Killer Summer

Doug blinked at me. “What?”

“The label, man,” I said, shrugging jeans over my boxers and sliding into my sneakers.

“I thought you were calling it Bootleg Records?”

Fucking burnout. That was my last record company. Not that he remembered that.

I ran past him for the door, hoping to catch the FedEx guy before he left. It was the third time they’d come by—I had gotten a couple of “sorry we missed you” notes stuck to the door. I wasn’t sure if they would come again, but I damn sure didn’t feel like having to haul my ass to FedEx to spend a half a morning in line waiting for a package that might not be anything than more contracts to sign for Lance. For a guy who was in this allegedly for his love of music, he sure did create a lot of paperwork. And since Lance was bailing, who fucking cared about his damn contract?

But it could also be something else. Maybe something from the executive I had met with at the Music Festival three weeks ago. I had given him the demo of one of the bands I was planning to sign, as well as an overview of the label. He had seemed interested.

I ran down the steps, all three flights, spotting the telltale blue uniform just before the front door shut behind Mr. FedEx.

I leaped onto the final landing. “Wait!”

He stopped, turned to look at me with a bored expression.

“The package for 3C—Revelation Records? I can take that.”

He handed it over, along with a pen, and I signed the line for “receiver’s signature,” my eyes running over the address label as I did. “Thanks, man,” I said, handing back the pen.

I could barely make out the tiny, flowery scrawl, but once I did, my heart nearly stopped at the name above the E. 64th Street address.

Maggie Landon.

A bong hit might have been good about now. I mean, come on. It’s not every day a guy receives a letter from a dead woman.

More than a letter, I thought, noticing the envelope had some heft to it. I hesitated before opening it—I mean, I was seriously freaked out.

Curiosity got the better of me and I tore it open, sliding out a package of neatly typed pages, all clipped together and topped by a lavender piece of stationery, monogrammed at the top with a big ML.

The note was short, and in the same flowery script I’d seen on the address label.

It was dated June 9th. Three days before I’d tried to tell her who was in charge of Revelation.

Three days before she…

Dear Nick,

I jotted down a few notes for the business plan for Revelation. Let’s talk about them this weekend at the beach. I can’t tell you how excited I am about working on this project with you. I can’t wait to get started!

Maggie

A few notes? I thought, flipping through the packet of pages and seeing that she had not only included song lists, but financial projections, graphs charting the label’s development, publicity angles—you name it.

Jesus Christ. This woman was a piece of work.

Was being the operative word.

I shuddered, remembering how gung ho she had been about the label when I’d told her about it. Then how angry she’d seemed when I tried to tell her that I was the man with the business plan, not her. It was, after all, my label. I even said as much, which was probably a mistake, considering that Maggie’s spirits had dampened a bit. If only she would have listened to reason.

I shuffled through the papers once more, peering inside the envelope as if I expected to find a demo tape from Maggie herself (she had also told me that night that she had dreamed of being a singer once) and was amazed at what I did find floating down at the bottom of the cardboard mailer.

A check. For twenty-five thousand dollars.

Hell, if I knew Maggie had already forked over the cash, I would have done things differently that Saturday night. Apparently, she hadn’t been planning to renege on her offer to put up a little money.

A little money. Fuck. This was more money than I’d ever had in my life. At least, all at one time.

The front door opened, letting in a waft of humid air and my neighbor from the fifth floor, some guy I barely knew—yet I still found myself stuffing everything back in the envelope.

“How’s it going?” I said, nodding, a smile plastered on my face that I hoped might mask the unease pumping through my system.

“Hey,” he replied, blowing past me with barely a glance and heading up the stairs.

Once he turned on the second landing to ascend the next flight, I followed suit, slowly climbing the steps as if my body were weighted down with the thoughts whirling through my head.

The first woman to believe in me. I mean really believe in me. To the tune of twenty-five large.

It was like a sick fucking joke. It was, in fact, the story of my life. The minute I finally get somewhere, the bottom falls out. Like my last start-up, which crashed about five minutes after I finally got some good people on board. Now I lose my first big investor on the brink of signing my first promising band.

Then I remembered that, in the envelope I clutched in one sweaty hand as I trudged up the steps, I still had the investment.

Yeah, I really had lost it. That check wasn’t any good now, was it?

I reached my apartment door, sliding the envelope under one arm to somehow camouflage it, as I headed through the door.

Doug was now on the couch with Lou—short for Louise, though she looked more like a Lou, with a short, butch haircut and shoulders of a linebacker. Doug, who was about six-one and slender as a rail, liked his women large, and Lou was no exception. They made kind of a funny couple, especially right now, swaddled together within an afghan with a box of Pop-Tarts, watching TV. Doug looked up from where he’d been nuzzling Lou’s neck. “Did you get your package?”

“Yeah, I got it,” I said. No thanks to you. “Don’t you guys have to go to work today?” Doug and Lou worked together in IT support and were usually nine-to-fivers, not that I begrudged Doug that. He always paid his rent on time. But right now, I needed to be alone.

“Nah, man. This weekend is the Fourth of July and Lou and I had a few floaters, so we figured we’d get an early start on the weekend.”

Great, I thought heading straight for my room, filled with the reminder that not only did I have a check I couldn’t cash, but I had blown a wad of cash on a beach house I wasn’t even sure I was going to see again.

Once inside the privacy of my room, I nearly stumbled over a pair of shoes I had left lying in the middle of the floor as I reached for the remote on my stereo to shut out a refrain of Metallica’s “Am I Evil?” before I had to give the question the first real consideration I’d given it since I was a teenaged metalhead.

I sat on the bed, dumping the contents of the envelope once more, letting the sheaf of papers flutter free from their clip and grabbing the check.

Twenty-five thousand dollars. I could do a lot with that money. Like sign my first band, get Lance back on board, finally get this show off the ground. Hell, I’d still have money left over for expenses.

It was almost too good to be true.

It was too good to be true. There was no way I could cash that check. I mean, it probably wasn’t even good anymore now that Maggie was…

I studied the check, which was also dated June 9th. Two days before Maggie…

Which meant that it was probably still good. I mean, it’s not like Kismet Market wouldn’t be cashing her check for all the food she’d purchased that Friday night.…