Maxina emitted a heavy sigh. “What can we do to help?”
The Judge’s watch beeped. So did Big Bank’s.
“Just make sure Harmony knows what I’m doing. She’s not dumb. She’ll know her best option now is to go along with the lie. But she’ll need a dedicated publicist to help her with the backlash. Maybe Kathy Oh. Or Jeff Hawn. He’s good. Oh, and make sure she gets the other half of my fee, please.”
“What can we do to help you?”
It was Maxina’s question again, but I found myself looking to Hunta. It occurred to me that if I gave him Madison’s phone number, he could tell her the whole story himself. She could hear straight from the horse’s mouth that he was never really betrayed by me. It was just a trick, a stunt, a media scam that blew up toward the end. But ultimately, Slick took the heat of the blast. He did right by everyone.
“Uh…”
While everyone watched me, I watched the television. At long last, it was showtime. The sound was off, but a transcript of the dialogue began to scroll onto the screen, word by word, right between a still shot of Harmony and that sinister graphic of Question-Mark Man.
HARMONY: This the craziest s*** I ever heard in my life.
MAN: I don’t blame you for being skeptical. Tell me which part worries you the most and I’ll see if I can clarify.
I was running short on time. I had to get out of here and get started on my task list. But I couldn’t leave without asking Hunta this one favor.
But something on the TV…
HARMONY: Which part? How about all of it? You want me to yell “rape” against a man who never even touched me…
MAN: We don’t really want to call it rape.
Something wasn’t right.
HARMONY: But I won’t have any evidence!
MAN: You won’t need evidence.
“This isn’t right,” I said. Everyone followed my gaze.
“What isn’t right?” asked Doug.
HARMONY: But what if people don’t believe me?
MAN: What, that Hunta sexually abused you?
HARMONY: Yeah.
MAN: [laughs] That’s not an issue. Trust me.
“That’s not what we said,” I told them.
Hunta eyed me tensely. “What the hell you talking about?”
“The dialogue. It’s all wrong. It’s not what was on the tape.”
HARMONY: How you gonna prove he had the opportunity?
MAN: Well, first there’s your paycheck, which shows you were at the Christmas party. Then there’s a hotel slip, which proves he got a room that night.
Maxina draped a taut hand over her mouth. “Oh dear God.”
She reached for the remote and turned up the volume. The voices were crackly, tinny, and almost submerged in the background hum of an engine. The conversation was obviously recorded in a moving car. But it wasn’t my car. It wasn’t my voice.
HARMONY: Damn. You really thought this whole thing out.
And that wasn’t Harmony.
Hunta chucked out his palms. “Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”
No one was prepared to answer. Once Maxina switched off the television, the six of us sat in pure silence, staring absently at various points in the room. I zoned in on Hunta’s bare feet. Although he didn’t know it yet, the tables had just turned back. Suddenly I was saved and he was screwed.
“It’s a fake,” I said, still gazing at his feet. “The tape’s a complete fake.”
Doug was stumped. “It’s weird. I mean the man sounded nothing like you, but are you sure that woman wasn’t Harmony?”
“It wasn’t. Someone just did a very good impression of her.”
“But that don’t make sense,” said Hunta. “Who would do that?”
Apparently I was the only one who figured it out. Even Maxina was left flailing in the dark, but she was just a minute away from piecing it together. I didn’t want to be here when that happened.
The Judge chimed in. “It could be any jokester. There are always people messing with the news.”
“Or it could be the news itself,” Big Bank added. “Maybe they did it for the ratings.”
“Yeah, but why this? Who would play a trick on Harmony?”
“It wasn’t a trick on her,” I explained to Hunta. “It was a trick on you.”
Yet again, all heads turned my way. My mind was still reeling from the implications. If I didn’t stay focused on Hunta, I’d probably start laughing. If I started, I probably wouldn’t stop.
“Over the next few hours, a whole bunch of audio experts will compare the voice on that recording to Harmony’s voice on Larry King Live. They’re all come to the same conclusion: it’s not her.”
Doug went agape. “Holy shit.”
“And if that’s not Harmony,” I continued, “then the press will conclude that someone set her up. Somebody made a cheap attempt to destroy her credibility.”
“They’re going to blame us,” said Doug. “We’re the only ones with a motive. They’re going to think…”
The Judge lowered his head into his hands. “Oh Jesus Christ…”
“Wait. This shit ain’t over?” Hunta asked. “You saying this shit ain’t over?”
Doug shook his head. “No. They’ll think you’re guiltier than ever now. They’ll think we’re all guilty now.”
“We got framed,” said Big Bank, astounded. “We got framed for framing her.”
For framing Hunta. Scheme-wise, it was a marvelous structure, a hoax within a hoax within a hoax. It was so artful in its simplicity and yet so devastating in its effectiveness.
“But can’t we stop this?” the Judge asked me. “Can’t we just release the real tape and end this once and for all?”
I shook my head. “No. That was the point. She didn’t do this to frame us. She did it to jam us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Who are you talking about?”
Finally, I looked to Maxina. Her face was a stone mask, as always, but behind it I could hear the pieces snapping together. Snap. Snap. Snap.
“It was Harmony,” I told them with splendorous awe. “She got us.”
The expressions on the men’s faces varied from skeptical to distrustful to downright incredulous.
“You can’t be serious,” said Big Bank.
“How can you be sure?” asked Doug.
“The voices may not have been ours, but the dialogue was. That whole script was a medley of things that Harmony and I actually said to each other, in private, unrecorded anywhere except her memory and mine. She wrote that scene herself.”
The Judge shook his head fast enough to ripple his jowls. “No. No. You’re telling me this girl — this squeaky little mouse — just orchestrated a huge and elaborate media stunt on her own, in less than twenty-four hours?”
“It’s not that elaborate,” I said. “It probably took her one hour to write it, two hours to produce it, and three hours for a trusted pal to leak it to Fox. In fact, I bet that female voice on that tape is her best friend Tracy. As to who played me…I don’t know. I guess whichever one of her roommates does the best white-man impression.”
“But why would she do a thing like that?” Big Bank asked me. “That’s a crazy risk.”
“It’s not so crazy. She knew all about our audiotape. I told her. She knew that if she didn’t cooperate with us, the tape would be released and the voice experts would nail her. So what does she do? She beats us to the press with her very own decoy, knowing damn well it’ll be exposed as a fake, knowing damn well it’ll block us from releasing our own.”
“That’s bullshit.” The Judge threw his desperate gaze onto Maxina. “That’s bullshit. Ours is the real thing. We’ve got her! If we play it for the media…”