I was hot tonight. That yanked Hunta, Simba, and the Judge well onto my side. Four little, five little, six little Indians.
And then there was one. Maxina crossed her arms, locked in dissent. “Scott, if there’s one thing I learned in my many years in the field, it’s that the press always finds a way to make the black man the bad guy. It’s what they do.”
“What they do,” I countered, “is sell our eyeballs to their advertisers. Black. White. It’s all green to them. As soon as our stand-in spills the beans, the media’s one burning question will be ‘Who framed Hunta?’ It’s a fresh new angle. A hip-hop political thriller. Believe me, they’ll ride that wave as far as they can take it.”
“Uh-huh. And what if it takes them right to you?”
Touché. I didn’t have time to finish that part of the equation. I knew I’d be the one playing the cigarette-smoking man, the guy with the trenchcoat and the briefcase full of cash. And once our ringer let the cat out of the bag, there would certainly be an investigation. To make matters worse, there had to be a second voice on that insurance tape. Also yours truly.
“I won’t lie,” I said. “It’s a huge risk. But the risk is all on my part. Even if I told the truth under heat lamps, nobody would buy it. It’s just too crazy to think that Hunta hired someone to frame himself.”
“There’s a reason for that,” he muttered.
“So what would you do?” asked Big Bank.
“Get a good lawyer. Implicate the government. I don’t know. There’ll be plenty of time to work out the contingencies. The important thing is that this will work.”
Simba scratched her chin. “I don’t know, Scott. This still sounds risky. For all of us.”
Doug stood up. “Listen, I think it’s definitely worth considering. But I’d like to talk to the Judge and Maxina alone for a few minutes, if that’s all right.”
“Hold on,” snapped Hunta. “This is my life we’re messing with. When do I get my say?”
The Judge switched to paternal mode. “The final decision’s yours, Jeremy. We just need to decide if we want to recommend it to you.”
“Just hang tight,” Maxina told him. “We’ll be back.”
Maxina returned Latisha to her mother. In grim silence, she, Doug, and the Judge marched into the master bedroom and closed the door. I got the silly mental image of the three of them sharing the bathtub. There’d be room for about a cup of water.
For now it was just me and the obscenely chiseled half of the party. I sat down on a couch.
“So,” I quipped, “I think they went for it.”
Hunta toweled off and dropped down next to me. Big Bank threw him a hand-rolled cigarette and a lighter. As soon as he lit up, my nose confirmed that the tabacci was a little wacky.
“They didn’t want me in on this meeting in the first place,” he said, taking a drag. “I said fuck that. It’s my life. I got a right to hear this for myself.”
“And now that you have?”
“Now that I have, I’m glad you ain’t working for the other side,” he said with a laugh. “You one slick motherfucker.”
I grinned. “I don’t do this every day.”
“So how do you know it’ll work?” asked Simba.
“I can’t guarantee that everything will be perfect again, but I know that if we get to the cameras first, Lisa will be stopped dead in her tracks.”
Hunta nodded, impressed. “It’s a crazy plan, but I’m starting to like it.”
“Listen, I don’t want to mislead you. It won’t be a walk in the park. There’d be at least a week, maybe two, in between our woman’s accusation and her confession. During that time, you won’t like being you.”
“Why so long?”
“Because you’ve still got that Melrose cloud over you. If we play this right, our actress won’t just draw all the bad air away from Lisa, but from Annabelle too. That’ll take some time.”
“Yeah but—”
“Trust me, the more they fry you, the more crow they’ll eat when we pull the rug out from under them. It’s to your benefit.”
“Yeah but the Grammys are coming up. I don’t want this shit hanging over me at the Grammys.”
“Oh. I didn’t know you were up for one.”
“He’s not,” said Simba. “But he’s scheduled to perform a number with L-Ron. At least for now.”
He squeezed my arm, blowing thick smoke through his nostrils. “Look, man, I’ve been dreaming about doing the Grammys since I was a kid. I got family. I got friends watching. This is everything I worked for. If you can clear all this shit before then—”
“When are the Grammys again?”
“February twenty-first,” said Big Bank.
I waved my hand. “That’s three weeks from now. By then the whole country will be kissing your ass, apologizing for ever doubting you.”
Hunta patted my back, grinning. “You just became my hero.”
“Let’s see what the others say. But I’ll tell you this, guys: if we move forward with my idea, we can’t just keep it under our hats. We have to keep it under our scalps. That means nobody else hears about this. Not even your family. For every Michael Jackson, there’s a LaToya.”
Big Bank nodded. “We know how to keep a secret.”
“That’s all I need to hear.”
Hunta grinned thoughtfully. “You know, ‘Pac would’ve been into your shit.”
I laughed. “Me? Why?”
“When he was doing his time, he got into Machiavelli. I mean, really got into him. He must’ve read The Prince like a thousand times. He loved all that scheming and plotting business. He cut his last album under the name Makaveli.”
“Really,” I said. “You know, a lot of historians believe that Machiavelli faked his own death.”
“Yeah,” said Hunta, intrigued. “I know. That’s where ‘Pac got the idea.”
“Wow. I thought that was just an urban legend.”
Hunta got solemn. “Oh, he didn’t do it. He just talked about it. The only reason he was out of jail was ’cause Suge bailed him out while the lawyers appealed the rape verdict and all that. If they lost, he would’ve had to go back. ’Pac didn’t want that. No way. If that happened, he probably would’ve done it. Faked a murder. Got a new face and shit. Ain’t no way he was going back.”
He took another long drag off his joint. “But he didn’t do it. I know that for sure. I was there when he got hit. I seen him in the coma. And I seen him dead.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I. But he lived the last year of his life like he knew it was the last year of his life, you know what I’m sayin’? When it came to livin’ large, he was King Kong, man. It ain’t the amount of time, it’s what you do with it.”
“But they never caught his killers.”
“The police? No.”
Big Bank got wary. “Jer…”
“What? I don’t know shit about it. I’m just speculating, is all. Ain’t no way Suge would’ve let them killers keep walking around, all notorious and big.”
Simba rolled her eyes. “Baby, shut up and keep smoking.”
Hunta shrugged at me. Suddenly, I got hit with that “second day of school” feeling. Maybe it was all the conspiracy thinking, or the marijuana smoke I was reluctantly inhaling. Either way, I knew I still had a lot to learn, way too much for me to be acting this confident.
Doug opened the bedroom door. “Scott?”
________________
Just like yesterday, Maxina leaned back on the emperor-size bed. The Judge sat on the other side. Doug closed the door behind me and motioned to the chair. From Maxina’s face, it was obvious which way the troika split.
“Against my advice,” she began, “the Judge and Doug have agreed that your plan is the best course of action. I, however, am not a big fan of human sacrifice.”