Passing Through the Flame (94 page)

Horst smiled a pretty poison smile at Taub. “Isn’t that what you wanted, Mike?” he said. “We sell off the studio facilities, and both of us become presidents of our own separate corporations. We don’t even have to talk to each other anymore.”

A bubble of acid burst in the back of Taub’s throat. Somehow, the whole thing had slipped out of his hands. This is what I planned, and yet... and yet.... “But who in hell does all this leave controlling Eden Records?”

Anthony Carbo smiled his thin, greasy smile. “Our combine, of course,” he said. “Naturally, you’ll be president of the corporation and run the day-to-day operations.”

Jesus Christ, so
that’s
it! Jango’s trying to throw me to the wolves. He thinks he can turn me into a goddamn front man for... for... admit it, you know who these creeps
really
represent. Well, if he thinks I’m going to sell my ass to the Mafia, he’s got another think coming!

“The deal’s off,” Taub said. “I’m still willing to go along with a straight sale of the studio facilities, but not this thing!”

Jango steepled his hands. “What makes you think you have a veto in this matter, Mike?” he said.

Taub stared across the table at Horst, trying to read his bland face. For once, Jango’s overplayed his hand, he thought. Horst and I may hate each other’s guts, but this is going to force us into bed together. “You know where this deal would put both of us, John,” he said. “Together, we vote enough EPI stock to block the whole thing. So you win. I’m willing to vote your way now.”

Horst said nothing. Jango pulled a cigar out of his breast pocket, lit it, blew out a thin plume of smoke. “I’m afraid you’re a little behind the times, Mike,” he said. “John’s sold out his interest in EPI.”

“To who?”

“To Jango,” Horst said evenly, driving the words into Taub’s skull like coffin nails. Waves of nausea pounded through Taub’s guts.

“Technically speaking,” Jango said. “Actually, I wasn’t the principal, I was merely the agent for other interests.”

“What
?”Horst shouted. “Who were you acting for?” His face visibly paled, and Taub, anticipating the answer, couldn’t help laughing, despite his nausea.

“For our associates,” Carbo said. “You see, our combine and Beck now control enough stock to put this deal through with or without you two gentlemen. This meeting is strictly a formality.”

“Why do you think we’re paying one hundred million?” Williams said. “That’s an inflated price. But we’re just taking a third of it out of one pocket and putting it in another, to the detriment of the IRS.”

“You knew this all along, Beck!” Horst shouted. “You tricked me into it!”

“Welcome to the schmuck club, John,” Taub said. Perversely, he found himself almost enjoying the situation. I wonder how Jango’s going to screw the Maf, he thought. I’m sure he’s thought of something.

“Why is everyone getting so excited?” Jango oozed. “John, you’ve got yourself a film financing and distributing company, minus past debts, and minus the killing studio overhead. Mike, you’ve separated the record operation from the film operation and gotten a hefty injection of capital in the process.” He sighed, shook his head. “
I’m
the only one with a right to complain,” he said sanctimoniously.

“Now I’ve heard everything!” Taub said.

“Have you, Mike? Dark Star’s biggest moneymaker, the Velvet Cloud, is finished, and I’ve lost their last album along with all the others. I’ve got a potentially valuable movie about a rock festival—but I don’t have any of the music for the sound track. It’s a good thing for me that Eden Records owes Dark Star a million dollars. Otherwise, I’d be in danger of going broke. I’d like the check by Monday morning.”

“What the fuck are you babbling about, Jango?” Taub said. “What million dollars?”

Jango smiled his worst sly smile and slid a contract across the table at Taub. “Remember this?” he said. “It obligates Eden Records to pay Dark Star a million dollars for recording rights to the Sunset City festival.”

“That’s ridiculous, and you know it! That was strictly....” Taub hesitated. It was strictly part of the paper shuffling that stuck Horst with the festival expenses, a ploy to safeguard Jango against being stuck for the million he paid me for the film rights as producer for Eden Pictures. He wasn’t supposed to... it was only... Jesus Christ! “What recording rights?” Taub continued, sounding lame even to himself. “There aren’t going to be any record albums. All the tapes were destroyed.”

“Tough shit,” Jango said. “You bought the rights. It’s not my problem if you can’t exercise them. I’ve got enough troubles of my own. I’ve got to save myself.”

Now it was the turn of Carbo and Williams to stare at Jango in wounded outrage. “That’s
our
money you’re talking about now, Beck,” Carbo said, his smoothness rapidly eroding. “We’re not going to pay you a million dollars for absolutely nothing.”

“Just remember who it is that you’re trying to hold up, Beck.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that last remark,” Jango said, blowing a thick cloud of smoke in their direction. “Because if I did hear it, I’d have to be so tasteless as to remind you who it is you’re trying to welch on. And of what happened the last time your associates tried to strong-arm me. I want my money, and I want it promptly on Monday morning, or I’ll
really
turn Sargent loose, I kid you not.”

Carbo and Williams glared at Jango. Jango glared back, staring them down, establishing control. Taub shivered as Carbo shifted his gaze from Jango to Williams. He’s done it! He’s stared them down. They’re actually
afraid
of him! Jango Beck was intimidating the organization, and the last thing in the world that Taub wanted to know was how.

Carbo turned to Taub, focusing his anger on a more defenseless target. “You get us out of this, Taub,” he snapped. “You signed that damned paper.” His ire was real, but there was also something helpless about it. It was the anger of a thug trying muscle against superior brains. He’s threatening me, Taub realized, but he’s also telling me that he’s out of his league here and he knows it.

Taub looked across the table at Jango Beck, whose thin smile told him that Jango knew this as well as he did, that he had set it up as part of some bigger game. Beck’s black eyes sparkled, and Taub felt their power pouring into him, filling him from within. He wants something from me; we’re going to job these greasy bastards together. I don’t know how, but we’re going to do it. He could feel the geometry of power shifting. Somehow, Beck was letting him know that now they were allies, that there was some lesson he was about to learn. The storm in his stomach subsided to a slow gurgle.

Taub smiled at Jango. “Isn’t there some offer we could make you that you couldn’t refuse?” he said. Horst grinned. Carbo and Williams didn’t think it was funny at all. Taub found-himself actually enjoying his position.

“Only if it lets me get away from this whole scene,” Jango said. “My association with EPI is beginning to leave a bad taste in my mouth.”

“You’re leading up to something, aren’t you, Beck?” Carbo said. “Let’s cut the bullshit.” It tickled Taub to watch these shaved apes reverting to type.

“All right, Carbo,” Jango said. “I’ll make
you
an offer you can’t refuse. EPI owns forty three percent of Dark Star. I want to buy one hundred percent control of my own company, I want out. Give me that and five hundred thousand dollars and we’ll call it quits.”

Carbo and Williams looked at each other helplessly. “What about it, Taub?” Carbo finally said. “Is that a legitimate deal?”

Taub looked back at his new silent partners with a growing coolness. It was dawning on him that these greasy creeps knew nothing about the record industry. If they did, they would be screaming. Even in its present state, Dark Star was probably worth close to two million dollars. Five hundred thousand dollars was a ridiculous buy-out price, and that was in fact what Jango was suggesting.

But Taub realized that Jango was also suggesting something else. As long as Eden Records makes money, I can do anything I want, I can tell these assholes anything, because they know nothing about the business at all. Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all. I get Horst and Jango out of my hair forever, and all I’ve got to do is keep showing these schmucks a profit. If I do, I’ve got the power, because they couldn’t run Eden Records at a profit themselves, and they know it. It’s like being owned by a bank. A bank with muscle, but it could be worse. Maybe it
has
been worse.

“Forty-three percent of Dark Star is worth a lot more than half a million, and you know it, Jango,” Taub said. He watched Carbo and Williams do takes. The schmucks had been ready to swallow Jango’s deal!

Jango looked back at him with a sour expression. “Come on, Mike,” he said. “I’ve lost the Cloud, I’ve lost their final album, and I’m stuck with a movie with half a sound track. On top of all that, I’ve had to shell out almost a quarter million of
my own money
to make sure that that state investigating commission doesn’t smear any of us with the shit from the deaths at the festival. By rights, EPI should be footing that bill, too.”

“I never heard such gall!” Carbo grunted.

Jango put on a pained grimace, but his eyes were laughing. Taub spoke in the hardest tone of voice he could muster. “Make it an even million,” he said. “That way, no money changes hands, we just tear up each other’s paper.”

Carbo and Williams nodded at each other, trying to look knowledgeable. “You heard what the man said, Beck,” Carbo said. “We back him up.”
Back me up
, you lox? You were ready to settle for half of what I’m getting for you.

“I might just decide to bankrupt Dark Star under you,” Jango said. “I can’t keep it afloat without some working capital. I was counting on coming out of this with enough cash to survive.” Carbo and Williams stared at him coldly. Taub feigned solidarity with his new bosses, waiting to see what rabbit Jango was going to pull out of the hat.

Jango puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. He fingered his copy of the subsidiary rights contract. “Let’s say I take your deal, Mike,” he said. “That means I tear up this contract, right?”

“Right....”

“That means the recording rights revert to me, right?”

“Sure. They’re worthless anyway.”

“Exactly. As things stand now, all I get back is the worthless recording rights. Eden still has the other subsidiary rights—T-shirts, posters, Sunset City roach clips, any other tie-ins I could dream up. I’ll take your deal
only
if I get back all the subsidiary rights, not just the useless recording rights. I ought to be able to milk a few hundred thou out of that, enough to keep my head above water.”

Taub looked down into the bottomless depths of Jango Beck’s eyes; Jango’s face looked harried and concerned, but deep down in there he was laughing. For the life of him, Taub could not imagine why. What he’s holding us up for is just a lot of chickenshit, and he’s got to know it. But this is what he’s wanted all along. I
know
it is. But it makes no sense.

“Well, Taub,” Williams said, “you’re the expert on these matters....”

So I am, Taub thought, still not taking his eyes off Jango. Is it possible? Am I really getting the best of Jango Beck? Am I really in effect selling him T-shirt and poster rights for a cool half million?

“Judging by past performances, I’d say it’d be more than worth it just to get him out of our hair,” he told his new goombahs.

Williams winced. Carbo nodded.

“You’ve got a point there,” Carbo said. “Let’s take the deal.”

Jango stubbed out his cigar, leaned back in his chair, and frowned. “You sure drive a hard bargain, Mike,” he said. “But what the hell can I do? You boys have got me over a barrel.”

But that dark unfathomable laughter never disappeared from the depths of his eyes. Taub knew in the pit of his gut that Jango had somehow come out on top again, though there was no way he could see how.

At least, he thought, he’s let me survive. And he’s shown me how to keep surviving in a partnership with these goons. And he’s let me look good with them. There was no doubt at all in his mind that his present position, such as it was, had been a gift from Jango Beck. No doubt at all.

The ocean muttered and rolled against the rocks at the base of the cliff, and John Horst could smell the sea mist in the air as the sun began to set redly into the Pacific. About forty yards north, the old stone stairs descended to their own private strip of sandy beach, and the dilapidated wooden cabana that we’ll have to get around to rebuilding as soon as we’re settled in the house, before the hot weather sets in.

Mildred walked beside him in the ankle-high unkempt grass, looking out at the sunset, her eyes a little glazed from her second martini, but her gait steadier than it had been at sunset since Jodi moved out. It’s working, Horst thought. Not dramatically, not the way a screenwriter would write it, but she’s tapering off. The beach is good for her. For both of us.

“It was really incredible, Mildred,” Horst said, kicking a pebble with his bare toe. “I was there when these hairy hippies delivered the tapes to the mixing stage. About a dozen of them in vans. Beck led them in like some sort of conquering hero, and you should’ve seen the look on Conrad’s face when Beck told us what the stuff was.”

“Too bad Taub wasn’t there,” Mildred said. “The look on
his
face would
really
have made a pretty picture.”

Horst grinned, then shook his head. That was all over, and he had no further reason to wish ill to Mike Taub. He’d never have to deal with Taub again. But Taub
is
going to have to do some fast talking to the new people when they find out how Beck tricked them. That he had album-quality tapes of everything that was supposedly lost when the revolutionaries burned what the Eden Records people had cut at Sunset City. That they and Taub had sold him all the rights to twenty record albums for what amounted to half a million dollars.

“Let’s go back to the house,” Mildred said. “It’s getting cool, and I think I might like one more drink before dinner.”