“They’d never touch her,” Maxina said. “You were right. Even if she admitted to fraud, the law would never touch her.”
And only because the law felt bad about running her over. In their endless quest to heal their tattered public image, the LAPD was forced to err fifty miles this side of caution when it came to high-profile black people. And considering that the city mowed her down in a crosswalk, bandaged her skull, and sent her on her merry way without so much as a fruit basket, it was obvious that any public figure who called for Harmony’s head would soon have his own handed back to him by the liberal furies. In short, Harmony would become the ultimate L.A. paradox: a red-hot celebrity sensation who couldn’t get arrested in this town.
“She has no criminal record,” I stressed while pacing my living room carpet. “No history of substance abuse. No children, legitimate or otherwise. She’s never applied for any kind of government aid. And if that’s not enough to make her a conservative’s wet dream, the poem she wrote? The one that won first prize in the regional competition? It was all about abstinence.”
“Unbelievable.”
That was when I told Maxina the best part. Not only did Harmony come standard-equipped with a great face and a monstrous past, but she was also available with a documentary feature — one hundred hours of raw footage just waiting to be cooked, sliced, and tossed, hibachi-style, into the open mouths of hungry news directors. Granted, it was a bit of a side quest to hack through the legal red tape of Jay McMahon and Sheila Yorn’s creative-property dispute, but if anyone could do it…
“I’ll do it,” said Maxina, just as I’d hoped. “This is incredible. Absolutely incredible. Tell me, Scott. Were you amazingly brilliant in discovering this woman, or just amazingly lucky?”
“I’ll never tell.”
“Well, I’ll certainly say this…”
I was right. She was wrong. My plan was ingenious. She saw it now. Don’t worry, that’s the last time you’ll hear it. For the most part, that was the last time I’d hear it.
________________
“No. No. No!” the Judge barked from atop his porcelain throne. “That’s a dangerous idea! That’s a shitty idea! I’m not going to let it happen that way!”
After talking to Maxina, I phoned Doug to fill him in on the latest. He insisted we conference in the Judge, who was currently relaxing with the wife and kids at their home in Pacific Palisades. I could tell from the succession of background sounds — a television, a radio, a juicer — that the Judge was working his way through the house. By the time I finished my second rendition of Harmony’s tale, the noises were gone, and his “Jesus Christ” had the padded, echoey lilt that could only come from a man on the crapper.
It wasn’t Harmony herself that made the Judge nervous. After getting the whole story, he and Doug were in hearty agreement that she was the perfect foil to Lisa Glassman, maybe even the perfect foil to Annabelle Shane. It was my proposed method of hiring and managing her that caused the argument.
“I think what the Judge is trying to say, Scott—”
“I know what you’re both trying to say.”
Simply put, they didn’t want Harmony to know who she was really working for. As far as she was concerned, I really would be a member of the political anti-rap conspiracy. On the plus side, she’d have plausible deniability when the shit hit the fan, and thus could never implicate Mean World when put under the heat lamps. On the minus side…
“It would never work,” I said. “This entire plan hinges on one thing: Harmony’s confession. It has to be made in just the right way at just the right time. Now how can I get her to do that if she thinks I’m working against Hunta?”
“You manipulate a confession out of her,” the Judge yelled. “That’s what we hired you to do! Manipulate!”
“Maybe you can pretend to have a change of heart yourself,” Doug suggested. “That way you could sort of, you know, switch sides together.”
I must have died and gone to Screenwriter’s Hell. Suddenly I was trapped in a bubbling lava pit with uncreative executives and their awful script notes.
“Guys,” I said in a forcibly even tone, “in order for Harmony to do what we want her to do, she and I need a relationship based on trust. That means I plan on lying to her sparingly, if at all.”
“But—”
“Look, I don’t have time to argue with you. And I don’t have the patience to deal with your micromanagement. Either let me do my job, or I walk right now.”
“Scott, come on.” That was Doug. The Judge’s response, I imagine, was all excretory.
“Look, my ass will be hanging out there in the wind right alongside yours. Now given that, don’t you think I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that Harmony doesn’t screw us over?”
“We don’t doubt your intentions.” Doug again.
“Okay, well then you doubt my abilities. If that’s the case, why did you even hire me?”
“We didn’t,” the Judge growled. “Maxina did.”
“Good. Then call her. Because she knows exactly what I have planned, down to the very last detail. And she likes it. She likes it a lot. So if you have issues, bother her. Just let me do my goddamn job!”
I hung up for dramatic emphasis. I wasn’t really mad. In fact, I could totally understand their point. But sometimes I had to play the prima donna card just to reinforce the notion that I was a black belt at this, which of course I wasn’t. There was an occasional downside to not having a defensive ego. For starters, it was much harder to convince myself that I knew exactly what I was doing. I mean, objectively, how could I say for sure that this whole thing would work? I’ve never built a machine this big before, much less run one. This was massive.
Thankfully, so was Maxina. Her strong new endorsement of my plan would be more than enough to get the Judge and Doug off my back.
She and I held a lengthy discussion about the best way to gain Harmony’s trust. We both knew I had my work cut out for me, being a slick white man and all. We agreed that the only way around it was to play it a hundred percent sincere. No wide-screen pretty pictures. No paper thin platitudes. I’d treat her like a trusted member of the team instead of expendable hired booty. And the only way to achieve that dynamic was to do exactly the opposite of what the Judge wanted. I’d tell Harmony everything, even the things she didn’t need to know, even the things she didn’t want to hear.
In the meantime, I was anxious to move forward. Doug called back a half hour later to give me the official green light. By that point I was al ready in my car, on the town, and out in search of Harmony.
As you can imagine, it’s not easy to engineer a grand-scale media hoax. For starters, what do you wear? Obviously a suit wouldn’t do much to combat the “corporate wolf” aura a guy like me emitted. And yet, overcompensating in the other direction would only make me look like a wolf in cheap clothing.
The middle ground solution was to go business casual, like I always did. Button-down black Gap shirt. Loose-fit khaki slacks. My oldest and second-least-expensive pair of boat shoes. But what about the face and hair? After all, I was about to be seen. If I could be seen, I could be identified.