Crime Plus Music

by Jim Fusilli

  “Bowie, jump on it,” she whispered. “Get it all.”

  He walked toward the long white limo, its engine puttering, clouds billowing from the tailpipe.

  “AND YOU LET HIM GO?” Ben Thomas said. They were in his storefront workshop on 3 Mile Road, surrounded by the scent of bare wood and steam heat. A converted shoe-repair shop, it was cluttered with unfinished furniture; empty drawers awaited cabinets and end tables. In the backroom, an old radio offered earnest folk music.

  “What choice did I have? This could be it.”

  Ben had his safety goggles high up in his unruly hair. His beard wore sawdust flakes.

  “Besides, it’s Bowie. He knows what he’s doing.”

  In LA? With record producers who fly a private jet to the UP on a whim? What kind of money is behind that man and what kind of authority does it bring? “He had better.”

  “I offered to go.”

  “Kim . . . do we know how to reach him?”

  “He has his phone.” Ben lived happily without technology. He’d never sent an instant message, never downloaded an app, never owned a laptop. He had a flip phone for emergencies.

  He looked at his knobby fingers and knotty hands as if they held an answer.

  “He deserves this, Ben,” Kim said with a trace of defiance.

  He groped for his safety glasses. “Let’s talk later.”

  As she departed, he thought, Deserve? All these years together and he hadn’t yet convinced her that there was no such thing as “deserve.”

  NOT THAT HE WASN’T IMPRESSED by the private jet or immune to the flattery of the beautiful pilot and the beautiful stewardess, but Bowie was asleep by the time the flight rose over Eau Claire. Nestled in a buttery seat that reclined to flat, he woke up briefly to find Ionic Strength in his throne-like leather chair and working his laptop. Bowie knew Ion preferred easy-to-use Ableton for his productions.

  Bowie rustled, pulling the blanket up to his shoulder. Of commercial EDM, the kind Ionic Strength brought to the market, Deadmau5 had said, “The songs sound the same. I’m surprised the record companies that sign these people aren’t just going home and making the music themselves. Cut out the middleman.”

  Bowie knew how cookie-cutter EDM was made. He would challenge himself to identify, before a track ended, the source of the tones and beats. He tried to do it without judgment—his father told him long ago that people have their reasons for doing what they do, even if they don’t make sense to us—but at times he couldn’t believe how lazy some producers could be. He wondered if Ion was building a track by dragging and dropping files from Ableton’s library or from other cuts he’d already produced.

  The stewardess wheeled a cart to Bowie, who had caught the scent of the chateaubriand before she arrived. Kale and purple cabbage with chickpeas and grape tomatoes filled in a glass serving bowl.

  Ionic Strength, now in a blue kimono, slipped off his headphones.

  “No drinks.”

  She nodded as she lifted the carving knife.

  Bowie said, “No. No thanks.”

  She feigned disappointment. “If you’d like anything, Mr. Thomas . . .”

  He was asleep again when they passed high above Grand Junction.

  Three hours later, a limo pulled to the curb in Silver Lake. Ion’s driver hurried to open Bowie’s door. At the airport in Burbank, Ionic Strength told Bowie he could spend $1,500 on clothes. Eyeing Bowie’s hoodie, T-shirt, and jeans, he said, “Do like you, but, you know . . . this is this.” He nodded toward the flawless Southern California sky. January and it was eighty-five degrees. “And you’re wearing me tonight.”

  Bowie was confused until he remembered Ion had his own rave-appropriate clothing line.

  After shopping, Bowie was driven to the Mondrian in West Hollywood. In his orange room, luxurious and Spartan, angles and dull corners, he dropped the shopping bags and opened his laptop. Now there were 314 emails, including twenty-eight from Emily. He hesitated, decided to weed through them later, and then IMed his mom back home. “Arrived,” he said. “All good.”

  He tossed the five $100 bills Ion had given him onto the bed. Digging, he found the bathing suit he’d bought, changed in the gold-plated bathroom, and walked to the elevator in the embrace of the fluffy robe he found in the closet.

  Quietly amazed, he fell asleep in a lounge chair by the rooftop pool, the persistent sun his cozy blanket.

  “MALIBU,” SAID ION’S DRIVER, WHO delivered to the Mondrian the red-leather jacket and waxy black slacks Bowie wore. “You heard of Rakesh Malik?” he asked.

  “I have,” said Bowie, as he held up the hanger to examine the ensemble. Ionic Strength wanted him to dress up like Tiësto, the Dutch DJ said to be the first $25 million a year man in EDM.

  Malik was owner and CEO of RM Global, the international management firm. RM Global had many DJs and producers under contract. It invested in clubs in world markets and provided capital for mega-festivals. RM Global was publicly traded on one stock exchange or another. Bowie hardly knew what that meant, but over in Breda, it annoyed Ramaaker no end. “So you wouldn’t mind that your father made furniture for Sears?” he once asked via Skype. “You want the shareholders to pick the wood, the lacquer?”

  There were maybe fifty people at the party, maybe one hundred, Bowie couldn’t tell. The room was dark; candle lights flickered. People came and went, air kisses for hello and goodbye. A wet bar. Hors d’oeuvres were circulated. The house was out of a glossy magazine. Or, better, a movie. A movie about a party in a home owned by a mogul who wanted to sign a seventeen-year-old from the UP.

  Out on the deck, a DJ spun clichés. People dug it, Bowie noticed. They bobbed and shuffled. They were all as beautiful as their clothes: it was as if the mannequins in those Melrose Avenue boutiques had come to life. Perfume competed with the ocean air.

  Fizzy water in hand, Bowie sidled toward the DJ, who was working his controller like he was spinning vinyl on two turntables: hunched over, deep in concentration, his headphones around his neck; a well-timed fist pump or two, sly eye contact after the almost seamless segue between tracks. Meanwhile, the unnamed DJ had patched his laptop into the soundsystem: he’d pre-programmed his set. What the crowd wanted, or what the moment demanded, didn’t matter to him. He was on autopilot.

  This was weak by house standards, thought Bowie Thomas. Make that play in Chicago or Detroit clubs and see that door marked “Lame . . .”?

  Bowie’s parents were sitting on his bony shoulders. Maybe that’s the best he can do, son. Go knock him aside, Bowie. Take over—

  He felt a hand on the small of his back, and when he turned, there was Ionic Strength, Malik at his flank.

  “Here’s your boy,” Ion said with cheer. He wasn’t the only man wearing sunglasses at night.

  Rakesh Malik’s eyes sparkled when he smiled.

  “Hi, Bowie,” he said warmly as they shook hands. “Thank you for coming.”

  Malik was in his mid-forties with a salt-and-pepper goatee. Short, fit, and gleaming, he wore business apparel, gray and lavender. There was a faint trace of India in his accent as he spoke over the booming music.

  “I trust Ion is taking good care of you,” Malik said.

  “He is,” Bowie nodded.

  “But it’s all a bit much.”

  “It’s all a bit much,” Bowie agreed. He wasn’t sure what he was projecting, but he roiled inside.

  “At least there is music,” Malik said. He held a champagne flute.

  Ionic Strength waited for Bowie’s reply.

  Yes, thought the boy. One hundred and twenty-eight beats per minutes. Four beats per bar. Here comes the breakdown, right on time. Now the drop. Music by prescription.

  “It’s very Avicii,” Bowie replied. “Late Avicii.”

  Bowie knew Avicii had signed with a label before he’d turned eighteen. He topped out at twenty-one.

  Malik knew Avicii hadn’t yet turned thirty and was worth $50 million.

  Ion hid his f
rown. Was this kid from the North Pole probing? Or did he just send Rakesh a sign that he was dotted-line ready?

  Ionic Strength had told Malik he had it under control. EDM was ready for a new boy wonder. “Bowie Thomas, he slides right in,” Ion had said. The kid next store. The all-American. He’s having fun, you’re having fun. Porter Robinson, Flume, Bowie Thomas . . .

  A woman approached. A goddess. An African queen. She nestled into Malik as if she had reserved the spot. “Rakesh,” she pouty-moaned.

  Bowie couldn’t tell if it was a request or a command.

  “I trust we will see you again soon,” Malik said.

  “Thank you. For the invitation.”

  As Malik was steered away, Ion said, “Let me ask you something, Boing-Boing. You think you’re ready?”

  “I can do what I do, so, yes. I’ll say yes.”

  Ion said, “Bold. But you can only get so far by yourself.”

  Bowie did not reply. He had known what the game would be before he left Sault Ste. Marie, before he put on the Tiësto jacket, before he was in a roomful of mannequins.

  BEN THOMAS HEARD THE SHOP door open. The morning mail, he thought when no customer called to him. He kept sanding, the rhythm smooth and easy. But then he realized there was no mail delivery on Sunday.

  There was a teenager girl, slight, shy, slumped into her down coat. Mittens.

  Ben put the sandpaper in his back pocket.

  “What did I do?” asked the girl.

  He saw that she had been crying.

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said. “Are you . . . you must know my son, Bowie.”

  “It’s my fault.”

  Whoa, Ben thought as he hurried to reach her. Now she was sobbing.

  He steered her toward a rocking chair awaiting brush and stain.

  It took a while, but she got it out.

  She had placed a few songs Bowie had composed—two, actually: “Euphrosine” and “Bonnie Bonnie Holiday”—on the Internet and now he was furious with her. He wouldn’t return her emails, her texts. She tried to call. But he didn’t— He wouldn’t—

  He excused himself and returned with tissues. She was a child. So was Bowie and now he was in Hollywood, and they were going to try to steal his soul. That’s what Hollywood was for. It had no other purpose. Cyphers and vipers.

  “Bowie’s not home. He’s on . . . a business trip, I guess.”

  “Well, I know that now,” she said, dabbing at her nose. “I’m Emily, by the way.” She offered a little wave.

  Ben watched as she took out her phone. Soon, she was showing him a photo of his son. “That’s Ionic Strength. They’re at Chalk. It’s a club in Hollywood.”

  The man had his arm tight around Bowie’s red-leather shoulders. “So that’s Ionic Strength . . .”

  “He’s huge,” she said. “And awful.”

  Ben sat, balancing on the edge of a nightstand. “How so?”

  “He makes the worst—the worst—music, and now he has Bowie.”

  He waggled his finger at the photo on the little screen. “Is there some kind of write-up with that?”

  Just a caption, it turned out. Ben saw the word “prodigy.”

  “I killed his reputation,” she said.

  “Emily, how can this be your fault? Really.”

  “When Ion owns you, it’s over. Ask—” She rattled off names Ben had never heard. But he could tell they had some sort of purchase in the marketplace. “They haven’t made any good music since.”

  “Bowie’s seventeen. He can’t sign a contract. No one owns him.”

  Emily took back her phones and danced her thumbs across the keys.

  Now Ben was looking at what appeared to be a magazine article in miniature.

  “Who is Ramaaker?”

  As Emily explained, Ben read the screed, written by Ramaaker in awkward English. In brief, Ionic Strength was the personification of all that was wrong with electronic dance music. A corruptor. Vile. Took the money and ran. Banal. Void of musical talent; void of music. A parasite. No soul.

  Bowie had great promise, Ramaaker railed. Listen to “Euphrosine” and “Bonne Bonne Holiday” and you hear . . .

  Not “Bonne Bonne.” Bonnie had been Bowie’s first piano teacher. Bowie labored, but he never quit.

  “Ramaaker sent links to all the EDM websites,” Emily said. She looked for a trash can for the tissues. “It’s blowing up.”

  Ben tried to tamp his anger. He remembered he was speaking to a tender heart. “If Ionic Strength is as terrible as this man says, wouldn’t everyone already know this? That he’s in it for the money, not the art of it?”

  Frustrated, Emily said, “That—that right there—says Bowie is dead.”

  Ben smiled. “Bowie is not dead. I don’t know much about that kind of music, but—”

  “No one will take him seriously.”

  “Emily . . .”

  She snatched her phone and shoved it into her coat pocket.

  “Emily, this is just . . . it’s a setback, if that. It never goes smoothly.” He shrugged. “It just doesn’t.” He tapped her soft shoulder. “Let’s believe in Bowie, okay?”

  BOWIE SPENT MUCH OF THE day in a daze. He had never traveled so he knew nothing about the effects of jet lag. He hadn’t eaten much, and he was uncomfortable calling for room service. He turned on the TV. Football at 10 a.m. He bumbled around the room before walking to lunch at P. F. Chang’s. He swam in the hotel pool. In January. The sun tingled on his shoulders. Freckles would emerge.

  He answered emails, the total now exceeding five hundred.

  “It’s fine,” he wrote to Emily. “No worries.”

  To Ramaaker, the message was even more succinct: “Have faith.”

  Then, the next email: “Mom, all good. Hi to Dad. Home soon.”

  He was napping when the bedside phone rang. Someone to see you, Mr. Thomas.

  Bowie felt compelled to tidy the room. He brushed his teeth.

  He expected the driver, but it was Ionic Strength. Bowie stepped back to let him in.

  “I want to show you something,” said Ion, who wore a long electric-blue shirt over baby-blue slacks. Barefoot. A gold bracelet rattled on his wrist as unzipped his satchel and removed the latest iPad.

  Bowie sealed the door.

  “Sit,” said Ionic Strength, nodding toward the long, boardlike sofa.

  Bowie sat as he received the tablet.

  “Watch.”

  Bowie hit the proper arrow.

  Oh, no, he thought.

  The man in the shaky video footage was slope-shouldered in a long ratty coat as he trundled along a joyless city street. Long-nailed and frazzled, he seemed small against an ancient building’s heavy gray stones and invisible to the people who waited for a trolleybus. The man, who oozed suspicion, carried a tattered tote bag that strained to contain a collection of vinyl recordings. A billboard touted an American movie, the glowing actress familiar, but the title now in Dutch.

  Now the man stopped to wait for the traffic light to change. He shuffled impatiently, almost angrily. He scowled; he wiped his nose on his sleeve. The camera pushed in: a desperate Ramaaker. He needed a shave, a bath, a meal. He lifted the tote and held the vinyl to his chest, as if to protect it from theft. The trolleybus arrived and soon departed, and Ramaaker remained. He howled, turned on a battered heel and rushed toward where he’d come from.

  “There’s more,” said Ion, as he took back his iPad.

  Bowie slumped.

  “Your advocate. It’s more than jealousy.”

  Bowie fumbled for his defense.

  “Speak,” Ion said, “but it comes down to do or bitch.”

  “He does.” Meaning: he makes good tracks.

  “Who listens?”

  Bowie was about to say: I do. But he held his tongue. Ramaaker, oh man. Beaten down Ramaaker.

  “The earth spins and nobody cares about the crazy man who wants it to stay in one place.”

  “‘Crazy,’” said Bowie, sha
king his head. “That’s cold.”

  Ion tsk-tsked. “Paranoid, bipolar, whatever, but functional without the drink.” He put the iPad on an end table. “Keep it. There’s more. The arrest in Ibiza: bottle through the window, handcuffs? It’s on there.”

  Bowie wasn’t sure what he had heard. Ramaaker spun in Ibiza, but blew it?

  Ionic Strength crossed the room. “You’re on tonight at Chalk. We’re gonna set it straight.” He nodded toward the iPad. “The playlist is on there too.”

  “I don’t have my gear,” Bowie replied.

  “Behind Plexiglas, remember? Just let it flow.”

  Bowie had visited the lounge last night. He would be shielded and on a raised platform. No one could see that he was pushing buttons and sending out Ion’s playlist.

  “Fake it to make it,” Ion said.

  CHALK’S MAIN ROOM PULSED AND rattled, and the dancers bounced and squealed. Glee ruled, so did abandon, and laser lights and soap bubbles heightened the dizzying effect. The music wasn’t horrible: the DJ had skills, no doubt, if narrow tastes; he kept it moving and given a choice of remixes, he chose close to the most appealing. The crowd: glitter on faces, yes, and Day-Glo wristlets; but not too many hat-imals, no pacifiers to ward off the effects of grinding teeth—alcohol, not E, the drug of choice on the Strip, at least on a Sunday night. Or maybe not. Bowie didn’t care. Circling, he looked for people who were listening. Soon, the driver ushered him back to the shadows where Ionic Strength held court with bottle service. The women smiled as Ion pointed to the boy from UP in a $380 hoodie, spanking new skinny jeans, and his Dr. Martens from back home. Bowie couldn’t hear the names as Ion made introductions, but no one seemed to mind.

  Ion shooed until a space opened next to him on the banquette. Bowie squeezed around the table, bypassing long legs, dimpled knees, and Jimmy Choos.

  “You brought your laptop,” Ion shouted, his lips inches from Bowie’s ear.

  Bowie nodded. He wasn’t going to tap a button on the iPad and let Ion’s playlist represent him. It was dreck. Music as product; music to move product.

  “You’re thinking you can pull it off,” Ion said, as he reached for his glass. “But remember where you are. These people, they want what they want. Don’t confuse them. This isn’t the Warehouse in 1977, and you’re not Frankie Knuckles.”