I took the call in my car, made a U-turn on Santa Monica, and headed back toward Century City. It was nearly Christmas, in the midst of the coldest winter we’d had in ten years. I had the heater on, which made the car run like a diesel truck.
The kid sat in front of a desk; three henchmen sat rigidly on a sofa. The wraith had a small cassette in his hand; he kept fumbling it around, like some pathetic executive-suite version of Captain Queeg.
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“Mr. Hathaway,” said the wraith to those assembled, by way of introduction, “is something like a private investigator, something like a lawyer, and something of an expert on certain aspects”–he spoke with distaste, like he’d swallowed when he hadn’t meant to–“certain philosophical aspects of our business. Isn’t that right Mr. Hathaway?”
As the last notes of the chord-to-end-the-world drifted off, the wraith took the tape out of the deck. He stared at the kid. “This is his new album,” he said, like a mother showing off her four-year-old’s artwork. “He wants us to release it.”
“We’ll get laughed out of LA.” C.
“Fine,” said the kid. “I’ll take it to Geffen.”
