It seemed like I was theonly person he didn’t have fooled, and if I hadn’t caught him in the middle ofshouting at Quinn, he might’ve gotten me, too.
My stomach lurched at thethought. Did anyone know how Quinn was treated?
“Quinn has a really badcontract,” Dave said. “He doesn’t own anything he produces for Harmony. They’resuch assholes. I wish he’d been picked up by a better company.”
My ears rang.
What?
“When you say they’rearseholes—I’m not disagreeing with you at all here—but explain to me like I’mfive years old why that is.”
“Harmony only offerswork-for-hire contracts. It’s like… it’s the same contract you’d have with oneof the sound guys, like me. I get a credit on the album but I don’townany of it, whichis fine, that’sstandard. But Quinnalsodoesn’t own any of it. Anythinghe produces is theirs.”
“And that’s not normal?Again. Five years old.”
Dave shook his head. “No, it’s… Iguess that’s why people sign on with them. They let you send in a demo and thenthey pick you from there. It’seasyto get picked. But all theydo is recycle the same twelve melodies and I dunno who writes their lyrics.Whoever it is, they’re work-for-hire, too. They could be auto-generated for all thesense they make. Quinn was so lucky with that one hit. He’s got real talent.”
One hit.
I remembered Miles sayingsomething like that. And that he was underrated.
“Should he be selling morealbums? In your professional opinion, I mean.”
“Not with Harmony. His lastalbum outperformed anything they’ve ever put out, I think. But if he struck outon his own? Yeah. He’s got real talent and he’s easy to work with. He showed mesome of the things he wrote and they’regood. I wish I couldwork with him on a project that was his.”
“And you’re not just sayingthat because you’ve got a crush on him the size of Alaska?”
Dave went bright red. “No!” heobjected. “No, I… it’s not the size of Alaska, anyway. Maybe like. Oregon.”
“My geography isn’t nearlygood enough to argue with you,” I said. “Those songs he wrote, if he’s on awork-for-hire contract like you say… would those belong to Harmony, too?”
Dave nodded. “The contract isfucked,” Dave said. “They only pay you if you fulfill it, y’know? Five albumsin twelve months. That’s an insane amount of pressure to put on anyone. Quinn’sprobably the only one I’ve ever known who might actuallydoit. But peopletake it ‘causethey wanna be famous. Harmony’s never turned out anyone you’ve heard of. Peoplewho made it past the auditions for American Idol, maybe. Quinn’s their mostvaluable property.”
“Then why do they keepthreatening to cut him loose?”
“You really don’t know, huh?”Dave asked.
No. I didn’t know.
The feeling that I wasmissing a big, key piece of information stuck under my ribs like a thorn.
“Those contracts are worthfive hundred thousand dollarsifyou complete them to Harmony’s satisfaction.Quinn’s good. He’s really good, and he’s eight months in and three albums down.He could do this. But he only gets paidifhe does it.Everyone thinks they will, I guess. I figured you were here to prove he’d leaked thealbum until I saw how, umm… how much you liked Quinn.”
Right. Dave had tried totell me about the money, and Ihadbeen sent to prove it was him. Itjust…hadn’t been, so I could never have proved it.
If they’dtoldme I was here toprove it, well, any evidence would have come under all kinds of scrutiny. Halfa million dollars was more than worth going to court over if there was anychance I’dfabricated evidence or drawn dubious conclusions. Vincent seemed like the kindof man who’d sue over a lot less, and Harmony undoubtedly didn’t need that kindof publicity.
But if I’d found it outby myself…
I should have done myresearch. I was so busy worrying about how badly I needed this job—how badlyGray and Logan needed me to do this job so Guardian Angels could grow and we’d all be on evenfooting—that I hadn’t even thought to look into my employers.
They were the ones signingthe paycheck, after all. Why would I look into them?
This wasn’t the bestpossible time to learn that lesson. They’d never intended to pay me either, hadthey? That was why they’d offered so much in the first place.
“Bastards,” I spat.
“You’re telling me,” Davesaid. “They’re pushing him so hard. You should haveseenhow badly histhroat was swollen that last day before he took a week off. I wanted to takehim to the ER. He could hardly breathe.”
