The Accidental Hunter

by Nelson George

“Just let me check.” The guy took a couple of steps back and began whispering into his little microphone. After a bit of back-and-forth, the young bouncer pulled back the ropes, saying, “Sorry, Mr. Hunter,” while trying not to sound too kiss-ass.

  “What’s your name?” D asked.

  “Kirk Robiski, sir.”

  “Good work,” D said. “If you don’t know what to do, check with a higher authority. That was Emily, right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Emily’s Tea Party was jumping but D didn’t recognize any of the swells. Models, yes, but mostly girls living in models’ apartments just off the plane from Helsinki or Lexington, Kentucky. Musicians, yes, but just wannabe rock gods from Williamsburg. And not one athlete. Not even a member of the Mets. And where was Emily, the empress of this soiree? A bartender had seen her walking into the manager’s office, which seemed odd, since Emily usually didn’t venture in there until the end of the evening to tally up. He wondered if his Chester Himes book was still stashed safely away.

  D didn’t knock—why should he? So when the two faces turned toward him, he was as startled as they pretended to be. Emily stood facing a tall, fit black man with dreads and a mustache. He was in his mid-twenties, brown-skinned, and dressed in a beautiful gray Roberto Cavalli suit. Emily’s right hand was on his arm. Didn’t look like they’d been kissing but it sure felt like they were about to.

  She said, “D, I wasn’t sure when you were coming by.” Yet she knew he was here because she had been on the other end of young Kirk’s walkie-talkie. As she spoke, her hand moved down to her thigh. The brother in the Cavalli suit slumped slightly and looked down at the floor. Emily moved over to D and kissed him lightly on the lips. D glanced down at her but all his energy was channeled toward her friend.

  “D,” she said, “this is Pierre Mbuwe, an old friend of mine.”

  Pierre finally looked at D. It was a guilty, sneaky look that said everything about his intentions. They shook hands politely. Pierre spoke a brief greeting in French-accented English and then turned to give Emily a hug. He murmured something to her in French, which made her smile, and then she kissed him on both cheeks. Pierre made sure he was arm’s distance away from D as he exited the room.

  Before D could ask any questions, Emily said, “I’m so glad you came tonight, D. Something bad is going on here and only you can stop it.”

  D now had a decision to make: ask the old Who is he and what is he to you? question or simply ask, How can I help you, baby? Because he knew he’d been neglectful, because he knew she’d been more than understanding about his medical status, and because he knew he’d never truly give her his all, D asked the second, safer question.

  Emily’s answer was, “The drug use is getting obnoxious in here, D. I mean, I can feel the energy has changed. It’s all these damn trust-fund kids getting out of hand. And none of this has been helped by saddling me with your second-division security. None of these new men would make a real football club in Britain.”

  “C’mon, Emily, stop with the soccer references. Besides, you always wanted me to expand the business and I have,” he said defensively, somewhat amazed that he was the one having to answer to her. “I need to use my best people on Night and Bridgette Haze. Now we have a chance to make real money.”

  “I finally got served,” she said.

  He sighed. “They still haven’t gotten me yet. Not that it really means anything. The suit’s gonna happen. Have you seen an attorney?”

  “Yes. And I’ve been talking to Dante.”

  D felt a flash of anger run through him. This information pissed him off more than catching her with Pierre. “Dante? Okay. And what’s he been saying to you?”

  “Things he doesn’t want me to tell you.”

  “Funny,” he said, not laughing, “I think those are the only kinds of words he knows.”

  Emily, who’d been standing near D, took a step back and sat on the edge of the desk. “He thinks he can get my name and the club out of the suit.”

  “In exchange for—?”

  “He didn’t lay down any terms, D,” she said, trying to disarm him with charm. “He just thought it was unfair that I was being included when I really wasn’t a part of what happened.”

  “And as my woman, you told him to kiss your fine yellow ass.”

  She giggled. “Not exactly. I told him how I felt about you and that it would be wrong to help me and not help you. Especially since you two had history.”

  D shook his head and his voice got deeper. He couldn’t believe how casual she was about all this. “Emily, you know I don’t like Dante. And I don’t like how you’re bringing this to me, and I sure didn’t like walking in here and seeing that dreadlocked French fry pushing up on you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Emily, you knew I was coming to find you. Yet you still didn’t get rid of him. You know I could have hurt him easily. Easily. You know the kind of man I am.”

  Now she got off the chair and moved right into his face. “What kind of man is that, D? I’ve been with you for two years and I still feel like you’re a stranger. I’ve put up with more shit than anybody else would. So why don’t you tell me what kind of man you are?”

  * * *

  D was contemplating that question an hour later as he stood near the VIP booths sipping a Coke. His stomach was still churning as he watched a redheaded waiter deliver a bottle of Dom to a table peopled with two bottle-blondes, a real brunette, and a duo of spindly young men wearing too much mousse. There was nothing unusual about that table. Rich kids buying bottles to ensure a table at a hot club was, in fact, the backbone of New York nightlife.

  Not long after the bottle arrived, so did a second waiter, black-haired with a thin mustache, leaning over to talk to the rich boys. D saw a little brown package passed off by the waiter, but instead of tightly rolled bills, he was handed a credit card. The black-haired waiter walked over to the wait station to where the redhead stood. They exchanged some words, then the black-haired waiter walked away as the redhead rang up a bill that said table one had ordered Cristal.

  “Can I help you?” the waiter asked as he suddenly noticed D peering over his shoulder.

  D aimed his trademark glare at him and said evenly, “Isn’t table one having Dom Pérignon, not Cristal?”

  “Excuse me, sir. You are not supposed to be here.”

  “And you’re not supposed to charge people for something they didn’t order. Unless, of course, the difference is being made up by a different stimulant.”

  The redhead fumbled a minute before responding, “Sir, I know my job, thank you, and don’t appreciate you coming over here and bothering me. I’m going to have to call security.”

  D smiled, showed his D Security button to the redhead, and told him, “I am security, white boy. Do we have a motherfucking problem?” He flashed a false smile that dissolved into a real serious scowl. “All joking aside, I saw what you and your partner just did. Don’t try to run away after your shift. Just come see me.” D took the waiter’s arm and squeezed it very hard. “We cool, right?”

  The redhead nodded, his face not quite as bright as his hair, but pretty close. As soon as D had gone out of his sight, the redhead went to the ladies’ room. He cut past the line of women, opened the door, and stuck his head in, oblivious to the consternation of everyone around him. The restroom attendant, a Latina, mid-forties with very dramatic eye makeup and jet-black hair, came outside and spoke to him. She calmed him down and sent him on his way. She glanced around for security before smiling at the women in line, and headed back inside.

  * * *

  An hour later, Mercedez Cruz, looking very sexy in low-cut jeans, big belt, and a stomach with more cuts than a ghetto barbershop, entered Emily’s Tea Party, drank an apple martini at the bar, and brushed off the advances of two men. Eventually, she went into the ladies’ room, where she encountered Rosa Valdez, a Mexican national who’d been in the United States three years, ten months, and
a few days. By the time she’d used the toilet, freshened up, and tipped Rosa liberally, Mercedez knew more than the woman’s travel history.

  “The restroom attendant is the middleman on the deal,” Mercedez said in the manager’s office.

  Emily, now sitting behind the desk, was trying to understand how the scam worked. “But it’s my party,” she said, bewildered. “I still don’t see how I could be so unaware.”

  “Well, unless you’re counting the bottles, it would be hard for you to know,” D explained. “The customer wants to buy drugs for him and his pals. Instead of paying cash, they put it on their credit card along with a legitimate purchase. Since these kids are college age, their parents may still monitor their cash advances and purchases. So it looks like they purchased a fine champagne and not E or Vicodin. The bottle delivered is cheaper than what’s on the receipt, and the dealer keeps the difference. In this case the dealer is the house.”

  “But I’m the house, D.”

  “Well, it’s your party, but the bartenders or one of the managers of the club or someone else who has access to inventory and receipts has set up a little business catering to the trust-fund crowd.”

  “Rosa is holding the drugs in the ladies’ room,” Mercedez said, “but I couldn’t figure out who else is in on it. That would take me buying a lot of champagne and hanging out more and, quite frankly, I’m tired. I been hanging with Bridge and Jen all day.”

  “Bridge and Jen?” Emily said, and then, displaying an acute understanding of ghetto style, sucked her teeth like a welfare mother on a park bench.

  Mercedez asked, “What’s that about?” and stepped toward the desk.

  “This is a perfect example of why you and D should be here and not hanging out with some little girl who can’t sing.”

  “Wrong,” Mercedez said. “Bridge sings very well. Right, D?”

  Ignoring the question, he asked Mercedez, “Is there anything else you found out from Rosa? We’ll have to put someone in here to check out what’s going on anyway, but any other info would be great.”

  “Well, yeah, there is one other detail.” Mercedez looked sheepish, an unusual expression for her. D urged her to continue and, reluctantly, she did: “Rosa said she’d been recommended for this job by that nice man, Señor Fuchs. Yes, Jeff Fuchs.”

  This rocked D and made Emily excited. “D, I have told you many times not to trust that man. He has a record and a very childish attitude. He might be behind this whole thing.” Jeff did indeed have a drug background and he had urged D to tax the dealers at the party. But he was also a loyal friend. The idea that Jeff might be behind this scam made D feel physically ill. He valued all his friendships deeply, because he didn’t let many people in. Now, in the course of this night, he was feeling distrustful of both Emily and Jeff, and he had found out a serious crime was going down in a place he’d deemed secure. He said to Emily, “What you need to do is get the security tapes that cover the VIP section and watch them. Go back about two weeks and watch for any champagne transactions. You should be able to spot what’s going on and who’s doing what.”

  “Will you watch them with me?”

  “You need to start without me, Emily. You know how busy I’ve been lately. Besides, the other thing you need to figure out is which one of the floor managers you work with is involved. One of them must be filing false inventory reports.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Kirk, sir.”

  When D walked over and opened door, Kirk said, “This man tells me he’s an old friend and you were waiting on him,” and then stepped aside.

  “Dervin Hunter.” Standing happily in the doorway was the Latino process server from his office. He was wearing an expensive-looking silver cross and a slick outfit that made him look like uptown royalty. He handed D the legal papers and snapped a picture of D with them. He grinned, said, “Good night,” and walked away.

  “Kirk,” D said, “why didn’t you use the walkie-talkie?”

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry. But Ramon said it was supposed to be a surprise.”

  “Second division, D!” Emily shouted from behind him, and he had to agree.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Planet Hollywood was one of those heinous additions to Times Square designed to make tourists more comfortable than the peep shows of the past. Certainly it was infinitely more kid-friendly. Still, the idea that what passed for New York City entertainment was glass-enclosed replicas of Hollywood memorabilia, multiple TV screens, and generic hamburgers was repulsive to a great many natives, D Hunter among them. As much as he disliked the atmosphere at this huge barn of a restaurant, D bit his tongue and did his job, which, this morning, was to intimidate.

  He stood next to a temporary stage as photographers clicked, TV crews shot video, and entertainment journalists (an oxymoron if ever there was one) asked insipid questions. From behind dark, green-tinted shades, D stood close enough to Bridgette Haze that he could smell her lemony perfume, yet far enough away to be framed out of the shot by the Entertainment Tonight crew.

  The Source had decided to hold its press conference announcing the return of its awards show to New York at Planet Hollywood. Considering the show’s checkered history of high ratings and rap violence, bringing it back to hip hop’s hometown would have been news on its own. But that Bridgette Haze was to cohost with Treach, well, that was truly juicy. On the dais, Bridgette sat next to Treach, actress/cohost Lisa Raye, various Source higher-ups, and sundry hip hop luminaries. The sides of the stage were packed with members of the permanent entertainment industry (managers like Ivy, publicists like Rodney Hampton) as well as dates, mates, and hangers-on of various descriptions (like Jennifer Haze).

  D Security had coordinated security for the event along with the Planet Hollywood staff and the NYPD. In his earpiece, D had three channels on which he could hear reports from Mercedez, Clarence, and Jeff Fuchs, who was outside working with the cops. Today the general populace of the New York metropolitan area would find out that Bridgette Haze was working in New York and hanging with the rap scene, so her manager and publicist had pulled out all the stops. Right after The Source press conference, Bridgette would sign copies of her DVD video collection next door at the Virgin Megastore and then walk across Seventh Avenue to 1515 Broadway for an MTV appearance. It was to be a big, busy, and somewhat dangerous day of high-powered hype.

  “I am so proud to have been asked to cohost the Source Music Awards,” Bridgette said with perky charm. “I know I am not the obvious choice, but I believe in hip hop as a music and culture, and hope all those fans who love it will accept me because I love it too!”

  There were many questioners, but they basically all wanted to know the same thing: “You must be kidding, right?” No one could believe that Bridgette Haze was stepping into the rap world. It was one thing to have an MC lace a track or even prance around with one in a video. But this would connect the pop princess of the day with hip hop in an unprecedented manner. While the journalists tossed questions, Rodney Hampton smiled like the Cheshire cat as he stood next to D and Jen Haze.

  “Page Six. E.T. MTV. Quite a few five o’clock local news shows and sure repeat airings on CNN,” Rodney whispered, partially to D, but mostly to himself. Then he began quietly counting down from ten. “Nine. Eight. Seven . . .”

  “You got a bomb going off?” D asked.

  “I’m just gonna detonate this press conference,” he said, and then resumed counting. “Four. Three. Two. One.” He moved behind Bridgette and whispered in her ear.

  “Oh, okay,” she said reluctantly. “I’ve got to go over to the Virgin Megastore to sign some DVDs.” As photographers clamored for one more shot and flashbulbs popped like automatic-weapon fire, Bridgette made her way off the dais and into the Planet Hollywood kitchen, led by D. Into his lapel mike he announced, “Pretty package on the move to position two.”

  D led the Haze sisters, Rodney Hampton, and two members of the P
lanet Hollywood security staff through a door and down a staircase to the ground floor to an open door where two Virgin Megastore guards stood waiting. D greeted them and followed the two men down a long, well-maintained alley that connected the rears of Planet Hollywood and the Virgin outlet. “We’re gonna wait here fifteen minutes,” D announced.

  “You have it all covered, huh, Mister Man,” Jen observed.

  “I hope so,” he replied.

  Bridgette leaned back against the alleyway wall as, like a gust of wind, her poised public persona blew out of her. She sagged against the wall and looked moodily down at her shoes. “Let me have one,” she said tartly to her sister, and Jen pulled out an open pack of Kools from her shoulder bag and handed the cigarettes and lighter to Bridgette, who ingested the smoke greedily, as a hungry baby does a tit. D had never seen this side of the singer, and it surprised him more than her dirty dancing in the Bronx. She felt his gaze. “I only smoke at moments like these,” she said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Appearances always make me tense. It’s not like singing. It requires a different part of me, you know. I could really do without it.”

  “But,” Rodney added, “you really can’t.”

  “I know,” she said, and then dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the toe of her black high-heel sandal.

  D looked at his watch, then asked into his lapel mike, “What’s it look like outside?” There was some static and then Jeff Fuchs’s voice filled his earpiece.

  “Well, it’s almost lunchtime in Times Square and in ninety minutes the matinees start. So, while the whole damn area is not as crowded as on New Year’s Eve, it’s pretty damn close.”

  D switched to another channel. “Clarence, are you guys ready in there?”

  “Sure. Other than keeping maybe a thousand teenagers and horny old men in an orderly line, we are ready.”

  The two Virgin guards took the lead, walking the posse down the alleyway to a black door, which one of the men opened with a long, flat key. He held the door open as his partner led them down a staircase to a room packed with CD and DVD boxes. The high-pitched voices of teenagers could be heard just outside the walls.