Gimme More (13 page)

Junior sat with his back to Birdie, digging Cherry Garcia out of a tub and licking it off a long spoon while she dug her thumbs into his shoulder muscles, loosening the kinks. Nothing was said until halfway through the first game of crib when he was already trailing by seventeen points. Then she said, ‘Well, my guess is that Barry Stears sent Teddy to find you. It's the sort of thing he'd do. If it were Sasson … I think Sasson would do something more sensible.'

‘What's going down?' Junior asked reluctantly.

‘I don't think you want to know,' she said. ‘But Teddy's right. There
is
a Jack-package on the burner and they're turning up the heat. You
could
make some money.'

‘Nah,' Junior said. ‘Let it be.'

‘Why? Suppose they show up here with a film crew and want an interview. Suppose Barry asks a load of silly questions about the making of
Hard Candy.
You could ask for whatever you wanted.'

‘You wouldn't like that.'

‘Why not? They're going to do it anyway, and if they're interested in the production side you're The Man. At least you'd give them straight dope. I'd rather it was you than some ignorant ligger.'

‘What if they want personal stories?'

‘That's not your scene,' Birdie said, turning over the cards in the crib and displaying a nice double run for another eight points. She grinned and said, ‘Anyway, if it's stories they want, we could cook up a couple of dillies. I think you should ring Teddy and maybe take him out tonight. When's Sandrine coming home?'

‘Sevenish. But I don't want to spend any more time with that son of a bitch.'

‘Who's in town? Anyone good playing at Tips or The House of Blues? You could take them both there. Sandrine likes a night out, doesn't she?'

‘I'm broke,' Junior said, feeling like a paper boat approaching Niagara Falls.

‘My treat,' said Birdie.

‘Oh shit,' said Junior. ‘What d'you want me to say?'

‘I'll think of something. Don't worry. Just have a good time. Enjoy yourself. Sandrine didn't know I was coming, did she?'

‘How could she?' Junior said ruefully. ‘I didn't know myself. And Teddy was quite a shock – he hasn't spoken two words to me in the last ten years.'

‘Yes, that was awkward, but you were terrific and I think we can turn it all round.'

‘We?' said Junior with foreboding.

Afterwards, when Teddy rang the next day and complained that his hotel room had been broken into and that traveller's cheques, personal stereo, laptop and shaver had been stolen, Junior felt dismay but no surprise.

‘Bummer, man,' he said. ‘This town, eh?'

‘All electrical goods,' Teddy told him. ‘Good thing I didn't bring a guitar.'

‘While we were out dancing?' Sandrine said. ‘That's a shame.' She was what Junior called a jolly dancer – plenty of bounce and footwork. It was the bounce that had caught his eye in the first place. Bounce and a D-cup. Junior liked Sandrine a lot. She had a good, steady job, and that was a turn-on too.

She said, ‘Tell him to give our number to the police in case they recover any of his stuff.'

She was generous too, Junior thought as he relayed the message into the telephone.

‘Fat chance of that,' Teddy said. ‘Neither the police nor the hotel seem interested and I'm leaving in an hour.'

‘Where're you going, man?' Junior asked. ‘In case we hear anything.'

‘Thought I'd give LA a shot. Thanks for the tip.'

The tip, of course, was Birdie's, so Teddy was about to take off on another fruitless journey.

‘Well, good luck, man,' Junior said, and hung up thinking that Birdie was probably right: Teddy must be travelling at someone else's expense. If he was flying to the West Coast to look for a Chinese-American she-male who might or might not still have a
house near Venice Beach, he was unlikely to pay for the ticket himself.

At dinner the previous night, when Junior, Sandrine and Teddy were sitting round a courtyard table, Junior said, ‘If I was you, Ted, I'd look for Renée-Ronny Pang.'

Teddy almost choked on his French onion soup. ‘That fuckin' pervert!' he said.

‘Who's Renée-Ronny?' asked Sandrine, who was interested in the lives of the rich and famous.

‘Never met her myself,' Junior said. ‘But Birdie said she was a masseuse, an astrologer and sometimes a sort of cabaret bandit. She was about as androgynous as you can get. One of those West Coast bands introduced her to Jack.'

‘He had a sore neck,' Teddy said, ‘an old whiplash injury. The Thing treated it and then just stuck around. It was Birdie's friend really. It was Birdie who was into all that freaky stuff. Not Jack. He was just trying to fuck with my mind. One gig, he even had her-him come on stage and try to smooch me. Shit!'

Now Teddy was flying off to see The Thing who made his skin crawl, exactly as Birdie predicted he would.

‘Give them what they want,' she'd said. ‘The trick is to know who wants what. Like the
National Enquirer
knows what its readers want. And Renée-Ronny certainly knew what the
National Enquirer
wanted.'

‘She really let you down,' Junior said.

‘Yes, those stories caused a lot of trouble.'

‘So why resurrect them?'

‘They never died,' Birdie said with a shrug. ‘You can't resurrect something which isn't dead. Anyway, the stories don't matter. All we want to do is remind Teddy and Barry that I stayed with Renée-Ronny after the fire. That I confided in her. Nudge Teddy in that direction.'

Nudged, Teddy said, ‘Oh shit, yes – that crap: “Jack Feared for His Life” and “Beware the Blonde Bride – I saw it in the stars”.'

‘Hey, I remember that,' Sandrine cried. ‘I was just a kid, but my big brother had all of Jack's records. I remember seeing that headline at the check-out with my mom. There was a picture
and the caption said, “The smile of an angel, the heart of a demon”, and I thought it was so cool, you know, to be bad and beautiful, when I didn't even need a brassière or have a boyfriend yet.'

‘You're not saying all that tabloid stuff's true, are you?' Teddy said.

“Course not,' Junior said, ‘it's garbage. But Birdie did tell me about going to see Renée-Ronny. Turned out she wasn't the friend Birdie thought she was.'

‘Surprise, surprise,' Teddy said.

‘She was looking for a port in a storm, only Renée-Ronny wanted to be Birdie's publicity agent – a real twenty-percenter, while Birdie just wanted a friend and as little publicity as possible.'

‘Poor Birdie,' Sandrine said.

‘They had a bust up,' Junior said, ‘and when Birdie got up the next morning she found half the world's press camped out on Renée-Ronny's doorstep, and the other half in the living room. She told me she had to escape in just the clothes she was standing up in at the time, and she never went back for the rest of her stuff.'

‘What did she leave behind?' Teddy asked.

‘Dunno, man,' Junior said. ‘What she told me was, “I hardly had time to grab my passport. I had to climb out the bathroom window and run across the garage roof.” I think she regretted it later.'

‘Regretted what?'

‘Leaving things behind. She said once she wished she hadn't lost so much.' Message delivered, Junior thought. The warm air trapped in the courtyard was making him sweat.

But Teddy wouldn't leave it alone. ‘I could've told her,' he said, ‘but she wouldn't have listened. That pervert was toxic. But Birdie thought it was all
interesting
and
exotic.
She wanted Jack to be more androgynous. If you ask me, she had her eye on the gay market.'

‘You make her sound so cynical,' Sandrine said. ‘She doesn't strike me that way at all.'

‘You've met her?' Teddy's eyes flicked from Sandrine to Junior and back again.

‘Sure,' said Sandrine. ‘She was here for the Festival. We had a party.' Junior laughed. The Festival
was
a party as far as she was concerned.

‘I was really fascinated to meet her,' Sandrine said, “cos you hear so many stories. She's like, a living legend, but there she was – she was working for some millionaire but she still had time to hang out with us. She seemed, you know, just like one of us.'

‘She
is
one of us,' said Junior, lying. She was never one of us, he thought. Fame, he thought, notoriety. It does something irreversible. No matter how old or how broke Birdie became it would always surprise him to see her in Sandrine's kitchen making a cup of coffee. She'll never be one of us, he thought. And it's not her fault. Because people like Sandrine were always amazed when she acted like regular folks, it was impossible for her to
be
regular folks.

And now it was a day later. Sandrine left the apartment to go shopping with friends and Junior was alone. Beneath his window a new set of buskers was doing a witty, raunchy version of ‘Frankie and Johnny'. This lot were definitely into narrative songs. They'd already done ‘Stagger Lee' and the woman who sang gave it all the attitude it needed.

He looked around vaguely but couldn't place his chillum, so he sat and rolled a fat and ragged spliff. Then, with his lips tingling and his ears buzzing, he turned on his computer and, on a stoned whim, called up Birdie's name on the web. He wasn't focusing too well, because the first site to come his way was a porno page, and he tilted his head this way and that until he realised that he was staring at a picture of a very young Birdie being fucked from behind by a creature with the head of Bill Clinton and the body of a goat. He was invited to interact.

‘I don't think so,' he mumbled, out loud. ‘But now that you've reminded me, I did say I'd call.'

He exhaled slowly, blowing sweet smoke at the computer. What time was it in London? Ahead or behind?

‘Who cares?' he said to the abused image on his screen. ‘Now is now, wherever you are.'

He dialled a London number. A soft voice said hello.

‘Birdie?' he said.

‘Birdie isn't here,' said the voice.

‘Oh,' Junior said, stumped. ‘You sound like Birdie.'

‘Everyone says that.'

‘Do you look like her?' Junior was still staring at his computer, his head at an impossible angle. ‘Have you ever met President Clinton?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Robin!' Junior shouted, a lightbulb flashing on in his brain. ‘Don't hang up.' He switched off the computer. Boy, was that a relief! ‘It's Junior Moline. We met years ago. Birdie asked me to call this number.'

A moment later, Birdie was on the line.

‘Mad axeman flew to LA this afternoon.' That was the message, wasn't it?

‘Interesting,' she said. ‘Thank you.'

‘Hostile,' he said, ‘very hostile.'

‘Yep,' she said breezily. ‘That's why I'm so grateful. I didn't want him on my tail.'

Junior put the receiver down wishing she'd chosen a different word. Then he thought about Robin. The serious one with the babies – that was her, wasn't it? No, not serious, he thought, just not blonde.

He found that he was sitting on his chillum, but by that time he didn't care any more. And he'd forgotten to tell Birdie about the break-in at Teddy's hotel room. Except, of course, he'd put money on the fact that she already knew – if he had any money, if he were a betting man.

‘Birdie, Birdie, Birdie,' he sighed, looking at the phone. ‘Better look out for that pretty tail of yours. Hassle comin' down.'

‘You're the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine.'

Jagger, Richards

You want a rock'n'roll story? Well, here's one. It isn't about music, or drugs, or sex. It's about money and accounting. Still interested?

Early on, when I'd only just met Jack and he didn't have much more than a cult following, he wrote a song called ‘Dance for Daddy'. It was supposed to be a slowish filler for the second album. A ballad – Jack didn't write many ballads. It was pretty but ordinary. And then, talking about it, we decided to give it a sort of bossa nova spin. We upped the tempo a bit and brought in congas and a bunch of South American stuff. Even so, it was an unremarkable track on an album which didn't get many plays in the UK. Jack was not on the Radio One playlist at that time so he didn't have a UK hit.

The album was released, sold slowly and died. But a few months later we got a call from a distributor who said, ‘Congratulations, you're number one in Brazil.'

‘Dance for Daddy' was a huge hit in South America, and the whole album went platinum in Brazil, gold in Argentina and Colombia.

Number one in Brazil, unknown in the UK.

Even so, Jack was thrilled. He'd never been number one anywhere. ‘It's coming, babe,' he said. ‘It's on its way – I can feel it. Let's buy a house.'

Because you'd think, wouldn't you, that a hit record anywhere in the world would make you some serious bread. Jack thought so. Me too. But that was before we found out about the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't nature of accounting for foreign earnings. Put it
this way: we saw that Jack had earned a packet in South America but we never saw a penny of it.

Here's how it went. At the time Jack was recording for a little indie label called Cutz. Cutz did not have a foreign distribution arm, so for South America they sublicensed Jack's album to a record company whose head office was in Belize. There were other similar deals for the US, South-east Asia and Australia, but that's another story.

So, unknown to Jack, ‘Dance for Daddy' and the rest of the album was sublicensed to a company in Belize which was collecting his earnings, taking a hefty cut, and presumably paying some tax.