CHAPTER 6 – New York, New York

Frederick Curon was a dual Director of the largest music publishing corporation on Earth, for which he was duly compensated, and then some.

His pedigree came from American Records, but before that legendary run, he was a college dropout without an ounce of musicological knowledge. As a teen, he had grown up here and there, spending much of his youth navigating the tumultuous 70s in the Bronx and its surrounding boroughs, serendipitously hanging out with legendary musicians and trend-setters.

On paper, it made no sense that someone without instrumental training could be the father of progressive punk, and that someone without roots in Hip-hop could be the stepfather of Pop-Rap, Crunk, and Instrumental-Hip-hop.

Yet, Curon was born with an ear for sound, and though he was a master of no discernible discipline, he had talent for sifting gold from silt, a quirky genius whom the CEO of Universal would trade their better testicle to acquire.

Such was the creative persona of Curon, a free-spirited, unorthodox hermit of musicology who drank instant coffee, loved his sushi, pressed his own cigars, and lived in Sony’s penthouse suites while dressing like a divorced suburban dad.

On the flipside, Curon was also Sony’s Director of Data Science and Analytics. This was a division focused on pure data: audience analytics, marketing strategy, growth volumes, predictive earnings, and, in recent years, streaming and data fraud committed by their partner platforms.

Curon was no more a statistician than a musician, and yet somehow his predictions were rarely wrong, which drove his team to madness. One such call to fame came when Curon told his then-executives at BMG to invite Rock veterans to collaborate with New School Hip-hop artists. BMG had thought him insane until, after a surprisingly drama-free collaboration lubricated by upfront cash and luxury, CordSmith‘s collab with Jump St went triple platinum in six months in 1986.

Oftentimes, the data-crunchers at D&A doubted their own predictive modelling, because Curon himself was the source of so many outliers. Their “safe numbers” were more closely tied to the work of their current CEO, Trent Davis, the “Father” of successive generations of girl and boy bands. Sometimes, they felt that they existed solely to prove to the board that Curon wasn’t going to burn it all down.

At any rate, Sony’s Creative Director was a busy man, but not because he was locked up in his penthouse office with a row of sycophants waiting outside. Curon was busy either working to death or not working at all, with nothing in between.

“Sir, your 6 PM is here to see you.”

The message was from his secretary, a vivacious ex-model who had given up her music dreams to be the gatekeeper of her peers’ dreams. Curon liked her because she was passionately brash and acerbic, perfect for keeping brash, entitled wannabes out of his den.

“Send them in.” He swung off the hammock by the window.

“… Is your workspace decent, sir?” His secretary carefully reminded him that HR being on his side wasn’t a reason to create work. There were a dozen incidents over the years when, having left everything everywhere all at once, visitors to Curon’s office had leaked company secrets of album drops, collaborations, and cancellations. “I should also remind you that smoking indoors is still banned, and that one of your clients is underage.”

Curon looked at his desk.

Like his suite itself, the answer was no.

As much as Sony wanted to emphasise creative space, the suits in charge still subconsciously filled the Director’s offices with mahogany, marble, stained oak and dark leather. Curon’s mess made the grand luxe aesthetic worse, for he had gifts, instruments, a half-packed Christmas tree, music sheets, photo frames, and awards, all haphazardly stashed in the same way that a suburban dad would stock a garage.

“… I’ll meet them on floor 28,” he spoke to the intercom. “Send them to my usual table at the Club. Let them order what they want. I’ll be there shortly.”

“Yes, sir.”

The intercom light faded.

Now. Curon rubbed his hands together, a maestro anticipating the inspection of a new and unusual instrument. Let’s see what species our healed hatchling turned out to be.

***

Eppie was so hungry that she could eat a horse, and so was very pleased when the concierge guided her and Eric up to the famous double-storey atrium of 27 & 28 with its wishbone stairs, home to the Sony Club.

She was even more surprised when, without pause, they were ushered into the Club, rather than the cafeteria.

Finally, she was uniquely shocked when, rather than the vista of Manhattan at night, they entered a windowless room to arrive…

At a sushi bar.

“Rasshai!” shouted the middle-aged chef poached from Iron Chef, gesturing to the hand-carved wooden seats, of which there were only five.

They sat.

Eric was turning pale.

“What’s wrong?” Eppie tugged on the man’s primly ironed sleeves. It was a fresh set that he had changed into as soon as they landed. “Want me to help with your jacket?”

“I… er…” Eric remained polite as he stared at the chef. “I don’t eat fish.”

“Allergies?” she cocked her head.

“No, no… I… I can’t stand to look at them. My father fished a lot; he used to gut them right there and then.”

Indeed, behind the traditional bar setting, they could see a tank with living ingredients, including some with tentacles.

“Rasshai!” The chef announced the arrival of their host.

Curon arrived with the air of a king, then bade them sit, his eyes moving past Eric toward her. “Good work, Eric. And you…”

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The Director’s gaze swept over her Velour. “You clean up well, Miss Fontaine.”

“I tried.” Eppie gave the man her best. “There’s more to work on, but I was only recently stitched together.”

Curon laughed. then subtly gestured to the Iron Chef. “This is Kuromon-san. Our Japanese CEO from Sony brought him over, and I’ve kept him on ever since. Had I not jealously guarded Kuromon-san, he would have earned a few Michelin stars by now. He knows what I want, so you two should order what your eyes fancy.”

Eric’s eyes dashed about the room. “Sir… is there a menu?”

Neither the chef nor the Director answered her lawyer. A lesser observer might think that the man was being bullied, but the fact of the matter was that having them in this private space was already the height of accommodation—and that this place did not, in fact, have a menu.

“O-shibori o douzo!” The chef presented them with hot towels. “O-nomimono wa?”

Her new friend, the twenty-something, non-fish-eating Canadian from Newfoundland, stared at the chef. “I’ll… have the rice. Please.”