Slick

by Daniel Price

  “I did the dumbest thing today—”

  “Scott, you had a visitor.”

  “What?”

  “A woman stopped by twenty minutes ago. She was looking for you.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  Madison squinted in concentration, scouring her memory banks. “Shit. She told me her name. I just forgot it.”

  “You didn’t write it down?”

  “No. I remembered it. But then you sort of came in, barefoot and smelling like salt.”

  “I’ll explain that,” I promised. “Once you remember this woman’s name.”

  “Marina...Malina...”

  “Maxina?”

  She snapped her fingers at me. “Yeah. Maxina.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. I just spoke with her. What did she say?”

  Madison winced, hesitant. “She said she knows you’re up to something with Harmony Prince.”

  I took a deep breath through my nose, then lowered my head. I will not explode. I will not implode. I will not crack into tiny pieces. Not in front of Madison.

  “Are you okay, Scott?”

  No. “Yeah. I just haven’t eaten all day. My blood sugar’s down.”

  “You want me to get you something?”

  “Sure. A glass of apple juice would be great.”

  “Okay.”

  Goddamn it. What kind of game was Maxina playing? What kind of game did she think I was playing?

  Madison brought me a full glass of juice. I took a deep sip. “Thank you.”

  She faced me from the couch again. “I’ve never seen you this stressed.”

  “I’m not stressed. Just hypoglycemic.”

  “You can’t tell me what’s going on, can you?”

  “I don’t even know anymore. I just know there’s some serious disharmony among my associates. Things aren’t going well and everyone seems to think I’m the reason.”

  “Why you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess someone has to take the blame.”

  “But do they really think you’re working for Harmony Prince?”

  I chucked a feeble hand. “I don’t know what they’re thinking. I just know that I’ve busted my ass to make things right and nobody believes me.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course,” she said. “We had this talk. I was stupid to ever doubt you. And so are they.”

  It took all my energy not to run over to the couch and squeeze her like a little boy would squeeze his mother. I wanted to hold her, to have her rub my back and tell me that everything would be all right again. Sadly, that would violate the unspoken covenant that she and I had established last Tuesday. In this office, we were absolute professionals. In this apartment, we were perfect adults.

  She curled herself up against the wing of my couch, watching me from the same place, wielding the exact face her mother had used on me last night. They were so eerily alike sometimes, in such beautifully subtle ways.

  I leaned back with a wobbly grin. “This probably wasn’t the best project to start you on.”

  “Yeah. Sounds that way.”

  “It’s almost over. Very soon I’ll be a free man again. And then you and I will spend some serious time together. I’ve been woefully remiss in my mentoring duties.”

  “Shut up. You have not.”

  “Trust me. I have. And trust me when I say I look forward to it. I swear to God, Madison, you are...” I waved my hand. “Whatever. Things are going to get better from here. I promise.”

  She smiled at me. I found myself moderately functional again, functional enough to remember that Maxina threw her back out this morning. She was in no shape to leave her bed, much less drive all the way over here to deliver cryptic messages.

  “Madison, this Maxina woman who stopped by. Did she happen to be middle-aged, black, and somewhat... expansive?”

  She cocked her head, confused. “No. She was your age, white, and somewhat condensed.”

  Of course. “And her name just happened to be Miranda.”

  Madison slapped her head. “Miranda! That’s right! Shit!”

  You’ve been a bad, bad boy. “It’s all right.”

  “I’m sorry, Scott.”

  I could barely hear her. All the blood in my body seemed to rush to my head. I gazed down at my feet. They were naked, white, and pale, like the feet of a dead man. All they needed was a tag hanging off the toe and the picture would be complete. Of course.

  “Scott, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, staring past my feet and all the way down to my future. “Everything’s fine.”

  21

  GODSEND

  The traffic was heavy at Ralph’s. The five o’clock rush made it nearly impossible for Miranda to squeeze her cart down the produce aisle. She didn’t mind the congestion. To a native New Yorker like her, it was like sailing the wide Sargasso Sea.

  “Now this is a supermarket,” she declared. “I’m so used to shopping at some tiny, overpriced D’Agostino’s. Look at all these choices!”

  Much had changed since our last encounter, twelve days ago. Miranda had flown home, filed for marital separation, got it, filed for a work transfer, got that, flew back here, leased an apartment, leased an Acura, and then began a passionate rebound affair with Ned Caruso, a fellow reporter at AP Los Angeles. Amazing how she managed to do all that and still find time to stalk me.

  “What’s great is that Ned and I eat the same things,” she bragged. “No red meat. Lots of chicken and fish. We both love fresh steamed vegetables, Basmati rice, and a nice dark merlot with dinner. The man’s definitely got style. And unlike some people, he knows how to fuck a woman.”

  Judging from the expressions of all those within earshot, it would take some time for L.A. to get used to its newest resident. Miranda, on the other hand, was well on her way to becoming a full-fledged Angelino. She wore a form-fitting white tank top and khaki shorts. Her natural brown hair was now a synthetic auburn. She had tanned considerably. Her breasts even looked bigger, but that was either a trick of the light or just some clever padding. To the casual male eye, she was a little bit of honey. To me, she was simply a woman trying to outrun herself. I figured she was on the fast track to some kind of meltdown. Then again, who wasn’t?

  “Now, before I actually grill you, “ she said, to an artichoke, “what’s the deal with the underage blonde in your apartment?”

  I took another bite of my energy bar. Things were not going well inside my body. I was hungry. I was fatigued. I was seeing red bouncing dots in front of my eyes. I would have much rather battled Miranda from the other side of a cozy restaurant booth, but she already had an evening of dinner, wine, and sex on the docket. I was forced to tag along for the preparations.

  “You remember that fender-bender we got into on the way back from the airport?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “That’s the daughter of the woman who hit us.”

  “The deaf woman,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “What, she couldn’t settle by check?”

  I shrugged in good humor. “It’s just collateral. I have to give the kid back once I get paid.”

  She shined me a jaded grin as she spun a bag of tomatoes shut. “Her name’s Madison. She told me she’s your assistant.”

  “So why’d you ask, then?”

  “I’m simply curious to know why you’d take on a kid helper. You hate kids.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says Gracie. She used to complain all the time that you never understood her work.”

  “Funny how Gracie never complained to me.”

  “Well, you know how she is,” said Miranda. “She could have an arrow sticking out of her chest and she’d still swear everything’s fine. You just have to needle her, that’s all.”

  I could have cracked a watermelon over her skull. I had the motive and the opportunity. If only there weren’t so many
witnesses.

  “I think it’s eerie how much Madison looks like Gracie,” she added. “When she first answered the door, I freaked out. I thought maybe you cloned her from old hairs.”

  “Another winning theory,” I sniped.

  Miranda eyed me coyly. “Look at you, all tense and persnickety. You really have been up to no good, haven’t you?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Ah, I knew you’d make me play my cards first. Fine.” She paused to examine a honeydew. “I just hope you haven’t gotten too close to that deaf woman, because she’s the one who gave you up.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Miranda pushed the cart forward. “As you’ve no doubt figured out, I’ve been digging into this whole rap/rape story. I’ve been skeptical of Harmony Prince from the very beginning, even though it was politically insensitive of me to question her veracity. My editors gave me so much shit. I said, ‘Guys, can we at least consider the possibility that she’s not entirely on the level?’ They said, ‘How can it be? She filed for a restraining order four weeks before Melrose even happened.’ And I said, ‘Well, what if she wasn’t on the level four weeks ago?’ I mean, shit, I’m not a fan of rap at all, but I know that suing rappers is like a cottage industry to some women.” She checked my reaction. “Am I wrong here?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Who knows? Maybe she was genuinely pissed. I hear Hunta’s a real sweet-talker with the ladies. Maybe he tricked her into thinking this was the start of a beautiful romance, got her to give up her abstinence, and then chucked her aside once he got his jollies. That would certainly piss me off, especially if I had her history of abuse and abandonment. I mean, God, how could she not have issues with men?”

  I stared ahead listlessly. “Makes sense.”

  “Or maybe it’s something even more sinister,” she said with a mischievous glance.

  She threw two bags of salad mix into her cart, then moved us along.

  “See, there’s so much reasonable doubt in this thing, but nobody wants to touch it. Everyone’s just printing what they’re told, because the story’s interesting enough the way it is. It’s bullshit. My editors wouldn’t listen to me even after I showed them an anonymous e-mail I got, telling me flat out that Harmony Prince was lying. Thanks for that, by the way.”

  “Whatever.”

  She examined her yogurt options. “So I said fuck it. I started digging on my own. On Sunday night I went to this horrid little place called the Flower Club. You ever been there?”

  “No,” I said, coyly. “What is it? An arboretum?”

  Miranda laughed. “You’re such an ass. You know damn well that Harmony used to work there as a hostess dancer. Only she went by the name Danesha. Can’t say I blame her. I was so embarrassed to be there, I felt like giving a fake name myself.”

  I greatly enjoyed the thought of Miranda gagging her way through that sleaze pit.

  “But I asked around,” she continued. “Apparently, Harmony’s last day was that previous Sunday. She didn’t quit. She just stopped coming to work. Nobody knew why until her face started popping up everywhere. It came as quite a shock to the gals at the club. From the way Harmony talked, she had a pretty good time at that Christmas party.”

  She liberated a few banana yogurts, then shot me a sly sideways glance. “But a few of the girls had some interesting things to say about Harmony’s last customer.”

  “Such as?”

  “That he was really tall. White. Good-looking in a nondescript sort of way. He definitely seemed out of place there. He sat at the bar talking to some guy, but then as soon as Harmony came out of the bathroom, he flew right toward her as if he’d been waiting for her all along.”

  Oh shit. I could already see the punch line.

  “They ended up playing pool a little bit. Then he gave her five hundred dollars and promised another thousand just to let him drive her home. But once he left, Harmony kind of freaked out. See, unlike her more experienced associates, she wasn’t one for the, shall we say, extracurricular activities of her profession. So while she was changing, she told some of the other girls about it. ‘What do I do? He says he works for Mean World, but he’s white. It doesn’t make sense. What if he’s a serial killer?’ And her friends said, ‘Girl, relax. If he’s got that much money to blow, he’s just an eccentric. He probably just wants someone to cry to.’”

  Shit. The car...

  “So, with much trepidation, she went down to meet him at his car. And the girls, ever so curious, watched from the bathroom window. Given the amount of money this guy was throwing around, they expected to see a limo waiting. Or at least a Bentley. But instead they watched her cross the street and step into—are you ready for this?—a black Saturn sedan.”

  “With a dented trunk,” I said.

  “With a dented trunk,” she repeated, laughing. “I mean, wow! Can you imagine my surprise that I just happen to know this guy? Can you imagine my crazy luck that I just happened to be there when his trunk got dented?”

  In top form, I could have laughed away her implications. But all I could muster up at the moment was defensive surprise.

  “You can’t be serious. That can’t be all you have.”

  “Well, no. Of course not. But it was enough to get me on your tail, just to see what you’ve been up to. And wonder of wonders, last night I tailed you to the home of Denise Corwin, who just happens to be the cousin of Kelly Corwin, who just happens to be Simba Shange, who just happened to say some very interesting things on Larry King Live.”

  Miranda casually pressed up against me, sinking her fingers down the front pockets of my slacks. Our boundaries were forever muddled by our onetime fling, but there was nothing sexy about this.

  “See, I watched that show, just like everyone else. I saw Harmony’s eyes well up, and just like everyone else, I thought, Holy shit. She’s going to confess. She’s going to admit to lying.”

  “But she didn’t.”

  “She didn’t, but I couldn’t help but think how very, very clever it would be if she did. What a great distraction from Annabelle Shane. What a terrific way to turn all this angry momentum around. I know it sounds far-fetched, Hunta and Harmony secretly working together in an elaborate media hoax, but I couldn’t help but think how very, very Scott it would be.”

  The red spots in front of my eyes got bigger. My head began to throb. “But she didn’t confess.”

  Smiling, Miranda whispered up to me. She practically breathed her words. “I think she will. I think that was the plan all along. I think I’m about to be proven right, and then I think you’re in a lot of trouble.”

  I pulled away from her. “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “Then correct me. Enlighten me. If I’m wrong, what you were doing at the Flower Club?”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “What were you doing with Simba Shange last night?”

  “Never met her in my life.”

  “What were you were doing at Mean World this morning?”

  “There are over sixty other companies in that building.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  I rested my hands on the end of her cart. I only had a few more ounces of bullshit left in me. I had to use them well.

  “Look, I know how the game is played. If you want to keep following me and leaving juvenile sticky notes on my windshield, knock yourself out. I don’t care.” I pointed a harsh finger at her. “But don’t you ever hit me through my assistant again. That was despicable. For God’s sake, the girl’s thirteen. Your little slanderous message made her cry. Is this part of your new act? Is this what you’ve been reduced to? Making little girls cry?”

  Miranda shook her head at me in wonder. “Scott, look at you. Listen to yourself. You’re a mess.”

  “You’re one to talk. What haven’t you changed about yourself these past two weeks?”

  “I’ll be the first one to admit I have problems,” she said evenly, “but a
t least I’m trying to do something about them.”

  “By what? Harassing me? Harassing my assistant?”

  “By being a real journalist for once.”

  “Bullshit. If you were a real journalist, you’d cover real news. Why don’t you try debunking this fictional energy crisis? Why don’t you cover the millions of small investors who are being fucked over by the hundreds of large investors? Or here’s a crazy thought: why don’t you write a story about how real journalism was choked to death by bottom line economics and replaced by a histrionic tabloid celebrity attack machine? You won’t even have to do any research.”

  Miranda crossed her arms, studying me with clinical detachment. “Right now I’m more interested in the story of the publicist who’s starting to drown in his own lies.”

  I thought about it, then shook my head. “I don’t see the audience for it.”

  With that, I took the last bite of my energy bar, crumpled the wrapper, then dropped it in Miranda’s cart. I tossed her a cool wave and turned around.

  “Scott, wait.”

  I turned back. Miranda leaned on the cart. There was definitely an enhancer bra at work. She never used to have cleavage.

  “If I made your assistant cry, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize she was that young.”

  “Well, she is.”

  “But you’ve got one hell of a nerve calling my actions despicable when you and I both know what you’ve been up to.”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “What did you tell this one, Scott? What bag of goods did you sell this one to get her to humiliate herself in front of the cameras?”

  “Maybe you should get therapy.”

  “Maybe you should get ready,” she replied. “Because I’m coming into this story. And I’m coming in through you.”

  With a hot glare, I walked off. It was a winning act, but the inner me was tearing his hair out. Miranda had a strong rope to hang me with. All she had to do was bring it to Harmony. The minute those two women connected, the moment Miranda spoke my name, the floor would drop out from under me. Miranda would get her story, and Harmony would get her revenge.