“Give me another cigarette?” Bridgette said to Jen.
“Sorry,” the second guard said sheepishly, “we have smoke detectors in here.”
Ignoring the guard, Jen handed her sister a Kool, which Bridgette fired up and took two puffs from, sucking in the smoke deep. “Sorry,” she told the guard, “but a girl’s got her needs.”
D listened to the chatter in his earpiece as the Virgin Megastore guard weighed whether to dispute a superstar or incur his bosses’ wrath. The guard’s quandary was resolved when he heard the words “Bring her in” in his earpiece. D and the first guard got the same message.
“You ready, Bridge?” D asked, to which Jen replied, “Give her one more minute.” Bridgette took one last, long drag, looked at the Virgin guards, and blew the smoke upward in the direction of the smoke detector. After she’d tossed her cigarette to the floor, Jen handed Bridgette three sheets of Listerine breath mints. Then Bridgette looked at D and nodded. The tension in her jaw, the furrows in her forehead, and the wrinkles being incubated by her tired, squinting eyes remolded themselves into a bright, professional mask of amiability, the same one that had graced countless posters and promo shots. It was a fake face that captured none of Bridgette’s humor, true innocence, or growing weariness. Bridgette had discovered this face on a contact sheet of head shots taken when she was thirteen. It wasn’t the biggest smile she could project or the most suggestive; there was just something particularly accessible about this smile, and Bridgette spent her teen years perfecting it before brushing her teeth at night. It was a face that said, I love you, so love me too, a face that fed people without offering one bit of nourishment. It was Bridgette Haze’s money face and it made cash registers ring.
As they walked out into the lowest of the Virgin store’s three levels, cameras flashed, people cheered, and the balance in the huge space shifted as everyone’s weight tilted toward a girl who weighed only one hundred pounds on days she ate too much. The ropes holding back the crowds bent back. The security guards braced their feet. Bridgette waved to her fans and wore her face like a shield. D surveyed the crowd—schoolgirls, teenagers, a couple of diligent mothers, and a man or two fearless enough to face his desires. No apparent problems. It was the nonfans, people leaning over the railings, looking at but not loving Bridgette, who concerned D. At a desk decorated with posters, videos, and DVDs, the star sat armed with three gold Sharpies.
“How is it outside?” D asked into his mike.
“Busy,” Jeff reported. “The matinee crowds are heading toward the theaters and the lunch crowd is looking for lunch. In twenty minutes or so Times Square will be packed like a mall during an after-Christmas sale. Homie, it’s only a block and a half, but I’m still not sure it’s a good idea.”
D grunted, but there was nothing he could do. This was Ivy and that hypester Rodney Hampton’s idea. It was way out of his hands. “How’s it look over by the MTV studios?”
“Building, baby. Getting in won’t be a problem. But getting her out we should just drive her via the 44th Street parking lot.”
“Are the police cool?”
“Oh, man, they love this. Say it beats chasing after rag-heads.”
D switched to another channel. “Mercedez, I’m concerned about those people leaning over the railing up there.”
“Roger, D,” she said from her post near the main exit. “I’ll get the Virgin people to move them back.”
Grudgingly the heads of Virgin shoppers disappeared from the railing one and two floors up from where D stood watching. So far so smooth. Bridgette was managing to sign memorabilia, make a little conversation, and maintain that money face with no sweat showing. Her fans, though youthful, weren’t hectic. Most were just bubbly little bundles of estrogen seeking a bit of validation from their role model.
Watching Bridgette work her fans actually made D relax. He wasn’t chasing larcenous bikers or dealing with lawyers. He was helping make someone safe, which was what satisfied his soul. Over the next hour, D stood near the stage, occasionally receiving updates from Jeff and Mercedez, but generally enjoying this nonstress duty. The singer was to be at the store only ninety minutes, but D had put a thirty-minute cushion in the schedule to allow her to wrap up with her fans, move her out of the store, and walk her across 45th Street to 1515 Broadway and the MTV studios.
That was the tricky part. Rodney Hampton had convinced Ivy to have Bridgette walk through the midday throng followed by cameras documenting this “impromptu” moment. D had advised against it but Ivy saw this as a dramatic way to redefine his act. There were at least fifty people still on line when Rodney Hampton took a microphone and announced, “Bridgette has to go on MTV right now. Carson Daly is waiting. I’m sorry.” There were groans from the crowd. “However, everyone left on line will receive a free T-shirt and a promo CD of her mixtape appearance with DJ Power.”
The singer waved to her fans as the two Virgin guards, her sister, Rodney, and D all took positions around her. They went past the CDs, up the staircase, and into the alley again, where Ivy and Mercedez stood waiting.
“How you feeling?” Ivy asked.
Bridgette sighed and let her face drop. “I need a smoke,” she replied, and waited for her sister to hand over a Kool and the lighter.
“Bridgette,” Ivy scolded, “you know you can’t be seen smoking.”
“I thought this was all about redefining my image,” she said, half facetious, half serious. She took a drag and blew smoke into the air. “Can’t be more adult than cancer sticks.”
Ivy pressed on: “You know with the telephoto lenses the tabloids have, it’s easy for them to catch you. Isn’t that right, Rodney?”
Rodney clearly didn’t want to get into a conflict with his star client. He stammered, “Well, Ivy, I’m—”
“Listen, Ivy,” Bridgette cut in with an edge, “I want to smoke a cigarette. I know it’s bad for my lungs, bad for my singing, and may disappoint the mothers of eight-year-olds. But I’m tired of worrying about all that. You wanna worry, you worry.” She turned to her sister. “Give me a smoke, Jen.”
“But you already have one,” Jen replied, motioning to the cigarette burning brightly in her right hand.
“Oh.” Bridgette giggled. She dropped the cigarette to the ground, rubbed it out, and then held her hand out to Jen for another. Ivy saw where this was going and turned to D.
“How much longer before we move?”
D looked at his watch, “We’re already running late. They’re ready for us. Whenever the lady wants to roll, we’ll roll.”
Ivy didn’t say anything. He just turned and looked at Bridgette, his silver hair thinning by the second. She refused to return his gaze, turning from Ivy and taking some leisurely puffs as D, her entourage, a squad of media folk, a fleet of NYC police, and the staff at MTV waited. She leaned back against the wall and Jen joined her. The two began whispering. Rodney very much wanted to be part of their huddle but he clearly feared Ivy’s anger. Mercedez stood close to the sisters and laughed when she overheard some comment from Jen. The sisters didn’t seem to mind her listening in.
D found the whole episode very revealing. It was his first time seeing Bridgette in diva mode; his first time seeing Ivy back down from a client; and the first time he realized that Rodney Hampton wasn’t simply trying to do a good job but, perhaps, was even seeking Ivy’s. D was analyzing all this info when Bridgette laughed and then walked toward him with a sneaky grin.
“Hey, Mr. D, you wanna escort me across the street?”
“That’s what I’m getting paid to do.”
“No, I mean really escort me.” She took his arm.
“I’m your security, Bridgette, not your date,” he said with harsh professionalism.
And she replied in a voice of privilege, “And you work for me, right? And I say let’s go.”
So it wasn’t simply the sight of Bridgette Haze strolling casually across 45th Street that led cars to honk, sightseers to gawk, and denizens of Nueva
York to gaze in surprise. Bridgette Haze had her left arm wrapped around a grim-looking black man dressed in black and three times her size. A flotilla of photographers jockeyed with the E! channel, Entertainment Tonight, and sundry other infotainment camera crews to capture this odd moment at the crossroads of the world.
If D had only been a few feet behind Bridgette or just in front or watching from a distance with his earpiece on, he would have been as comfortable as he’d been just an hour before. But now he was being photographed, digitally taped, and recklessly eyeballed with a petite, famous little white girl on his arm. First of all, Emily, his nongirlfriend girlfriend, would freak out. Then his mother, an old-school Southern woman who liked white people as long she could keep both eyes on them, would lash out. Then he would see himself in the paper, on TV, or on some damn website and know that someone from the Ville would remember his family, remember him, and put it all together about that traumatized little Dervin Hunter he’d banished years ago. All these thoughts made D want to seep into the potholes on Seventh Avenue and flow down into the subway. Making this public unveiling even more uncomfortable was the running commentary in his ear from Mercedez and Jeff.
“Yo, yo, yo, here comes the groom, looking like a goon,” Jeff cackled.
“You two make a great couple,” Mercedez remarked. “Can’t wait to see you two on the cover of Teen People.”
When they reached the corner of 45th and Broadway, by the Marriott hotel, D looked up and saw his image on the huge TV screen at One Times Square. He was so distracted that he was slow to notice the long-haired white male in a Smells Like Teen Shit T-shirt coming his way with great determination. The guy’s eyes were wide and giddy with mischief. His manner was focused, yet unbalanced. He held his hand low. D thought he saw a black object in it. When the guy was just four feet away and squeezing between two cameramen, D made his move. He swung Bridgette behind him, sending her knocking into Jen and then Rodney who, like a bowling pin, tumbled to the ground. The T-shirted young man jerked up his left arm, but D quickly snatched his wrist and swung it violently around. The guy yelped in pain, then D pulled him back and drove his knee into him, sending the young man’s body onto 45th Street.
There was a wild frenzy of screams, police sirens, and people running from the center of the action. D sat in the middle of the mayhem with his knee on the young man’s back, smiling as he watched Mercedez and Jeff hustle Bridgette and entourage into 1515 Broadway. D was so satisfied with his staff’s performance that he wasn’t overly upset when two uniformed cops rushed up to him with guns drawn. “No problem, officers,” he said, raising his hands above his head. “No problem here.”
Chapter Sixteen
The detective sat looking at the reports in front of him, with wire-framed glasses perched on his wide, reddish nose. He was in his early fifties, balding, and looking forward to dinner at home. His wife was making her best dish—meat loaf. He said, “There was no gun found.”
“I never said I saw a gun.” D had his hands in his lap, clasping his fingers together to keep himself calm.
“But you acted like you saw a gun,” the hungry detective responded.
“No,” D corrected him. “I reacted like I saw a threatening object. It’s not my job to wait and identify the make and model number of a weapon. It’s my job to protect my client. I think we all agree with the president that the best way to deal with imminent danger is to eliminate it with overwhelming force.”
The detective sighed and said, “You know how often I hear that these days, fella? It’s like we got a whole country of cowboys.”
“You know,” a voice from behind D chimed in, “this young man is not a very original thinker.”
“I see,” the hungry detective replied. “Well, I’m through with him. Knock yourself out.”
D sat there, his back straight, his eyes steady and focused, just as they had been for many hours in police custody. When the hungry white detective left the room, D allowed his body to sag and his hands to come to his face, covering his eyes as his forehead dipped forward. Detective Tyrone Williams pulled his chair up to the table next to D. “Well,” he began, “you know I don’t give a damn about this nonsense.”
“I know.” D removed his hands, raised his head, and looked at the man he called Fly Ty. “Still, it doesn’t make me look good to have subdued a kid in the middle of Times Square with no evidence that he was a real threat.”
“Listen, you wouldn’t have moved on him without feeling he was dangerous. I’m sure someone will believe that.”
“Thanks for that ringing vote of confidence.”
“So what do you have on the Night kidnapping?”
“Nothing concrete yet. I have a guy inside a bike posse that I think might have supplied our riders. He’s supposed to get back to me today. He might be calling right now.”
“But you’re in here.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay.” Williams stood up and buttoned his beige jacket.
“That’s it? You came all the way into the city to ask me that, Fly Ty?”
“Son, it’s Detective Williams, and no, I didn’t. You ever think you’re being set up?”
“Excuse me?”
“You got a new security company. You handle keeping drunks from vomiting on the dance floor and stickup kids from rifling through the cash register. Noble work, of course. But not like securing a major pop star hanging out in the biggest city in the world, particularly when your employer knows, or at least suspects, that his acts are the targets of kidnappers.”
D stood up now, slightly pissed. “You saying I’m not up for the job?”
“I’m saying your much-sued, now-notorious ass is in a bad position if something happens to that little white girl. I know you understand that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have overreacted to a cell phone in the middle of motherfucking Times Square.”
“How do you know it’s a cell phone, Detective?”
Williams reached into his pocket and pulled out a long black cell and laid it on the table. “This look familiar?”
It was an old black Nokia. D closed his eyes and remembered and saw the Smells Like Teen Shit T-shirt and the long-haired young man’s hand, and then he opened his eyes and looked at the phone again. In a small voice from a very big man he said, “Where did you get this?”
“That crazy white boy with niggeritis who works for you picked it up. Guess he figured it might be wise if he gave it to a friend.” Williams took the phone and put it back in his pocket. “People like you, D,” the detective said.
“I guess I should be more grateful to my friends.”
“No,” Williams said and headed for the door. “Why do that? You have a lot of new friends anyway.” He was almost out the door when he said over his shoulder, “You coming?”
There were new friends waiting for D to be processed. No charges had been filed against him, and Jeffrey Lebowitz, Ivy’s attorney, noted it was “unlikely” he would receive any criminal charges. “Civil charges,” Lebowitz advised, “will depend on Mr. Swanson.” Pete Swanson was the young man D had subdued, a nineteen-year-old Columbia University student and member of the postpunk band whose T-shirt he sported.
“Don’t worry about that kid,” D’s other new friend assured him. “I’ve already arranged for him to get a picture taken with Bridgette and a signed poster. It’s mop and glow, my friend.”
Sure, he’d met Rodney Hampton before and spent some time around him. Still, his presence at the precinct and his squiring of D down to his office in a black town car suggested their relationship was going to a new level. As they rolled down Broadway, D responded, “So you got it all covered, huh, Rodney?”
“Yes, I do, D.”
“You are a very efficient publicist.”
“Well, thank you, but I see my role in this situation as more than just that of someone who handles the media. I feel like I’m a conceptualist and an expeditor. I know how to get things done, D.”
“Sounds l
ike you’re ready to manage a big star, Rodney.”
The publicist smiled. He was real charmer. There was something quite boyish about this LA native. Yet there was no mistaking his focus on business. Adolescent enthusiasm meets business acumen. A shrewd one, this Hampton. D saw his wedding ring, but suspected that Rodney might have let it slip off a time or two.
“Well,” Rodney said finally, “you just have to be ready. You never know when an opportunity will present itself. Kinda like how you just jumped into this situation after Night’s kidnapping. I know you’re looking into that for Ivy. How’s it going?”
“I have a lead or two,” D said vaguely. “Nothing concrete yet.”
“You know Ivy wants Bridgette to do that ‘Green Lights’ song.”
“Only because you told me,” D replied, and wondered where this conversation was going.
“It’s a good idea. Good for Bridgette. Good for Ivy. Good for Adrian Dukes’s widow too. You know she lives out in Hollis, Queens, right there where Run-D.M.C. and L.L. Cool J rocked their first mikes.”
“You are just a fount of information, Rodney. You wouldn’t happen to have a number and address on her, would you?”
“Unfortunately, no. But I do know she works part-time at an arts center out there, where she helps kids hone their musical skills. I hear it’s a nice thing. I tried to get Ivy to contribute to the place—thought it might be good PR—but he wouldn’t do it. Got the feeling she was a sore spot in his life.”
“So, Rodney, what’s in this for you?”
“Someone is messing with Ivy and his acts. We both know that. He doesn’t want the cops involved, but I got the feeling he’s not telling you everything. Don’t you have that feeling too?”
The town car pulled up in front of 580 Broadway. “Thanks, man,” D said as he prepared to exit the ride. “But you know, I have the feeling you’re not telling me everything you know either.”
“Just like you, D, I tell people what I know for sure. What I suspect, well, that’s my business. At least for now.”
The Accidental Hunter Page 13