—I said I’m not fucking signing.
I’m raising my voice, but the people at the other tables take no notice. No one even turns around. The lawyer sips his iced tea. I often suspect that I make no impression on others. Gestures that ought to have an impact seem to fade before they reach their audience, before they bridge the gap between me and the world of the living. This lawyer can take my music away, the music I made with Carter, the evidence that despite what people say, we were partners, that Carter respected me and I understood him better than anyone, and when I shout out in protest the man doesn’t even feel the need to acknowledge my anger. He just lets me wind down my spring and adjusts his tie and carries on.
—You should really take this seriously. It is a one-time-only offer. Not wishing to be blunt, but you don’t have any resources to fight a copyright case. And of course, if you did decide to go that way, the discretionary monthly payment would be withdrawn.
That is the price. My music is not my music. I have never even been friends with Carter. I am to make myself vanish from the Wallace family’s gilded life. The lawyer speaks, his words moving in and out of audibility as I shake my head in disbelief.
—We were like brothers.
—Honestly. Look at your circumstances. This is the best deal you’re going to get.
I am so tired. At least I now have a figure. A dollar amount. I have always wondered what my friendship with Carter was worth.
—Cornelius must really hate me.
—I couldn’t speak to that.
—He locked me out of my studio. He took everything, equipment I built from scratch. And now he gets the music too? Unreal.
—I assure you, the Foundation is very respectful of your friend’s musical legacy. We’ve already been in touch with several of the artists he worked with. There are some great ideas. A box set. A tribute concert. Look, I can probably get you another twenty-five K to buy yourself some new gear, set up another studio, maybe in LA.
—You don’t know what you’re saying.
—I’m saying you need to sign this paper and move on. It’s the only sensible play.
—You don’t understand. The data. Just the sample libraries. Thousands of hours of my life are in those libraries. None of that is replaceable.
—I see.
—Do you? Do you see? There are boxes I built myself from schematics.
—Call it an extra thirty, to acknowledge your time and effort. The Foundation is very keen to draw a line under this. They don’t want any gray areas. I’ll have to make a call to confirm, but that should be fine.
—And will Leonie get a foundation?
—Beg your pardon?
—Do they each get a foundation, or just Carter? What charities will Leonie’s foundation support?
—The family may opt to expand the mission of the existing nonprofit.
—I won’t take a cent of your money.
I am tired. In pain. He knows that. He knows I only have so much fight in me, so he leads me round in circles, ducking and weaving, coating everything in legal language. I raise my voice. He increases his offer. Sometimes he gets up from the table and glances nervously out of the window. I think he is looking out for news crews. Eventually my knees buckle and I find myself on the canvas, documents in front of me, a heavy pen in my hand. I scratch my name on the paper. Once he has my signature, the lawyer goes back to issuing threats.
—If you break any of these conditions, the payments will cease. Any suggestion that you have tried to contact the family and the payments will cease. Any conversation or communication with a journalist. A journalist comes to us, says he has a source, we have reason to believe that source is you, the payments will cease.
He puts the documents in his portfolio.
—I’m supposed to take you to the bus station and buy you a ticket to wherever you want to go.
—The bus station.
—The family was quite specific about that. Not the airport. You are expected to be discreet.
—Where will I go?
—That’s entirely up to you, within the scope of our agreement. Entirely your call. Just phone me when you’re set up.
The fluid has stopped seeping out of my ear. I take out the toilet paper plug.
I WAS POLITE WHEN I BOUGHT TICKETS. I did not engage anyone in conversation. I stayed in motels, or slept in bus terminals. When you know nothing, you have many reasons to keep silent. Language exposes you to other people. It commits you to versions of the world you may not trust. At many times of day and night I would find myself, just for a second, a fragment, a terrifying splinter of time, back in the underground room with the detectives, waiting for agony, hyperventilating inside the hood. It was hard to concentrate. The stink of my abjection seemed to follow me around.
I rode the bus. I got off in small towns. I did not call the Wallace lawyer. I could, I suppose, have gone to an airport. After a few days, no one would have been looking for me. But instead I rode the bus. Somehow an airport seemed risky, inadvisable. To be forced to check each situation, to watch this man’s posture, each expression passing across that woman’s face. In any transaction, I had to be on my guard. Any encounter with authority.
Plastic seats, coin-op armrest televisions.