Chapter 5.
1994
The copyright case was pretty simple. Bangers, a UK-based pseudo-pop-rap band, had used a few bars of Haydn in their breakout song. Haydn wasn’t protected under US copyright, obviously, but Martin Wright was, and he claimed Bangers had used his recording of Opus 33 repeatedly in the song.
Bangers countersued for libel, denying the claims and producing proof that they’d hired a string quartet to play the piece. Martin Wright couldn’t prove it was his recording since he claimed they changed the speed so that they wouldn’t sync up.
“By way of introduction, everyone, this is Drew McCaffrey,” Thoze said.
Drew nodded at everyone, and I thought he lingered on me, but maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I lingered on him.
“Mister McCaffrey is here from the New York office, where he represents the interests of… god, how many musicians?”
“All of them, if I could.”
Ellen giggled, sighed, caught herself. She was newly divorced, in her mid-thirties, and suddenly giggling. She was tall and attractive. Well put-together in her daily chignon and Halston suit. Closer to Drew’s age and expertise. I had the sudden desire to lick him so I could call him mine.
Thoze continued. “Martin Wright, the cellist, was LA-based at the time of recording, and he’s trying to bring this through a favorable court system. Thank you for bringing this to us, Mister McCaffrey, but no one has a case.” Thoze closed his folder. “I say we send Mister Wright on his way.”
“They stole it,” Drew interjected.
“You can’t prove it,” Peter Donahugh said, brushing his fingers over his tie to make sure his double-Windsor knot was still where it ought to be. “No one can. The cost to the client would outweigh the award.”
Drew put his pen on the table, taking a second of silence to make his case. I’d known a musician puffy from drugs and alcohol. The guy across from me, taking three seconds to get his thoughts together, had the same blue eyes, but he also had a law degree. He still had guitar string calluses on his fingers and a tattoo that crept out from under his left cuff.
The Rolling Stone piece I’d read hadn’t gone past Indy’s devastation over Strat’s death. I never heard about Indiana again. Didn’t know his career choice post-mortem.
God damn. This suited him.
He pressed his beautiful lips together, leaned forward, and turned his head toward Thoze the Doze. I could see the tendons in his neck and the shadow the acute angle of his jaw cast against it.
I remembered how that neck smelled when I pressed my face against it.
“It was the most popular recording of Opus 33 when the song was mixed.” Drew laid his fingertips on the table like a tent. “These guys, Bangers, didn’t have a peanut butter jar to piss in. Moxie Zee charged an arm and a leg to produce, but he’s a lazy snake. He billed the band for hiring a quartet that never existed, and I know him. He isn’t searching out the least-used version of Haydn’s Opus.”
“A case is only as good as what you can prove,” Peter said.
Drew kept his eyes on Thoze when he answered. “He’s produced a bunch of paper. Not one actual cellist.”
“We’re not in the business of proving what isn’t there.” Thoze wove his hands together in front of him. “Absent something that proves malfeasance, we have nothing.”
“What am I supposed to tell Martin? We don't care?”
“Tell him we’re looking for something we can act on.”
Thoze stood. His assistant stood. Peter and Ellen stood. I took the cue and gathered papers. I looked up at Drew to see if he was going to react at all, and he was reacting.
He was looking at me as if I had an answer. I couldn’t move. Ellen tried to linger in the conference room, but in our shared stare and shared history there sat a thousand years, and Ellen didn’t have that kind of time.
She cleared her throat. “Margie, can you grab me a coffee from the lounge on the third floor?”
“There’s coffee right there,” I answered from a few hundred miles away.
“It’s better on three.”
“I’m going for breakfast,” Drew said, not moving. “I’ll grab some coffee. Donuts too.”
“Send the clerk. That’s what they’re for.”
Was Ellen still talking?
“She can come.”
Ellen paused then slinked out.
As soon as the glass door clicked, Drew spoke. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I had no idea you had a brain in your head.”
It really was amazing how his lips were so even, top and bottom. How had I not seen that? Or the way his eyes were darker at the edges than the center?
“Things changed a lot since then.”
I was feeling things, and now with his voice sounding like a cracked sidewalk, I knew he was too. That wouldn’t do. It made me uncomfortable, as if my skin was the wrong size.
“I’m sorry. About Strat. I know you guys were close.”
I’d broken the spell.
Drew pulled his gaze away and put his briefcase on the table, snapping it open when he answered. “Thank you.”
“Was it bad?” I had no business asking that, but I had to because I should have been there. I should have done the impossible, leapt time and space, presumed a friendship I might have made up, and been there for them.
“It was bad.”
He plopped his briefs in the case. I was supposed to get up and straighten the room out, but I couldn’t stop watching him, remembering what he’d been to me for a short time and how those few weeks had changed me.
“What studio did Bangers record in?” I asked.
“Audio City.” He slid his case off the table and went for the door.
Just as he touched the handle, I spoke. “Have you done a Request for Production?”
He didn’t open the door but turned slightly in my direction, curious and cautious. “I don’t see what that would prove.”
I stood. “I’m only a clerk.”
“I’m sure that’s temporary.”
I pushed the chairs in, straightening up as I was meant to. I didn’t want him to feel pressured to take advice from someone who hadn’t even passed her bar yet. Someone who had been no better than a smart-mouthed groupie all those years ago. But I wanted to be heard.
“You want to scare the hell out of them, you call in some favors at Audio City,” I said. “Take Teddy out for some drinks. Be seen. And you file a Request for Production to aid discovery. Teddy hands over the masters.”
“They’ll be mixed down. They’re useless.”
“There’s more to a tape than the music. There’s pops and scratches. Match them to Wright’s master. It’s like a fingerprint.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s true if you believe it is. You’re not trying to prove anything. You’re trying to get Moxie Zee to crack.”
He took his hand off the door handle. I noticed then looked away.
“What you want,” I continued, trying to sound casual, “is for your client to be paid for his work, right? I mean, cellists make a living but not that much.”
“Not Drazen money.”
I ignored the jab. One, he smiled through it. Two, though I tried to be as anonymous as possible in the office, it was nice to be known.
“No.” I pushed the chair he’d sat in under the table. “Not Drazen money. If Moxie Zee is caught lying, most of his artists won’t care. Some will think it’s cool. But he works for Overland Studios as a music supervisor under his real name. Overland’s risk averse. They’re not keeping a guy who might have already exposed them to a lawsuit.”
“And you think Moxie will pay off Martin under the table over a fingerprinting technique that doesn’t exist?”
“People are pretty predictable.”
He nodded, bit the left side of his lower lip, tapped the door handle three times, then looked me up and down as if he wanted to eat me with a dick-shaped spoon.
“You’re still crazy,” he said softly, as if those three words were meant to seduce me.
They did. He was half a room away, and every surface between my legs was on fire. I would have swallowed, but I didn’t even have the spit to do it.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Eighteen.”
He walked out, letting the door slowly swing shut behind him, and I watched him stride down the hall in his perfect suit.
Men loved tits, legs, ass, pussy. Men loved long hair and necks. They loved clear skin and full lips. But some men, the right men—men like Drew and Strat—loved cutting themselves on sharp women, and I hadn’t been loved for the right reasons in a long, long time.