Daniel Price - Slick

Miranda was an old friend of mine. Actually, she was an old friend of an old flame, but we remained chummy. Since I was the one who got cheated on and dumped, Miranda didn’t have to play the allegiance card and freeze me out. To her, I was only an asshole by profession.

Inviting her to Keoki Atoll had been a cruel pleasure on my part. It was always fun to crack her carefully maintained appearance. Miranda was a power dresser. Even in tropical weather, she looked ready for the catwalk in her sleeveless white Donna Karan blouse and three-hundred dollar Gucci slacks.

Predictably, her jaw dropped at the spectacle of skin. “Oh my fucking God. I can’t believe you really did this.”

“Miranda. Hey!” I went to hug her.

“Don’t. Don’t even touch me. You are the scum of the earth. I’ve stepped in better things than you.”

That was just how New Yorkers said hello. “How are you, hon?”

“Jet-lagged. And thoroughly repulsed. What did you do, hire strippers?”

“Nope. These are genuine New England student activists.”

“Pathetic, Scott. Am I the only real journalist here?”

“You and David Green from Maxim .”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Here.”

She handed me a DVD-ROM. The AP GraphicsBank was one of the world’s most extensive video image libraries. You try finding stock footage of a monk seal.

“Oh, perfect,” I said. “I really needed this. Thank you.”

“I don’t even know why I’m helping you. Jesus.”

“Hey, where’s your photo guy?”

“That would be me.” Proving her point, she extracted a two-thousand dollar digital camera from her leather bag, holding it as if it were somebody else’s baby. “There weren’t any photographers available from the Honolulu pool. And my goddamn bosses wouldn’t pay to fly Armand out here.”

Typical. “All right. Hope you know how to use that thing.”

“I hope I don’t.”

It was finally time to get started. I gave Denny and Vivek a list of required shots, and they immediately sicced their cameras on the pool of nudes. No doubt there would be an unedited C-roll added to their personal collection. I made a note to get a copy for Ira.

Meanwhile, Gray set up his editing station: a titanium G4 Power Book, complete with satellite uplink terminal. As I handed him the monk-seal disc, Miranda yanked my script out of my pocket. She paced the pavement, reading aloud.

“‘You know the old expression: it’s not what you say but how you say it. This morning on the beautiful Hawaiian islands of Keoki Atoll, over two hundred young female activists staged a “cheeky” demonstration against the brand-new Fairmont Keoki, a ninety-million-dollar, twenty nine-acre luxury’—God, Scott!”

“Keep reading.”

“‘—luxury beach resort scheduled to open tomorrow. Their gripe? Fairmont’s treatment of Keoki’s oldest occupant, the endangered monk seal. Now in order to save the critters’ hides, these lovely young women…are baring theirs.’”

She handed the script back. “You’re going to burn in hell.”

“Only if they use my tit-for-tat pun.”

“So how much did you spend on this whole sham?”

“Who says I spent anything?”

“Right. I’m sure these kids just cashed in their beer bottles. Do they know you’re using them?”

“Who says I’m using them? God, Miranda. Relax. You’re in Hawaii.”

Over the years, I’ve taught myself to observe people’s subtle nuances, to read between their lines. Now I can’t turn those powers off. I suffer from Terminator Vision, a red-screen overlay with constant streaming data on the side. At the moment that data was telling me Miranda had issues. Not with me or the gratuitous T&A. She was having problems at home. Of course that wasn’t a blind guess. I’d met her husband many times. Quite the prick.

Speaking of pricks, the cameras brought out the worst in some of the spectators. One of the hotel workers shouted NC-17 compliments from outside the cordon until a pair of Orono guys got on his case. Fortunately security broke it up before it became a brawl.

Miranda shook her head at the spectacle. “Scott, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow this farce wide open.”

“Because you like me.”

“Not after this.”

The real reason was because, like David, she knew that 200 women strip naked was a hell of a lot more interesting than pr guy manipulates news. You have to understand something about Miranda. Prior to AP, she spent five years at USA Today , until she had a four-color meltdown. Now she liked to tell herself that she was doing real journalism. For all I know, she could be. Just not today. Today she was working for me.

“So who’s the ringleader of this thing?” she asked. “Besides you.”

“I’ll take you to her.”

I hadn’t seen Deb since the stripdown, and I was having a hell of a time locating her now. Fortunately, she found me.

I waved for Denny as Deb worked her way to the rope border. She was definitely getting airtime. The movement needed a voice, a face, and that body. Good Lord. In my preemptive defense, I’ll say that the sexiest woman I’d ever known was an A-cup. With that out of the way, I feel better in expressing my fervent belief that Deb’s stunningly large breasts could stop air traffic. In L.A., women spent thousands to get what she got.

“Deb, this is Miranda Cameron-Donnell, from the Associated Press. Miranda, Deb Isham. She’s a senior at U. Maine, Orono. This is her show.”

“Hi, Miranda.”

“Hi, Deb. Thanks for the complex. I need my tape recorder.”

While Miranda rooted through her bag, I threw Deb a cautious look. Remember what we talked about, hon. Keep your answers short. Play up your conviction. Never speculate. And never, ever say anything off the record. There’s no such thing as “off the record.”

Miranda found her recorder. “All right. Here we go. Don’t worry, Deb. This’ll be painless, especially if you have nothing to hide. Obviously, you don’t. You ready?”

“Sure.”

“All right. Let’s start basic. Why are you doing this?”

“Because the Hawaiian monk-seal population is down to twelve hundred and shrinking fast. Keoki Atoll has been their home for millions of years. Now, because of yet another resort this state doesn’t need, these animals have nowhere to mate.”

“Uh-huh. And what does this have to do with you girls getting naked?”

“Well, Miranda, let me ask you. If we were fully clothed, would you even be here?”

“Actually, yes. But that’s a good line.” Miranda grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. “A-plus on the prep work, handsome.”

“Thank you.”

Yet another advantage of the VNR: my crap was read-only. They would only see what I wanted them to see. Although Miranda was barred from the conspiracy angle, she still had the power to tarnish my paint job. It was a calculated risk to bring her here. I was hoping our friendship, plus a break from the miserable New York weather, would make her go easy on the story. No such luck. She was going to take her marital rage out on us.

Denny arrived and blithely turned his camera on Deb. Miranda kept going.

“By the way, Deb, how many of you are there?”

Deb crossed her arms and nervously looked to the camera. I had to wave her gaze back. “Uh, two hundred and three.”

“Are you sure? It looks like less.”

I cut in. “If you want to count them, go ahead. They’re all here.”

Fact: there were a hundred and twenty-eight. But if Miranda wanted to call my bluff, she would have a most difficult time. Counting a crowd of homogenous nude women was like counting a floor full of ball bearings, except fun. I had correctly banked on the assumption that Miranda would not see it as fun.