Complete Corruption (Corruption #1-3)

by C. D. Reiss

  I bowed and went off stage, followed by the band. Harry bolted to the bathroom to throw up, as always. I could still hear the applause and banging feet. The room held a hundred people, and the audience sounded like a thousand. I wanted to take the moment to bathe in something other than the disappointment and failure that accompanied a career in music, but I heard Gabrielle next to me, tapping her right thumb and middle finger. Her gaze was blank, settled in a corner, her eyes as big as teacups. I followed that gaze to exactly nothing. The corner was empty, but she stared as if a mirror into herself stood there, and she didn’t like what she saw.

  I glanced at Darren, our drummer. He stared back at me, then at his sister, who had tapped those fingers since puberty.

  “Gabby,” I said.

  She didn’t answer.

  Darren poked her bicep. “Gabs? Shit together?”

  “Fuck off, Darren,” Gabby said flatly, not looking away from the empty corner.

  Darren and I looked at each other. We were each other’s first loves, back in L.A. Performing Arts High, and even after the soft, simple breakup, we had deepened our friendship to the point we didn’t need to talk with words.

  We said to each other, with our expressions, that Gabby was in trouble again.

  “We rule!” Harry gave a fist pump as he exited the bathroom, still buttoning up his pants. “You were awesome.” He punched me in the arm, oblivious to what was going on with Gabby. “My heart broke a little at ‘Split Me.’”

  “Thanks,” I said without emotion. I did feel gratitude, but we had other concerns at the moment. “Where’s Vinny?”

  Our manager, Vinny Mardigian, appeared as if summoned, all glad-handing and smiles. Such a dick. I really couldn’t stand him, but he’d seemed confident and competent when we met.

  “You happy?” I said. “We sold all our tickets at full price. Now maybe next time we won’t have to pay to play?”

  “Hello, Monica Sexybitch.” That was his pet name for me. The guy had the personality of a landfill and the drive of a shark in bloody waters. “Nice to see you too. I got Performer’s Agency on the line. Their guy’s right outside.”

  Great. I needed representation from the The Rinkydink Agency like I needed a hole in the head. But I was an artist, and I was supposed to take whatever the industry handed me with a smile and spread legs.

  Vinny, of course, couldn’t shut up worth a damn. He was high on Performer’s Agency and the worldwide fame he thought they would get us. He didn’t realize half a step forward was just as good as a full step back. “You got a crowd out there asking for an encore. Everybody here does their job, then everybody’s happy.”

  I listened, and sure enough, they were still clapping, and Gabby was still staring into the corner.

  two.

  Darren took Gabby home after the encore, which she played like the crazy prodigy she was, then she blanked out again. Her depression was ameliorated by music and brought on by just about anything, even if she was taking her meds.

  She’d attempted suicide two years before after a few weeks of corner-staring and complaining of not being able to feel anything about anything. I’d been the one to find her in the kitchen, bleeding into the sink. That had been terrific for everyone. She took my second bedroom, and Darren moved from a roommate-infested guest house in West Hollywood to a studio a block away. We played music together because music was what we did, and because it kept Gabby sane, Darren close, and me from screwing up. But it didn’t even keep us in hot dogs. We all worked, and until I got my current gig at the rooftop bar at Hotel K, I had to give up Starbucks because I couldn’t rub two nickels together to make heat.

  Because Spoken Not Stirred had drawn more people than the cost of our guaranteed tickets, we’d made three hundred dollars that night. Fifteen percent went to Vinny Landfillian. Sixty-eight dollars paid for Harry’s parking ticket because he figured if he was loading his bass and amp, he could park in a loading zone on the Sunset Strip before six o’clock. We split the rest four ways.

  Hotel K was a spanking new modernist, thirty-story diamond in a one-story stucco shitpile of a neighborhood. The rooftop bar thing in L.A. had gotten out of hand. You couldn’t swing a dead talent agent without hitting some new construction with a barside pool on the roof and thumping music day and night. The upside of the epidemic was that waitress service was the norm, and tall, skinny girls who could slip between name-dropping drunks while holding heavy trays over their heads without clocking anyone were an absolute necessity. The downside for someone tall and skinny like myself was my replaceability. You couldn’t swing a tall, skinny girl in L.A. without hitting another one.

  Darren and I had taken too long discussing who would watch Gabby. He convinced her to stay at his place for the night, though “convinced” might not be the word to use when talking about someone who didn’t care about where she slept, or anything, one way or the other.

  I ran from the elevator to the hotel locker room, the fifty bucks I’d made for holding a hundred people in my palm light in my pocket. I peeled off my jacket and stuffed it in my locker, then pulled my shirt off. I didn’t have a second to spare before Yvonne, who I was relieving, started chewing me out for stranding her on the floor. I yanked a low-cut dress that showed more leg than modesty out of my bag and wrestled into it.

  “You’re late,” Freddie, my manager, said. He stank of cigarettes, which I found disgusting.

  “I’m sorry, I had a gig.” I kicked off my shoes and pulled my pants off from under my dress. I had no time to worry about what Freddie thought of me.

  “Bully for you.” Freddie crossed his arms, scrunching his brown pinstripe suit. He had a mole on his cheek and wore a puckered expression even when he looked down my shirt, which was almost every time we talked.

  I didn’t wait to argue. I slipped back into my shoes, slapped my locker shut, and ran toward the floor.

  “Yvonne!” I caught her in the back hall as she folded a wad of tips into her pocket.

  “Monica, girl! Where were you?”

  “I’m sorry. Thanks for covering my tables. Can I make it up to you?”

  “I don’t get home in time, you can pay the sitter an extra hour.”

  “No problem,” I said, though it was a big problem.

  “Jonathan Drazen is at your table.” She put her hand to her heart. “He’s hot, and he’ll tip if he likes what he sees. So be nice.” She handed me the tickets for my station.

  Drazen was my boss’s boss. He owned the hotel, but we’d never crossed paths. Apparently, he traveled a lot, and he spent little or no time on the roof when he was in town, so we hadn’t met. This development was more annoying than anything. I’d just gotten the ovation of my life at a really cool club and was bathing in the warm validation. I didn’t need to prove myself all over again, and based on what? If it wasn’t my music, I didn’t care.

  The place was packed: wall-to-wall Eurotrash, Hollywood heavyweights, and assorted hangers-on. The pool was a big rectangle in the center of the expanse. Red chairs surrounded it, and a large cocktail area with tables and chairs sat off to the side. Little tents with couches inside outlined most of the roof, and when the curtains closed, you left them closed unless someone looked as though they’d taken off without paying.

  I stood at the service bar, flipping through my tickets. Five tables, two with little star punch-outs in the upper right hand corners. Put there by Freddie, they meant someone important was at the table. Extra care was required.

  My first tray was a star punch-out. I put on a smile and navigated through the crowd to deliver the tray to a table in the corner. Four men, and I knew Drazen right away. He had red hair cut just below the ears, disheveled in that absolutely precise way. He wore jeans and a grey shirt that showed off his broad shoulders and hard biceps. His full lips stretched across flawless, natural teeth when he saw his tray coming, and I was caught a little off guard by how much I couldn’t stop looking at him.

  “H-Hi,” I stammered. “I�
��ll be your server.” I smiled. That always worked. Then I thought happy thoughts because that made my smile genuine, and I watched Drazen move his gaze from my smiling face, over my breasts, to my hips, stopping at my calves. I felt as if I were being applauded again.

  He looked back at my face. I stared right back at him, and he pursed his lips. I’d caught him looking, and he seemed justifiably embarrassed.

  “Hello,” he said. “You’re new.” His voice resonated like a cello, even over the music.

  I checked Yvonne’s notes and picked up a short glass with ice and amber liquid from the tray. “You have the Jameson’s?”

  “Thank you.” He nodded to me, keeping his eyes on my face and off my body. Even then, I felt as if I were being eaten alive, sucked to fluid, mouthful by mouthful. A liquid feeling came over me, and I stopped doing my job for half a second while I allowed myself to be completely saturated by that warm feeling. In that moment, of course, someone, a man judging from the weight of impact, pushed or got pushed, and my tray went flying.

  For a second, the glasses hung in the air like a handful of glitter, and I thought I could catch them. I felt the sound of the impact too long after three gin and tonics splashed over each guest. I was shocked into silence as everyone at the table stood, hands out, dripping, clothes getting darker at crotches and chests. A collective gasp rose from everyone within splash distance.

  Freddie appeared like a zombie smelling fresh brains. “You’re fired.” He turned to Drazen and said, “Sir, can I get you anything? We have shirts—”

  Drazen shook a splash of liquid off his hand. “It’s fine.”

  “I am so sorry,” I said.

  Freddie got between me and my former boss, as if I would beg him for my job back, which I’d never do, and said, “Get your things.”

  three.

  Fuck it. Fuck that job and everything else. I’d get another one. I promised myself I was going to make it big, and when I did, I would come in here with my freaking entourage and Freddie was going to serve me whatever I wanted for no tip at all. Not even a cent. And Jonathan Drazen was going to sit by me and look at me just like he did before I spilled gin and tonic all over him, but like I’m an equal, not some little piece of candy working for tips.

  I slammed my locker shut.

  I had to find another job soon. I always paid my housing expenses first, but we owed the studio money, and I couldn’t take another dime from Harry.

  Freddie strode down the dim hallway, toes pointed out and walking like a duck on a mission.

  “Fuck off, Freddie. I’m leaving, and by the way, you’re an—”

  “Mister Drazen wants to see you.”

  “Fuck him. He can’t summon me. I don’t work for him anymore.”

  Freddie smiled like a sly cat. “Sometimes he gives the short timers a severance if he feels bad. Nice chunka change. After that, you can get the hell out if you don’t want to sleep with him. I’d like to see him not get laid for once.”

  He took a step closer. I didn’t know why he’d get close enough to touch me, so I didn’t back away, and when he slapped my ass, I was so stunned I didn’t move. He ended the slap with a pinch.

  “What did you…?”

  But he was already waddling off, elbows bent, as if someone else’s life needed to be miserable and he was just the guy to make it so. I stood there with my mouth open, seventy percent mad at him for being a complete molester and thirty percent mad at myself for being too shocked to punch him in the face.

  four.

  I had pride. I had so much pride that heeling at Jonathan Drazen’s beck and call for a “chunka change” was the most humiliating thing I could think of doing. But there I was, in front of his ajar door on the thirtieth floor, knocking, not because I needed the money (which I did), and not because I wanted him to look at me like that again (which I also did), but because I couldn’t have been the first waitress ass-slapped, or worse, by Freddie. If Drazen wasn’t aware of Freddie’s douchebaggery, he needed to be.

  The office looked onto the Hollywood Hills, which must have been stunning in daylight. At night, the neighborhood was just a splash of twinkling lights on a black canvas. He stood behind his desk, back to the window, the room’s soft lighting a flattering glaze on the perfect skin of his forearms. He wore a fresh pair of jeans and a white shirt. The dark wood and frosted glass accentuated the fact his office was meant to be a comforting space, and even though I knew the setting was manipulating me, I relaxed.

  “Come on in,” he said.

  I stepped onto the carpet, its softness easing the pain caused by my high heels.

  “I’m sorry I spilled on you. I’ll pay for dry cleaning, if you want.”

  “I don’t want. Sit down.” His green eyes flickered in the lamplight. I had to admit he was stunning. His copper hair curled at the edges, and his smile could light a thousand cities. He couldn’t have been older than his early thirties.

  “I’ll stand,” I said. I was wearing a short skirt, and judging from the way he’d looked at me on the roof, if I sat down, I’d receive another stare that would make me want to jump him.

  “I want to apologize for Freddie,” he said. “He’s a little more aggressive than he should be.”

  “We need to talk about that,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow and came around to the front of the desk. He wore some cologne that stole the scent of sage leaves on a foggy day: dry, dusty, and clean. He leaned on his desk, putting his hands behind him, and I could see the whole length of his body: broad shoulders, tight waist, and straight hips. He looked at me again, then down to the floor. I felt as if he’d moved his hands off of me, and at once I was thrilled and ashamed. I wasn’t going to be intimidated or scared. I wasn’t going to let him look away from me. If he wanted to stare, he should stare. I placed my hands on my hips and let my body language challenge him to put his eyes where they wanted to go, not the floor.

  Because, fuck him.

  “Freddie’s a douchebag.” I could tell from his expression that was the wrong way to start. I needed to keep opinions and juicy expressions to myself and state facts. “He said you’re going to try and sleep with me, for one.” He smiled as if he really was going to try to sleep with me and got caught.

  “Then,” I continued, because I wanted to wipe that smile off his gorgeous face, “he grabbed my ass.”

  The smile melted as though it was an ice cube in a hot frying pan. He took his hungry eyes off mine, a relief on one hand and a disappointment on the other. “I was going to offer you severance.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “Let me finish.”

  I nodded, a sting of prickly heat spreading across my cheeks.

  “The severance was in case you didn’t want to continue working here,” he said. “Even though I can’t stand the smell of the gin you got on me, I don’t think you should lose your job over it. But now that you told me that, what should I do? If I give you severance, it looks like I’m paying you off. And if I unfire you, it looks like I’m letting you stay because I’m afraid of getting sued.”

  “I get it,” I said. “If he said you’d try to sleep with me, then you’ve got your own shit to hide, and nothing would bring it out better than a lawsuit.” I waited a second to see if I could glean anything from his eyes, but he had his business face on, so I put on my sarcasm face. “Quite a terrible position you’re in.”

  His nod told me he understood me. His position was privileged. He got to make choices about my life based on his convenience. “What do you do, Monica?”

  “I’m a waitress.”

  He smirked, looking at me full on, and I wanted to drop right there. “That’s your circumstance. It’s not who you are. Law school, maybe?”

  “Like hell.”

  “Teacher, woodworker, volleyball player?” He ran the words together quickly, and I guessed he could come up with another hundred potential professions before he got it right.

  “I’m a musician,
” I said.

  “I’d like to see you play sometime.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

  “Indeed.” He walked behind his desk. “I assume no one witnessed this alleged ass-grab?”

  “Correct.”

  He opened a drawer and flipped through some files. “I hired Freddie, and he’s my responsibility to manage. Your responsibility is to report it to someone besides me.” He handed me a slip of paper. It was a standard U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission flyer. “The numbers are on there. File a report. Send me a copy, please. It would protect both of us.”

  I stared at the paper. Drazen could get into a lot of trouble if enough reports were filed. I intended to tell the authorities what happened because I couldn’t stand Freddie, but I felt a little sheepish about getting Drazen cited or investigated.

  “You’re not an asshole,” I said.

  He bowed his head, and though I couldn’t see his face, I imagined he was smiling. He took a card from his pocket and came back around the desk. “My friend Sam owns the Stock downtown. I think it’s a better fit for you. I’ll tell him you might call.”

  When I took the card, I had an urge I couldn’t resist. I reached my hand a little farther than I should have and brushed my finger against his. A shot of pleasure drove through me, and his finger flicked to extend the touch.

  I had to get away from that guy as fast as possible.

  five.

  Los Angeles weather in late September was mid-July weather everywhere else—dog’s-mouth hot, sweat-through-your-antiperspirant hot, car-exhaust hot. Gabby seemed better than the previous night, but Darren and I were on our toes.

  Gabby said she was going for a walk and, trying to make sure she wasn’t alone, I suggested she and I get ice cream at the artisanal place on Sunset.

  We sat on the outside patio so the noise would mask our conversation. I poked at my strawberry basil ice cream while she considered her wasabi/honey longer than she might have a week ago.