He’d called her as soon as Brendan gave him the news and told her that he was in the city and needed her to meet him at his lawyers’ offices, no questions asked. She was half-asleep but agreed right away, sounding frightened. He’d wanted to be able to tell her there was no reason to be afraid, but that simply wasn’t true and he’d promised himself he would not lie to her ever again.
Shawn held her arm now and led her to the elevators, hitting the button. Brendan stood a few feet behind them.
“I got a call from Mike,” he told her, trying to keep his voice level. “He told me Keisha said she was pressing rape charges against me.”
Riley raised a hand to her mouth but said nothing.
“So I flew in last night to take care of it . . .”
Riley’s made a face. “Last night? Why didn’t you come home?”
“It was late and . . .”
The elevator came and they stepped on, Brendan following.
“ . . . and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Wake me? she asked, incredulous. “Jesus Shawn. So what’s going on now?”
“She filed a complaint.”
Riley blinked. She looked the way he felt—numb. She took his hand and pulled him toward her, standing on her toes to put her arms about his neck. She held him like that until the elevator stopped. Riley followed silently, holding his hand as they were led to his attorney’s office.
Doug Scanlon had been representing Shawn since he was eighteen years old, when he was still a green kid from the streets of D.C. who wasn’t inclined to trust older white guys in suits. But Doug made no pretense of understanding Shawn’s experiences or in some instances, even sharing his point of view—he just did his best to accomplish whatever objectives Shawn laid out for him. On occasion he would advise against a certain course of action or suggest another more advantageous one, but he was never condescending, never patronizing. Riley had met him only once before.
Today, his face was grave as he nodded his greetings, offered seats to all three of them and closed his office door.
“First, I have to advise you Shawn that we can speak privately if you wish. In fact, I would advise it. I’ll need your complete candor and with your wife here, you may feel . . .”
“Nah, that’s a’ight, Shawn said impatiently. “Let’s talk about how we can take care of this.”
“Where we stand right now is that an arrest warrant has been issued.” Doug’s hands were clasped beneath his chin, elbows resting on his desk. He pursed his lips. “After you called me this morning, I arranged for you to surrender sometime this afternoon in the Bronx where she pressed the charges. You’ll be booked and processed, and then arraigned maybe this afternoon, most likely tomorrow morning.”
“He’ll have to spend the night in jail?” Riley asked. She gripped his hand tighter.
Doug nodded. “Yes, that’s likely.”
“And then what?”
“He’ll make bail and more than likely be released pending trial.”
Shawn exhaled and shook his head in disbelief. “Trial. She’s lying though. I can’t believe they’d just take her word on some serious shit like this.”
“A lot of times that’s all they have in the beginning.”
“Did she say when this was supposed to have happened?” Riley spoke up again.
“I don’t have a statement of the charges,” Doug said. “But we’ll get all that when he goes in. Now, what about you, Shawn? You have any idea when she might say this happened?”
“Yeah. I think I might know. But that was like months ago though. It didn’t even happen in New York. And it was definitely not rape.”
“The timing doesn’t matter as much as one might think. And you’re saying you had consensual sex?”
“Hell yeah it was consensual. If anything, she was the one . . .”
“Just because there wasn’t force doesn’t preclude her from saying it was non-consensual? Was there alcohol involved? Was she drunk?”
Shawn shrugged. “Maybe. I know I was.”
“Okay. Tell me the whole story.”
Shawn bit his lower lip, and glanced at Riley. Despite what he’d said to Doug earlier, he didn’t want her to have to hear this yet again, relive how she felt when she’d found out. But she seemed to read his mind
“Go ahead,” she said gently. “It’s okay.”
He told the whole story, what parts of it he remembered anyway, and leaned back, searching Doug’s face for an encouraging sign. There were none.
“And there’s a lot of people who could testify that she was all over him before that night,” Brendan spoke for the first time. “Damn near everybody on the tour could testify to that. And then there was the strip poker thing.”
Doug perked up. “What strip poker thing?”
Brendan told that story and Doug nodded. He’d been taking notes the whole time, but now was writing furiously. “I’ll need the names of whomever was there that night. For the card game. As well as people who worked on the tour. I need the name of any places you were in with her before you went back to the hotel. Any other detail you think might be helpful.”
“I can give you all that,” Brendan said.
Riley stood abruptly, releasing his hand. “I have to make some phone calls. Is there a room I can use?”
Doug buzzed his secretary who came and ushered Riley out of the office. Shawn watched her leave. She wasn’t registering too much of a reaction so far. But maybe that was because, like him, she couldn’t even believe it was real.
Instead of going home tonight, he was going to be spending the night in jail. If he’d known it was going to turn into anything even resembling this, he would have said a lot worse to Keisha when he had the chance.
“So how can we make this go away?” Shawn asked now.
Doug’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I mean, before we flew down here, me and Brendan were thinking of getting her not to press charges by offering her . . .”
Doug held up a hand. “There’s two things wrong with that. Well, more than two but here’s a couple to think about: one, it would be illegal—it’s called ‘bribing a witness’. And two, it wouldn’t necessarily make the case go away. The DA has the discretion now about whether or not to proceed.”
“And it’s public now, anyway,” Brendan added.
Shawn sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know, I was just thinking that . . .”
“The best thing to do is work the process,” Doug said. “We’ll cooperate, and hopefully the witnesses will pan out so that by Christmas this’ll be a thing of the past.”
“Christmas?” Shawn leaned forward in his seat. “That’s a couple months off.”
Doug shrugged. “The wheels of justice can turn very slowly.”
Shawn shook his head. “That bitch, man. If I could just . . .”
“Get all of that out of your system right now,” Doug warned. “I don’t want anyone showing up in front of a grand jury saying you threatened her.”
“Will she be there? At the grand jury?”
Doug nodded. “She’s the complaining witness.”
“So choking the shit out of her is out of the question?” Shawn said wryly.
Brendan laughed but Doug did not.
“Shawn, you have to take this very, very seriously,” he said. “Innocence is no guarantee that you’ll get off.”
Those words were enough to stop cold in its tracks any sense of humor he might have had about the situation.
From Doug’s office, they went to Brendan’s. They didn’t know if there would be press at the condo, and Shawn needed a few hours to prepare to get locked up. It was funny how he was going to wind up behind bars—another brother in trouble—even though he had more money and more opportunities to avoid that fate than most. But this was no time for self-pity and truth be told, the enemy in his case was himself.
There were twenty-seven messages on Brendan’s voicemail. The news had hit MTV and Arista w
as justifiably upset that they’d heard about it along with the rest of the world. Shawn ducked into the bedroom to let Brendan return the calls, pulling Riley with him. They sat side by side on the edge of the bed, neither of them speaking for a minute or two.
“You okay?” he asked her finally.
“Am I okay?” she said. “What about you?”
He would have accepted a lecture if she’d given him one. Tears, screaming. Anything. After all, his own stupidity had gotten him here. Had gotten them here. Now she was in the position of having to explain to her friends and family and co-workers how it happened that her husband was being charged with rape. Rape.
“Who’d you call from Doug’s office?”
“Lorna. And Tracy. Greg.”
“You told them?”
“Yup.”
“What’d Lorna say?”
“Not a whole hell of a lot. None of them did. I think they’re shocked.”
It could have been worse—they could have told her they weren’t shocked.
“Baby, I’m so sorry . . .”
“Stop.” She put a forefinger over his lips. “For now, let’s try to concentrate on getting it over with.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Brendan stuck his head in. “Shawn . . . you need to take this call.”
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Steve Manness from Arista.”
That’s all he needed right now. More bullshit.
“He says there’s a clause in your contract that allows them to back out if circumstances—now these are his exact words—“render you incapable of performing your obligations under the agreement” and looks like someone at Arista thinks a rape trial might be that circumstance.”
Shawn closed his eyes. “Tell Steve to call Doug.”
“He wants you, man.”
“B, I’m not a fucking lawyer! Get him to call Doug!”
Brendan held up a hand. “A’ight. Chill.” He disappeared from the doorway.
“Shawn,” Riley said, her voice level. “You’re going to have to calm down. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, so you can’t lose it right now.”
“I know.” She rested a hand on his back making slow circles. Then she rested her chin there, stroking his neck.
“It’ll be okay,” she promised. “I swear it’ll be okay.”
There was nobody else in the world he needed to hear that from more than her.
The phone didn’t stop ringing. Mostly it was people Shawn didn’t want to hear from anyway. But he took Chris Scaife’s call, because if he was good for one thing, Chris had his finger on the pulse of the industry. He could always tell how something was going to play—he had infallible instinct for what would blow over, and what was a career-ender. And he didn’t sound too encouraging.
“The thing about a rape charge, man. You can’t just beat the rap, you got to discredit her. Especially you. You got that sex-symbol thing going on. A rape suspect is a tough sell as a sex-symbol, y’know what I’m sayin’?”
“Yeah but I’m not a sex-symbol though. That’s not my thing.”
“Not to you maybe. You think it’s about your message and shit. But straight up Smooth, you got like what? A forty-six percent female fan base? You need to keep them happy. If I was you, I’d get everybody who knows what really went down between you and Keisha to give interviews, man. MTV, Entertainment Tonight, you name it.
“Get the word out there that she’s lyin’. The first thing that shit’ll do is, it’ll keep your fan base intact. And the second thing is, the DA will take his head out his ass and realize he don’t got a case.”
He hated to admit it, but Chris was making sense.
“Yeah, but my lawyer said I should just work the process, man. And if I got people on MTV and Entertainment Tonight . . .”
“Look. I got lawyers. I understand lawyers. Lawyers do what lawyers do, y’know what I’m sayin’? Let me do my thing.”
“But if they get paid for the interview, that messes up their credibility in court. You might save my career and my street cred but get my ass put in jail,” Shawn pointed out.
“Nah. MTV doesn’t pay for interviews. And I could make sure they don’t take money from anyplace else either.”
Shawn hesitated to ask how Chris could make sure of a thing like that. Being implicated in one crime was plenty enough.
“Most everybody is dancers, right? If they know they could get bumped to the top of my call list for work in the future, they’ll do the interviews for free.”
“Oh, so we bribe them?”
Chris sucked his teeth. “Damn, man. One little brush with the system and you start using words like ‘bribe’. This ain’t no bribe. They tellin’ the truth, right? It’s more like an incentive.”
Shawn laughed. “Yeah. Whatever.”
“PR, man. It’s all about PR. Juries watch TV too. So you want me to do this or what?”
“I don’t know, man. Lemme think about it.”
“What you got to think about? You gettin’ locked up in a minute over some shit you didn’t even do!”
“Lemme talk to Riley and call you back right quick.”
“A’ight. Hurry up. We might be able to do something tonight if we move quickly.”
g
“Let’s do it,” Riley said immediately when he told her Chris’ plan. “Call him back and tell him to do it.”
“Hold up, hold up, hold up. You don’t think it’s risky?” Brendan asked. “And kind of aggressive? Considering we don’t even know how things look legally yet.”
“Aggressive?” Riley asked leaning forward, her eyes afire. “This woman is falsely accusing my husband of rape, Brendan. What could be more aggressive than that?”
Shawn sat back in his chair, as surprised as Brendan obviously was at her reaction. She was ready to fight for him. He could see it on her face—in the way her jaw had hardened, the squaring back of her shoulders.
“I understand that Riley, but he did have sex with her,” Brendan pointed out apologetically.
“Not against her will!”
“But a jury could think that he’s got what’s coming to him. Just for being the kinda dude who uses women.”
“Brendan, she knows that they’re a dozen people out there who can testify that she was out to get him. She doesn’t care about a damn jury. She’s trying to destroy his career, and maybe get some money in the process. Chris is right. We have to put the criminal charges and the public relations stuff on parallel tracks.”
Brendan sighed and shook his head. “It’s your call, Shawn. What you think?”
“If Chris does this right, I don’t see why it should affect what happens in court except in a positive way,” Shawn said, looking to Riley for confirmation.
“Yeah, but you don’t know if he’ll do it right. It could backfire, man.”
“Brendan do you really want him to just take this sitting down? Knowing she’s making the whole thing up, you want him to just go into court like a sheep and hope that justice will prevail?”
Brendan ran a hand over his head. “I dunno. Maybe you’re right . . .”
Riley picked up the phone and handed it to Shawn. “Well I know. Call Chris,” she ordered.
Shawn dialed the number.
The calls kept coming until it was time to meet Doug at his office for the trip to the Bronx. The only person Shawn spoke to was his cousin in Baltimore who told him his grandmother didn’t understand what was going on, so he had nothing to worry about on that end. This was one of the times he wished he had what a lot of other performers of his stature had—an entourage. Dozens of people who would shield him from all this crap.
Groupies and paparazzi trying to get to Cameron, for instance, would have to get past his three bodyguards, his personal assistant and his younger brother just to talk to him. He used to laugh about that with Brendan when he did concerts with other rappers. Some of them would arrive with as many as twenty people in tow, not including t
heir security. And every one of them gots to get paid, he’d joked one time. Today it would be more than worth the money.
“You ready?”
They’d pulled up in front of Doug’s building as it was just beginning to get dark. Shawn was sitting up front with Brendan and Riley had leaned over the back of his seat to cross her arms over his chest.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“So let’s go.”
“No.” Shawn turned to look at her. “You’re going home.”
A look of confusion flashed across her face. “But . . .”
“I don’t want you running past reporters and all that mess. It might not be like that, but you don’t know. I don’t want you down there.”
Riley’s shoulder’s sagged. “I can deal with it.”
“No.” Shawn shook his head. “Home.”
She opened her mouth to answer and closed it again.
“I’m okay, Riley. It’s one night. I’ll see you in no time. Look . . .” he dug into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “. . . go to the sublet and get my stuff. Write a check to Sam Benning and leave it on the coffee table. It’s three months at a twenty-five hundred a month.”
She was nodding, and blinking rapidly like she was trying to prevent herself from crying. She took the keys from his hand and dropped them into her purse. Shawn smiled at her and brushed a finger against her nose-ring before getting out of the car and heading inside.
g
It wasn’t as though he’d never been inside a police station before. Or even been booked and fingerprinted. Back in D.C., in his old stomping grounds, he’d gotten into a lot of scrapes that ended up just like this one. But he was kid then and didn’t know or didn’t care about what it meant. And in his neighborhood, getting picked up by the police was almost a rite of passage. This time it was anything but. There were a few reporters on the perp walk and a couple of camera crews from MTV and the local news. They took their pictures and yelled their questions but he ignored them.
Inside they took his mug shots and fingerprints and sealed his watch, chain and wedding ring in an envelope. He talked to an officer and, with Doug sitting next to him, declined to answer any questions and was put in a cell. It was more like a cage, really—made out of the same chain link material that surrounded construction sites. Everyone else had been cleared out, so he was alone.
Commitment Page 43