by Jess Bentley
“Oh, good morning, Dahlia. You're here early,” she remarks. She slides her glasses from her nose and sets them on top of the papers.
“Oh, you know, I usually try to get a good start, first thing,” I reply, secretly pleased that she finally noticed. “There’s usually nobody here. Is everything all right?”
She doesn't answer right away, breathing through her nostrils and shaking her head from time to time. I can't make out the spreadsheet that's in front of her, but it doesn't look like good news to me. There are circles and lines in assorted colors of highlighter, making an abstract graffiti.
“Come on in, won't you?”
This doesn't sound good. I enter quietly, sitting on the cocoa-colored velvet chair in front of her desk, right on the edge. I smooth my skirt over my knees and try to appear attentive and receptive.
“How long have you been here, Dahlia?” she begins, without raising her eyes to meet mine.
I swallow hard. My throat feels tight.
“About six months, I think,” I reply quietly.
“Yes, that does seem about right,” she answers. “August was good to send you to us. You’ve been a quick study. Are you enjoying your time here with us?”
I nod silently, then remember to answer. “Yes, very much. I'm learning so much.”
She finally looks up, narrowing her bright blue, intelligent eyes at me. She has this icy, clear stare that looks like it goes right through you, calculating the weight of your soul instantly.
“I'm happy to hear you say that. Do you think you are ready to take on something more?”
I try not to appear too excited. So I’m not in trouble? Thank God.
“Actually, I was just thinking the same thing, Lori,” I smile, relieved. “I'd love to expand my responsibilities here. What sort of things do you think I could do?”
She leans back in her chair, staring at the ceiling briefly and steepling her fingertips in front of her chest. Another ex-Marine like August, Lori Coleman was a tremendously decorated veteran of the Afghanistan war. An injury that she doesn't like to talk about removed her from active duty. People around here mention it in hushed tones from time to time, but I’ve never been able to get the details.
The word is, she was one of the rising stars in her unit. She could have been very highly ranked, eventually working in the White House. She’s beautiful and obviously brilliant too, so politics looked like a possibility, or maybe a stint as a PR person or political pundit on CNN or something. But unfortunately, her career was cut short. For some reason she chose to stay out of the limelight and not go into politics at all. She stays on the fringes, working from the shadows.
This company is very much her project, her baby even. She built it from the ground up, August told me. I can see from her pained expression that whatever she is looking at is troubling her deeply.
“Well, Dahlia… I'm just going to put it to you straight,” she begins. “Some of our contract negotiations broke down, and we're forced to find other sources of revenue. To put it in the starkest of terms: if I don't find new business soon, we’re going to need to be looking at cutting back.”
“Cutting back?” I repeat meekly.
She nods, sighing. “I have a few options on the table, but if I don't find replacement contracts to substitute for those ones that the goddamn LRD brothers stole out from under me, things could get rough. So one way that I can control costs is by asking everyone who's here to do a little more.”
“I would do anything you needed,” I agree brightly. “All you have to do is ask, Lori. What can I do to help?”
She knuckles her chin, scowling. “To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. Like I said, I lost a few contracts and I don't have signatures on the few that are in queue. I'd love to give you more responsibilities, let you take on a deeper kind of work, but…”
I shake my head helplessly. “I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Lori.”
She looks around, then finally sighs for a long time. “I think I need coffee,” she admits. “I'm not really sure what to ask you for here either, Dahlia. I'm just grasping at straws at this point. It's not like you're going to be able to invent new business out of the middle of the air, right? I'm going to have to solve this problem myself. But I am glad to know that you're willing, Dahlia. That means a lot.”
I push myself up to standing, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot as she directs her interest back to the spreadsheet in front of her. I wish there was something I could say, and I wrack my brain, wondering if there's anything I can do to help.
“Have you heard of Kirkman East?” I blurt out before I even think it through. What am I doing? It's not our client.
She raises her eyebrows, squinting. “The musician? From… Portland or something?”
“Seattle, I guess,” I continue, swallowing hard. I don’t think this is the right thing to do, but I'm afraid of what she's talking about. Am I about to lose my job? Thinking that I just almost lost my job because I was the first person in the office this morning hardly seems fair.
“Yes, I've heard of him. Can’t say that I have really followed his music, but I know who he is, more or less.”
I flex my wrists and smile thinly, wishing I could take it all back now.
“Well… just… let me look into a little bit, okay? There might be an opportunity there,” I suggest, trying to conceal just how out on a limb I am. Who the heck do I think I am?
“Look into what?”
She pushes her hair behind her ears, obviously intrigued. I think I see a small smile playing at the corner of her lips. Maybe she suspects how unlikely my offer is, or maybe she's just glad that I'm trying to be such a team player.
“Well to be honest, I'm not sure there's anything there,” I confess. “But I have it on good authority that he's here, in town. He does these secret recording sessions. Maybe there's a protection detail or something like that. I will try to find out.”
Tipping her head to the side, she regards me for long seconds. I almost want to tell her that I don't know what I'm talking about, that I'm just repeating something that August said even though I have absolutely no right to do that. Or maybe I should just bolt out of the room. I should just clean out my desk and hustle my ass back down to my little Escort and leave. But instead of that, I sit up straighter, trying to pretend like I even know what I'm talking about.
“Dahlia, that sounds like a good idea. Why don’t you to look into that for me, see if there’s something there. Don't tell anyone else — are we understood? Just between us, for now.”
I nod tightly. “I can do that.”
She smiles, one of rare times I've actually seen a smile on her face that didn't look false and sculpted. A real smile.
“All right then. I’ve got a lot of work to do here. Let me know what you find out.”
As I hustle back to my desk, I wonder, just what the hell do I think I am doing?
Chapter 27
August
Empty Chair Recording Studios was founded by a rap artist from Los Angeles, who took the advantages of his meteoric rise and parlayed them into an entire empire. Clothing endorsements, a line of Adidas sneakers named after him, the occasional HuffPo article, movie walk-ons, multiple walks on the red carpet. Your fairytale rags to riches story, personified.
Since you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a recording studio in LA, he decided to distribute his home base all over the United States. He founded several discreet recording spaces in secret locations, letting people in on the secret one by one.
Outside of Chicago and Minneapolis, I know there are three more scattered around the southern United States. This is the only one on the eastern seaboard. It's one of those secret locations that everybody seems to know about, but nobody seems to have all the right information.
From the outside, it looks like it might even be a parking garage. It's a four-story structure, with geometric concrete lines fitted into each other. It almost looks like one of those Soviet-era cons
tructions, or maybe a private prison. Windows are small and inset, like the archery outposts in medieval castles. From the ground level, a casual passerby wouldn’t even be able to find the way inside.
There’s no sound, no lights, no way to know even if there are hundreds of people in the building. It’s a fortress. I really do admire this building quite a bit. Couldn't have designed it better myself.
After punching an access code into the hidden gate, I roll my BMW into the underground parking garage. There are two vehicles in here that I don't recognize, indicating that Kirkman has been distributing the security code to visitors, which he is not supposed to do. Anyone who's brought in is supposed to go through the metal detector and retinal scanner, as well as being checked by a security guard against the manifest of approved persons. They're certainly not supposed to be given any of the codes. I'm going to have to remember to change those.
The building is four stories, plus the basement which houses the swimming pool as well as the parking garage. The first floor is a large performance space, complete with a fully stocked bar and closed-circuit video displays. There is luxurious stadium seating as well as a lighted dance floor. That was installed after Prince performed here the second time. Prince always loved for people to dance at his shows.
The second two floors are all recording studios. From what I understand, they are state-of-the-art, with rooms designed in various sizes for the kinds of artists that are going to be recorded. There are tiny, coffin like rooms for particular kinds of singers, then slightly larger rooms for groups, then cavernous spaces for ensembles to play while they stare at each other, like an old-fashioned theater arrangement.
The mixing boards are extravagant, with thousands of knobs and dials. There are two qualified sound engineers that I'm aware of. Two of them are on the personnel profiles that I received, anyway. Kirkman bought his own, but he left shortly after, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task.
And then the top floor is the matching penthouse suites. That's where I need to go first. That's why I received a phone call at five-thirty this morning.
I thumb the button for the penthouse and wait for the elevator to shoot silently to that level. I know instantly which one I'm supposed to investigate: the door is still ajar.
I don't see Kirkman. As I walk quietly from room to room, careful not to disturb anything, I take mental notes. Sofa cushions are strewn on the floor, two end tables lay on their sides with the contents spilled.
The granite countertops in the kitchen are littered with near-empty glasses and bottles, even red plastic cups for some reason. Looks like they attempted a game of beer pong at some point. One of the light fixtures flickers erratically.
But Kirkman is not present. I head back for the elevator and decide to try the second floor. As soon as enter the hallway, I see a light is on in one of the control booths. Clenching my jaw, I head that way.
Kirkman East sits — or rather, lays — across a lilac leather sofa, the heels of his boots digging dents into the cushions that I hope will eventually reinflate. It’s not my sofa,or I would tell him to move his feet.
When I walk into the studio, he throws one hand into the air, holding up a single finger, telling me to wait. The white leather headphones that clap over his ears make him look like some kind of bug as he bounces his head back and forth, his eyes closed, his lips moving over the words like he's whispering into somebody's ear.
God, I hate musicians.
To be fair, I don’t think he actually is a musician. I think he is a singer of unremarkable talent with a lot of incredibly talented people behind him that nobody's ever going to hear about. They’ll fall into the shadows while he sucks up the limelight.
But he does look like the part. He’s in skinny jeans, two belts for no reason, and a silk shirt that's unbuttoned practically to his navel like nobody ever taught him how to button up a goddamn shirt. He is probably the least motherfucking talented person in this entire building, and he's the one who constantly gets his picture taken. He's the one with the two dozen unconscious girls draped over the furniture in the next room. He's the one who gets to buy three-thousand-dollar bottles of champagne and then forget them on the table at the bar when he wanders off to go chat up somebody else.
Seriously, this guy.
His fingers continue to bounce in the air, ticking back and forth as though conducting, finally shivering as though holding out one long, excruciating note. After way too long, he sits up, pushing the headphones down so that they circle his neck. He looks me over from top to bottom.
“You needed me?” he asks me.
“What gave it away?” I retort.
“Don’t be a smartass,” he sneers, sucking his teeth dramatically. “You came to me, so you must need something. I'm working, as you can see. What is it?”
So, that's working: laying on a sofa in a ridiculous outfit, pretending to listen to music. I want to say something else, but this guy really is overpaying me. I should probably try to be nice.
“I wasn't aware that you were also a sound engineer,” I comment.
He takes a deep breath and stares at the ceiling.
“I have to review the mix,” he explains as though my intrusion irritates him. “It's good. These guys are good. It only needs a few things.”
“Where's your guy? Is he coming in to work on this?”
Kirkman looks me up and down.
“He's on the schedule,” he reminds me, scowling.
“Oh, you're right… the schedule. He is on it.”
Pressing the button, I bring my iPad to life and pull up the schedule, holding it out in front of me so Kirkman can see it. He's too far away to read the entries, but he nods anyway.
“Like I said,” he says.
“Good,” I reply. “I'm glad to see you do read the schedule. You know what's on the schedule, all the approved people, everything we put together.”
Closing his eyes, he cups the headphones as though is going to put them back over his ears. “Okay, I see you are trying to make a point,” he sighs dramatically. “So, what is it, August? What can I do for you?”
“I was just upstairs,” I start.
“So?”
“So, there are sixteen women in the penthouse,” I tell him.
He raises his eyebrows and stares at me. I count to eight in my mind, calming myself.
“So?” he finally says. “What’s your point? Sixteen women isn’t a record for me or anything.”
He smirks, as though I should be impressed and wondering what he would do with sixteen women. I’m not impressed.
“How many women are on the manifest, Kirk?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
I pull up the manifest on my iPad and then hold it out so he can see it.
“You don't know how many women are on the manifest, Kirk?”
He rolls his eyes at me and then lays back down, dramatically kicking his heels back up onto the arm of the sofa. His eyes close and he crosses his hands over his dick protectively for no apparent reason. In fact, I hadn't actually even thought about punching him in the dick until he made that stupid move right there.
I hate musicians. Hate them.
“Kirk?”
“That's not my name,” he groans. “Kirkman. My name is Kirkman. Use it.”
I shake my head, taking deep breaths. This little wiener mobile is not worth getting my blood pressure up. He would be impossible to reeducate, and it would be beneath me to try to deflate his swollen head even a little bit. There's no point.
“Kirkman, there are only fourteen women on the manifest. That's all that are ever supposed to be in this building, assuming every single one of them is here at the same time. Now, I haven't bothered trying to wake them because I don't think all of them will be able to be awoken at this time. But how many of the women who are actually on the manifest are supposed to be in the penthouse?”
He shrugs. “Things got crazy last night, man.”
“Okay, just tr
y to remember. To the best of your recollection?”
“Dude… I don't even know,” he sighs irritably. “Why don’t you just fucking tell me? Okay? I know you are trying to make a point here, but I really don't get what it is. So can you just tell me?”
He crosses his feet the other way, not even caring that his boots are scuffing the leather sofa arm. That’s not going to come out.
But it’s not my job to point that out.
Then again, wouldn’t I be doing the world a favor? Just to take him down a peg or two? I could teach him some manners. Teach him some Marines-style restraint and respect. Teach him the basics on being a real man, assuming he has the potential to learn even that much.
Alternatively, I could kick his ass. I could dangle him by his ankles out the penthouse window until the TV crew got here. Of course, then everyone would know this location and it would no longer be a secret.
The easiest thing to do would be to simply allow this morning to unfold the way it naturally would without my intervention, let the women sleep, and assume he won’t do it again now that I have pointed it out.
Of course, then I wouldn't be doing my job, now would I?
“To be honest, Kirkman,” I begin again, “the point is that there are definitely at least two unauthorized visitors in the penthouse, but maybe more. I don't actually know yet. I'm about to find out, but before I do… I just wanted to alert you to what your lapse in judgment has brought you.”
I find the picture on my iPad, blowing it up real big and holding it out to him. He finally rolls his head toward me, squinting.
“I don't what that is,” he huffs.
I rotate it back so I can look at it. He's got a point. Doesn't really look like much of anything to me either.
“That's your dick, Kirkman,” I inform him. “On Instagram. At five AM.”
He sits up suddenly, his eyes wide. “What… wait, are you fucking kidding me?”