Daniel Price - Slick

“Then do it.”

She opened the door for me, then gazed out at the sunny street. “I have a lot of colleagues, Scott.”

“I know how it works.”

She looked up at me again. We were both having a terrible morning, and we were both a shade of our usual selves, but even our shades were bright enough to speak in soft language. She was asking for a reason not to ruin my career. I couldn’t offer one. All I could give her was my blessing. I couldn’t get away from this Scott Free.

Maxina blew a long and weary sigh. She squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll keep the Judge off your back.”

“Keep him off Harmony’s back.”

“He won’t touch her,” she replied. “Even I can’t touch her now.”

I grinned. I couldn’t help it. For Jeremy’s sake, and for the sake of my own conscience, I didn’t want to take pleasure in Harmony’s ultimate triumph. But I was only human, and she was a loved one of mine.

________________

It took me five minutes to stumble back to my car. I sat behind the wheel with my hand on the ignition key. My attention was captured by that damn red phone on the floor. Ever since yesterday, I’d been afraid to pick it up. But now that everything had reversed itself, now that up was down, left was right, black was white, I figured it would be cool to the touch again. I figured Harmony would love to hear from me.

One last time, I called her up. She answered after the very first ring.

“Hey baby!”

“Harmony.”

She hesitated. “Oh. Gosh. I’m sorry. I was expecting someone else. Who’s this?”

“You know who this is.”

Another pause. “I’m afraid you have the wrong number, sir.”

“Harmony, it’s Scott.”

“You definitely have the wrong number, then. This ain’t Harmony. And I don’t know any Scott.”

At first I took it as an act of childish petulance and grew annoyed. Then I realized she was just being cautious.

“It’s okay,” I assured her. “I’m not recording this.”

“I didn’t say you were. I just said you got the wrong number.”

“So who am I talking to then?”

She mulled it over. “Danesha.”

“Well, hi, Danesha. My name is Scott. Scott Singer.”

“Is it now?”

“Yeah. Turns out it really is.”

“I don’t know,” she mused. “It’s kind of hard to believe you when it sounds like you’re disguising your voice.”

I laughed. No wonder she was antsy. “I’m not disguising my voice. I just have a cold. I got it yesterday from standing in the ocean. Remember?”

“No. Why should I? I don’t even know you.”

My amusement faded fast. “All right. You know what? This was a bad idea. I’m sorry I bothered you. Take care of yourself.”

“No. Wait. Don’t go.”

I paused. “Yes?”

“Did you say you were calling for Harmony?”

“I did.”

“As in Harmony Prince?”

“The one and only,” I replied. “Is she around?”

“No, but she’s all I see on the news these days. What do you think of her?”

I smiled. “There’s no simple answer to that question.”

“Well, what do you think about her future? I mean, this shit with the tape…”

“Nah. The tape’s a fake. If there’s one thing I know, it’s Harmony’s voice. And that’s not it. I figure by lunchtime, she’ll be completely exonerated.”

“And after that? “

“After that, she’s home free.”

She squealed with delight. She must have been on pins and needles, wondering if her daring stunt would work. There was no point in keeping her guessing. She deserved to hear it, especially from me.

“Yeah,” I confessed. “That woman’s unstoppable.”

“Really, now? I thought maybe you’d tell me there’s some people coming after her.”

“What, like hit men? No. No. That’s not what she needs to worry about.”

“What does she need to worry about?”

I vented a long, hot breath. “Well, there’s that little blond girl in Wisconsin who’s going to go missing in a week or two. There’s that cute little Cuban boy who’s about to get caught up in an international custody battle. And of course there’s the next Annabelle Shane, who’s probably loading up her daddy’s pistol as we speak. These are the people who are coming after Harmony. If I were her publicist, I’d tell her to work hard, work fast, and use every bit of the limelight while she’s got it. With luck, she might really go places.”

Her silence was tepid. “You really sound sick.”

“I know. That’s what I get for standing in the ocean.”

“Yeah? You regret it?”

I fixed a vacant stare out the windshield at the endless row of neat little houses.

“I regret it,” I said. “More than anything I’ve done in my life.”

“And I bet you’d do anything to take it back,” she replied cynically.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. There are some things I wouldn’t do.”

“Like what?”

I was going to tell her that I’d never sacrifice an innocent man. Not on purpose, anyway. But there was no point in splitting hairs. We were both the architects of Jeremy’s fate. Unlike me, Harmony was smart enough to see that somebody had to lose this dirty game I’d started. There was no point in faulting her when in truth I was just so damn impressed. I was so damn impressed that she managed to win by my rules.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I can’t take it back. But if I could wish for anything in the world right now, I’d wish for ten more seconds of credibility with Harmony Prince. I’d even settle for five.”

“Five seconds.”

“Five seconds where my words go past her suspicions, around her doubts, and straight on through to the woman inside.”

“That’s asking a lot,” she said.

“I’m not asking. I’m wishing.”

“What makes you think you even deserve five seconds?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what Harmony thinks.”

She thought about it for a few moments.

“Why don’t you try me instead? I’ll be Harmony. And you can be whoever you claim to be. I’ll give you five seconds. How does that sound?”

“Discouraging.”

“Well, you’re just gonna have to take your chances, mister. You ready?”

“Sure.”

“Okay…go.”

“I wish you well.”

I ran out the clock in silence. Harmony laughed. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“That was hardly even one second!”

I shrugged. “I guess I didn’t need the whole five.”

“You are so strange.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. It’s what Harmony thinks.”

Her laughter died down. Now she opened her balcony doors and stepped out into the high ocean breeze. I could hear the wind static.

“I met this guy once,” she told me. “He was a strange man, just like you, but he was all charming and funny and shit. And he had a nice face. Even though he was older than me, and white, I got a little bit of a crush on him. He seemed kind of sweet on me, too, but he had a job to do and he was fixed on doing it. See, he had this crazy idea. He had this crazy thing he wanted me to do for a client of his. Nothing dirty. Just crazy. And somehow, God knows how, he talked me into doing it.”