Broken Record

Chapter 5: Benton

Benton finished his conference call with the Senior Vice President of the Pacific Records studio in Singapore. He'd just returned from Singapore and would need another trip, soon as the label was investing heavily in growing out their artist development and music in the Southeast Asian region. He buzzed Mary into his office.

"Yes, Mr. West?" She appeared eagerly, sitting at the chair in front of his desk with her laptop resting on the tops of her thighs. She crossed her legs at the ankles with the formality of a woman from a different time.

"I'll need another trip to Singapore scheduled. Ideally within the month but not earlier two weeks out. I can't reschedule the existing meetings I have unless they are--"

"More than fourteen days out." Mary interrupted him gently, finishing his sentence. Benton's lips turned slightly downward, agitated by her sudden brazenness. It didn't suit her.

"Correct." He put his dark-rimmed glasses back on and scanned his calendar for the day. "Give me a run down."

Mary sat up straighter, enjoying any interaction between them that went longer than thirty seconds. "You have a finance meeting with the North American team in ten minutes and then a meeting with Cortland. The invite details have been kept private so I'm not sure what's to be discussed..." Mary's brown eyes scanned her screen, trying to surface up any details that could help her boss go into his meeting with his Chief Legal Officer properly briefed.

"I have what I need for that meeting, Mary. What's after lunch?" Benton didn't look at her when he spoke, scanning the rest of the day with his hand propped under his chin.

"You have a partnership meeting with Spotify and then two interviews for your next CFO." Benton's jaw flexed very briefly, his only reaction to the mention of a new CFO. His previous CFO had turned out to be rather unscrupulous, both with the numbers and with a few of the young female artists signed to the label, and Benton had no tolerance for intentionally breaking the rules. Mistakes, he could work to his advantage. Intentional transgressions usually warranted no second chances or possibility for recourse.

"Thank you, Mary." He didn't explicitly ask her to leave with his words, but she knew his tone well enough. She nodded and stood, glancing back once to see Benton reading through emails, his attention already onto the next fire that needed putting out.

After Benton's finance meeting he settled back into this office, a novel curiosity overtaking him at getting to meet one of the MarLow members that continued to turn his label's music into pirated hits. Jelena Kingston's Heart of Ice wasn't the first transgression by this anonymous digital team. Unforutanley, the volume of piracy rifling the industry today meant that Benton and his team had to selectively choose which breaches to go after guns blazing, but this recent MarLow hit was already soaring towards 1.5 billion streams. A number dangerously close to Heart of Ice's own 2 billion streams. Jelena wasn't going to like that one bit. He stifled an inward groan at having to deal with that woman. But she made the label an obscene amount of money and he viewed her just as he viewed Mary; she was good at her job, very good. Nothing more was needed. He heard the buzz of his conference line letting him know that he had visitors.

"Let them in, Mary." His voice was cool and aloof, his features settling into smooth, carved marble. Cortland entered first, his large frame and ruddy figure nearly filling the doorway. Benton could see the heads of two FBI agents peeking out overhead, rivaling Benton's own height of six-foot-three.

"Benton," Cortland nodded and started to make his way further into the room, "this is Stevie Marlowe. Her IP address was the one identified by my team in connection with the username MarLow."

Benton's brow flexed and his head tilted. It was perhaps the most emotion Corltand had ever seen on his boss' face during the several years they'd worked together and it wasn't much. But he couldn't blame him. He'd experienced the same sense of surprise and confusion at seeing Stevie in that all-white interrogation room. Benton looked at Stevie for a long moment before switching his gaze back to Cortland.