Wicked Game Read Free Page B

the costumes? Was that for my benefit, or are they on their way to a cliche convention?”
    David sends me a sly smile that says he thinks
his
name should mean “dark and mysterious.”
    “All will become clear.” He trots up the stairs. “What’s important is that you understand the music they live for and the history behind it.”
    I hurry up after him, my hand flaking white paint off the banister as I go. “I’m not exactly a rockologist, but—”
    “Don’t worry. Ignorance is the world’s most curable affliction.” He turns right at the top of the stairs and opens the door of a tiny corner office. A light flickers on.
    When I join him, David is running his hands over a wall-size bookshelf. He yanks out one tome afteranother and stacks them on a small round table until the pile stands as high as my head.
    “Oh.” He puts his hand on the stack. “You never said yes. To the job.”
    I can’t afford to suspect why they want to hire me after such a perfunctory interview. But the weirdness begs one question.
    “What about the future?” I point to the framed handbill of a ’69 Dead concert at the Fillmore West. “This place is like a museum. What about now? What about tomorrow?”
    David sighs. “Have you listened to the radio lately? Honestly.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    I shrug. “Too many commercials.”
    “And?”
    “The music is boring.” I pull my MP3 player from my purse. “At least with this, I know I’ll hear something good.”
    “Exactly. All the music sounds the same, because big corporations take over stations and make everyone play the same vanilla-flavored crap.” He leans forward, voice low and calm. “You won’t find crap of any flavor at WMMP. Here the DJs play what
they
want, not what some CEO or record promoter tells them to play. Do you know how rare that is?”
    “I’ll take a guess: extremely?”
    He slides the top book from the stack—
The Rock Snob’s Dictionary
—and caresses the worn edge of the spine. “This place is a gift to people who love music. I don’t take credit for it. It’s all them.” He points to the floor. “But peopledon’t know about them—yet. The owner just spent a fortune boosting our signal strength to reach listening areas in D.C., Baltimore, and Harrisburg.”
    “That’s good, right?”
    “Maybe not.” He taps the spine of the book against the table. “She did it to make the station more attractive to buyers. A communications conglomerate called Skywave has spent the last decade gobbling up hundreds of radio stations.”
    “And WMMP is next.”
    He nods. “Our owner says if ad revenue doesn’t quadruple by Labor Day, she’ll sell to Skywave. And we’ll all be out of work.” He tosses the book back on the stack. “Frank needs another set of legs for our last-ditch marketing campaign. Based on your course work, your portfolio, and your energy, I think you’d be perfect.”
    Again, no pressure. I glance at the books. “Those are for me?”
    “You have to know your product.” He says the last word with a twist of his lips. It must pain him to speak of music as a commodity.
    “You never answered my question about the future.”
    He looks away, face pinched. “If Skywave is the future, maybe we’re all better off in the past.”
    Dubious but desperate, I reach for the stack of books. “Get the door.”
    “Wait.” He holds out his hand. I reach for it to seal the deal, but he brushes my hand aside. “Uh-uh. Give me that.” He points to the MP3 player protruding from my purse.
    “Are you kidding?”
    “Spend two weeks listening to the radio instead. Withyour first paycheck I’ll give you a bigger player, with more memory and more songs, courtesy of the station.”
    I hand it over. “One with video would be great.”
    He laughs and slides the player into an empty slot on the bookshelf. “See you at eight-thirty tomorrow morning.”
    I lug the books out to the parking lot, trying not to stagger too much.
    “And lose