No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [73]
Each evening she would sit at her computer on Google. It was incredible how many times Sam’s name came up. It was easy to find out he was in A&R. It was easy to trace the companies he’d worked for, and to find out how many famous acts he’d discovered. The relationship he had with Mia was not so simple to determine. Penny knew he had discovered and groomed her, but that picture suggested there had been more to it. But Google wasn’t telling. Mia’s relationship with Sam had never been made public so Penny was forced to dig a little deeper.
She started at the beginning. She spoke to Dave, the songwriter in Sam’s second band Limbs, and he filled her in on Sam’s arrogance and his propensity for violence. He spilled his bitterness, deriding Sam’s contempt for the band’s direction. Penny would later quote him in her article and yet, for the sake of credibility, she chose not to mention that Dave Lindman, formerly of Limbs, was working as a distributor for a large toy company, never having made it in the music business.
In something approaching a miracle, Sophia Sheffer picked up the phone at the first ring. Since she’d lost her record deal at the hands of a vindictive Sam, she had fallen on hard times. However, she was slowly recovering and recently had scored a hit with The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway. She laid the blame for her failure as a recording artist at Sam’s feet. She could have recovered her sales, given the chance – at least that was what she believed. That she hadn’t been able to get another record deal since she’d been dropped or write any good new material to catch the eye of a hit-making producer was glossed over. Instead Sophia was determined that Penny would paint her as Sam Sullivan’s unfortunate victim. After all, she had left him for a promising record deal and as soon as he became head of A&R at her company she had been dropped. It was an easy link to make, although further research revealed that Sophia was only one of ten acts dumped that year, and of those acts she had achieved the second lowest sales. Penny spoke to Joe Merrigan, Sam’s first A&R boss, who gave her his daughter Frankie’s phone number. They both made compelling interviewees, Joe’s disgust at his right-hand man’s defection and Frankie’s heartbreak still evident after so many years. The obviously fragile-minded woman’s attempt on her own life would make for gripping reading.
After much finagling Penny managed to speak to Leland on the pretext of having information about Sam that he would find interesting.
As it turned out it was Leland who gave away Sam’s relationship with Mia but only after Penny took a calculated risk. “I think he’d really like to go back,” she lied.
“I wouldn’t have that junkie back if he was the last A&R guy left with ears,” Leland drawled. Of course he didn’t mean it. Leland would have taken Sam back in an instant even though he hated the asshole: Leland knew that money talked and a guy like Sam, as fucked up as he was, was money in the bank.
Junkie. He was a junkie? What kind of junkie? Play it cool. Play it cool.
“He’s clean now and he misses Mia,” she ventured.
“So?” Leland said.
“I think he wants her back,” Penny said, as though she knew what she was talking about.
Leland laughed. “Forget it. He’ll never get her back. He had four years to do the right thing. He blew it.”
“You’re so sure?” Oh, my God, this is gold!
“Listen, honey, I know you’re from some small town in some small country and he’s your neighbour and your friend and you’re trying to help ’cause you think you know this guy but you don’t. Nobody knows him. Not Mia, not me and certainly not you.”
“So he was a coke addict. All he wants is another chance.” She needed to confirm what kind of junkie he was so she made a guess, knowing she was about to be hung up on.
“Coke.” He laughed. “Is that what he told