Daniel Price - Slick

“This is a nightmare.” Maxina wheezed. “All we need is one smart journalist to really analyze Simba’s comments.”

“We might get some crackpot conspiracies, but nothing in the mainstream. They wouldn’t dare accuse Harmony of anything. Especially not now.”

“I hope you’re right. How is she?”

“Not good. She’s furious at everyone. How’s Simba?”

“She’s a mess. She just left the hotel. We think she just left Jeremy.”

“What? That’s crazy.”

“No it’s not. I just got off the phone with Doug. She took Latisha and a suitcase.”

“Jesus Christ! She ended the call fifteen minutes ago!”

“Things are falling apart fast, Scott. Now, I don’t have time for bullshit. I need to know if you’re going to be a help to me or a hindrance.”

“What do you want?”

“I want this over! I want Harmony to recant no later than tomorrow morning.”

“You got it.”

Maxina’s footsteps came to a sudden stop. “You’re serious.”

“Dead serious. This show isn’t good for anyone anymore. I figure if you and I present a united front, we can talk her into cooperating.”

Maxina let out a shaky laugh. “Wow. I’m afraid to ask what your catch is.”

“My catch is that you stick to your word. Once I help you save Jeremy, you do everything in your power to help me save Harmony. That’s all I ever wanted.”

She started up again. “You got it. You got it. Oh, bless your heart, Scott. I knew you’d come around.”

“No you didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t. But you are now officially a man I love.”

I looked through the window and watched Madison and Jean cross the street. Without looking back at me, or even at each other, they both entered the SUV. I pulled the small yellow slip off my back.

We moved out.

“Scott? Are you there?”

“Yeah.” I met Jean’s glance through two windows and fifty feet of dark air. “Yeah. I’m here. What now?”

________________

By eight o’clock I was in Beverly Hills. I parked my rented Buick on Doheny Drive, in front of a small Spanish-style house. I had dropped Simba off at this very place a little over a week ago, on that fateful day we (I) selected Harmony to be our media snare. Before leaving my car, Simba had reached over, squeezed my leg, and asked me to promise her, promise her that I’d do what’s right for her and Jeremy. I promised. Obviously she stopped believing me.

The door was answered by a striking woman in her late twenties. She was dark-skinned and nearly six feet tall. She was surprised to be looking up at me.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes. I’m Scott. I’m one of the smart, slick people your cousin’s been complaining about.”

She leered with grim humor. “She mentioned there was a white one in the bunch.”

“Can I please see her?”

“What makes you think she’s here?”

Hunta had an inkling, which was passed from Doug to Maxina to me. Also passed along was Hunta’s strong desire to see Harmony go under the wheels of a cargo truck. He reportedly had similar sentiments for me.

“I’m only working a few hours ahead of the reporters,” I stressed. “It’s in her best interest that I get to her before they do. Please.”

I didn’t ask to be here. I really wanted to minister to Harmony, but Maxina opted to handle that herself. She’s too close to you, Scott. You’re only going to set her off. I didn’t necessarily agree, but I liked the idea of Maxina taking the brunt of Harmony’s ill will for a change.

In the meantime, Maxina had another way for me to be useful.

Warily, the cousin let me into her living room and left me waiting for ten minutes. I spent most of the time studying the black-and-white photos on the walls, all artistic nudes of the cousin herself. I was impressed, not just with her lithe form but with the healthy amount of nerve it took to decorate her home with naked pictures of herself. In every shot, she sported a white plaster cast on her left forearm. There was a statement in there somewhere, but damned if I knew what it was.

Soon enough, she came back, cradling a sleepy Latisha. “She’s ready to see you. She’s on the back porch.”

“Thanks.” I gestured to a photo. “Was your arm really broken?”

“No.”

As I passed her, she kept a cool eye on me. “You enjoy playing with other people’s lives the way you do?”

I stopped and made a half-turn. “No.”

________________

There were only two chairs on the porch, each in the shape of a giant cupped hand. I sat down on one, leaning back against four tight fingers. I didn’t like the idea of a big palm holding up my ass, nor did I like the assemblage of vertical penis sculptures that adorned the patio like a cactus patch. All in all, I preferred the nude-cousin motif of the living room.

On the other hand, there was Simba. She was a vision, as always, even with strained red eyes. She had just showered. Her hair was slicked back. She wore an Asian silk robe, one so short that she had to cross her legs to keep our talk from becoming more awkward. At her feet were a pack of cigarettes and a box of tissues. Currently, she was working her way through the cigarettes.

“You here to tell me I fucked up?”

“Only if you think it went well,” I quipped.

She let out a smoky chuckle. “No. I’m pretty unhappy with how it turned out.”

I kept quiet as she tapped her ashes into a tray on the thumb of her chair.

“He told me I fucked up. Those were the first words that came out of Jeremy’s mouth the minute I walked back into the room. ‘You fucked up.’”

“Did he know what you were doing?”

“It was his idea. He wanted to call in himself but I said ‘No. Let me do it. It’ll sound better coming from me.’”

She shook her head at me, incredulous. “I mean, shit. You guys did such a good job with her. She was so damn good, the way she claimed how rap never hurt her. Don’t blame rap. Blame the rapper. That was some quality stuff. I’m sure it was a big relief for the Judge, for Maxina, for everyone at that whole stupid meeting.”

Right. Now get to the part where you chide me.

“See, you were different to us, Scott. Everyone else was focused on saving the label or saving the music business, but you were all about Jeremy. Until suddenly you became all about Harmony. Harmony, Harmony, Harmony. Even Maxina was worried about you.”

“It was gossip,” I insisted, as calmly as possible. “Childish, cynical, paranoid gossip. If you chose to believe it, fine. But what you did—”

“I did what I thought was necessary!”

“I told you both to have patience and to have faith in me, and you didn’t. Now you made it ten times worse for everyone.”

She closed her eyes, choking back tears. “You’ve never been on our side of the crisis, Scott. We can’t turn on the TV, we can’t open a newspaper without seeing some former friend telling lies about us. How do you expect us to be patient, Scott? How do you expect us to have faith in you when you’re the one who made it ten times worse?”

We sat in taut silence, facing each other from opposite hands.

“Do you know how much the Enquirer offered me to speak out against my husband? Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A quarter of a million dollars. Nobody’s offering me money to defend him. Just to attack him. Can you believe that?”