“Kel? You mean our friend in common, Kel, the rigger?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, why?”
“He still owns the complex Venture’s in, right? Didn’t he move out of his apartment and in with Mal?”
“Yeah. He’s actually partners with Derrick in Venture and—oooh!” She was already whipping out her phone. “I’m tracking ya.” She punched something in, his phone buzzing seconds later.
Doyle immediately called Kel. After Doyle identified himself, Kel warmed up immediately. They hadn’t been best friends or anything, but they’d known each other well enough.
Tilly made grabby hands gestures at Doyle’s phone. “Hold on a sec.” Doyle handed it over.
“Hey, buddy, it’s Tilly. How’s Mal doing? … Great! Listen, Doyle’s here with me right now. I’m the guilty party who gave up your number to him. Just wanted you to know I vouch for him. … Yep! Here he is.” She handed the phone back to him.
“So if Tilly’s involved,” Kel said, “it must be good. What’s up?”
“Is your apartment available to rent, by any chance?”
“The one behind the club?”
“Yes. And is it move-in ready?”
“Sure, it’s vacant, and it’s furnished. Two bedrooms, two baths. Nothing fancy, but functional. How long you need it for?”
“Well, it’s a long story, but I won’t know for sure until later tonight. But possibly two months. I need to line it up now, though. I can call you in the morning your time to confirm it. Name your price.”
Kel laughed. “For you, gratis.”
“No, seriously. It’s for a client.” He gave the briefest of details. “I need privacy for them, and you’ll have to sign a non-disclosure agreement about it, too.”
“Well, if that’s the case, you tell me what you want to pay. I won’t turn down easy money. It’s just sitting there right now because I store all my gear in the warehouse area.”
After a quick negotiation, they agreed on the price and Doyle confirmed they’d finalize the payment in the morning. Just as he ended the call, their waitress returned to take their orders.
Once they were alone again, Tilly smiled. “Sounds like you’ll have the best of both worlds for the next couple of months. Walking distance to Venture.”
“Maybe. If the guy agrees to work with me.”
“Portnoy’s Oyster is famous over in Europe, too,” Landry offered. “I remember taking a trip over to Paris a few years ago and they were in concert there.”
Tilly smacked his arm. “Shh!”
Landry glanced around and dropped his voice. “Sorry, love. My apologies. I should be more discreet.”
“Gee, ya think?” She turned back to Doyle and not-so nonchalantly steered the conversation in a hard-right turn. “Hear from Kathy lately?”
“She sent me a Christmas card. You see her?”
“No. She hasn’t been around.”
He scratched at the back of his neck. He talked to her a couple of times a year. They were even friends on Facebook. Their divorce, while personally painful to him, had been amicable.
She’d just had a baby with her new husband.
Totally vanilla.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t him—vanilla, that was.
Yet, here he was, alone.
It didn’t help that he hadn’t wanted kids.
Add to that he’d finally come out to her as bi, even though he’d had zero intentions of becoming poly or cheating on her, and it’d been the trifecta leading to “Gee, let’s talk amicable separation of assets because I don’t really think this is going to work out after all,” on her part. He hadn’t blamed her, but it still stung. He might be a trained professional, but even he wasn’t immune to feeling abandonment issues.
Cris arrived then, sliding into the booth next to Doyle after greeting Tilly, Landry, and the sleeping baby with kisses. “Doyle.” They shook. “Long time, no see.”
“Glad Ross didn’t get a chance to make good on some of his threats,” Doyle teased.
Cris laughed. “You and me both.”
* * * *
“You have got to be shitting me.” Malcolm Levi Maynard, lead vocalist, guitar player, and award-winning, multi-platinum songwriter for the band Portnoy’s Oyster, stood at the heavily tinted window. It looked out on a very tiny area the size of a closet, which was ringed with tall, thick bushes. Technically, he could see sunlight during the day, but it wasn’t exactly a view.
It was, however, safe from photographers’ prying zoom lenses and drones. And now that it was after sunset, he really couldn’t see anything outside, either.
“I’m not, Mevi,” Clark told him. “This is your only opportunity. Your literal last chance. Otherwise, they’ll enact the forcible separation clause. They all voted this morning, after they heard you refused to take on the sober companion they offered to hire yesterday.”
“This fucking sucks.”
“You brought this on yourself.”
He whirled on Clark. “You saw the bank records yourself and you say that to me? Fuck you!”
“I meant the drinking, and you damn well know it. If you say no, fine, then we can file bankruptcy for you in less than a week and you won’t be on the tour or the next album. Your choice.”
Mevi had run the other guy off yesterday, thinking he could talk Clark into changing his mind.
But if the band was going to pull this shit…
Fuck.
He really didn’t have a choice now, and he knew it.
“If I say yes,” Mevi finally said, stalling, “then what?”
“I drive you there now to meet him, and you leave with him from there. I already packed for you.”
The rest of his stuff that he’d had while in rehab was sitting packed and ready to go on his bed, including his acoustic guitar, and had been since earlier in the day when he thought Clark was coming for him then.
Clark held Mevi’s durable medical power of attorney, part of the requirement of him being at this particular rehab facility.
And he couldn’t leave until Clark signed him out.
“So you trust this guy?” Mevi finally asked.
“I do. I wouldn’t be handing you over to him if I didn’t. But the rules are you follow his rules, and he will get you to Chicago. Contractually, the band reserves the right to keep him on, as needed, until the first break. Possibly later, including taking him to Europe. Depends on your performance and your sobriety.”
He hadn’t had anything to drink in over sixty days. Admittedly, he’d been in pretty rough shape when Bonnie had summoned Clark to her house that night to come get him and do something with him once and for all before she called the cops on him.
No, it hadn’t been her fault, but still.
He was pissed.
Off.
“I already told you, I’m not doing AA meetings, and you fucking know why.”
“He won’t do that. He’ll be working with you individually.”
“What does he know about me?”
“Only who you are, that you’re in here for alcohol abuse, and the very basics about your old manager and what led to you ending up here. I didn’t tell him any more than that. What you tell him is up to you, but I did want him to know about your old manager so he understood what made you snap.”
“What, so is he some douchebag retired drill sergeant who’s going to make me run laps every fucking day?”
“No, he’s a very nice guy, expert in his field, with lots of experience working on high-profile cases like yours. Meaning you’ll never have heard of him, and for good reason. He’ll also never tell you who he’s worked with, and he’ll never tell anyone else, either, that he worked with you. Or anything he sees or learns while working with you, as long as you don’t commit a crime. He did specifically say if you commit a crime he will not maintain confidentiality about that. That’s in the contract.”
Mevi knew he was stalling.
He also knew he was defeated and
yet couldn’t let go.
Didn’t want to let go.
Letting go meant admitting failure, and admittedly that was the thing he’d had the hardest time dealing with in rehab. No, they hadn’t forced twelve steps down his throat here, fortunately.
“What if I meet him and hate him?”
“Doesn’t matter. You spent two months here and managed it. Can’t you manage ten weeks with a babysitter keeping you out of trouble before you get back to work? What happened to Mr. Work Ethic, who used to brag he was the hardest working musician in LA?”
Yeah, that was a challenge, and Mevi knew it.
“Fine.” He pulled on his baseball cap, raising the hood of his jacket over it before he walked to his bed and started grabbing his stuff. He didn’t have enough arms, though. “Can you please ask them for a cart?”
“I’ll do it while I get you checked out.”
Clark left him alone, the door swinging shut behind him.
Dejected, Mevi slumped onto the bed and stared at the floor. Here he was, turning forty in a month, and success had come and gone. Literally stolen from him.
Well, he had the success still, but the fruits of his labor had been spirited off to some thieving asshole’s secret bank accounts.
The truth was, Mevi didn’t have anyone but himself to blame for any of it. Sure, his manager stole from him, but if he’d pushed harder and taken control of his shit like he should have, like Bonnie and the others warned him to multiple times, if he hadn’t trusted, he would have caught it a lot sooner and not lost his money.
It wouldn’t have driven him deep into a bottle.
And he wouldn’t have driven over to Bonnie’s house, drunk and at rock bottom, and threatening to kill himself.
Fuck.
Chapter Three
Mevi kept his gaze focused out the passenger window while Clark drove. At least now he had his wallet, keys, and phone back, for all the good any of them would do him. No cash, no credit cards, and his phone was dead.
Clark had brought Mevi’s car charger with him and plugged it in, and said the account was paid up.
It was a fairly new phone, too, because he’d accidentally killed his last one right before rehab.
Unfortunately, he was hard on phones even without meaning to. He went through several a year, usually because of dropping them in a toilet or down a flight of stairs or something.
“So what’s my babysitter’s name?” Mevi didn’t bother disguising the bitterness in his tone.
“Doyle Turner. Give him a chance, and stop being a jerk.”
“Where’d you find this asshole, anyway, if he’s so super-secret?”
He heard Clark’s deep breath, the man trying to buy himself some patience. “Through friends in the business. Very discreet friends.”
They were heading south from Malibu, into the city.
There’s a song there somewhere, but I don’t have any desire to write it down.
Which sucked.
There was a small leather notebook packed in his computer bag, along with his favorite pen. He liked the notebook because it had a flap and leather laces to hold it closed. It looked old, but it was modern and had a small address book-sized binder inside it so you could replace the pages.
Before his life went to shit, sometimes he’d spend hours jotting stuff down, stuff that later made it into one of his larger spiral notebooks.
Which were also packed in the back of the Ford Escape Clark had rented. He’d seen them there, in the back, when loading his shit at the rehab facility. They had an enclosed, secure garage for people who needed privacy coming and going.
Although no one had been waiting outside the gates anyway.
No one knew he was there in the first place.
And since being admitted to rehab, he hadn’t written anything down that didn’t involve filling out a medical form.
“The girl in the room next to me was working on a heroin addiction,” he flatly told Clark. “Guy on the other side of me had OD’d twice on the shit. I was the most normal person there, if you believe that crap.”
“Then take it as a lesson.”
“I never did drugs. You know me, I’ve never even smoked pot. It was extenuating circumstances.”
“That’s what an addict would say.”
“I’m not a fucking addict.”
“A drunk, then.”
Mevi knew he wasn’t going to win this argument, so he shut the hell up.
At a stoplight, Clark sent someone a quick text. When they finally arrived at their destination, pulling into a parking lot outside a small office building, two men were waiting outside, one with several pieces of matched luggage.
Mevi tried not to notice either guy, especially the taller one, who had killer green eyes but was wearing a wedding ring. No, that likely wasn’t his babysitter.
The other guy…he couldn’t read him. Brown eyes, brown hair, nondescript, still, there was something about him.
Clark hadn’t even shut the engine off. He’d pulled into the parking space next to the building’s door and shifted into park before getting out, leaving the vehicle running. Guy number two shook hands with Clark, then all three walked around to the back and started to load the man’s stuff into the hatch.
Mevi didn’t look back. “Watch my guitar, dude,” he gruffly called out. “Thing’s expensive.”
The three men finished loading everything and walked around to the passenger side, where Clark opened Mevi’s door. “Doyle Turner, Malcolm Maynard.”
The guy nodded, but either had a great poker face or was very practiced at dealing with celebrity clients, because he didn’t even blink. “Hi.”
“Hi. Mevi.” He didn’t extend his hand.
“I wouldn’t go by that if I were you,” Clark warned. “Low profile, remember?”
Mevi glared at Clark and flipped him off.
* * * *
Whoa.
Sure, Doyle had seen Mevi on stage before, both in videos and in person a few times. He had all the guy’s albums on his iPod. Despite the shadows cast by the hoodie and ball cap riding low over Mevi’s forehead, Doyle could still see his eyes, and his trademark silver-dyed hair poked out.
One thing he hadn’t been prepared for was how hot those ice blue eyes looked in person.
Shit. Focus.
Didn’t matter how hot the guy was, Malcolm Levi Maynard—aka Mevi—was a client.
That meant off-limits.
Even if he weren’t a client, hellooo, straight. He’d seen the reports of on-again/off-again relations between Mevi and the band’s keyboard player, Bonita. Apparently, the latest off-again blow-up, on the heels of Mevi being ripped off, had triggered the final showdown for Mevi, forcing him into rehab.
Clark handed Doyle a large manila envelope of papers. “There’s everything you need, including a limited durable medical power of attorney. He relapses, don’t hesitate to commit him and call me, in that order. And there are two different credit cards in there for you to use.”
Doyle fished out the credit cards and put them in his wallet. “I already have a place lined up when we get there. How do I pay the guy?”
“I’ll FedEx him a cashier’s check, or I can do a direct bank transfer, if that’s okay with him.”
“All right. I’ll find out from him tomorrow and let you know. Any final orders?”
“I gave you ninety testing kits and a portable breathalyzer. They’re in a box in the back of the car. You need more, let me know where to overnight them. I’ll also e-mail you the details about Chicago as we get closer to the date. The info on the rental car is in the glovebox, and you’re listed as the main driver. Full insurance, too.” Clark sent a pointed look at Mevi. “He is not, however. He’s not to drive.”
“Thanks.” Doyle had brought some of his own test kits, but that was handy, to not have to order more and wait for them.
“He’s sober now,” Clark added. “They tested him in front of me when I picked him up.”
&nb
sp; “I’m sitting right here, you know.” Irritation and resistance threaded through Mevi’s tone. He also reminded Doyle of a petulant child.
Doyle glanced at Mevi. He didn’t have enough info yet to process how to deal with him. A raised finger? A touch of the hand on the shoulder?
A stern look and arched eyebrow?
Somehow, he suspected a kind and gentle approach would be totally ineffective at the start, and would let Mevi think he could steamroll him.
Figuring out their dynamic’s workings would be one of Doyle’s first tasks over the next twenty-four hours. That was crucial to him establishing the hierarchy with the client. Feeling them out and figuring out what role he needed to be—outside of their sober companion—to get them to be the most responsive in positive ways. It also depended on the contract. Sometimes he was as much a babysitter as he was a companion. Sometimes, all he could do was sit back and try to provide a voice of reason and conscience to his client.
Fortunately, he’d yet to have a client relapse while under his care like this, although there’d been a few close calls.
And sometimes his dynamic with his client fluctuated, evolved, depending on how long he spent with them and how well they handled their sobriety. Sixty days out, Mevi might not be white-knuckling it too badly right now, despite his apparently irritated condition.
Following final handshakes, Doyle rounded the SUV to get in after fishing his car charger and sound patch cable out of his laptop bag. After driving Clark home, Landry would take Doyle’s car back to their condo.
Doyle settled into the driver’s seat and started to adjust it, the steering wheel, and mirrors, and then went about plugging his phone into the center console and setting it up for the sound system.
All the while, he didn’t so much as acknowledge Mevi, whom he sensed first watching, then staring at him.
Apparently, Mevi was a man not used to being ignored.
Then I’ll keep doing that until I find his breakthrough point. Or his breaking point. Either one.
* * * *
Mevi couldn’t help but watch the guy. He wasn’t used to people not deferring to him, at the very least. Not that he expected them to, but after nearly twenty years in the industry, when someone didn’t do it, it always stood out.