerts featuring mainstream artists that would pack the house. This would ensure that they hit their performance goals with Cerise Records and, at the same time, give them a chance to expand their demographics.”
“But that meant less money.”
“In the short term,” Calvin agreed. “But long term, it was a great strategy. The increase in downloads and CD sales for both CDs went way up, and they positioned themselves for a feature tour.”
“Let’s get back to my original question. Why go back to the studio for a third CD when they could have gotten booked on the stadium circuit now?”
“Stardom is usually like a big monster. If you don’t feed the monster it will go someplace else to get fed,” he said. “This is especially true when you get into the teenage audience. They buy the most downloads and they are by far the most demanding when it comes to new material. Remember when I said they got big with women 15 to 35?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“The 15 to 25-year-olds bought 80% of the music. The Beatles got huge because of their talent, but they sustained that incredibly intense level of popularity by being prolific songwriters who knew how to evolve and set trends.”
I switched gears a bit. “What are the chances Doberman’s Stub can survive without Terry Tucker?”
“The general feeling in the industry is that the Doberman got castrated, but I think they still have a chance,” he said. “I’m sure you know that Terry split songwriting credits with Nigel and that each wrote his own songs. There were no collaborations.”
“It was sort of a separate but equal arrangement from what I could see.”
“Right. Terry’s songs got the most airplay. They were metal anthems. Technically, they’re terrific,” he said. “But I always got the feeling that Terry was shooting for the Top 10 with every one of his songs.”
“How about Nigel’s compositions?”
“Frankly, I relate better to Nigel’s stuff, especially his lyrics,” Calvin said. “His songs are more emo, so I’m sure he’s scoring big with the women.”
“Are we still talking demographics?”
“As a concert promoter, my thing is demographics. I need to know who’s hot and who’s going to be hot six months from now. One of the nightmares of my profession is when a band breaks up just before the show I’ve been paying to advertise for a month. I need to know those kinds of things about bands I’m considering, and Doberman’s Stub was at the top of my list when Terry died.”
“So what about Nigel?”
“Nigel Choate fancies himself a ladies man,” he said. “In order for Doberman’s Stub to succeed without Terry, a few important things need to happen. First, they need a big name to replace Terry as lead singer; maybe add a rhythm guitarist if their singer doesn’t play. Second, they need to fire their current management and hire someone with a proven track record of taking a band to the top. Third, they need to shit or get off the pot on their drummer situation.”
“Ian’s drinking?”
“Drinking, coke, ecstasy, acid, you name it. They have to give him the rehab or unemployment ultimatum as soon as the CD wraps.”
“Do you think Terry was on Ian to clean up?” I asked.
“Terry wouldn’t tolerate anything that messed with his sound. I saw them onstage in San Francisco a couple of months before he died. Ian was definitely high and out of synch with everybody else. At one point Terry stood on the drum riser with his back to the audience and, from backstage, I could see he was screaming. If looks could kill, Ian would have preceded Terry to the Pearly Gates.”
“What’s your take on Jack Pascal?”
“I like Jack a lot. Every successful band needs a steadying influence and Jack is their guy. He’ll never show up on anybody’s list for best metal bassist, but he is solid as a rock. I met him a couple of times at backstage parties and he strikes me as one of those rare musicians who will be the same guy no matter how popular or unpopular the band. He’s in it for the music, not the lifestyle.”
“How would a guy like that respond to Ian messing with the sound?”
“My guess is he would look for Terry to fix it, like a kid turning to a parent to deal with a sibling problem.”
“Do you think, if Terry hadn’t died, that Ian would soon be fired?” I asked.
“I was amazed he took Ian into the studio for the third CD. Something else besides Terry’s desire to succeed and Ian’s lifestyle was playing a role in that decision. Maybe it was the contract negotiation, maybe not. But my guess is that it was more a question of when and not if Terry would give Ian the ax.”
I could have asked Calvin twenty more questions, but the sound of Steve Poltz came drifting our way, so we rejoined Justin.
“Did you go back to Jake’s for dessert?” he asked.
“Has it been that long?” I replied.
The show was excellent. A couple of Steve’s old band mates from The Rugburns showed up to help out on the final set.
I woke up around 11:00 AM on Sunday morning. There was a message on my answering machine from Nigel asking me to call him when I got in. I called right away and the phone was answered by a sexy voice that was definitely not the lovely who flashed me earlier in the week.
“Jason, thanks for getting back to me,” said Nigel.
“What can I do for you Nigel?”
“Actually, there are two matters I’d like to discuss with you, but I’m a little indisposed at the moment. It’s urgent that I talk with you soon. Do you think I might come round in the morning?”
“I’m going to be in my office at 9:00 AM. Can you make it at 10:00?”
“That will be fine,” he replied.
I gave him directions and hoped I would remember to send Delbert Henson out for donuts at 9:50.