The drive-by shooting and those months off the air actually kept the station on top with the constant media attention, updates, and reports. Everybody loves a victim and Ritz was the victim du jour. She came back from the shooting to anticipation and loads of backed-up venom. Ritz was more ferocious than ever with her new lease on life and determination to make whoever shot her pay with even more success and over-the-top commentary.
When it was announced she was pregnant, Ritz went from gossiper to subject as speculation swirled around who was her baby’s daddy. Ritz actually loved being in the middle of that fire and would pour gasoline on it every chance she got. And the ratings for the Excursion went through the roof.
But when she lost little Madalyn, she changed. Everything changed. After a couple of months of sympathy waned; people were itchy for another Ritz Harper comeback. But it never came. There wasn’t even a Ritz Harper sighting anywhere. People started to forget. They had overdosed on Ritz Harper and gone into recovery and seemed to have kicked their Ritz Harper habit.
A parade of up-and-coming radio personalities were waiting to take Ritz’s throne.
Now the queen wanted to come back. And Chas had to bring Ritz back to prove his worth as a producer. Ritz was his star, and he had to make her shine again—for his own sake.
The two had been inseparable at one time. Once, Chas and Ritz could finish each other’s sentences. They were so close they could practically read each other’s mind. Their relationship was organic. But she got huge and changed; he got jealous and changed. And drama happened. Neither of them saw the fork in the road coming, and it blindsided them.
But now Chas had to somehow get them back in the same car, heading in the same direction. He had to.
4
Masa, an exquisite windowless restaurant nestled inside the Time Warner Center, was akin to a Japanese temple. Minimalist design, cool colors, and cloak-wearing servers set the divine backdrop for New York’s elite to experience the sushi of the gods.
There were no cell phones here. No menus. The chef, Masa Takayama, prepared what he deemed would be your feast for the night. The two-hour meal was guaranteed to be unforgettable—and at $1,000 per person, Masa Takayama never disappointed.
Most who visited the bustling mall never made it inside the twenty-six-seat restaurant; and only New York royalty could secure a last-minute table for two. Yet Chas pulled a few strings—the perks of sucking and fucking all the right men—to treat the tragic Queen of Radio to five-star sushi and priceless tranquillity. Chas knew that illusion and, more often than not, the delusion of grandeur was a powerful drug. Ritz could never know how far he had fallen. But more important, she could never know how far she had fallen.
By the looks of her, she hadn’t a clue. Ritz breezed into Zen with the grace of a gazelle and the air of royalty. She sported a simple black Chanel suit with eighteen-karat yellow gold and diamond-framed shades. The shades were sleek and small, barely covering her large doe eyes.
“Chanel, baby, from head to toe,” Chas cooed. “I love it!”
Ritz adored how much of a girlfriend Chas could be. She missed that part of their relationship. But she knew their relationship was on the brink of a change. Tonight was not about getting reacquainted, it was about making moves and taking things in a whole other direction.
“Yes and no,” Ritz said. “The glasses are number 23 style, Luxuriator.”
“Really?” Chas feigned adoration for a brand he knew nothing about. How had the student surpassed the master? Ritz used to wear off-the-rack duds, until he showed her how to dress like a star.
So what the fuck are Luxuriators? And who introduced her to that brand?
The sunglasses cost more than the suit, and they were a test to see if Chas was on his game. Ritz needed to know if Chas knew the brand she was rocking, or if he was out of his league. And if he was out of his league, would he be man enough to admit it? And if he couldn’t, could she still trust him? If he could pretend with her over something as silly as a brand, then would he lie about something big that could cost her? She needed to trust him.
A whisper interrupts the moment of truth.
“Lemon-water finger bowls,” said the pale, immaculately groomed server. “Your starter meal is being prepared.”
“Starter meal? Hmmm. How befitting,” said Ritz. “A starter meal for my starter life.”
Chas was also starting over—on Ritz’s tattered coattails.
“So are you ready to return? WHOT is ready to have you back,” Chas lied.
“Well, I’m not ready to go back to WHOT. Back is backwards,” Ritz said coolly. “I want to go to the next level. I want television.”
The waif server methodically removed the lemon-water finger bowls and set the table with bamboo utensils. Just as suddenly, he became one with the air and vanished.
“Television?! Ritz, are you out of your mind?” Chas raised his voice a little louder than he intended.
“What the fuck, Chas?” said Ritz, getting visibly angry. “You think I’m not good enough or something?”
“Um, I-I just prepared for your return to our show,” he said, trying to recover. “Your listeners miss you. It’s been a frenzy over there.”
Ritz caressed the lacquered bamboo utensil between her fingers.
“Chas, I was thinking, what if I didn’t make it? What if everything ended right there on that New York City street. Perhaps I was spared to do something else. Something bigger. I thought raising Madalyn would be it.”
“Go on,” Chas said, trying to seem intrigued.
“Mothers are not supposed to outlive their children,” she said, feeling herself being pulled back into that dark, sad place. “I held my daughter. I looked into her face. I saw me in that face. And I made a pact to sacrifice everything I own and ever wanted for her. For the first time I was letting someone in, Chas.
“And what does God do? He allows Madalyn to live long enough to show me that I could let someone in. And that changed me. Then I lose her. So now what, Chas? Now what? I can’t come back to the same old thing because I’m not the same old Ritz. I have to take the stakes higher. I have to have more. I have to be more.”
Chas was shaking his head. Did she really think she was going to walk away from WHOT and land a gig on television? She was hardly wanted back at the radio station. Ritz was toxic. Now Chas was sure she was also delusional. Losing her mind.
“I’m telling you this as your producer and your friend,” Chas said gingerly. “You’ve had a lot of trauma. It’s wearing on your face, and until you can get yourself tight again, yours is a face for radio. On TV, you can’t hide depression or even a long night on the town behind thirty-five-hundred-dollar Luxuriator shades.”
“I want a television talk show,” said Ritz, unfazed. “I want a studio audience so that I can see who I’m talking to, and they can see me.”
“What will they be looking at? The Queen of Radio in a free fall?”
Ritz sucked her teeth. So here it was, Chas’s pussy envy manifesting itself, Ritz thought.
“Here’s the deal, Ritz: You can bounce back or bow out,” he warned. “But you don’t start over. Not at this level of the game. I can’t be at your side for this bullshit fantasy of yours.”
“My thoughts exactly!” Ritz bit back.
Chas, realizing that Ritz was actually willing to move on without him, backed up.
“Ritz, let’s talk about this,” he said more calmly. “Why television? Why now? Do you realize how difficult things are going to be once you leave one career to jump-start another?”
Ritz removed her shades and rubbed her eyes, unconsciously smearing her eye makeup. Her enormous brown eyes were ablaze against the smudged kohl-black eyeliner and red-fox-fur extension eyelashes.
“I know I can do this, Chas. And what bothers me is that you can’t see it.”
“I know how hard we’ve worked to bring you to this point, and I know that you really can’t—”
“Can’t what?
!” she said now, almost shouting. “Get to the next level? That’s the fucking problem! You don’t believe in me?!”
The server appeared out of nowhere and whispered, “Please keep your voices to a minimum. You are interrupting the ambience.”
Chas nodded in agreement. Ritz stared him down.
“Bring the food already,” she growled. “I’m starving!”
The server bowed and vanished.
“Ritz, this is the kind of spot that I’d like to return to, so please, let’s not do this here.”
“Chas, I appreciate what you’ve done for me, I won’t forget that. But there’s so much more to do. I think that you’re not ready for television, that you don’t have the connects or the heart, so you don’t want me to do it.”
“I have connects,” Chas managed. “I have plenty—”
“Then put me in a room with them. Let me show what I have to offer. Either roll with me or get the fuck out of the way, Chas!”
Chas slammed his hand on the table, sending a bamboo utensil to the floor. “Get the fuck out of the way? I am the way! I showed you the way!” he yelled. “You didn’t have shit going on before I came along. Don’t fucking forget that.”
“Did I slide out of your pussy, Chas? What makes you think that I would not have accomplished this without you? It’s not like you found me in the gutter, as some talentless bitch. Get over this God complex! So, yeah, either come with me and let’s do this together, or get the fuck out of the way!”
The server returned; this time he asked Chas and Ritz to leave.
Chas rose and placed a few C-notes in the server’s hand. “Please send my regrets to the chef,” he whispered in the server’s ear. “We meant no disrespect.”
Ritz remained seated and in full tantrum mode. “I want to eat something. I’ve been sitting here and my stomach is stuck to my fucking back!”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” Chas said. “Let’s go out into the mall and grab a bite.”
“And I want to meet with the studios, Chas. And I’m not going back to WHOT until I do.”
“Okay, Ritz,” he sighed. “I’ll make a few calls.”
Ritz wasn’t ready for television and neither was he—but Chas had to take Ritz to Hollywood or he was a failure. Funny how Ritz Harper’s success was her own but her failure was theirs to share.
Chas knew there was only one man to call—Rutger Blake.
5
Rutger punched in the seven-digit code that unlocked the safe behind the false wall in the bookcase of his library. He took out the mahogany case and added the final coin to complete the Chinese lunar-series gold collection. He had a complete set of the Australian Philharmonic. He had a set of the buffalo series that had become so scarce in 2008 that the government stopped minting them, but the Chinese lunar series was the prize of his gold collection, primarily because the Chinese had lost so much faith in the dollar that they were buying up gold as if it were water, making his collection worth four times what he’d purchased it at.
He put the heavy box holding his coins back into his deep safe, alongside his palladium, platinum, and rare-diamond collections—worth just a little more than $10 million. He loved the liquidity and that the value would be the same no matter what country or land he traveled; from the Middle East to the middle of Germany, an ounce of gold traded for the same, as did the diamond, platinum, and palladium.
Rutger loved the power money bought. He understood that at an early age, and it was why he’d set his sights on the most powerful medium of them all—the media and entertainment. Whoever controlled images and the delivery of those images to the masses could literally control the world.
Rutger Blake earned his MBA in media and entertainment, with a concentration in advertising, from the Media School at Bournemouth University in the U.K. Soon thereafter, Rutger moved to New York to work for Silver Screen Motion Pictures, a theater-management company run by his uncle. Recognizing that audiences wanted to see the previews—which were mere commercials for upcoming releases—Rutger thought, why not show this captive audience exciting commercials for products?
Rutger monetized Silver Screen Motion Pictures by partnering with major corporations and introducing advertisements before the previews. He added yet another stream of revenue by partnering with the music industry to play selected artists before the pre-preview advertisements.
Rutger was named president and CEO of Silver Screen Motion Pictures, and he soon infiltrated network television by acquiring the catalogs of classic television shows and investing in the development and syndication of new reality-television shows. As Rutger was building his empire, the big four networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX—were losing an uphill battle with cable television. Cable television offered diversified content to viewers; enjoyed more artistic freedom (without interference from the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission); won more awards; and thus commanded more cross-branding advertising revenue.
Realizing the power in numbers, the big four networks joined forces to create the Big Four to compete with cable by challenging the strict FCC rules, creating more quality programming, and offering late-night adult television content at competitive rates.
The network alliance was built on trust, and a visionary leader was needed to produce new entertainment while preserving each network’s own brand identity.
The blue-eyed Brit was the man for the job.
With a growing portfolio of hot acquisitions under his belt, Rutger was recruited to serve as chairman of the board of the Big Four. No script was approved, no actor was hired, and no project was given the green light without Rutger’s stamp of approval. Since Rutger had taken the helm, the networks had enjoyed a surge in viewing audiences and a spike in profits.
The unassuming, thirtysomething Brit with the slight smile and the five-o’clock shadow had become the most powerful man in network television. And the most ruthless man in Hollywood.
In media, Rutger was a mad genius. In his personal life, Rutger was a madman. Rutger was not a lover. Or a friend. Rutger was a collector. He didn’t view people as equals; he considered them to be mere toys. Someone, rather, some thing would excite Rutger, and he would capture it with his wealth and perfect promises.
Once he’d satisfied his curiosity, he’d toss his toy aside and move on to another. But Chas James was one toy that whenever Rutger tossed it to the side, he always came back to play with him again and again. It was Chas who had had enough the last time Rutger had used him for his own amusement and then didn’t call again for a year. Chas had promised himself he would never again get caught in Rutger’s web.
But now he needed a favor….
6
If Jamie didn’t have bad luck, she’d have no luck at all. First Ritz Harper, her spoiled-rotten, self-important bitch of an ex-boss, gets shot and dies. Then she has the audacity to be revived and become even more of a spoiled-rotten, self-important bitch of a boss. WHOT was doing well with FOX newswoman Michelle Davis manning the Ritz Harper Excursion show, and Jamie could actually see light at the end of the tunnel.
Being an associate producer for Michelle meant ascension, it meant getting one step closer to her goal. But, wham! Ritz was back from the brink of death and taping the number one drive-time show (oh, yeah, they were syndicated in thirty states) from her home. And Jamie was forced to move in with Ritz! There was no more leaving the degradation at the job; now she had to fuse her home life with her work life if she wanted to stay on the Excursion team. And Jamie really did; that was the reality about glamour jobs…the stars in your eyes often masked the diminishing returns.
When things couldn’t get worse, Derek, her irresistible, sexy, mature roughneck, dumped her for no reason at all. So there she was, slaving for the Queen, living in her palace, and having no indication that things would ever get better.
Jamie had never met a beast like Ritz Harper before—someone who had everything, and always wanted more. Someone so insatiable. Someone who was never satisfied.
FOX News reporter Michelle Davis began filling the spot with her own show and was later told by Fox to choose: News or WHOT. Michelle didn’t blink twice when she told WHOT of her decision to stay behind the mic.
The crew, Ritz’s producer, Chas, Aaron the engineer, and Jamie loved Michelle. Ruffin, the station manager, was keen on the intelligent, uplifting conversations and topics that Michelle brought to the show. She was a strong advocate for education, and a breath of fresh air. Ruffin had been in the business long enough to know that WHOT really needed to take a new approach with the afternoon drive time, too. Things were going so well, then, wham! Ritz’s baby died.
And now the bitch was back.
Jamie jump-started her plans to get out of Ritz’s way. With Ritz on her way back, Jamie’s ascension would be halted, and she knew it. She had to force her own good luck, and she did it by investing her money in stocks and bonds and securing employment as a market analyst at Smith Barney, an investment firm.
Things were going as planned. On Monday, September 15, Jamie was called for her second interview; on Thursday, September 18, Jamie was hired and given her employment packet. That Friday, Jamie reported to work. As Aaron counted down to the start of the show, Jamie boldly blurted to Ritz, “This is my official two-week notice!” Take that Ritz Harper!
“What?!” Ritz was not used to being blindsided. She had futuristic vision and always saw one or two steps ahead. But her vision had been cloudy of late. She hadn’t seen the bullets. She didn’t expect to get pregnant. She certainly didn’t see the death of her aunt, who’d raised her, or that of her very own baby girl, who was named after her. She didn’t see any of this coming. And Jamie’s sucker punch felt like the straw that would break Ritz’s back.
Ritz Harper Goes to Hollywood! Page 2