The counsel prepared their back-and-forth paperwork, an easy but time-consuming process. I passed away the hours on Alonso’s jurassic PC, typing up the first draft of our official new continuity. Naturally it was an unpleasant task to dream up the details of the incident in Room 1215. Believe me, if I could truly rewrite history, I’d erase all the terrible traumas from Harmony’s life instead of keying in a new one. The story was a slap in the face to Hunta as well. But in the end, it was just a story. It never happened. And as sure as the main characters knew it, both villain and victim, the world would know too. Eventually.
By the stroke of midnight, the whole legal mini-drama had been collected into one big messenger envelope. Poor Doug was tired and sweat-stained. The jacket and bow tie had come off hours ago, and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Alonso, by contrast, never once compromised his crisp three-piece ensemble. He looked unnaturally fresh and spry for a man who’d pulled a double workday.
“Well,” he said, kicking back in his chair, “I certainly look forward to meeting this young lady.”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” I told him, “I’m handing her off to you.”
He chuckled. “That must make you as nervous as a new mother.”
It did, and then some. But unlike the Judge, I issued my threats with diplomacy.
“Ordinarily it would, Alonso, but the nice thing about this operation is that we’ve established a system of checks and balances. I’ve got Maxina Howard looking over my shoulder, keeping me honest—”
“And I’ve got you,” he surmised.
“You’ve got me and Maxina,” I corrected.
Bemused, he fingered his scale of justice. “Well, that’s certainly a check. I don’t know if I’d call it a balance. Especially with one of her weight. Figuratively speaking.”
“Yes,” I said, “but look at the flip side. You know her reputation. You know she takes care of her own. When this is all over, she’ll put that considerable weight behind you. And so will I.”
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Scott, I appreciate the consideration you’ve shown me so far. You could have just as easily played me for a sucker, sending Harmony to my office like a poison pill. But you were straight with me. So let’s not kid each other now. You know as well as I do that when our ingénue confesses, my reputation will go from a slow decline to a mad plummet. To the teeming masses, I’ll either be a foolish patsy or a race-traitor servant of the ‘vast white conspiracy.’ Considering the demographics of my client base, I might as well shut the doors when this is over. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I plan to do.”
Enjoying our surprise, he rummaged through his desk drawer.
“Since you were nice enough to let me in on your joke,” he announced, “I’ll let you in on mine.”
He dropped a fat stack of papers on the desk. Doug and I leaned forward to examine the top sheet. In the center of the page were three short lines of text.
GODSEND
a novel
by Alonso Lever
“It’s no secret that my heart has left my practice,” he told us. “This is where it went. For three years, I’ve nurtured and developed this manuscript. Writing it has been the greatest pleasure of my life. No, finishing it was the greatest pleasure. Selling it, however, has been a stygian nightmare. Through an agent, I’ve submitted a draft to virtually every publishing house, both large and small. Each time I was damned with excessive praise. Each time I was shunned with extreme encouragement. So unless I’m suffering from an acute delusion of quality, I can only assume the book is failing to sell for reasons of marketability.”
“What kind of novel is it?” asked Doug, failing to hide his fear of a long answer.
“It’s a futuristic love story, with a spiritual bent.” Alonso turned to me. “Please take this copy, Scott. I think you of all people would appreciate the premise.”
Politely, I took the bundle. I hadn’t read a novel in years, but I was curious enough to put his book on my skim list. I peeked at the top right corner of the last page. Christ, the thing was 444 pages. No wonder he couldn’t sell it.
He stood up. “Anyway, let me share my vision of a more immediate future. I pretend to be Harmony’s lawyer. I follow your every cue to the letter. Once she confesses, I close my firm in disgust. I then negotiate a deal to write a tell-all account of my experiences as an unwitting accomplice in the mass deceit of the decade. I’ll hold out, of course, until a publisher gets hungry enough to offer me a two-book deal. After that, I sit back and enjoy my long-awaited career transition. I’ve been thinking about this future all evening, gentlemen. It makes me smile. The real question: does it make you smile?”
It made me beam. Doug was a little less tickled but Alonso assured him that the tell-all would tell nothing. Of course it wouldn’t. What did Alonso care as long as Godsend got published? He had everything to gain by cooperating with us.
At long last, our business was concluded. This was the second night in a row I had toiled into the wee hours. I was on the verge of cognitive collapse. Doug was already flatline.
But Alonso showed no signs of slowing down as he walked us to the elevator bank.
“Well, my friends, I must say I’m excited to be part of the show.”
After pressing the call button for us, he leaned against the wall and gazed down at his expensive Italian shoes.
“I’m not proud,” he added. “But I am excited.”
________________
Until the 1920s, the Bennett Rancho was little more than a bazillion acres of wheat and barley. Then Charles Lindbergh started using it as a landing strip on his pioneering journeys. The owners thought that was kind of neat. In 1927 they leased out a big chunk of their field to the city of Los Angeles, which turned it into a municipal airport. They named it Mines Field, after William Mines, the real estate agent who brokered the deal. Lord knows how that happened, but it wasn’t fated to last. Eventually it became known as Los Angeles International Airport, or LAX.
There are millions of people whose experience of L.A. is limited solely to the airport, and yet many of them use their layover to not just support the claim that they’ve been to Los Angeles but to personally confirm some or all of the negative stereotypes associated with the city. Well, if you’re one of those people, I’ve got news for you. You’ve been to Inglewood. Congrats. And all the gang violence, road rage, mudslides, earthquakes, smog congestion, and phony attitudes you witnessed from your plastic seat in United Terminal 7 were most likely a product of your jet-lagged mind. Except maybe the phony attitudes. For that, we’re very sorry. They’re always so fake down there in Inglewood.
Harmony was a notable exception. Not only was she a refreshingly genuine person, but she truly did spy with her very own eye most of the above-listed enormities. She had every reason to complain about Los Angeles. She had every reason to complain, period. One of the many things I liked about Harmony was the fact that she didn’t.
“So what do you think?” I asked.
She laughed. “I think it’s just like the LAX I seen on TV. I wasn’t expecting much more.”
We dined at an overpriced wood-paneled franchise restaurant/bar in Terminal 2. By now I was way behind on the coaching I wanted to do, but screw it. I could finish the job by phone. There were only a few hours left for me to see her live, uncut, and unscripted.
“There’s this girl who works for me now,” I told her. “Whenever she wants to get away from her mother, she finds her way here.”