“No, it is not, because good is not relative,” I said. “I don’t care what the ‘rules’ are, at Auschwitz someone needed to stand up and say ‘no.’ ”
Alex let out his breath. “All right, Dakota, you’ve just Godwined the thread,” he said. “I’m not going to discuss this anymore with you—”
“Alex,” I said. “I may be computer savvy, but in the end, I am just a tattoo artist. I do not have any idea what you just meant other than ‘fuck off.’ ”
Alex pursed his lip. “To ‘Godwin’ is to invoke Nazis in otherwise polite conversation.”
“We are having a polite conversation,” I said, “and you’re telling me no, because you think the oath you swore is a good one, regardless of whether it’s convenient for me. That’s OK, Alex, it really is. I didn’t come here to bust your chops—”
And then his face fell, and it hit me he knew what was coming—and planned to welsh.
“Oh yeah,” I said, slumping my shoulders slightly. “I did.”
“Dakota,” Alex began, the snake oil creeping back into his voice. “I’m so sorry—”
“S’all right,” I said. “Don’t take this personally, but where the hell’s my money, Alex?”
“Oh, no!” Cinnamon cried, hands going to her mouth. “I knew it, I knew it! There was no way you would—fahhk!—would have come all the way out here just for me—”
“I did, Cinnamon,” I said, grimacing, not meeting her gaze, “but two birds, one stone—”
“I knew this was coming,” Alex said, slumping. “You’ve been dodging the filming for so long, and I wanted to think you were making good, but I knew this was too good to be true—”
“I’m not one to dodge anything,” I said, putting my hand on Cinnamon’s shoulder. She shrugged me off, but I continued, “As you’ve noticed, I have a new daughter, and she gets dibs on my time. But I was serious when I said I’d come out to shoot your bumpers—”
“Trailers,” Alex said. “Bumpers are for radio—”
“Whatever, Alex,” I said. “But do not talk to me about ‘making good’ until you cough up what you owe me. You can’t welsh on a million bucks—”
“All right, all right!” Alex said, holding up his hands. “Look, Dakota—seriously. I’m just the mouthpiece. I do not write the checks—”
“Latest installment is fifty thousand dollars,” I said. “Due May 17.”
“I know when it was due,” Alex said. “I told them—”
“That was a three month extension,” I said. “And a reduction by fifty percent—”
“Dakota,” Alex said, “Dakota. The situation at the Foundation has changed since—”
“Alex, we already did this dance. The Foundation agreed to pay up. You agreed—”
———
“We did,” Alex said. “We did! But we can’t. The Foundation’s going bankrupt.”
23. Duct Tape and Baling Wire
Alex’s words echoed in my mind—The Valentine Foundation is going bankrupt. My mouth fell open; Cinnamon’s hands went to her mouth again. I stared at Alex for a long moment, trying to process it. Then everything clicked, and I put my hand to my forehead.
“Oh, Jesus, Alex, don’t tell me that,” I said. Of course the Foundation wasn’t going to be able to pay—I killed its founder. God knows what that would do to it. Not to mention the half-dozen lawsuits they’d become embroiled in. “I know that you’ve had hard times—”
“Hard times?” Alex said, with a rough laugh. “The Foundation is going under—”
“How much do you make?” I barked. “What, a quarter million dollars a year?”
“The show needs a quarter million dollars by the end of the month just to pay for the staff,” Alex said. “We quit paying me long before we decided to . . . to defer paying you. Hell, I’ve been deferring my own salary for three months just to keep the lights on—”
“Jesus,” I said, because I believed him. How would I pay for Cinnamon’s school now? I stole a glance at her. She looked terrified, and had seized her own tail. She’d been hurt when she realized my ulterior motive—but she was too smart not to connect the dots. “So . . . what now?”
“Well,” Alex said. He looked back at the building, then raised his bare wrist, and looked at it. I thought it an odd gesture—and then I realized, he is looking at the tattoo I inked to check the time. I felt a sudden thrill—I rarely see my tattoos working on other people.
Alex caught my eye, and despite himself, grinned.
“Yeah, it still works,” he said, smile quickly fading. “But nothing else around here does. The Foundation is a mess. We lost most of our endorsements, and we’ve been hit by half a dozen lawsuits. I’ve got to warn you, we’re re-releasing all the old DVDs just to stay afloat—”
“I don’t care if you have to sell the buildings, Alex, you owe me a million dollars. If re-releasing the DVDs will help you pay up, then good,” I snapped. He scowled, and I asked, “Not good? Wait—you said warn me. Why? What’s dangerous about new releases of old DVDs?”
“Special features,” Alex said evasively. “They’ve cut a deal with one of our directors, and he’s doing a whole reality TV thing here, collecting footage for the behind the scenes extras on the DVDs. This time of day, the ‘Candid Camera’ crew will still be roaming around.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I said. “Just keep Cinnamon out of it. She’s not a show for your cameras.”
“Agreed,” Alex said quickly. “I’ll take you through to the administrative offices—”
“Thanks, I guesses,” Cinnamon grumbled, glaring at me sidelong. I motioned to Alex, who left to give us a moment, climbing the stairs as I knelt before Cinnamon. Before I could say anything soothing, Cinnamon hissed like a cat and said, “You should’ve told me.”
“Cinnamon, I didn’t want you to be hurt—”
“Well color me—eff—hurt,” she said. “It’s red in your crayon box—”
“Now look, young lady,” I said, pointing at her. “That’s precisely the reaction you have that makes me not want to tell you things. We are out here for your award—but I can’t fly all this way out here and not at least try to get these losers to cough up our money—”
“I knows, I knows,” she said, turning her head aside again, then shaking it. “But . . . I gets so worried. I shouldn’t get scared, but no one but you’s ever given me a full run of nice. Now this. Mom, what are we gonna do if they don’t pay us? Am—am I gonna have to—”
“You are not,” I said, “going to have to leave your school. We may lose the house. We may lose the car. But we’re not going to lose your future. I may have to do double shifts at the tattoo parlor, or take out a loan, or I don’t know. But your tuition is non-negotiable.”
Cinnamon sniffed, looking away. Then she looked at me. “Like you and me.”
“Like you and me,” I said, giving her a big squeeze. “We’re non-negotiable.”
Cinnamon sighed and shuddered. “All right,” she said, looking up at Alex, waiting by the big wooden doors of the Foundation. “Watch out, Mom, the giant Ken doll is up to something. Or he’s hidin’ something he thinks will hurt us—”
“Charming,” I said, rising. “I got the same read. Well . . . shall we? Let’s.”
The Valentine Foundation blended hip research center, functioning television studio . . . and ratty small business that had seen better days. The lobby was all slate and cherry wood; a brushed-aluminum version of the Foundation’s top-hat logo greeted visitors, hanging on a vertical grille of stone backed with a sheet of water lit from behind. Then a figure moved behind the rippling water—it was a window into a conference room, with privacy afforded by the bars of stone and water shimmering down the glass. Chic. Very ’70s, but chic.
The vertical grille of stone mirrored the lined façad
e of the building, and beyond that resemblance, the architect’s control over the use of his building disintegrated. Piled boxes were stacked on the receptionist’s desk. To the left, signs and equipment indicating a CONFERENCE CENTER were piled up in front of a door now labeled NO GO IN THIS WAY; atop that door now was taped—and I mean, duct taped—a sign that said ON THE AIR. To the right, a door was propped open, and Alex took us down a hall lined with coffee-stained psychedelic-patterned carpet and into a breakroom stacked with boxes, where the director who had filmed the challenge was talking to (well, at, really) a cameraman adjusting settings on a video camera.
“Shit,” Alex said, rubbing his neck. “Weren’t we going to use the conference center—”
“Are you serious?” the cameraman asked, in an odd variant of a British accent, without ever taking his pale blue eyes off the settings of his camera; it was the same cameraman too. “Ron and Sunny are screen-testing Jacob Dauntless in there. Jacob bloody Dauntless—”
Alex twitched. “Well, Dakota,” he said, “I guess we’re shooting in here—”
“Just the candids—oh, Dakota Frost! Good to see you yet again,” the director said. He was a fidgety, rail-thin African man with intensely dark skin and a wisp of a handshake. “Denis Ekundayo. I shot your follow-up interview.”
“I remember,” I said. “You two also shot the challenge, if I recall correctly—”
“You do indeed,” the cameraman said, still focused on his camera. “David Lloyd-Presse.”
“We were going to shoot in the conference center until Dauntless agreed to drop in,” Ekundayo said, eyeing Cinnamon curiously, “but I thought while we went over the waivers and script, we might leave the camera running and shoot some candid shots—”
“Unfortunately, I have a few ground rules,” I said. “First, no cameras.”
“What did she say?” Lloyd-Presse asked, turning his head slightly.
“I said, no cameras. My daughter is with me, and she is not to be filmed.”
“Now wait a moment,” Ekundayo said. “How—if we can’t film you—”
“Of course I’m here to shoot the trailers,” I said, “but appearing on a reality show is not in my contract. Even if it was, Cinnamon is not a sideshow. So for now, no candid cameras.”
“But it was in my contract,” Ekundayo said. “Alex, we agreed. We talked about this—”
“Not to me,” I said.
“Relax, both of you,” Alex said. “I’m calling Erica. This is her mess, she can explain it. As for Cinnamon, she wasn’t involved in the challenge,” Alex said. He muttered something sharp into his phone, then put his hand over the receiver. “She should wait in the lobby—”
“She-stays-with-me,” I said flatly. “And that means, no cameras.”
“We sticks together,” Cinnamon said. She grinned. “It’s non-negotiable.”
“David,” Ekundayo said, shaking his head. “Turn it off.”
“But—” the cameraman said.
“Let it go,” Ekundayo said. “She’d have to sign the waiver for her daughter anyway.”
“Speaking of, and second,” I said, “I’m not signing any new waivers.”
“Dakota,” Alex began.
“Alex, we’re in a dispute,” I said, glaring at him. “We’ve got each other’s lawyers on speed dial. You’ve known I was coming out here forever. You had six weeks to send me any forms I needed to sign. I don’t sign anything without my lawyers looking at it.”
“We don’t film anyone without a waiver,” Ekundayo said.
“Speak for yourself,” Lloyd-Presse said.
“I’ll get the original waivers,” Alex said, raising his cell phone again. “Erica, bring counsel, and have them pull her whole file. You and me, Denis, watched her sign the waivers together. I promise we’ve kept everything in order.”
“Not for the reality show—”
“I’m not part of the reality show,” I said. “You know what? Maybe I would be part of a reality show if it would help the Foundation, even if it had nothing to do with helping you pay up. But not if it’s sprung on me like a trap after I flew twenty-five hundred miles.”
“And shouldn’t it be like a whole ’nother contract or something?” Cinnamon said. “I means, bein’ in front of the cameras, it seems natural, but isn’t it like workin’?”
“She’s right,” Alex said. “They’re both right, Denis.”
Ekundayo wavered, then nodded.
“Dakota, you said a few ground rules,” Alex said. “We just heard two. What’s three?”
“Oh, that. No script, not when it counts,” I said. “Sure, I’ll say ‘this is the Valentine Challenge’ or whatever. But when it comes to my work—I say what I say. You tell me what we’re talking about, and ask the questions, but I do not read from a script.”
“Look,” Ekundayo said. “This is television. That is how it works—”
“No, this is how it works,” I said. “Jesus may be my God, but my copilot is the truth. I’m a practicing tattoo artist, but I was trained as scientist. Our mission is to accurately represent the world. I take responsibility for everything I say, and I will not read someone else’s words.”
Ekundayo let out his breath, long and slow. “OK,” he said.
“Feeling your balls effectively busted?” I asked.
He didn’t look me in the eye. “You might say that.”
“Well, don’t worry,” I said, giving him a half-smile. “The worst is over.”
He shook his head. “Oh, no, it isn’t,” he said. “You are going to hate this.”
A dapper, slender man with a shaggy bowl haircut and a slim briefcase stepped into the room—Felix Meyer, the Foundation’s lawyer. His eyes immediately found me, then looked away. We’d grown tired of seeing each other after my long dispute with the Foundation.
Following Felix was an equally slender woman with a dark black ponytail that poured forward over her shoulder like black oil—Erica Browning, chairwoman of the Foundation. We had barely met, but her eyes immediately zeroed in on me and glared. I glared right back.
“Counselor Meyer,” I said. “Miss Browning.”
“Ms. Frost,” Felix Meyer responded, snapping open his briefcase.
“Mr. Ekundayo,” Browning said, “I thought Felix already gave you the waivers—”
“I think we’re all here to talk about the other bit,” Ekundayo said.
“Oh, hell,” Browning said, glaring at me, then glancing at Meyer.
“Well,” Meyer said, after the briefest pause, “My office is preparing a, a statement—”
“She knows,” Alex said. “About the bankruptcy, at least—”
“Damn it, Alex,” Browning said. “You can’t go airing our dirty laundry—”
“You know, Miss Browning,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “when I settled with you earlier this year, it was contingent on you delivering. You welshing on your payments is no different than me welshing on my part of the agreement—”
“Which is what, not suing us?” Browning said. “You put us over a barrel, Ms. Frost. We cut you an advance from your winnings so you could make a down payment on a house. We paid for your legal fees when we should have been suing you for killing our founder—”
“Who was a murderous schmuck, but anyway,” I said. “You know what, I had forgotten that check, and I’ve never said thank you. Well, thank you, Miss Browning. You helped me get a nice house—but you agreed to pay the rest on a schedule, and you haven’t paid up.”
Browning frowned. “Ms. Frost, Alex is right. The Foundation is almost bankrupt. We’ve been sued. We’ve lost donors. Valentine himself helped bring in a lot of income in speaking fees. The only thing keeping us going is—”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Or, you know what, I d
o care. I don’t want to put you guys out of business. I admire the job you’re doing of skeptical education. But I lost two teeth and nearly my life in the games Valentine pulled on me, and I still beat him fair and square. I want my money.”
Browning shifted uncomfortably. “Well, that brings us back to the show.”
I glowered at her. Then, I got it.
“Aha,” I said. “That explains all the stalling on my check. You had to re-sell the rights to the show, and are waiting for your next payment from the network—”
“Almost right,” Ekundayo said, “but it isn’t that simple.”
I stared at him. He had an interesting accent. I liked listening to him talk. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“The Exposers,” Ekundayo said, “was on its seventh season. That’s ancient in network years—close to two hundred episodes, which are self-contained and interesting and have a lot of replay value. Seven seasons is all a network really needs to syndicate them—”
“And after Valentine was killed,” I said, “The Exposers got canceled.”
“No, even before that, it was nearly canceled,” Alex said. “Valentine fought for it, tooth and nail, me too. We lobbied the network hard, brought Denis back on board, had all these specials planned—but then you exposed him for what he really was, and, um—”
An uncomfortable silence spread across the table.
“Anyway,” Alex said, “ghoulish as it sounds, all the terrible publicity after his killing makes for great TV. So we’ve got a hook for the network—but no headliner. By myself, I’m not big enough. We’re bringing back Jacob Dauntless, but even he isn’t big enough—”
“But I,” Ekundayo said, “found the angle which finally clinched it.”
He smiled grimly, and a growing sense of horror filled me.
“Oh, hell,” I said. “What did you do? Spill it.”
———
“To sell season eight,” Ekundayo said, “we listed you as a presenter in our roster.”
Liquid Fire Page 18