Slick

by Daniel Price

  Extortion was not the game. It was merely self-protection. So far I’d never been forced to use a recording, or even threaten to use it. But you never knew.

  With a polite smile, I followed Big Bank into the $1,200-a-night suite. Immediately I was hit with the competing smells of marijuana and Thai food, both of which were laid out on the huge glass coffee table in the main room. Over a dozen people, some of them not even old enough to buy the liquor in their hands, filled the couches and watched MSNBC on mute while thunderous rap music blared in the background.

  Everyone was partying it up until I stepped out from behind the great wall of Big Bank. They simmered down and eyed me, this white corporate flack straight outta Brentwood. My inner Dale Carnegie, 2001 edition, told me to avoid the instinctual “I’m down with your people/some of my best friends are black” type of smile. With a curt nod, I simply advertised my utter lack of concern over their opinion of me. A few of them dutifully nodded back. Likewise.

  The oldest-looking man in the group (my age, actually) put down his chicken satay and rose to greet me. He was tall, husky, and extremely dapper. With his four-hundred-dollar slacks, fancy silk bow tie, and designer black suspenders, he struck me more as a lawyer than a record executive. Turns out he was both.

  He shook my hand. “Mr. Singer. Hi. I’m Doug Modine, executive vice president and attorney for Mean World Records. Glad you could come.”

  For a man built like James Earl Jones, he talked like Don Cheadle.

  “Thanks. Call me Scott.”

  “Sure. Just give me a few seconds to check on Maxina and the others.”

  “Wait. Maxina Howard?”

  “Yeah,” he answered, surprised. “You know her?”

  “I know of her. I didn’t know she was here.”

  “God, yes. She’s our guardian angel. Hang out for a minute, okay?”

  Doug disappeared into a bedroom, leaving me, Big Bank, and a very quiet entourage.

  “So,” I said, with forced flippancy, “anything good in the news?”

  Most of them indulged me with a smirk. I scanned the men in the posse twice just to confirm that none of them was actually Hunta himself. I still wasn’t entirely positive. All I’d seen of him so far were low-res, highly stylized photos on fan-created websites.

  “So you a big-shot PR man,” said a particularly fetching young woman in a micro-thin halter top.

  “Not as big as Maxina Howard.”

  “What kinda shit you do?” asked another.

  “Oh, all kinds of shit.”

  “Like?”

  “Well, did you hear about the affair Tom Hanks had with that teenage prostitute?”

  “No.”

  “Damn right,” I replied immodestly.

  Their mouths dropped in perfect synch. “You messing with us?”

  “Well, it wasn’t Tom Hanks. If I told you who it was, I’d be breaking client privilege. But it’s someone just as big.”

  They all dived after my tasty nugget, shouting theories over each other. In truth, it was a C-list sitcom actor who had reached his zenith in the early eighties. He was afraid the scandal would destroy his chances for a comeback. It probably would have helped.

  “So where were you when Jesse Jackson needed you?” asked one of the guys, to laughter.

  “That one was a lost cause, I’m afraid. The Republicans knew about his mistress for years. They were just saving it up for the right time.”

  “What was that?”

  “January nineteenth. The day before he was supposed to lead the Shadow Inauguration against George W. Bush. Took the wind right out of the whole protest.”

  They stopped laughing. Even Big Bank got disturbed. “Man, that’s fucked up.”

  I shrugged. “What can I say? Bullets don’t work anymore. Now they kill with information.”

  Doug peeked out of the master bedroom. “Scott? Come on in.”

  “Okay. Great.”

  I got up and looked around at the entourage, who all shared a moment of silence for the buzz I killed.

  “Don’t worry,” I assured them. “They’re not getting your boy the same way. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  That lit them back up. One of them held a fist to me as I approached the bedroom. You go, man. Never leave them depressed, always impressed. I was pretty sure now that none of them was Hunta.

  ________________

  For those of us who worked backstage in the great American drama, it was impossible not to have heard of Maxina Howard. Her Atlanta firm, Dandridge Associates, was the emergency PR resource for almost every major African American organization in the country. When the NAACP needed some extra power in their bullhorn, they called her. When the Nation of Islam got stuck in yet another foot-in-mouth media jam, they called her. When Bill Cosby got hit up by his alleged secret daughter, ditto. In the court of public opinion, she was an invisible defense attorney, sometimes a prosecutor. People who wish she’d never been born include Marge Schott, Mark Fuhrman, John Ashcroft, the executive board of Texaco, and every publicist for Denny’s.

  Only once was I set against her. Four years ago, a young filmmaker shot a feature-length documentary about Nigerian playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa, who, on behalf of the persecuted Ogoni people, became a vocal critic of the country’s military dictatorship and was hanged for it in 1995. That was all well and good, except the film made a very incriminating case against Shell Corporation, whose close involvement with the oppressive junta allowed them to keep pumping out three hundred million dollars a year in Nigerian crude. The documentary included interviews with former security-force members who claimed that Shell executives specifically urged them to silence anti-drilling upstarts as quickly and efficiently as possible. As you can imagine, Shell did not want this film igniting a boycott frenzy.

  At the time I worked for Tate & Associates, which worked for Shell. I spent two weeks quietly erasing Maxina’s pencil lines. This took pathetically little effort. Killing the story in the mainstream press was like convincing Burger King not to add steamed beets to their menu. I was impressed that Maxina got as far as she did. The documentary received a fair amount of play on PBS and the issue crossed the armrests of a few Sunday morning talk shows. Otherwise, it got buried until the usual rigmarole. I wasn’t sure if Maxina knew of my small role in the situation. I certainly wouldn’t bring it up if she didn’t.

  Doug led me into the lavish main bedroom, where Maxina waited. She kicked her short legs up onto the emperor-sized bed and waved to us as she continued her cell-phone conversation.

  “You’re not listening to me. Listen. I don’t want you to come across as some kind of conspirator. Try to appeal to his sense of... I know. I understand that. But nobody likes to think of themselves as an opportunist. Take the high ground. If he has any self-respect, he’ll try to find a compromise. It doesn’t matter as long as you get him to release that footage, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”

  She was a heavy woman, at least two hundred and fifty pounds. I’d never seen her picture before. I was expecting someone much more upscale. With her close-cropped hair, discount blouse, and owl-rimmed glasses, she looked more like a PTA mom than an A-list socialite. Still, there was no denying it when you saw her razor-sharp eyes: she was a player. She shaped this culture as much as any top-notch celebrity or politician.

  Maxina casually sized me up. She probably already knew what cereal I ate. “I understand that,” she said into the phone. “Just do your best and do it now. I’ll call you later.”

  She disconnected. “Scott Singer,” she chimed musically. “Née Scott Schulherr. Why did you change your name?”

  “The focus group liked it better.”

  She smiled along. “See that, Doug? First rule of PR. Always lie entertainingly. Help me up.”

  Doug took her wrist and helped her out of bed. She grunted in pain, then glanced at me. “It’s not because I’m fat, Scott. I’ve had a bad back since I was a size six, and it’s only gotten worse. That’s why I d
on’t travel anymore. As you can see, I made an exception for this.”

  “Understandably,” I said, stifling a yawn.

  “Nothing understandable about it. I made it clear to Jeremy from the start. I don’t like his music. As a self-respecting woman who grew up on love and Motown, I’m offended by his music. But I also made it clear to C. DeLores Tucker and every other moral watchdog who dangled a check in front of me that I will not help their scapegoat crusade. I have two sons of my own and I take full responsibility for their upbringing. They know that if I ever hear them calling a woman a bitch, I will cloud up and rain all over them.”

  Doug and I smiled. Maxina took my arm. She was at least sixteen inches shorter than me, but her potent stare made me want to shrink down to her vantage.

  She gestured to the bathroom door. “I know you’ve been kept in the dark, Scott, so let me start illuminating. My client is in that bathroom. Your client is standing right here in front of you. Now you and I are going to be working on two very different projects, but you still report to me. Are we clear?”

  “As seltzer.”

  “Good. Now before you think I’m an egomaniac, I’ll also make it clear that you can say whatever you want to me. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me I’m stupid. But when we’re around Jeremy and Simba, we speak in one voice. Mine. Clear?”

  “Got it.” Simba?

  She shot me a penetrating smirk. “Oh, you’re one of the sharp ones. You’re a raptor. Hayley Jane was right about you.”

  “She’s a good woman.”

  “Hasn’t steered me wrong yet. Now let’s get you up to speed.”

  “Hold it,” said Doug. He grabbed his briefcase from the bed. “Before we go in there, I’d like you to sign some nondisclosure agreements.”

  “Forget it,” Maxina told him. “You know damn well we can’t sue him over a secret operation. Just like he knows damn well that I have the power to cut the legs off his career if he ever double-crosses us. Why don’t we just all accept that and avoid a paper trail?”

  My stomach sank. I had much to learn from Maxina, and much to fear. She was right. She had enough contacts and credibility in the media industry to make me persona non grata. On the plus side, she made a careful distinction between messing up and double-crossing them. She’d tolerate a little of the former and none of the latter.

  “Come on,” she said. “While they’re still in hot water.”

  ________________

  As soon as I stepped into the Roman-style bathroom, I was hit by ninety degrees of moist air, the heavy scent of bath oil, and the sight of a gorgeous young family in the giant tub. The three of them—man, woman, and infant—were almost surreal in their unblemished perfection, as if they were chiseled from onyx. Ordinarily, I would feel intrusive walking into such an intimate scene, but somehow seeing them naked was no less awkward than looking at art.

  With a grand gesture, Maxina presented me. “Jeremy, Simba, this is Scott Singer. Put your trust in this man. He can spin straw into gold.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said the woman, extending a wet hand. “I’m Simba Shange. The dutiful wife.”

  She had the darkest skin of anyone I’d ever met, the color of walnut. Although her name and her features were both exotic, her dialect was as American as mine. I had no idea what her story was, but I could research her later. My immediate goal was to avoid ogling. When isolated from the family picture, she was a glistening feast for the eyes. Everything about her was long and sculpted: her wet hair, her lithe arms, her flat stomach, even her protruding toes. Fortunately, my lascivious peepers were still snowblind from Keoki Atoll.

  With a warm, chaste smile, I greeted her. “A pleasure. Who’s the little one?”

  “This is Latisha,” she said, squeezing her daughter. “She’ll be one next month. Baby, say hi to the tall man.”

  The girl was adorable and somewhat scared of me. In lieu of waving, she shyly bit her fingers. It intrigued me that her ears were already pierced, decorated with fat gold studs. I questioned the wisdom of puncturing your kid before she learned how to say “ouch.”

  Throughout all of this, the star of the show kept his eyes on the wall TV, currently tuned to NBC. He only gave me a cursory glance. I couldn’t help but scrutinize. The man had the face of a model, the body of a superhero, and...honestly, I didn’t look every where. I didn’t have to look. Jeremy Sharpe had enough sexual confidence to make me cower in the corner of my mind. Even while sitting in a tub watching Providence, he radiated more manly eros than twelve of me ever could. I had the sinking feeling that if he’d taken Miranda to my bed last night, she’d still be there now—still naked, still gasping, and now utterly convinced that she’d wasted years of her life on effete and cerebral white men.

  “So you the hired assassin,” he said, without looking away from the TV.

  “I don’t kill people. Just scandals.”

  He finally turned to me. “Yeah? Well what you do when a person is the scandal?”

  Maxina shut off the TV, then sat down on the closed toilet. “All right. Enough of that. Time’s short. Scott, take a load off.”

  For lack of space, I had to sit on the edge of the tub. This wasn’t the best room for a kickoff meeting.

  Maxina slapped her heavy thighs and began proceedings. She focused entirely on me.

  “Okay. I assume you already know most of what we’re dealing with here. Before yesterday, Hunta was a rapper on the rise. Now he’s the gangsta who inspired a rape which inspired a school shooting.”

  Hunta’s face twisted in a seething scowl. “That’s bullshit.”

  “We’re not talking facts here, Jeremy. Just the press angle. This Bitch Fiend subplot is going to hatch wide open and take center stage over the killings. Annabelle, God rest her troubled soul, basically gave the authorities a paint-by-numbers account of what’s been going on at that school.”

  “What has been going on at that school?” I asked.

  “Pretty much what everyone’s guessed,” Doug replied. “Bunch of boys used hidden cameras to videotape their sexual encounters. Then they watched it with each other on weekends. It’s not a competition, like that Spur Posse shit. It’s just a club.”

  “Just a club?” asked Simba.

  “You know what I mean.”

  I yawned. Fortunately, the only one who noticed was Latisha, who yawned back.

  “I assume all these guys have trashed their home movies by now,” I said.

  Maxina shook her head. “Bryan Edison wasn’t exactly alive enough to run home and burn his collection. This morning the police got a warrant and seized everything in his bedroom. According to our source in the Bitch Fiends—”

  “I told you, stop calling them that,” Hunta snapped.

  “And I told you, you better get used to it, because it’s not going away. Anyway, our source confirmed the worst: that Annabelle’s on one of those sex tapes. Reportedly, she was having such a bad time that even Bryan’s fellow Fiends got scared when they saw it. They strongly suggested he erase the evidence.”

  “Are we sure he didn’t?”

  “Pretty sure. It seems Bryan was a big fan of his movie. He thought it’d be easier just to intimidate Annabelle. To threaten her into staying quiet. You can see how well that worked out.”

  Simba scoffed. “As far as I’m concerned, he got what he deserved. I hope the rest of them get their sorry asses thrown in jail.”

  “That’s just what they saying about me,” Hunta groused.

  “You better get used to that, too, my dear. Because believe me, they haven’t even begun.”

  Maxina certainly wasn’t much of a sugarcoater. Personally, I would have assured him that criminal charges would never be filed against him in this situation. Even in a civil suit, the burden of proof would be monstrous.

  She kept illuminating me. “Here’s Problem A, Scott. In addition to the name connection, this little stag film of Bryan’s apparently has a familiar soundtrack.”

 
“You’re kidding.”

  “We wish,” sighed Doug. “He was playing ‘Bitch Fiend’ in the background. For him, it was more than a name. It was a personal anthem. That’s very bad for us.”

  Hunta pounded the water, splashing my leg. “What ‘us’? It’s bad for me! I’m the one they coming after! A white boy rapes her! He’s dead! So now they stringing me up in his place!”

  Simba shielded Latisha. “Jer...”

  He gathered himself, then rubbed his daughter’s head. “Look, y’all gotta find a way to kill that tape.”

  “It won’t ever—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Maxina, overriding me. “The tape will never hit the airwaves. The news of the tape, however, is going to be busting out all over. By Tuesday at the very latest. There’s no way in hell we can stop it. All we can hope to do is pull your ass out of this fire.”

  She turned back to me. “Our main defense is that ‘Bitch Fiend’ is a morality tale. Both the song and the video are simply a story where Hunta plays a character.”

  “A pathetic character!” he yelled. “That’s the whole point of it! This nigga’s so weak and so down on himself that he has to stick his jimmy in a different woman each night so he can feel like a man. He even tapes and watches his own sex because he’s like a spectator in his own life. It was some deep shit, man. I was using subtext.”

  Simba eyed me with dark curiosity. “Does that surprise you? That it was a think piece instead of the usual tits-and-ass number?”

  Yes. “No. But then I don’t speak for the moral crusaders. Sadly, they don’t see the difference between portraying something and endorsing it.”

  “Unless you a white artist,” Hunta growled. “Nobody went after Clapton when that motherfucka said he shot the sheriff.”

  Nobody went after Marley either, but this wasn’t the time to nitpick.

  “Is there anyplace on record where you explain the lyrics?” I asked.

  “I always explain where my words are coming from! But they always take that shit out! If I say we black people can’t keep shootin’ each other, they only play the part where I say, ‘Keep shootin’ each other.’”