Slick (55 page)

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?”

“Yes,” I said meaningfully.

She scrutinized me. “Ah. So that’s why you’re here. You heard I left Jeremy, and you’re wondering if I’m going to become an even bigger problem.”

I matched her harsh expression. She extinguished one cigarette and immediately lit up another.

“When he was eighteen, he won this freestyling competition at a local club. He just blew everyone away. That’s when he met Yak Fula, another up-and-comer. He’s dead now, but at the time he was part of Tupac’s backup group, the Immortal Outlaws. He and Jeremy got to talking, and they became friends. Then Yak introduced Jeremy to Tupac and they became friends. ‘Pac was a good role model for Jeremy. Artistically, that is. Personally...Well, this was his Death Row phase. He was getting into the whole gang shit. When you’re with Suge Knight, you’re with the Bloods. You are red from head to toe.

“So soon enough, one of the Outlaws got kicked out of the group because he smashed up ‘Pac’s car. Suddenly Yak was saying things to Jeremy like ‘Hey man. We’re gonna make you one of us. You’re gonna be an Outlaw.’ Jeremy was blown away but he also knew what that meant. When you’re part of ‘Pac’s group, you were branded with a big tattoo that said THUG LIFE, right here.” She motioned across her abdomen. “That was a problem. I mean, would Jeremy disappoint his father by getting into the gang scene? Or would he risk falling out with ‘Pac?”

She looked out at the night sky, shooting smoke up at the stars.

“Turns out it didn’t matter. In September they all went up to Vegas to see Mike Tyson fight. Everyone from Death Row was there. All sorts of celebrities. This was Jeremy’s first real taste of the big life. Everyone was drunk and high and out of control. Right after the fight, right in the lobby of the MGM Grand, ‘Pac started whaling on this guy who supposedly stole something from somebody. Before long, everybody in the group was kicking this guy on the floor. Even Suge Knight was getting in on it. Jeremy didn’t know what to do. Yak’s like ‘Come on, man. You down with us or ain’t you?’

“What else could he do? He started kicking the guy. It was the only time he ever did anything like that. And he still feels bad about it. See, that’s the thing about Jeremy. He’s always looking at himself through his father’s eyes, making up for the mistakes of his brothers. And he still feels bad about that thing he did four and a half years ago. For kicking a man he didn’t even know. Can you imagine what he’d be like if he ever hurt a woman he did know?”

She didn’t have to tell me who she was really talking about.

“Anyway, it only got worse that night. The gang was running around town in a caravan. They went from the MGM Grand to Suge’s house off the Strip, and then from Suge’s house, they were all fixing to go to some club. Nobody stopped for a minute and Jeremy was caught up in the action. It wasn’t so fun anymore. He said it felt a lot like drowning.”

Simba took another deep hit off her cigarette.

“And then it happened. Right at a stoplight, a white Cadillac pulls up next to the car Tupac was in. Four guys with guns get out and BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Jeremy was only one car behind, right next to Yak. They saw the whole thing go down.”

“Jesus...”

“Yeah. It was a mess. Everyone’s trying to chase each other. The cops are all around and Death Row people are telling Jeremy ‘Don’t say nothing to the police! Don’t say nothing to the police!’ Meanwhile, Tupac’s all shot up. He couldn’t even breathe. They got him to the hospital, but he was already gone. It took six more days for his body to die, but he was already gone.”

Her eyes welled up. Her mouth began to quiver. “Jeremy told me the story not long after I met him. He told me how he had finally gotten in to see ‘Pac at the hospital, the day after the shooting. The doctors had to take out half his guts just to keep him alive. But what Jeremy remembered the most was the THUG LIFE tattoo on ‘Pac’s stomach. There was a huge incision cutting right through it. It was like a big slash between the THUG and the LIFE, and...”

She finally wept. “When he first told me the story, he was crying worse than I am. He told me how that was it for him. That was when he knew he wouldn’t go down the way Tupac did. He looked to me, he was crying, and he said ‘Baby, I chose life.’”

One by one, she furiously pulled tissues out of the box on the floor. She used the whole wad to wipe her eyes.

“When he told me that story, I fell in love with him. Right on the spot. He had me for the long haul.”

She closed up her robe, gazing ahead in anger. “But when he told me I fucked up, that was it. That was the official limit of shit I would take. I have loved him, even though he’s betrayed me dozens of times. I’ve supported his career, even when mine died an early death. And I have stood by his side throughout this whole goddamn nightmare. I never asked him to thank me because I was his wife. But when he told me I fucked up... no. That was it. I took my suitcase and my daughter. I said good-bye and I meant it.”

She crushed her cigarette into a nub, then turned her gaze back on me. “Tomorrow morning I’m going back to Virginia to my parents’ house. I’ll unplug all the TVs and radios, curl up with my baby girl, and we are going to sleep for a month. That’s my only plan. Tell the press whatever you want about me. Whatever you think will help Jeremy the most. I don’t care. I just want out.”

Simba crumpled her tissues and dropped them into her lap.

“I’ve seen a horrible side of the world these past two weeks. It’s an ugly world you live in, Scott. And it’s going to take a long, long time to put it behind me.”

After a few long moments, I stood up from the hard chair. Wincing, I arched my spine.

“Death threats,” I said.

“What?”

“You went away with Latisha because of a death threat. It was Jeremy’s idea. He just wants to see the two of you safe.”

Simba glanced up at me, sniffing. “That’s good. That’s really good. You just think of that? “

I shrugged. “It’s my job.”

“Well, you keep doing your job, Scott Singer. You get him out of this shit. He never raped a woman in his life. You don’t stop until the whole world knows that. You hear me?”

I heard her, but I was looking at the patch of clay erections behind her. I couldn’t help but relate. Again I found myself fleeing to lower functions to avoid the complexity of my thoughts. It would be so nice to fly away to Virginia and curl up in bed with Simba for a month, or two, or six. It would be a grand relief to escape all the budding developments in my life, even the ones that looked promising (
too
promising). I was a weak man. I was a coward. And the women around me just kept getting stronger.

 

 

At nine o’clock, CNN America aired its regularly scheduled encore of
Larry King Live
. All over the nation, all the people who had missed Harmony the first time around were settling onto their sofas, eagerly anticipating the explosive finale that everyone was shouting about. The ratings would spike significantly toward the end of the hour, especially on the West Coast. Everybody who missed the fourth quarter drama of Monday-night football, everybody who didn’t give a crap how
Third Watch
ended, everybody who loved Raymond but hated
Becker
, they would all have an interesting place to go at 9:53.

As the show began again, I made a sudden left turn off Wilshire Boulevard, just to get away from the silver Acura behind me. When I’d left Simba’s hideaway, I noticed the car idling behind mine. The moment I started off, it came to life and followed. All along Wilshire, it trailed me, just as Jean once did. The driver even had a small silhouette like Jean’s. It was déjà vu all over again.

I turned. The driver kept going. I pulled up to a not-so-legal spot of curb (permit parking only, fuck it), shut off the car, and began a late-evening walk through residential Westwood. It was just me and my thoughts, but they weren’t good thoughts. Two hours ago, Alonso had pronounced the death of quid pro quo. That didn’t faze me until Maxina confirmed his diagnosis. Once she had smuggled herself out of the Miramar, she called me for an update. I told her Simba wasn’t going to be a problem anymore. She told me Harmony was just getting started.

“Scott, I think it’s time we began discussing Plan B.”

“Not yet. Let me talk to her.”

“Don’t call her tonight,” she warned. “Give her time to wind down. Trust me.”

Sound advice, but what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t at least try to check on her? How could I pass up the chance to play good cop? After three blocks, I took the cellular brick out of my pocket and dialed Harmony yet again.

At long last, she answered. I could hear her own voice blaring in the background. Even she was watching CNN.

“Hey baby!”

Her odd pep threw me. “Harmony.”

“Took you long enough.”

“Your phone was off.”

“I know. I thought that would get you to come over here. Instead I got Maxina.”

“Sorry. She told me to stay behind.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I replied with dark levity. “Maybe she was afraid we’d run off together.”

“You know, she said that whole thing with Simba was your idea.”

That smacked the grin right off my face. I froze in my tracks. It didn’t even occur to me that Harmony was joking until she broke out in harsh giggles.

“I’m just messing with you, Slick! Come on! Lighten up!”

“That’s not funny.”

“Listen to you, all freaked out and shit. How the hell do you expect me to trust you guys when you don’t even trust each other?”

“Harmony, look—”

“Ooh! Wait! This is the part where I talk about abstinence. Hold on.”

I had missed that segment. I tried to listen in but I couldn’t make out the words. Instead I resumed walking, waiting for her to come back to me. My stomach hurt.

“Damn,” she said with a laugh. “My motherfucking grammar was all over the place. I didn’t even notice. I wish Alonso had told me. Or you could have called me during the commercial.”

“Look, you know I had nothing to do with what Simba did.”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone’s saying to me. You, Maxina, Alonso, Larry.”

“Right now I’m just talking about me. I want you to believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” she responded sharply. “But that just means you didn’t see it coming. So every time you tell me now that things are under control, that things are gonna be okay, I’m less inclined to believe that. The name of the game is credibility, Scott. And you just lost some.”