The Bet (12 page)

I lean over the railing, dangling my beer above the empty street below, watching the shadows of strays slide around the garbage cans of the alleyway.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ve just never really spoken about this before.”

“It’s okay,” Brando replies softly.

“Let’s talk about something else. Please. I don’t want to think about this anymore.”

“Okay, let’s see…” he says, moving closer and leaning in.

I look up at him, searching his gaze. “Tell me about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. What’s your story? We spend so much time together, and I still have no idea where you’re from.” I snort a little laugh. “Did you just emerge out of thin air as the very charming, incredibly handsome ‘Brando Nash’?”

“Yes?”

I laugh. “Funnily enough, I’d believe that.”

“Actually,” Brando says with a sigh, “the truth is a bit messier.”

“Oh?”

He turns his face back toward the skyline, as if he can almost see his past still happening way off beyond the city’s lights.

“I don’t really know where I was born, or who my parents were. They gave me up for adoption when I was two.”

“Jesus.” For some reason, this was the last thing I expected to hear. I turn to look at Brando. “You didn’t try to find out?”

“I didn’t have time to try. The first ten years of my life are just a blur. One group home to another, friends you make and lose in a single day, foster parents I eventually gave up on hoping would be long-term. I was always the new boy, always the stranger. I got bullied pretty bad. I learned pretty quickly to just keep my mouth shut and get through the days.”

I study Brando’s face. He stares outward, his expression stony, as if reciting a history textbook in his deep monotone.

“I had nothing. Owned nothing. Even my clothes were ‘borrowed’ from other kids in the homes. Except music. That was free. You couldn’t steal airwaves.” He takes a long draught of beer.

“True,” I say, starting to see the pieces of Brando come together. “You can’t.”

He shrugs. “I started hanging out in places I could hear music. Snuck into clubs, sat outside bars. Sometimes I’d just stop outside someone’s house if they had the radio on loud enough.”

Brando laughs at the recollection.

“Then something clicked. I realized that these songs weren’t just some alien thing that came from another planet, but that you could actually
make
music. Kids rapping on street corners, dreadlocked guys on the subway banging on drums. It was expressive, moving,
powerful
. And it made me feel powerful.”

Brando looks at me, a little embarrassed.

“I loved music, but I knew I couldn’t make it. That wasn’t where my strengths were. I was a smart-talker, a connection-maker – a hustler. I could
see
things. Make things happen. That’s what I was good at. I put on some showcases, networked like hell, and then started a small label, got a few local acts together. Persuaded people to give us some studio time, brought people together I thought would work. It was good. Underground, nothing major – but good.”

He drops his gaze to the alleyway a hundred feet below us.

“Then I met Lexi, and I knew it could be something huge. She used to make these tapes of her just humming melodies, and you’d have sworn they were classics. She wrote songs like that, just singing them into a cheap tape deck. And her voice was…mind-blowing. She was working in a fast food joint at the time, just doing the music for fun, for the love of it. It was me who convinced her it could be something more.

“I dropped everything. Gave the label over to some associates to handle, forgot all about the hustling, and from then on, it was all Lexi. I did everything for her.”

“You fell in love with her?” I ask, gently.

Brando nods. “How could I not? She was amazing. We moved into some shitty apartment in the Bronx. I started doing everything I could to get her demos together, get her in front of the people who mattered. But I was jealous, possessive, a control freak. Lexi, on the other hand, liked to party. We argued about everything, money, the music, us. But we knew we needed each other.

“Things started moving, and we both came to LA. I didn’t know anybody here, but I knew how to make friends fast, how to move in the right circles. It was coming together. I had the songs, had the connections. I got a job at Majestic Records. Everything was lined up.”

Brando smiles widely, but it’s a macabre smile, a smile that he’s putting on to stop the other emotions from coming out.

“And just when we were about to do it, about to make it big, the labels already making offers, the studio time already starting, the songs already there - Lexi left.”

He turns to me and stares, as if I might have an answer, might be able to explain why, or how. I shake my head slowly, in disbelief and sympathy.

“How? Why?”

“I asked myself that same question every day for the past three years,” he says. “Maybe I’d been so focused on her career, I forgot about her. Maybe I underestimated how much I hurt her; how much she hated me. Maybe we never had the same ambition all along. She disappeared for a week. I found out through somebody at the label that she’d signed with Davis. He’d promised her a number one record, mega-star status. She even cheated on me just to make sure I got the message – some pretty-boy from Davis’ label who I know she never even liked.”

“Brando…”

“It’s alright. I fucked the pain away, pretty much. Went out every night, making up for lost time. Became somebody else, in order to survive. Still a hustler, but even more so. If I stopped to think it would only hurt, so I kept moving – only faster. I started to treat women the way I treated my acts. I cared for them, had fun with them, gave them what they wanted, and took my share of that. But I didn’t get attached. Didn’t get emotionally involved. In that sense, I moved on. Or at least, I thought I had, until she showed up again.”

It takes a second for me to piece it all together.

“So that’s what you guys were doing at the open mic I played?”

“Yeah.”

We turn toward LA, the city that gave us our dreams, and then took them away.

I start laughing. It’s slow at first, but it gets crazier and crazier. I try to stop, covering my mouth, but the more I do, the more maniacal it gets. Brando watches me with confusion, until he starts breaking out himself. For a full minute, we howl like schoolkids, doubled over and clutching our stomachs.

“We are quite a pair!” I say, laughing harder.

“Two abandoned strays!” Brando shouts into the night. “Coming for revenge!”

“You hear that, LA?!”

“We’re coming!”

13

Brando

THOUGH MY CARD still says I work for them, Majestic Records and I have a somewhat complicated relationship. Not least involving their CEO: Jason Rowland. When they offered me a job, it was based on my success with my own NYC-based label. But it was also assumed Lexi and I came as a package deal. Majestic would get an A & R guy who had his ear to the streets, and also his hottest prospect. When the hot prospect decided to go with their biggest rival, Davis Crawford’s Hypersonic, and when I turned out to be more interested in partying than finding them someone to replace her, the tension didn’t take long to creep in.

Still, I managed to hand them a couple of good acts, a few indie rock bands whose sales are slow but steady, a hot girl group with an urban sound, and most recently an R ‘n B singer who has a small, but creepily-obsessive fan following. So they let me keep the office and the cards, but in truth, most of what I’ve been doing over the past few years has been the same as ever. Hustling to get small bands signed to other labels when Majestic – specifically Jason Rowland – rejects them.

Not this time. Only a fool would pass up someone as hot as Haley. This time I’m the one who’s going to be setting the terms.

I roll up to the skyscraper that houses the Majestic Records offices and wink to the always-smiling receptionist. A long elevator ride later and I step out onto one of the highest floors.

“Here for your ten-thirty, Brando?”

“Early as always, Siobhan.”

“Not always,” the beautiful blonde says, knowingly. We have history.

I take a seat on the leather couch outside Rowland’s office and settle in for the inevitable waiting period. Rowland always makes people wait; he thinks it makes him seem more important. I guess he read it in a book.

My phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, but I pick up anyway. You never know when opportunity’s gonna give you a call.

“Well hello,
Brando.”

Shit. “Davis? How the fuck did you get my number?”

“I’ve always had your number, Brando. You know that.”

“Well do me a favor and delete it.”

“Come on now, why so prickly? Getting a little jittery about our little bet, now that there are only two weeks left?”

I can’t help the smirk that creeps into my voice. “Actually things are going pretty well. I’m guessing you know that already, though.”

“Ah yes. Everyone’s talking about Brando’s new girl. If I hear that damned song one more time I’ll be tempted to steal her off you, too.”

He snickers at his own joke and I swallow the flush of anger that rises in me.

“We done?” I say, curtly.

“With a little bit of the right guidance, and a big push behind her, she could be quite the little star in a year or so.”

“She’ll be a star. In two weeks.”

Davis’ croaky laugh sounds even worse over a phone line.

“Come on Brando, you know that’s impossible. It took you this long just to get some songs together. Nobody outside of the LA has any idea who she is. Look, I thought I’d be my typically gentlemanly self and offer you an out. I made the bet just to see you squirm, but you’ve done admirably. So in a way, you’ve won already. Frankly, I wouldn’t want one of your acts even if you did decide to go ahead and lose it. I wouldn’t know what to do with them.”

I chuckle.

“Davis, I don’t back out of bets, but even if I did, Haley would still be a star by the end of the month – and you know it. Seeing the look on your silicone-stuffed face when you have to pay me ten grand is just the very sweet cherry on top of an incredibly satisfying cake.”

Siobhan raises her eyes to meet mine and nods toward Rowland’s door.

“Now Brando, you’ve always been a wonderfully confi—”

“Bye Davis. Gotta run. See you at the end of the month.”

I hang up and smile. I stand up, send another memory-inducing wink toward Siobhan, and push through the pretentiously large double doors that lead into Jason Rowland’s office.

In case it wasn’t obvious, Rowland and I have never seen eye-to-eye. He’s a young guy, tall and slim. He dresses sharp, but he has the cold, clinical manner, and the doll-like hair, of a serial killer. To me, he always looked like the kind of guy who owns a dungeon and gets off on making sex-contracts with women. We come from completely different worlds. Though he likes to tell people he had a tough childhood, anyone can see he was born rich, and never worked a day in his life. He started Majestic himself, but it’s still a subsidiary of ‘Rowland Enterprises’ – his father’s company. Nobody knows much about his private life, but I met a girl once who swore she saw him watching her from across the street almost every day for three weeks after she slept with him.

He’s standing in the typical pose he assumes when people get sent to his office: legs akimbo at the glass wall, arms crossed to puff up his puny chest, looking out over the city. I try not to roll my eyes as I walk up to his desk.

“I like you Brando,” he says as he turns around, and I brace myself for the performance of an asshole who thinks he’s an alpha male. “I see some of myself in you. You came up from the bottom. Fought your way here. And now look at you.”

Rowland spreads his arms wide, as if to say ‘Is there anything better on planet Earth than my office?’ I nod politely, then take a seat without asking. This is going to take longer than I’d hoped.

“But it still bugs me that we lost Lexi. I still don’t know why. Why, Brando?”

I shrug. It’s too early in the morning for this shit. Ten pm would be too early in the morning for this shit.

I clear my throat and hope the discussion can move on from this topic ASAP. “I don’t know what to tell you, Rowland. I guess she just felt this place wasn’t a good fit for her.”

He shows his whitened, tiny teeth in a nasty smile. “
You
weren’t a good fit for her, Brando. You lack that killer instinct. You couldn’t close the deal.”

Hearing this shit from Davis is one thing – at least I can hang up on Davis. But here on my own turf? My fist clenches at my side.

“I’m here to talk about Haley Grace Cooke,” I say, putting a little steel in my voice, enough to let Rowland know where this conversation is going.

“Who?”

“Haley Grace Cooke. The girl everybody went crazy over at the showcase a couple nights ago. Everyone’s talking about her.”

He shrugs, unimpressed. “I don’t speak to ‘everyone.’”

“Of course. Look,” I say, pulling out my phone, “she’s got a song they’re playing on regular rotation on every college station in California. She’s already getting a lot of momentum online. Listen.”

I play the song on my phone and watch Rowland’s reaction. He leans back in his chair, fingers arched in front of him, and pouts as if he’s contemplating the meaning of life.

“Nothing’s official yet,” I say, taking advantage of Rowland’s rare silence, “but she’s a lock. We can pick her up when we want. For now, though, we need to take advantage of this buzz. She’s got a demo for now, five songs – all of them potential hits. I’ve been circulating the tape and it’s already getting good feedback. Right now, though, she needs a video, and for that I need a budget.”

“Stop the song.”

I oblige, leaning forward to turn it off, and put the phone back into my pocket.

“You want a budget,” Rowland says, leaning back in his chair even further with an expression of disapproval as if I just asked for his only daughter’s hand in marriage, “for an unsigned artist, who may not even go with us—”