Maxina had no intention of responding. She simply kept her cold gaze on me. Snap. Snap. Snap.
“It won’t matter,” I told the Judge. “Once Harmony’s cleared, there’s no force on earth that’ll get the media to consider a second recording. It’s like double jeopardy. They won’t try someone twice for the exact same crime, especially when the first trial blew up in their faces like a gag cigar.”
Doug’s wonder wasn’t as glowing as mine. “God. That’s why she insisted on having a whole night to write her confession speech. She was stalling us.”
“But how did she get this plan?” asked Big Bank. “Where’d she come up with it?”
“We gave it to her!” I told them. “The idea was right there all along! She framed herself, then exonerated herself. She used our very own trick against us!”
“Our trick?” the Judge inquired accusingly.
“My trick,” I admitted. “Yes. I taught her everything she knew. I just didn’t expect her to be such a quick learner.”
“You unbelievable bastard,” said Maxina at long last.
Once again, the room fell silent. In my frazzled state of mind, my practical engine finally stopped running. It was clogged on irony to the point of malfunction. With my mind shut down, there was nothing left for me to do but coast on involuntary reactions.
I lowered my head and laughed.
“Oh yes,” I said. “Yes, of course it would be me. Of course it only makes sense if I’m the mastermind behind this.”
“Scott, are you familiar with Occam’s razor?”
I kept chortling. “Why, yes, Maxina. Yes I am.”
“Good,” she said without a trace of levity. “So what do you see as the simplest explanation? That we were all outsmarted by a nineteen-year old hostess dancer with partial brain damage? Or that she once again took her cue from an extremely devious and talented publicist who just happens to be infatuated with her?”
“It wasn’t my idea!” I said. “It could have been Alonso!”
Even as I said it, I didn’t buy it. Alonso’s version of a clever idea was cybersex with Jesus. Face it, Slick. This was Harmony’s brainchild. She just adopted it from you.
But even that wasn’t the simplest explanation. Immediately, the men in the room glommed on to Maxina’s theory. Big Bank gaped at me in horror.
“You motherfucker…”
“You planned this from the beginning,” said the Judge. “You were scheming with Harmony all along.”
“That’s why you made us give her half your money,” Doug added. “You knew we’d never pay you if this thing happened, so you tricked us into paying her.”
I couldn’t stop chuckling. It was too ironic. Too surreal.
“You put on this whole show,” said Maxina, motioning around. “Right here. Just now. You played this whole ‘noble sacrifice’ bit when you knew all along what was happening…”
Big Bank shot to his feet. “You motherfucker!”
I threw my hands up. “Wait! Wait! Everybody…just stop.”
Amazingly, they did. I took several deep breaths to regain myself, and yet I didn’t have the faintest idea how to defend myself. I couldn’t even find a reason to. I gave Harmony everything she needed to steal the last laugh. And yet still I didn’t see it coming. All this effort, and it turned out I only saved her by accident.
The strangest part was that she’d accidentally saved me, too. I didn’t have to worry about media exposure anymore, or Miranda. As long as Harmony didn’t say my name, Miranda didn’t have a smoking gun. And Harmony had every reason now to keep me a secret. We were locked in a covenant of silence. Together, we were airtight, unsinkable. It would take nothing less than a full double confession to bring us down, and that would never happen.
With fresh sobriety, I wiped my eyes, then looked around the room.
“Uh…”
The only one who didn’t meet my gaze was Jeremy, the ultimate victim of all this. He stared down at his feet, shaking his head, rocking back and forth. He knew now that he’d never get the deliverance I promised him. I gambled his future, I lost, and now I was about to walk away from the table. What could I possibly tell him in this instance? What could I possibly say?
“Jeremy…”
“Get him out of here,” he said. “Get him the fuck out of here.”
“Okay.”
I stood up so fast, I became dizzy. I held my hands out, standing perfectly still until the room stopped spinning.
“Okay. I’m going.”
“I’ll walk you out,” said Big Bank with ominous inflection.
“No,” Maxina replied. “I’ll do it. Someone help me up.”
Big Bank pulled her to her feet. Honestly, I would have preferred his send-off to Maxina’s, but I wasn’t in a position to voice my preferences.
The Judge, Doug, and Big Bank all glared at me as Maxina walked me to the foyer.
“I see the little love mark on your neck,” she said.
“Yeah. I’m sure that was evidence, too.”
“Scott, I’m working at about thirty percent capacity right now. And about five percent of that thirty percent is considering the possibility that you didn’t orchestrate this. But whether this happened on purpose or by accident, whether you’re malicious, incompetent, or just plain jinxed, it doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that this did not end well.”
“No,” I said, glancing back into the house. “No, it did not.”
“There’ll be plenty of blame to go around. I’ll certainly get my deserved share. But the biggest slice is going to you. Fair or not, that’s just the way the game is played. I feel compelled to tell my colleagues what a horrible mistake it was for me to hire you.”
“Then do it.”
She opened the door for me, then gazed out at the sunny street. “I have a lot of colleagues, Scott.”
“I know how it works.”
She looked up at me again. We were both having a terrible morning, and we were both a shade of our usual selves, but even our shades were bright enough to speak in soft language. She was asking for a reason not to ruin my career. I couldn’t offer one. All I could give her was my blessing. I couldn’t get away from this Scott Free.
Maxina blew a long and weary sigh. She squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll keep the Judge off your back.”
“Keep him off Harmony’s back.”
“He won’t touch her,” she replied. “Even I can’t touch her now.”
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. For Jeremy’s sake, and for the sake of my own conscience, I didn’t want to take pleasure in Harmony’s ultimate triumph. But I was only human, and she was a loved one of mine.
________________
It took me five minutes to stumble back to my car. I sat behind the wheel with my hand on the ignition key. My attention was captured by that damn red phone on the floor. Ever since yesterday, I’d been afraid to pick it up. But now that everything had reversed itself, now that up was down, left was right, black was white, I figured it would be cool to the touch again. I figured Harmony would love to hear from me.
One last time, I called her up. She answered after the very first ring.
“Hey baby!”
“Harmony.”
She hesitated. “Oh. Gosh. I’m sorry. I was expecting someone else. Who’s this?”
“You know who this is.”
Another pause. “I’m afraid you have the wrong number, sir.”
“Harmony, it’s Scott.”
“You definitely have the wrong number, then. This ain’t Harmony. And I don’t know any Scott.”
At first I took it as an act of childish petulance and grew annoyed. Then I realized she was just being cautious.