Alex hadn’t had much sleep himself the last few days, and it wasn’t long before he was snoring along with Eric.
He had no idea how much time passed.
He was deep under when a savage argument outside tore him awake — a long string of words starting with F.
“What’s going on?”
He rubbed his eyes and sat up.
Eric had the studio door open and was propped against the frame, watching the show.
No wonder the noise had gotten through.
Eric turned his head, put a finger to his lips, made the sign for keep it down, and then flipped a piece of colored paper at him.
It was the cassette sleeve for Lori’s first album.
The design wasn’t anything to write home about: Lori got up in full hip-hop kit, mic in one hand, the other pointing straight out at the viewer, being cool.
The title underneath gave Lori’s name and nothing else — Lori II.
It took Alex a moment to catch what the cover was actually saying.
This album has nothing to do with Al.
Every poster hung in Old Joe Music had always shown Lori and Al together, Lori out front, sure, but Al impossible to miss.
And now.
He listened harder, and yes — that was Al doing the yelling.
He walked over to Eric.
The hallway outside was littered with fresh album sleeves and folded lyric inserts, scattered wherever they’d landed; no telling who had thrown them.
Alex picked up a lyric sheet.
The new album had originally had fifteen songs on it, sixteen counting the thrift store track, but this insert listed only thirteen.
Which meant Old Joe had quietly killed three songs.
And those three songs—
He worked at his memory for a second and got there.
The three that had been cut were the three where Al’s presence was strongest.
Carl went past the door at a run.
Three seconds later, Al’s cursing stopped mid-word.
“Whoa,” Eric said, and followed.
Alex tucked in behind him.
Old Joe’s office had been rearranged into pieces all over the floor.
Al, red-eyed, was wrapped up tight in Carl’s arms with Carl’s hand clamped over his mouth, and he still wasn’t giving up — twisting, wrenching, trying to break the hold, both feet still kicking out toward Old Joe.
Old Joe, Pablo, Lil Lori, Tony, all of them were there.
There were several very clear footprints on the front of Old Joe’s pink suit.
Lori, standing behind Tony where Tony had put him, had no expression on his face at all.
Whatever he was thinking, he kept it.
“Calm down! Al!” Pablo kept working him.
“This was a decision, we made it on purpose, and it’s good for everybody! You want this album to sell too, right? If the album does numbers, then it’s good for you too, in the end. And it’s three songs. It’s only three. You’re still on all the other—”
A few minutes of that, and perhaps a deeper appreciation of what exactly Carl was capable of, and Al finally quit fighting and went slowly still. Read this novel at novelping . com for the best experience.
“Let him go,” Pablo said, waving a hand.
Carl let go.
“Bullshit.” Al had, in fact, calmed down.
He straightened his rumpled clothes.
“If I hadn’t happened to see the samples the plant sent over, you’d have put this out without ever telling me. Don’t give me any more of the sweet talk. It’s all lies. I was blind.”
“Hey. Nobody cheated anybody. Business is business,” Pablo said.
“Right. Right.”
Al shoved past Carl and headed for the door.
“I see you now. All of you, with your money and your muscle. Every day of the week it’s brother this and brother that, and the minute something’s on the line you start talking like white men. Business is business. Business is business.”
“Hey!” Pablo called after him.
“Where do you think you’re going? The album promotion starts any day now!”
“Promotion with me in it? Keep dreaming.”
Pablo’s temper went up too.
“Don’t play games with me, you idiot! I’m your agent, you go where I put you!”
“You’re fired.”
Al didn’t look back, and left the rest of them staring at each other.
“That idiot!” Pablo spat.
Old Joe peeled off the pink suit and sat back down behind his desk.
“You need to handle him. He can’t be out there running his mouth right now, not at this stage.”
“And how am I supposed to do that? This is what your brilliant idea got us!” Pablo undid the top two buttons of his shirt and paced a few tight circles.
“You!” He snapped his fingers at Tony.
“Go talk him into coming back. If you can’t do that, at minimum keep him steady.”
“What am I supposed to—” Tony mumbled, and then saw Pablo winding up again and went out the door after Al.
“Look, audiences haven’t bought into beatboxing yet. Even without APLUS’s song coming in, I was already planning to cut Al’s weight on this record,” Old Joe said, giving them the truth of it.
“Lori’s target is young women. And Al’s look is a disaster.”
So the ugly don’t get any rights around here either.
Alex kept that one to himself.
With this little episode out of the way, his life ought to be able to get back on its rails.
He had nothing to do with the album’s promotion; if anything, Pablo and Lori would need to deliberately play down the thrift store song’s role in it.
Which meant the plan to go grind out school credits was back on.
Unfortunately, things did not go the way he wanted.
When he got home, there was Al again.
He and Tony were in the bedroom playing a video game.
Super Mario.
The two of them didn’t stop until midnight.
Al’s mood thawed by degrees, and the more it thawed the more he talked, and soon he and Tony were hollering at the screen together.
Alex lay on his bed with dry eyes and no tears left to cry.
The Nintendo and the little TV had just come out of the secondhand market.
He regretted it deeply. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
He couldn’t sleep once he’d shut his eyes, either.
He was fairly sure the game’s little chiming coin sound was going to scrub his brain clean.
Four thousand five hundred dollars in.
Twenty-five hundred out on the truck and the rest of the secondhand haul.
Five hundred to Aunt Susie.
The remaining fifteen hundred he’d put in the bank in exchange for a checkbook, with no plan whatsoever for how to spend it.
He had also made a point of asking about taxes: the money he earned between January and April of this year got paid in next April’s tax season, so there was no need to fret about it yet.
There was no telling when the next Revelation would come.
According to Hayden, his agent, record royalties were not something to expect on any short timeline — a year, a year and a half of delay was ordinary.
Especially after the business with Al, now that Alex had a clearer sense of Old Joe’s and Pablo’s moral horizons, he’d told Hayden to sit on the royalty accounting and not let those two try anything cute.
That was tied directly to Hayden’s own interests, so Hayden had told him to relax: he had the best agency in the country behind him, and William Morris did not take kindly to being trifled with.
That was what signing with a big firm bought you.
Two in the morning, and the brothers in front of the television showed no sign of stopping.
“Hey, Al.”
Alex decided he wasn’t letting them run any longer, or he’d be up all night worrying about his own career.
“What’s the plan now?” he asked.
“Haven’t thought about it.”
Al set the controller down.
“Go back to working at the restaurant. Keep messing around. I don’t have gang people behind me, there’s nothing I can do to them. Chalk it up as a star dream.”
What the hell, that’s it?
That’s how easy you’re taking this?
Alex kept it inward.
Still, as long as Al didn’t make trouble and didn’t go running to the press, that suited Alex fine.
During an album’s promotional window a story like that was genuinely dangerous.
And with three songs gone off Lori’s record, the percentage his own track drew went up.
“You’re a good brother. It’s fine. I’ll go back and tell Lori we’re all family,” Tony said, working hard at it.
“And you go apologize to Pablo, tell him things got heated in the daytime—”
“You still don’t get it?” Al understood people better than Tony did.
“When I was going off in there, Lori didn’t say one word. You don’t know what that means? The album went from being the two of us to being his alone. He’s the one who gains the most out of this. Business is business. Pablo gave me up, plain as day.”
“Uh.” Tony had nothing to say to that.
“It’s okay, brother.
Take a couple days, rest up, think it over.” Then, to Alex: “Al doesn’t want to stay at Lori’s place anymore.
He’s going to sleep in my bed a few days, and I’ll go stay with Lori.”
“What?”
Alex looked at Al, who had already picked the controller back up to resume his campaign, and pulled the blanket over his head.