Robert Fortune's Office

Jimmy made a Bee line to Robert's office in hopes of getting Dana out of the mansion without needing to perform. Even dressed as Meat Loaf, surprisingly he didn't look out of place as he crossed the huge entrance area of the mansion.

Jimmy stopped to look around before he entered the office. "Freaks!" He referred to the Cirque de Soleil members dressed in fish costumes. He caught a glimpse of himself. "Oh...Jack you are looking old and...and well fed." Okay get in there and get Dani out the front door. Easy peasy."

He opened the office door.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Frank roared from the desk.

"I was looking for Senior." Jimmy spoke with confidence as Jack Legend would.

"Why the fuck would Senior want to talk to you, Num Nuts?" The dirty cop, looking tired, rolled his eyes at Jimmy.

"Just wanting to know if I am on before soup or after dessert?" Jimmy witnessed the air in Frank's head escape. "I'm Jack Legend. Vegas entertainer."

Dana leaned forward taking a closer look. Whispered one word softly to herself "Jimmy."

"You look like a skinny Meat Loaf!"

"Hey, he was just big boned." Jimmy defended one of his idols. "Well? ~ timing is everything, Officer."

"What does that mean?" Frank frowned.

"Soup is about twenty minutes away and I need to know if I need to be out there before the fish." Jimmy pulled another microphone from his pocket, and placed it on the highback chair before raising his thumb in the air as if he were hitch hiking.

"I have no fucking idea! Just get the fuck out." Frank lifted his butt from Robert's five thousand dollar office chair. "The eighties just called and want you back for the bat out of hell tour."

Jimmy chortled. "Not a fan of the eighties, I guess."

The dirty cop pulled his sidearm to be more persuasive. "Wow, you picked up on that, eh?" Frank raised his nose. "Now search the fucking halls for Senior. Just stay the fuck out of here." He shut the door after Jimmy left then locked it.

"Now little miss, I don't know where he lives, time to do things my way." Frank replaced his sidearm, unhooked his utility belt, and laid it on the desk.

Brad looked at Windy. "Why didn't he take the fucker out?"

"Difficult to say, Brad." Windy shrugged. "He would've if he could've."

"I need to go in now!"

"No, not yet, Brad." Windy talked him down. "Jimmy knows where Dana is and he won't leave without her.

Windy checked in with Jimmy. "Where are you?"

"Just outside the makeshift dressing room. I left a microphone in the room." Jimmy paused. "Let me know if she is in trouble."

"Definitely, Babe." Windy wanted him to stay alert. "Be very careful, Jimmy. These guys will kill you if they find out who you are."

"Dani knows. I think." Jimmy explained. "It looked like she recognized me."

"Jack!" The big band leader of the Commotions, rushed to Jimmy. "Jack! I thought it was you! "

Jimmy drew a blank. "Sorry, my memory is not what it used to be."

"We were your backing band about ten years back!" Brian smiled.

Jimmy looked at the man dressed in a Storm Troopers Suit. "The Commotions?"

"Yeah yeah! You remembered!"

"Brian?"

"Yeah!" Brian stepped aside for Jimmy to see the rest of the band. "You remember!"

"I don't recall so many, Brian."

"Yeah, yeah lucky thirteen!" Brian waved his band over.

"Hey Jack!" Many of the band members echoed.

"What do you say we do a set together?" Brian suggested. "Unless you have your own band."

"To be honest, I haven't sang in years but I did learn to play the piano."

"Come on, what do you say?"

"You guys always made me look good." Jimmy smiled. "Why not?!"

"Five minutes, Commotions!"

Jimmy turned to see a woman hype up on way too much coffee. "Who the hell is that?!"

"Cherise wants to get her birthday party started, people!" The party planner rushed to the band. "I'm Kathleen, the live entertainment director."

"Cherise has a live entertainment director?" Jimmy frowned.

Brian laughed. "Crazy, right? I guess money will do that. Cherise found us on Canada day in Ottawa. She said she had to have us here." The band leader explained the group being booked. "How'd she find you?"

"Ah, I crashed the party?" Jimmy gave a nervous laugh. "Cherise thinks her husband found me."

"You were always her favorite, Jack." Brian slapped Jimmy's shoulder.

Jimmy wrapped his arm around the band leader. "What do you say we get her party started, Brian?"

"What song will you start with, Jack?" Brian  asked.

"You'll know." Jimmy laughed.

"Ballsy, Jimmy!" Brad spoke into the live feed.

The band rushed ahead to the stage.

"Yeah, listen up, Drummer Boy." Jimmy reacted to a feeling of Brad not believing he could pull it off.

"I will tell you if we hear anything from Dana." Windy added. "Remember getting Dana out is your objective, not being the toast of the party."

"Got it, Win. Don't worry Drummer Boy, she's safe as houses." Jimmy assured Dana's husband.

Taking the Stage

Kathleen took the microphone to get Jimmy to the stage. "All the way from Las Vegas, Nevada. Cherise's all time favorite band from the historic Showtime Theater. Let's give it up for the one and only, Commotions!"

Cherise jumped to her cheering for her favorite acts ever. "I love you Guys!"

Jimmy ran out to the stage letting his tuxedo jacket slip from his shoulders and down his arms landing in his wake.

Jimmy moved as dramatically as Meat Loaf, himself sitting at the beautiful white grand piano. He looked out at the two or three hundred people gathered for Cherise's fortieth birthday. He made eye contact with a young woman at a front row table, making her a little uncomfortable. It was all part of his persona.

His showmanship flipped like a switch for a light. His intense stare locked in on the young woman. Jimmy's left hand began and the band knew the song Jack was about to perform.

This is the precise time Jimmy disappeared and Jack Legend took over. As if he were possessed by Meat himself. "And I would do anything for love."

Cherise jumped up from her seat totally in awe once again by seeing Jack perform. When she landed on her chair the birthday girl kissed her husband, Robert Fortune. Joey, Johnny, and Robert junior looked on as if she were crazy.

Jimmy noticed the three sons of the mob leader laughing at Cherise, his biggest fan, and he wasn't happy.

"I'd run right into hell and back." Jimmy paused before tapping the keys and continuing to perform. "I would do anything for love. I'd never lie to you and that's a fact."

By this time Jimmy had the entire banquet hall believing he was the late Marvin Lee Aday or the more familiar  Meat Loaf. He physically became the iconic man, not only in voice but also in the magnificent way he moved, stared and dressed.

To the people who once attended Meat Loaf concerts in the eighties and nineties it was as if they had been transported back forty years. Jack Legend mastered being Meat Loaf so well, he showed up in Vegas looking for Jack to set the record straight.

Brad sat back in the kitchen chair. "Damn, I had forgotten just how good he was."

Windy smiled as Jordan made her way to the kitchen.

"Is that my dad? That is isn't it?" Brad wrapped his arm around Jordan's waist and she sat on the chair next to him.

The three listened to his performance as if listening to a radio from a bygone era. Windy wiped tears from her eyes while Brad and his daughter seemed totally enamored by the performance.

As the song progressed a new member of the band pulled a microphone from its cradle and approached Jimmy to help him finish off the song.

"Will you raise me up, will you help me down. Will you get me right out of this god forsaken town. Will you make it all a little less cold?"

Jimmy ripped the microphone from the cradle and met her at the other end of the grand piano building to a romantic crescendo in front of the guests. Cherise leaned into Robert senior who, in contrast, looked disinterested in the whole performance.

"I can do that....oh yeah, I can do that!"

"I wonder who she is?" Jordan wondered aloud. She has this angelic voice."

The duet performer just happened to be the discovered in a French idol competition in Quebec and the band leader invited her to be in the band. She helped bring the song to a dramatic conclusion.

"I know the territory, I've been around. It'll all turn to dust and we'll all fall down. Sooner or later you'll be screwing around."

"I won't do that. No I won't do that. Anything for love. Oh I would do anything for love. I would do anything for love. But I won't do that. No I won't do that."

Jimmy pulled a huge handkerchief from a pocket to wipe the sweat from his forehead as his duet partner slid in close. He leaned into the woman and spoke loudly over the applause. "My daughter wants to know who has the angelic voice."

"I'm Rebecca!" The woman reached up to embrace Jimmy and her bracelets caught onto the Meat Loaf wig and pulled it free of his head exposing his bleached hair.

The guests laughed but Jimmy took it in stride as he had always done in times of previous wardrobe malfunctions. Though this proved to be quite different as all the Fortune men were less than ten feet away.

Jimmy made eye contact with Johnny, who frowned. The blonde hair seemed to throw the youngest Fortune brother off. The performer turned and spoke to Windy. "I think they are on to me. I'm gonna make a run for it, Win!"

"Rebecca, I've gotta run!" Jimmy waved at Brian as if it were planned that he only perform one song. He untangled his wig from Rebecca's bracelets, gave a wave to the crowd without facing the Fortune men again.

Jimmy trotted out the door behind the stage at a quick pace but not extremely fast. As if he just made a cameo appearance for Cherise but she wanted more and followed him out the door.

"Jack!" Cherise called out to Jimmy when she saw him exiting the dressing room door. "Where are you going?"

"Cherise, I can't stick around."

"But why? The party just started!"

"My ex-girlfriend is in your husband's office. They will kill her to get to me and my daughter." Jimmy tried to pull away from his old friend from Vegas. "I have to get her out of here!"

"So Robert didn't find you?" Cherise pouted before she ran ahead to Robert's office.

"Cherise!" Jimmy called out to the birthday girl.

Windy yelled to motivate her man. "Jimmy, get Dana and get the hell out of there!"

"Win, I am heading to Old Man Fortune's office!"

Brad jumped up from the kitchen chair. "I'm going down there!" He pulled the apartment door open when Jordan tried to follow but Windy blocked her. "This is no game, Jordan! Let your fathers get your mom to safety."

"Win! They are all I have!" Jordan just called Windy the same way Jimmy addresses her.

"Jimmy is all I have!" Windy hugged the teenager. "We can help from here. Come back to the laptop."

"Fine!" Jordan gave in to Windy.

"Win, I'm going into the office now." Jimmy informed her. "Keep an ear open. Oh, and Win, I love you Babe!"

Windy showed deep concern in her facial expressions when hearing the seriousness in Jimmy's voice.

"Win?" Jordan hugged Windy around her shoulders burying her face into the older woman's big curly hair. "He really loves you."

I'd like to give Meat Loaf a little love here.

Video:
I'd do Anything for Love
Meat Loaf - Album, Bat out of Hell

******

I would like to introduce you to the Canadian big band, The Commotions. Find them at @thecommotionsband on IG