(2003)
Ms. Smith’s office seemed full already when Lance entered because Detectives Simon and Bristol sat in hard metal chairs placed flush with the back wall. There was only one open seat, the cushioned armchair in front of the accountant’s desk.
"Mr. Bass," Ms. Smith said. "Thank you for making time in your busy schedule to come in today."
Lance nodded. He compulsively crossed his right leg over his left, heel resting on knee. "I’m just as anxious to get this taken care of as I’m sure all of you are." He looked over his shoulder at the two officers sitting behind him.
"Let’s get down to business," Bristol said.
Ms. Smith moved the stack of books—all clearly labeled FreeLance—from the side of her desk to the middle. She opened the top one and looked down at the first page.
"Mr. Bass." She took a deep breath and let it out through barely parted lips. "The reason I, we, wanted you to come down here today is that there are major problems with the way your books have been kept."
Lance nodded. "I’ve been studying them myself and I’ve caught more problems." He made himself stop and swallow. "I feel so stupid for trusting Tommy to handle the books correctly. It’s just. He was my friend and I had no reason to believe— How much did you come up with?"
"It seems impossible to me that you wouldn’t have noticed," the accountant said, "but it seems as if there is close to two million dollars missing."
Lance’s mouth dropped open. "Two million? That’s more—"
"We don’t think Mr. Wright took all of the money, Lance." Detective Simon stood up from his chair against the wall.
Lance turned around. His green eyes were cold and wide. "Who—?"
"At first glance it might look as if Mr. Wright was the culprit," Ms. Smith said. "And, in deed, it seems as if he has embezzled 1.5 million dollars from you."
Lance nodded.
"But there’s an additional half a million. 500,000 dollars. The signs point directly to you, Lance."
Lance blinked. "But I—"
"We have reason to believe that you were embezzling from your own company, Lance." Detective Bristol also stood up.
"Can you please stand up, Mr. Bass?" Detective Simon took a step towards Lance.
Lance stood.
"Please place your hands behind your back."
Lance did so. He felt cuffs of cold metal circling his wrists.
"You have the right to an attorney," Detective Simon continued. "If you cannot afford an attorney, one shall be provided for you. Anything you say can and may be used against you in the court of law."
Lance’s mind went blank and he stopped listening.
--
(1999)
Lance looked up from the latest set of papers that he had to fill out when he heard a knock on his door.
"Come in," he called. His voice was pitched low.
The door opened and JC stuck his head in.
"The Backstreet Boys just left TransCon," JC said. He ran an obviously sweaty palm over the brown spikes of his short hair. "Do you think we have to worry?"
Lance shook his head. "Why should we be? Lou’s never done anything to us, has he?"
JC shook his head.
(2003)
Joey pulled his vibrating cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. He stuck it to his ear.
"Y’ello."
"Joe, this is Johnny."
"Johnny!" Joey said. He moved to the edge of the sidewalk and stopped walking. Then he leaned against the wall of a building. "What’s up?"
"Are you anywhere near a TV?" Johnny asked.
"No, man, I’m out running errands."
"Get to a TV," Johnny said. "Now."
Joey, hearing the urgency in Johnny’s voice, pushed himself away from the building and looked around the street. He saw an electronics store on the corner of the block.
"Run, Joey." Johnny’s voice was loud in his ear.
Joey ran. He banged his elbow into the doorway of the building and was almost panting when he got inside. He looked frantically at the wall of TVs.
"What station?" he asked.
"MTV," Johnny said.
Joey nearly tripped as he moved to one of the TVs. Ignoring the protests of the salesperson behind him, he changed the channel on a single TV at his eye level to MTV.
What he saw made his mouth drop open.
On the screen was an image of Lance being led out of a building, escorted by two policemen, and ushered into the back seat of a police car.
His hands were cuffed behind his back.
"Shit," Joey said softly. He forgot the phone was still pressed to his face.
"That’s what I said." Johnny’s voice echoed in Joey’s ear.
--
(1999)
Lance back at his desk and looked at the longhaired man sitting in the chair in front of him. Then Lance looked down at the papers he held in his hand.
"Dominic, right?" he asked.
The other man nodded.
"It says here that you’re a model, Dominic."
Dominic nodded.
"Have you had much experience?"
With a flip of his hair, Dominic nodded again. He bent down to grab something off of the floor, and when he sat up again, he handed his bound portfolio to Lance.
Lance took the black book and flipped through the pages, studying the black and white (and sometimes color) glossy photographs.
"Why did you leave your previous manager?" Lance asked.
Dominic pushed his hair behind his shoulder and the golden color of it seemed to ripple.
"He wasn’t giving me what I wanted out of the relationship." He smirked.
"And you think that I could?"
Dominic nodded. "Like you, I see potential when I see it."
"Then, Dominic, consider yourself the newest client of FreeLance Enterprises. Congratulations, man."
Lance stood up and shook Dominic’s hand.
--
They were in the middle of a long weekend when Chris called an "emergency group meeting." They all congregated in Justin’s mother’s living room, after dinner, and listened to Chris talk.
"I’m telling you," Chris said. "Something’s not right. To only have 25,000 dollars in the bank, for all the work we’re doing, and all the money you know we’re bringing in."
Lance blinked.
"Do you guys have more money than that?" Chris asked. "Am I the only one? Did I blow it all somewhere when I wasn’t looking?"
Justin looked over at his mother. She had a worried frown on her face.
"Lou said—" she started, then stopped. She swallowed and started again. "We’ve had enough, but not as much as I might have expected."
Chris nodded. He turned his eyes to the couch where Joey, JC, and Lance were sitting.
JC and Joey were looking at one another and Lance was looking at the ground.
"Guys?" Chris prompted.
"You know I’m not the best saver," Joey said. He tried to chuckle, but it was forced and dry.
"I have about the same amount as you," JC said.
Lance stayed silent.
"Lance?" Chris asked.
He swallowed. "You know I’ve been paying off all of my loans," he said.
"But how much would you have had?"
Lance shrugged. "Probably about the same as you guys."
"I wouldn’t question," Chris said, "except for everything Backstreet went through."
Lance nodded silently, not looking at the other guys to see if they were doing the same thing.
"So," Chris said. "What do we do."
"I think we should be sure," Lance said. He paused. "Let me get Tommy to look over it, okay?"
Chris nodded. "Get a copy of the books from Johnny." He paused. "How soon do you think you can know?"
Lance opened his eyes wide—like a deer caught in headlights—"I, um. A week? I don’t know how much work it’ll take, but. A week?"
"A week," Chris said. He turned to the rest of the guys. "It’s going to be hard until we know for sure, but please, for the love of god, act like nothing’s wrong. The last thing we need is to tip Lou off that we think something’s wrong. Who knows what he’d do."
Lance didn’t remember much more of the rest of the evening.
--
"You want me to *what*?" Tommy asked on the phone later that night.
"They say something’s not right," Lance said softly. "They think he may have pulled the same thing with us that he pulled with Backstreet."
"Would Johnny let you guys sign something that wasn’t fair?" Tommy asked. "I mean, I’ve met Johnny, and he doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would fuck around."
Lance sighed. "I don’t know. All I know is that the rest of the guys only have about 25,000 dollars in the bank, and that they think we should have more."
"So they want me to look over the books and see if I see anything that’s out of place," Tommy said.
"Yeah," Lance said.
"You said the other guys had about 25 grand in the bank," Tommy said. "What about you?"
"What about me." Lance’s voice was tired.
"You said the other guys," Tommy repeated. "What do you have in the bank?"
"You know this, Tom," Lance said. "I have nothing, because I’m going to be paying Lou back for this little business venture of mine for the rest of my flipping life." He leaned forward on his desk, digging the heel of his hand into his forehead.
"Oh, say fucking." Tommy laughed shortly. "Surely your life is worth more than a flip."
Lance didn’t want to laugh, but he felt it bubbling up inside of him.
The sound was a bark, almost: loud, short, and most certainly not happy.
--
(2003)
Orange had always been Lance’s color and their stylists had always made sure that Lance—and the other four guys, for that matter—knew it.
In the thin, artificial light of the prison, however, Joey didn’t think that orange suited Lance so well.
"What were they thinking?" Joey asked. He leaned close to the unbreakable glass pane separating him from his band mate.
Lance’s eyes were sad. "They think I took part of the money." His voice was sad, too. "Somehow Tommy made it look as if I took the money and then tried to make it look like he took it."
Joey’s forehead furrowed in confusion.
"I don’t understand it either," Lance said. "And they won’t let me look at the books to check it out."
"So what are you going to do?"
Lance blinked, apparently fighting back an almost tear. "What can I do, Joe?"
"What can I do?" Joey asked. His breath fogged up the glass as he leaned even closer to Lance.
The tear finally dripped down Lance’s cheek. "You can get Tommy to tell what he did."
Joey nodded. When he spoke his voice just bordered on aggressive. "I
will, Lance. No one messes with my friends."
--
(1999)
Tommy flicked his wrist, swirling his coke around the clear plastic glass gripped tightly between his fingers. He stared at the papers in front of him and then looked up at Lance.
They were in Lance’s mother’s kitchen, sitting at the kitchen table. Through the windows all that could be seen was the solid black of night.
"Things just aren’t right here, Lance," Tommy said. He tapped the end of his pen on the plastic checked tablecloth.
Lance nodded sadly. "I was thinking that things didn’t look quite right, but you know that I know next to nothing about accounting and contracts, so."
Tommy looked back down at the books. He flipped to another page and grimaced.
"It’s not so much that he’s been taking money from you, per se, but that your contract gave him the right to take money from you."
"Yeah." Lance leaned back again and the back two legs of his chair landed
on the floor with a heavy thump. Then he rested his head on the table in
front of them.
--
Each of the six men—‘N SYNC and Johnny—in the room had a copy of the groups’ annual budget in front of them. Lance was the only one not looking at his copy.
"Oh, my god," JC said. He looked up from the packet of papers and around the room at the other five men. "Once Chris mentioned it, I thought something sounded off, but."
"You never thought it actually would be?" Justin asked.
JC shook his head.
"That *bastard*," Chris said. He shook his head and the braids flipped from side to side. His face was pale and drawn.
Lance nodded.
Johnny was staring at the papers in front of him. "There’s nothing we can do about the contractual stuff," he said.
"We can leave," Joey said. "Right? We can leave and go someplace where we can get a better contract. We *deserve* to have a better contract."
"You do," Johnny said. "It’s going to be a fight, though. You’re contract isn’t up for negotiation for another year and the penalties for breaking it will be horrendous."
"We can’t stay with him," Justin said. His red curls bounced. "No. Not after he’s lied to us and said that everything was fine. That we were getting what we deserved."
Johnny’s face was serious as he stared out the window at the far end of the room.
"You don’t want to leave until you have another record company to support you, but I’ll start shopping around. Yes?"
Chris looked at JC, then Justin, Joey and then Lance. Then he looked at Johnny and nodded.
"Yes," Chris said. He nodded once, seriously. "Yes."
--
(2004)
For two weeks, a week and a half of the new year, Joey searched for Tommy. He went to his apartment—deserted. He stopped by the office building Tommy worked at—empty. He sent email messages—no response. And he left messages on Tommy’s voice mail—also, no response.
At the end of the second week, though, he got a phone call. From Tommy.
"I didn’t take the money," Tommy said loudly. "Why do you assume I did?"
"Because Lance wouldn’t *do* such a thing," Joey said.
"And what if I were to say that *I* wouldn’t do such a thing?" Tommy asked.
"I would say that you were lying through your teeth," Joey said. "I mean, really, Tom. What did Lance ever do to you? Why should he sit in jail for your mistakes?"
Tommy was silent for a few moments and when he spoke, his voice was
soft. "They want me, too, Joey. They’re after me, too."
--
(1999)
MTV broke the news, just like they’d broken the Backstreet Boys departure from TransCon, and every other major story in the music world for the previous 17 years.
Lance watched in his hotel room, alone. He sat on the end of his bed, one leg crossed carefully over the other. His eyes studied the screen and he stared at the image of them all on the screen. They looked sad, depressed.
To an outsider, he, Lance, looked tense. He frowned and didn’t say much, just nodded—agreeing with everything that anyone else said.
They showed a picture of Lou on the screen. It was a black and white photograph, where he looked slightly less grotesque than he did in real life.
Lance stared at him. His eyes bored into the screen.
Then he stood up, turned off the television, exited the room, and grabbed a security guard to get him out of the hotel safely.
Later, in the rental car, again alone, he said one more sentence: "You
can’t do this, Pearlman."
--
The hallway of Lou’s house was even grayer than Lance had remembered. There was more dust on the pictures—a grimy film—and no lights lighting the way to Lou’s office.
The door to the office was closed, but Lance opened it and slammed it shut behind him.
"You bastard," he said loudly.
Lou looked up from the book he was reading. His small eyes glittered in the gray light.
"I’m in the middle of something, La—"
"And I need to talk to you." Lance stalked forward, across the carpet, to rest his hands and lean his weight on Lou’s desk.
"I said that I was busy, Lance." Lou turned his chair around so that he was facing the younger man.
"What the *fuck* do you think you’re doing?" Lance asked.
"I’m doing business," Lou said. He tapped at the book now sitting on his desk.
"You do business by fucking with us?" Lance asked.
"I was protecting my investments," Lou said. His eyes flashed once. "There was no telling if you boys would be a success or not."
"By screwing us over? Some of that money rightfully belonged to us."
"And you have some money that rightfully belongs to me, Lance." Lou sneered. "I’ve decided that I want it back."
Lance’s lip quivered with anger. "I said I’d get it to you."
"And I want it now." Lou closed the book in front of him loudly. "Do you have 200,000 dollars?"
"I’ll get it for you," Lance said.
"And why should I believe that?" Lou asked. He folded his hands in front of him. "You boys are in the process of leaving me."
"I’ll pay you back," Lance said. "I am a Bass, and Basses always keep their word."
Lou arched one eyebrow. "Touching, Lance, really."
"If you back out on this loan," Lance said, "It’s going to look so bad for you."
"I want my money back, Lance." Lou leaned backwards. "I have the right to ask that at any time. It’s in the contract you signed. And remember, if you can’t get it to me, your mother co-signed everything for you. That makes her liable."
Turning on his heel, Lance stalked out of the room and slammed the door
so loudly the walls shook.
--
"Bastard, bastard, bastard." Lance opened his briefcase and pulled out the copies of the books Tommy had been keeping from him for the first year. "Bastard, bastard. Bastard."
He slammed the books down onto the desk in front of him and the sound reverberated around the otherwise empty room.
"If I liquidate," Lance muttered softly. "I should have close to 200,000 minus the part he rightfully took from me." The words were whispered.
He flopped down into his desk chair and pulled a calculator out of one of the desk drawers.
Slowly, carefully, he began adding up the numbers.
It was on the fifth page that he began noticing something was wrong.
He added up the page again. The numbers just weren’t right. It wasn’t off by a whole lot, but enough so that anyone looking closely would notice the difference.
Lance flipped to the next page. There was an even greater discrepancy in the numbers.
He turned to the next page, the next, and the next.
A cold chill passed through his body. It started in his spine and spread out through his nerve endings. The cold pooled in his cheeks, in the small of his back, and at the tips of his fingernails.
Money was missing. And, if he was reading the books right, all signs pointed straight to him.
Lance placed spread his right hand out, pressing his thumb and pointer finger into his temples.
"I don’t have time for this, Tom," he said.
--
(2004)
The anchorwoman was petite, pretty, and well spoken. The blue background accentuated the blonde of her hair and the whiteness of her teeth.
"And today," she said, her eyes barely moving to the teleprompter just off screen, "in the state of Florida, Lance Bass, bass singer for the hit pop group ‘N SYNC, was indicted on two charges of 1st degree embezzlement. Bass has allegedly been taking money from his company FreeLance for several years now, although Florida State officials refuse to specify an exact amount."
Joey pressed the off button on the TV remote and the image on the screen
immediately disappeared, replaced by black.
--