Daniel Price - Slick

By Tuesday morning security was airtight. I practically had to give a DNA sample before building security notified Doug that I was there. He came down to the lobby to retrieve me himself. As soon as I stepped onto the twentieth floor, I was security-wanded. A second guard asked me to raise my arms for a pat-down.

“This is insane,” I griped.

“It’s necessary,” said Doug.

“It’s insane that it’s necessary.”

He shrugged. “We’re the richest nation in the world. We’ve got to blame someone for something.”

Once I was officially pronounced clean, Doug pushed open the heavy cedar doors. “Just be prepared, Scott.”

“For what? A cavity search?”

He didn’t smile. “For blame.”

________________

For the record, I never assaulted Annabelle Shane. I wasn’t the one who riled her into a shooting frenzy. Nor did I trigger Lisa Glassman, whose face would be on the front page of everything right now if Harmony hadn’t come along. Unfortunately, no one here seemed to care about the alternate reality. The Mean World office was a parallel universe in itself, a strange Bizarro realm where Hunta was the victim, Harmony was the villain, and rap was not a fan of me.

As Doug led me past the sea of cubicles, young heads sprouted up to observe me: the tall and wicked white man who played with other people’s lives like they were pieces on a chessboard. I met their hot glares with a defiant sneer. On any other day, I wouldn’t bother myself with the thoughts of strangers, but this was not a good day. My early talk with Harmony had left me wounded and hobbling. I needed to rest up for our next encounter.

Unfortunately, I’d been summoned to face the Judge.

“In case you didn’t pick up the vibe,” he said, “nobody here likes you. In fact, we all pretty much think you’re an asshole.”

We eyed each other from opposite ends of a giant conference table, while five of his most scornful lieutenants flanked the long edges. Behind every angry black man was a poster of another angry black man. The glass walls were covered in promotional reproductions of Mean World album covers. L-Ron. X/S. Hitchy. Hunta. For the cover of Huntaway , Jeremy stood arms akimbo in front of a pure white backdrop. He was naked except for six figures worth of jewelry and a large parental advisory placard obscuring his naughty part. His seditious snarl sealed the message. Y’all better be advised if this now, ’cause your daughters want it, and I’m ready to give it.

On some unspoken level, he must have gotten a thrill from watching us uptight prigs cringe at his raw sexuality. His mighty manhood was a threat to the whole nation, a juggernaut erection tearing across the countryside, shattering dams, destroying cities. Even his fellow braggadocio rappers were diving out of its way. That had to be worth a few cackles. As the current fiend in the office, I felt like cackling myself.

“Well,” I said in perfectly glib spirit, “I guess I won’t be invited to your next Christmas party.”

An executive shot to his feet. “You think this is fucking funny?”

“No, I think this is unproductive. Where’s Maxina?”

“She’s not coming,” said Doug. “She threw her back out this morning.”

“Can we at least get her on speakerphone?”

“Why don’t you deal with us yourself,” huffed the Judge, “instead of hiding behind Mommy?”

I laughed and held up my palms. “Fine, Judge. If it’ll make you feel better to chew me out in front of your people, go ahead. If you want to blame me for what Simba did—”

“It’s not what Jeremy’s woman did! It’s what your woman did!”

He stood up and slid today’s Los Angeles Times across the table. Right above Harmony’s crying face was the headline she wrote herself: i said no and he didn’t listen.

“You see that shit? You see that?”

“I see it.”

“She’s fucking us over! She’s killing us! And all because she believes her own goddamn story!”

“She panicked, “ I replied in a nice, even tone. “She was put in a tight squeeze and she panicked.”

“Funny how well her panicking served her,” a jaded subordinate remarked.

I stood up and wandered the room. Business psychology 101: the person closest to the ceiling always takes the floor. Anything to silence the rabble.

“Look, Harmony’s scared to death right now. She doesn’t want to go against us but she’s afraid to go along with us. She’s stuck on a high ledge with everyone watching, and she doesn’t trust us to catch her if she jumps.”

“That was your job,” said Doug. “You were supposed to have her complete trust.”

“There’s no such thing as complete trust, especially in a situation like this. Now I’m doing everything in my power—”

“Are you?”

I gave the Judge a winsome smile. “Let’s skip the insinuations and get right to the suggestions. What would you have me do?”

“Use the goddamn audiotape!”

“She has to understand that she can’t win,” added Doug. “If she doesn’t confess, we’ll do it for her.”

“That is an absolute last resort,” I insisted.

The Judge slapped his hand down. “We’re at the last resort! We’re out of time! If you don’t clear Jeremy’s ass, we’ll have to drop him from the label! You think we want to do that?”

“He’s a good artist,” said one lieutenant.

“Our best artist,” said another.

“And even if we drop him,” the Judge continued, “the political fallout’s going to kill us in a matter of weeks. We have to fix this now!”

“We’re not saying leak the tape,” Doug assured me, as if I were simply worried for myself. “We’re just suggesting you use it as a bargaining tool.”

“It’s not a bargaining tool. It’s a threat.”

The Judge laughed in bleak wonder. “He’s afraid to threaten her. Our whole goddamn world is crumbling and he’s afraid of upsetting his new fuck buddy.”

I knelt beside him, speaking in a sardonic stage whisper. “Did it ever occur to you that if we threaten her, my new ‘fuck buddy’ might confess a hell of a lot more than we bargained for?”

He grabbed my shirt collar. “I told you, goddamn it! I told you from the start it was a mistake to tell her who she was working for!”

“Get your hands off me.”

“You put my life’s work at the mercy of this stupid little bitch!”

“Get your hands off me.”

“You get her to end this thing now or I will end your fucking life!”

Doug stood up. “Byron…”

The Judge let go of me. He held his finger in my face.

“Your scheme has gotten us into a world of shit. So what are you going to do about it, ‘Slick’?”

All eyes were upon me again. I glanced at the poster image of Hunta and idly wondered how much this whole crisis mattered to him now. How much did Harmony matter to him now that his wife and daughter were gone? Sorry, man. In the end, that was all your fault, just as Harmony was all mine. So what are we going to do about the problems we’ve caused, Jeremy? What are we prepared to sacrifice to make things right?

In the heated silence, I made my way back to my seat and blew a heavy sigh in Doug’s direction.

“You need to get Maxina on the phone,” I told him. “She’ll want to hear this.”