Yes, but were they all innocent? As usual, it was CNN that had the time to bite into the underripe portion of the story, namely Bryan Edison and his merry band of Bitch Fiends. For today the network was content to simply get the questions out there. The L.A. County sheriff’s office refused to comment on that part of the investigation but at least confirmed that there was an investigation. You had to hand it to the folks at AOL-Time Warner-Turner. They sure knew how to foreshadow. They even threw in a few dozen mentions of Hunta, marking him up as next week’s grillhouse special.
________________
It took considerable effort to make myself late for the meeting. I ended up circling the Beverly Center for twenty minutes before making the final turn into L’Ermitage. There weren’t any quote-hungry reporters waiting outside the hotel, which meant someone had done a good job misleading the press. No doubt a gaggle of newsfolk were holding a camera-light vigil outside the gates of Casa de Hunta, in Silverlake. I pitied his mailman.
I took a deep breath in the elevator, gathering my wits and senses. Confronted by the clear scope of the project, not to mention my inexperience with the rap world, I couldn’t shake that “first day of school” feeling. That was fine as long as I didn’t show it. Being a celebrity’s crisis manager is like being the emperor’s new tailor. You have to earn his absolute confidence if you want him to wear the air you crafted. Still, I wished I had come into the situation knowing more. I’d spent the whole afternoon researching Hunta. Most of what I’d read was spoon-fed crap created by people like me: puff pieces full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I knocked on the door to Suite 511, which opened to a square-headed, bear-size bodyguard. I could have used his stretched black T-shirt as a hammock.
“You Scott Singer?”
“Only if you’re happy to see him.”
He smirked politely, as if he’d never heard that joke before. “ID?”
I showed him my driver’s license.
“Lift your arms, please.”
He patted me down, just in case I was a pistol-packing publicist.
“Since we’re getting to know each other better,” I said, “what’s your name?”
“Just call me Big Bank.”
Too many bon mots entered my caffeinated mind, all of them in danger of being poorly received. I felt the primal need to prove to this excessively large man that he didn’t scare me, which pretty much proved that he did.
“What’s that in your shirt pocket?”
“Just my Palm Pilot, “ I said, showing him. “Can’t leave home without it.”
The best bodyguards made upward of five hundred dollars a day. Those were the ones who knew how to protect their clients from extortion as well as physical threats. For all Big Bank knew, I was carrying a digital recording device disguised as a Palm Pilot. I turned it on for him.
He nodded. “All right. You’re cool. Come in.”
Another satisfied customer. There was a neat little spy shop on Olympic Boulevard that an associate of mine turned me on to. Some of their gadgets were so fancy that you’d half expect Q to come out of the back room and demonstrate them. My handy toy—$850 after tax — was a digital recording device disguised as a Palm Pilot. It captured seventy minutes of audio on a removable chip the size of an airmail stamp ($92 each). Even better, it had a “Boss” button that displayed a snapshot of a Palm OS desktop, allowing me to trick the sharper tools in the shed, like Big Bank. As soon as I demonstrated it for him, it began recording.
Extortion was not the game. It was merely self-protection. So far I’d never been forced to use a recording, or even threaten to use it. But you never knew.
With a polite smile, I followed Big Bank into the $1,200-a-night suite. Immediately I was hit with the competing smells of marijuana and Thai food, both of which were laid out on the huge glass coffee table in the main room. Over a dozen people, some of them not even old enough to buy the liquor in their hands, filled the couches and watched MSNBC on mute while thunderous rap music blared in the background.
Everyone was partying it up until I stepped out from behind the great wall of Big Bank. They simmered down and eyed me, this white corporate flack straight outta Brentwood. My inner Dale Carnegie, 2001 edition, told me to avoid the instinctual “I’m down with your people/some of my best friends are black” type of smile. With a curt nod, I simply advertised my utter lack of concern over their opinion of me. A few of them dutifully nodded back. Likewise.
The oldest-looking man in the group (my age, actually) put down his chicken satay and rose to greet me. He was tall, husky, and extremely dapper. With his four-hundred-dollar slacks, fancy silk bow tie, and designer black suspenders, he struck me more as a lawyer than a record executive. Turns out he was both.
He shook my hand. “Mr. Singer. Hi. I’m Doug Modine, executive vice president and attorney for Mean World Records. Glad you could come.”
For a man built like James Earl Jones, he talked like Don Cheadle.
“Thanks. Call me Scott.”
“Sure. Just give me a few seconds to check on Maxina and the others.”
“Wait. Maxina Howard?”
“Yeah,” he answered, surprised. “You know her?”
“I know of her. I didn’t know she was here.”
“God, yes. She’s our guardian angel. Hang out for a minute, okay?”
Doug disappeared into a bedroom, leaving me, Big Bank, and a very quiet entourage.
“So,” I said, with forced flippancy, “anything good in the news?”
Most of them indulged me with a smirk. I scanned the men in the posse twice just to confirm that none of them was actually Hunta himself. I still wasn’t entirely positive. All I’d seen of him so far were low-res, highly stylized photos on fan-created websites.
“So you a big-shot PR man,” said a particularly fetching young woman in a micro-thin halter top.
“Not as big as Maxina Howard.”
“What kinda shit you do?” asked another.
“Oh, all kinds of shit.”
“Like?”
“Well, did you hear about the affair Tom Hanks had with that teenage prostitute?”
“No.”
“Damn right,” I replied immodestly.
Their mouths dropped in perfect synch. “You messing with us?”
“Well, it wasn’t Tom Hanks. If I told you who it was, I’d be breaking client privilege. But it’s someone just as big.”
They all dived after my tasty nugget, shouting theories over each other. In truth, it was a C-list sitcom actor who had reached his zenith in the early eighties. He was afraid the scandal would destroy his chances for a comeback. It probably would have helped.
“So where were you when Jesse Jackson needed you?” asked one of the guys, to laughter.
“That one was a lost cause, I’m afraid. The Republicans knew about his mistress for years. They were just saving it up for the right time.”
“What was that?”
“January nineteenth. The day before he was supposed to lead the Shadow Inauguration against George W. Bush. Took the wind right out of the whole protest.”
They stopped laughing. Even Big Bank got disturbed. “Man, that’s fucked up.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? Bullets don’t work anymore. Now they kill with information.”
Doug peeked out of the master bedroom. “Scott? Come on in.”
“Okay. Great.”
I got up and looked around at the entourage, who all shared a moment of silence for the buzz I killed.