Blue Desire (16 page)

“We’d
need a lawyer to make it all right and legal,” she said.

“Oh,
I’ve got a lawyer.”

Ah,
Angus always did turn “we” into “I.” She ought to get her own lawyer, she
supposed, but she remembered how it had gone down when her mother and father
had gotten divorced. They’d had cash set aside for her for college. By the time
they were done arguing about it, the lawyers had taken it all. And she didn’t
have any money for it anyway. “I’ll think about it.”

“Sure.
I’ve got all night. The scenery is good.” He leaned back and looked over at a
redhead who was climbing the stairs to the stage. Kat was willing to bet the
red hair was no more real than the other girl’s tits, but who knew. “Oh, almost
forgot.” Angus reached down and came back up with a bunch of papers, stapled
together and folded twice as if it had been intended for a normal-size
envelope. “
Here.
Your cease and desist order. That’s
all ‘right and legal’ too.”

Kat
opened it up, her heart sinking. It was blackmail. It would take her months to
come up with enough totally new material for a CD or a full club performance
without using any of the
Kradle
songs. The document
listed every song she’d ever written for
Kradle
. In
the lousy light, she could barely read it, but she knew what they all were, so
she could make them out.

“Nice
tits on that one. Bet she has a nice, tight pussy too,” said Angus.

Kat
thought that was unlikely.

He
tossed another document onto the table, along with a ballpoint pen. “This is
the agreement that will let you keep doing that crap you were doing onstage the
other night.” He shook his head. “It’s such a shame, Kat. We had something that
was so good.
A great band, a great relationship.
And
you threw it all away. Those are two things you should never throw away. You
wrote a song about that once.
About us.”

That song was never
about you
.
She thought about Cindy and the music they were creating. That was something to
be kept, for sure. If she didn’t sign, was she throwing away the band with
Cindy?

Brett
flashed into her mind, unbidden. She had stood him up for this, so she’d better
have something to show for it, because he was a keeper too. She felt
considerably less sure that she could keep him, though. She picked up the pen.

“Ah,
I knew you’d see reason.” Angus’s gaze was still on the strippers, and he
barely spared her a glance.

“Could
you give me a dollar?”

It
wasn’t Angus who had spoken. She turned to see Brett sitting next to her. How a
man that big could sneak up on her, she didn’t know. “Huh?”

He
smiled. “Trust me. Any bill will do.”

Where
had he come from? And was he going to tip the strippers? She supposed they
worked hard enough for their money, but the last thing she wanted to see was
Brett putting money in some girl’s panties. Nonetheless, he asked her to trust
him. He’d been more trustworthy than she had been, so far. She wasn’t proud of
it, and she wanted to make it up to him. Trusting him seemed like a good start.

She
reached into her purse, opened her wallet, and handed him a wrinkled one-dollar
bill.

“You’re
the guy who got saved by the cops the other day. You know him?” asked Angus.

“He’s
my—” Kat had been about to say
boyfriend
,
but was he?

“As
of right now,” Brett cut in, “I’m her lawyer.” He stuffed the bill in his
pocket. “Thanks for the retainer. Would you like me to take a look at those
before you sign them?”

“Oh
my God,” said Katrina.

Brett
waited, calmly. How could he be calm in this situation? He didn’t, couldn’t
know how she was going to react. Hell, she didn’t know how to react. He was a
lawyer? Even if he was pretending, it might give her an advantage, but she had
a suspicion that Brett didn’t pretend.

My God, something has
gone right in my life for once
. Her eyes widened. Actually,
everything had been going right in her life lately. Brett, Cindy, the break at
the Caravan Club. She hadn’t realized how right it was, until now.

Angus
was glaring at her. “I told you to come alone.”

“Yes,
please, have a look,” said Kat, not afraid of Angus anymore.

“
The deal’s
off if he does,” said Angus.

“Up
to something, are you?” said Kat. Angus had a lawyer; why shouldn’t she? He had
legal advice. It was only fair. Her eyes narrowed. Judging from his reaction,
his advice must have included the notion that he was on very shaky ground
indeed. She grinned at Angus.

He
gritted his teeth.

Brett
was already reading the documents, seemingly oblivious to Angus. He started
with the cease and desist order. She wanted to tell him to look at the other
one, the agreement Angus wanted her to sign. That was the important one,
rendering the other irrelevant.

The
tension was so thick in the air she could feel it. She was sweating more than
the strippers onstage. At least
they
got to shed some layers.
Read faster
.
Yet somehow there was something comforting about the way Brett was being so
meticulous. Any thought that he was faking it had vanished.

“Hurry
it up,” said Angus, glancing at his watch. “If I don’t get a signature on the
other one before two thirty, the deal is off.

“No,”
said Brett.

Such a simple word.
Angus stared.

“I
said—” started Angus again, after another glance at his watch.

“There’s
nothing magical about two thirty,” said Brett. “You made that up based on what
time it is now. Katrina, did you ever sign a legal document granting
Kradle
the right to play the songs you have copyrighted?”

“Um,
no, but we, they, always have. Why would we put that in writing?”

“Why,
indeed. Where are you staying, Mr.
Azrael
?”

No
one ever called Angus that, and if Kat hadn’t just read his name on the
documents, she would have been startled even more than she was. It wasn’t even
his real last name—
well,
it was, because he’d had it
legally changed after their first album because he wanted something that
sounded more “suitable” for his public persona than Jones. She always thought
it sounded more
goth
than
punk. There was nothing wrong with a punk rocker named Jones. It was a good,
working-class name.

“None
of your business,” Angus snarled.

Brett
nodded and flipped over the other document and skimmed it quickly. “Ah, here it
is,
your permanent address. In Los Angeles, so this
will take a while. I’ll be drafting a cease and desist order for you, but I can
deliver it there. It will take longer, of course. Frankly, I think they’ll both
be thrown out, but as far as I can see, your rights are completely balanced.”

“I
wrote those songs,” Kat said. “He didn’t have a thing to do with most of them.
That ought to matter, shouldn’t it?”

“I
hold a shared copyright. Doesn’t mean squat,” said Angus. “And you know I was—”

“Shared,
Mr.
Azrael
, goes both ways,” Brett said, his voice
silky smooth. “Next time you write a song, I suggest you keep the copyright
entirely to yourself. However, in this case, my client has exactly the same
claims as you. Even on your own lawyer’s document, the copyright for each song
is carefully listed for both of you. Do you have any songs to play that my
client doesn’t have rights to?”

“I
wrote every bloody song,” said Kat. “If I can’t use them,
Kradle
can’t use them. And that means that new Canadian singer you have, who can’t
quite hit the high note on ‘The Man Wants My Back,’ well, she can’t sing it.”
It sounded catty, she knew, but it was true. Marcy had a lovely clear voice and
was a beautiful girl, but she had no range. The songs had all been written for
Kat’s voice, and if Angus had any sense, he’d have looked for a singer who
could sing them.

“We’re
a band,” said Angus. “It’s always been a
Kradle
song,
Kat. You know that. You’d still be in the band if you hadn’t gotten it in your
head that it was all about you.”

“Your
fans are going to be very disappointed,” said Brett, looking as if he truly
regretted it. Maybe he did.

It
struck Kat that it was such a waste. She didn’t have a problem with
Kradle
playing her music.
The more music
in the world, the better.
She almost said so, but she held her tongue.
Brett was handling things, and she understood what he was trying to do. She
leaned back in her chair and sipped her soda. She could let him take care of
it. It felt like a huge burden off her shoulders to have him take charge, like
he had at the club and in the bedroom.

She
was going to fuck him well as soon as she could. She smiled.

“What
are you grinning about?” asked Angus, glowering.

“None of your business.”
She tried to stop
grinning and failed.

“I’m
leaving,” said Angus. He stood up, but she could tell from the way his
shoulders slumped that he was defeated.

“I’ll
contact your attorney in the morning, Mr.
Azrael
.”

“Yeah,”
said Angus. “You do that.” He walked out of the club.

“He
didn’t even tip the ladies,” remarked Brett after the doors had swung closed
behind Angus.

Their
eyes met.

“That,”
said Kat, trying to sound stern, “was one of the most arrogant displays of
machismo I’ve ever seen.”

Brett
didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for.
An
apology?
Hardly.
I shouldn’t play with him like this.

“And
thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek, or at least that’s what she aimed for.
He turned and caught her lips with his, and pretty soon their tongues were
dancing together.
“
Mmm
.”

“You’re
welcome. Now, we’re going to wake up a lawyer friend of mine bright and early
and get this all straightened out.”

She
pulled back. “You aren’t really a lawyer?”

“Oh,
I’m a lawyer, all right. I’m just not a contract lawyer. Of course I had to
take a class in this stuff in law school, and I know enough to be sure that
he’s on very thin ground. There’s no reason you should have to give up anything
to play music you hold a copyright on, regardless of how it’s shared, if you
haven’t explicitly given those rights away.”

“He’s
never going to pay any of that stuff anyway.” Kat sighed. “And I can’t afford a
real lawyer. Not that— I didn’t mean—”

“You
mean one who charges more than a dollar?”

“Yes.”

“How
much does
Kradle
owe you roughly?
And
how much each month?”

“About ten thousand dollars right now.
I don’t know, since
I haven’t seen the sales figures. And, well, it varies.
Two
or three thousand dollars a month?
It’s not great, but it’s something.
It’s been a while since
Kradle
released a CD, and
sales are usually best the first year. But I don’t have any way to get it from
them.”

Brett
shook his head. “We’ll see my friend in the morning. I suspect she’ll be
willing to take the case on a contingent fee basis.”

“Meaning,
exactly?”

“That
you don’t owe her anything unless she collects money for you.”

“Oh.”
That would have saved her mother a lot of money, thought Kat.
Water over the dam now.

“In
the meantime, I find this dive kind of distracting. Shall we go back to my
place?”

Kat
nodded, slowly. “I feel like saying we should go back to my hotel since I’m
paying for it.”

Brett
didn’t move. He had the same look on his face he’d had when he was looking over
Angus’s papers.
Calm, thoughtful.
Finally, he smiled.
“I think we might be able to make an arrangement, Katrina. Of course, it would
involve you sleeping in my bed every night for a week.
Possibly
longer, if we like the arrangement.
And if you’re in my bed, I expect
three things.”

“What
are they?”
Mouth,
pussy, and ass?

“Honesty.
Obedience.”

She
blinked.
Honesty.
She owed him that, and she hadn’t
been very good about it. Obedience covered about everything, didn’t it? It was
scary. It was exciting. If there ever had been a man she could give herself
completely to, however, it was Brett. Had she ever felt that way about Angus?
No. It was early, for sure, and Brett might yet disappoint her, but he was the
only man she’d been with who might be something other than a compromise. She
hadn’t expected to ever find anyone like that.