The Darkest Hearts

by Nelson George

  “Do you have a problem with me meeting with him?”

  “Not at all,” Marcy said. “If his proposition is beneficial for our client, then I support it. If this deal turns into something really good, maybe we can get him to donate to prison reform, gun control, and other issues important to Lil Daye’s fans.”

  “Fine,” D said. “But let’s not get into that until we get this paper.”

  Diversified International Brands had three floors in one of the Century Plaza Towers, a mini version of the late World Trade Center in New York. A perky brunette assistant named Ingrid guided them through smoky-glass doors down a long wood-paneled corridor lined with black-and-white photos of American West landscapes. D thought they might have been Ansel Adams pics but decided not to ask. He’d suddenly grown nervous and decided to save his limited introductory chitchat for the meeting with Kurtz.

  Kurtz was in his late fifties and tanned, with gray hair, small eyes, and a lipless mouth. He was stocky, with the chest and arms of an avid weightlifter. With his blue-and-white-striped shirt, navy-blue pants, and black slip-on loafers, Kurtz carried a casual-Friday aura, though this was Wednesday. He didn’t dumb himself down because he was meeting with a black man, but he wasn’t giving off full-court, master-of-the-universe attitude.

  “So, Mr. Hunter, it is a pleasure to meet you,” he said with a professional smile.

  “Great to meet you as well, Mr. Kurtz. It’s an understatement to say I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Ditto on this end. Any man who irritates Amos Pilgrim and manages to stay in business is a man worth knowing.”

  “Where did you hear that about Amos and me? I know he didn’t tell you that.”

  Kurtz chuckled. “I asked him ’cause Amos knows everybody.”

  “What did he say?”

  “His tone told me everything I needed, even when he complimented you. But no worries: we were destined to meet. After all, we’re already in business together.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I own a piece of the hologram company, Future Life,” Kurtz said, clearly pleased with himself. “Which you wisely got your clients involved with. Your artists have certainly been adding value to that venture.”

  D was surprised. “R’Kaydia never mentioned that you were a backer.”

  “It’s not something we trumpet in the media, and to be blunt, it’s not yet profitable for us. It took a long time to build the technology, and holograms as a form of purchased entertainment haven’t been as widely accepted as we’d hoped. But the thing with entertainment plays is you never know how folks in the real world will use them. You may plan X and they use it for Y. The upside is you make unexpected relationships. So, like I said, we are already helping each other.” Kurtz nodded to his assistant and a video screen in his office flashed on. “Before you speak with your client, I want to show you something.”

  Lil Daye’s “Hy Life” burst out of two speakers and the word SINSERE in black Gothic lettering against a red background popped on the screen. That was followed by images from Lil Daye’s life and videos, intercut with shots of strip clubs, luxury cars, slim and thick women in slinky dresses, and lots of equally curvy gold-and-white bottles with SINSERE written on the label. The last image was SINSERE and then underneath, THE CÎROC OF THE SOUTH.

  “Whoa,” said D. “That’s amazing.”

  “What do you think, young lady?” Kurtz asked Marcy.

  “How does Sinsere taste?”

  Kurtz laughed. “That’s a great question.”

  While his assistant went to get D and Marcy a sample, Kurtz pitched: “We’ve monitored what the Sean Combs/Cîroc relationship has accomplished and we believe a connection between Lil Daye and our Sinsere vodka will dwarf it. We’ll learn from their mistakes and do what worked better than they did. This deal would be a long relationship.

  “When hip hop first caught on I was appalled,” Kurtz went on. “Honestly, it was too loud, ghetto, and seemed dangerous for the country. Then when Run-D.M.C. made that deal with Adidas, I realized what rap was: a delivery system, an advertising medium. It put ideas, attitudes, and products into the consciousness of listeners. Unlike advertising, which can lead to resistance and tuning out, rap was readily accepted. Rappers were natural endorsers and spokespeople.”

  Clearly Kurtz wasn’t a hip hop fan, but his clinical analysis meant dude took the culture seriously and, unlike many older men of his generation, had turned disdain into dollars. Kurtz had no problem putting cash in the bank accounts of black people (as long as his bag was bigger). D didn’t like Kurtz—there was definitely a block of ice behind those blue eyes—but there was nothing wrong with a cold-blooded businessman if you were on the same side of the deal.

  Every now and then, Kurtz cast an appraising gaze on Marcy’s legs peeking out from under her yellow sundress. His demeanor was professional, but D glimpsed the inner man. The assistant came back with a tray of three glasses of golden-brown fluid. Not only did it look as thick as syrup, but it tasted like sweet cherry cough medicine with a strong alcohol kick.

  Looking closely at D’s and Marcy’s faces, Kurtz said, “Our market research indicated that this taste and texture was right for Sinsere.” He could tell they didn’t like it. But then again, all of them knew that no one in that room was Sinsere’s target market. “I want to send a case to your client and then close this deal.”

  D agreed and they all shook hands.

  On the way out of the building, Marcy said with her best hip hop accent, “D, that was like sippin’ on some sizzurp.”

  D replied, “Well, I gotta a feeling Lil Daye and his team are gonna love it. Especially after DIB puts several million guaranteed dollars on the table.”

  “That Kurtz gave me creeps,” she said. “I wanna dig into him some more.”

  “Do that on your time,” D said. “This deal is worth a lot to our client, to this company, and to you—come bonus time.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  BLEEDING LOVE

  Dorita wasn’t sure if she should go. Ant had never said much to her before. But he was Lil Daye’s business partner so it made sense that he’d handle things. Dorita had hoped she’d be dealing with that manager from Los Angeles—keeping things professional. Yet Ant was in ATL and they did know each other, so despite her misgivings, she was going to show up.

  It was only fair. It really was. She’d kept quiet and played her position. She knew Lil Daye was married when they started hooking up. He’d never lied and she was no fool. But when Dorita heard that he was shooting a family reality show starring his bitch of a wife, it was too much. It hurt her, especially after having learned way too much about Mama’s ways.

  Lil Daye wouldn’t support Dorita’s goals. She wanted to be a producer. She didn’t want the light. She wanted to be the flame that made the light. Her beats were lit. Everybody told her that. Even Ant knew that. She just wanted to be part of his production team, then find her own artists. But Lil Daye always shut that down. She was more than a sidepiece and he knew it. So she grew tired of waiting. This money would help Dorita upgrade her equipment.

  Dorita took a selfie. She was wearing black stretch pants, a jean jacket, a black Travis Scott tee, and Gucci shades. She wanted to document this day, the day she moved on from Lil Daye and transitioned into the next phase of her life. She didn’t see what she was doing as blackmail in any way. This was just a long-overdue investment, an investment by Lil Daye in her talents, not some payment for sucking his okay dick. But now he was going to have to do the right thing, and that’s what was important.

  With that thought in mind, Dorita left her apartment.

  * * *

  Serene downloaded the file and peered at it with sad, heavy eyes. It was from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and contained two attachments. The first was a map of sex-trafficking patterns from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. All the routes depicted involved mobsters, trial leaders, terrorist cells, and other undercover agents of capi
talism who profited from the selling of bodies in the modern slave trade, in particular the sale of women (and some men) for the pleasure of men. Moreover, most of the shipping lines of human cargo led to Europe. Despite the racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, this illustrated the fact that men wanted to have sex with poorer people from around the globe.

  The other document was titled “2016 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons” and was a summary of activity around the world. Serene went to the United States section where chief destinations for trafficked people were Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta. Serene sat back in her chair and reflected on all the rooms she’d been in and the people this report was based on.

  She’d been working almost full-time on sex trafficking for several years, all the ugliness she’d encountered weighing her down like barbells on her chest.

  Progress had been fleeting. Some bad people in jail. Some girls returned home. Some networks damaged. A lot of “some.” But the flood of bodies, the cold current of hateful desire, and the commodification of intimacy were unstoppable forces. Every day, it seemed, Serene received more confirmation that people were shit.

  She wasn’t Superwoman, Wonder Woman, or Batwoman. She was just a person who wanted to help one girl (a girl she never found) and then dove into the sewer, feeling pure in her convictions. Now her hair, her body, and her spirit were covered in human stink. Everyone she’d punched, every door she’d smashed, and every corrupt official she’d disrespected were reasons to hate being alive. Sharing air with these people disgusted her. She’d come to know that not far beneath the rules of civilization was a beastly creed of brutality, sometimes muted, but always there, like the low chants of ancient priests. She closed her computer screen and her eyes, but there was no unseeing, and no forgetting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I GET THE BAG

  Since moving to Los Angeles, D had identified three distinct entrepreneurial hustles in the City of Angels: some hustled their minds, a bunch hustled their bodies, and a host of folks hustled their spirit. These hustles existed all over the world, but LA had its particular spin.

  The TV and film biz—writers, directors, producers, agents—was filled with mind hustlers who either created IPs (a.k.a. intellectual properties), rebooted IPs, purchased IPs, or highjacked IPs for fun and profit. Whether they were nerds or hacks, Ivy League or community college grads, the LA mind hustle was on display in coffee shops and on Soho House sofas.

  The body hustle in LA encompassed trainers and instructors of every conceivable physical specialty: pole dancing, boxing, surfing, booty tightening, hamstring stretching, cryo freezing with abs the furious focus—at every gym and studio. Flat was not enough. The goal was a six-pack, eight-pack, and angles of definition not previously seen in nature.

  Pilates and yoga instructors were as common in LA as traffic jams. These same people were also dancers, actors, and models. Video-game fit and Pirelli-calendar fine. Perhaps because D was jaded, he found much of this physical perfection stunningly uniform, like glancing rapidly through his Instagram “Videos to Watch” feed. All of them were united by their combination of tan skin, enhanced lips, moussed hair, bare midriffs, ripped jeans, athletic sleeves, Alo yoga pants, extended eyelashes, and excessive flexing.

  Of this get-money trio, D’s favorite were the spirit hustlers, who were attached to the mind hustle through meditation and the body hustle through yoga. “Wellness,” a word he’d never heard before going west, was their trendy branding umbrella. He’d met so many folks—most of them women—who led group meditation, were self-described shamans (shawomen?), sold crystals, advised via online classes, read tarot cards, practiced Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, and in general offered themselves as pathways to transcendence.

  D was thinking about LA hustle as he sat in Viacom’s lobby waiting on Leigh Amber Daye, a.k.a. Mama Daye, to arrive for their VH1 meeting. He’d once been squarely in the realm of the body hustle as a big black man who kept people safe. Now he was a mind hustler, learning the ropes of pitching shows and scripts. Something told him that the spirit hustle was in his future, though he had no idea how he’d make that leap.

  Mama Daye arrived loud as a boom box at a silent meditation. “Hello, you big, beautiful black man!” She walked up to D with a big smile and wide-opens arms. Way in the background, standing by a Rolls Royce with his arms folded, was Ant. Apparently he’d survived his confrontation with the APD.

  Serene had not found out much else about Dorita in Atlanta. The tip about Florida had gone nowhere. Lots of women were missing down there and lots of names had been changed. Some women stripped, some did webcams or worked for escort services.

  Serene told D that maybe Ant had dragged Dorita into that work—if she was still alive. Serene had checked out the morgue and found a few women who matched Dorita’s description, but thankfully none were the missing woman. Undoubtedly Ant had been involved in her disappearance, likely at Lil Daye’s instigation. What D hadn’t decided yet was what he should do with that information.

  Mama Daye’s long, shiny Remy weave was whatever color suited her that week (burgundy today). Her cocoa skin was augmented by bold eye shadow, lipstick, and foundation choices. For the meeting, she was wearing a black-and-white Ivy Park ensemble. The top was a touch baggy, but the tight white pants illuminated her ample hips. D nearly blushed when he looked at her because Mama Daye’s gynecological information was overheating his manhood, not a condition he wanted to experience in the presence of a client’s wife.

  D asked, “Is Ant coming in with us?”

  “Nawn, he’s gonna stay with the car,” Mama Daye said. “Acts like he owns it. He knows you got this anyway. C’mon, honey, let’s go get this bag.”

  Ten minutes later, Mama and D were sitting in a Viacom office and she was running the room.

  “It was lit,” she told the collected executives, referencing a party Oprah had hosted the previous weekend. D glanced over at the men and women and smiled. This deal was done the minute Mama Daye entered the conference room. The fact that she had 5.3 million followers on Twitter and six million subscribers on YouTube for her makeup tips and life advice spoke for itself.

  D then took the whole meeting to another level when he guaranteed that DIB, including the soon-to-launch Sinsere, would help sponsor the show and provide digital assets to expand its reach. VH1, BET, and MTV would all air the show, making Mama Daye a Viacom ambassador, with the plot of Season One leading to the making of her first single, which would of course be titled “Mama’s Daye” and be released on Mother’s Day.

  Mama was giddy when they left the meeting. “Lil said you were sharp,” she said, “but them motherfuckers in there weren’t ready.”

  As his client luxuriated in her dreams of Cardi B–like success, D steeled himself for a serious conversation with Ant. The bald, bulky man now sat on a bench outside the Viacom building sipping on a frosty Starbucks treat and messing around on his phone.

  “They want me,” Mama Daye announced.

  “Not surprised, Ma,” Ant said. “We got a big bag coming, D?”

  “Real big.”

  “Way to do your job,” the bald man said with feigned enthusiasm.

  They’d never be close friends, but D had expected a little more love from Ant. Jealous hearts are always cold, he thought, and then walked his Atlanta associates to the parking area. D wasn’t going to get into the whole Dorita thing with Mama Daye there. In any event, she was heading back to Atlanta to be with the kids. The next night, Ant, Lil Daye, and D were having a private dinner with Kurtz. It would be a long ride out to Malibu.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  MOTORSPORT

  How much farther is it?” Lil Daye asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Ant said. “GPS says ten minutes.”

  The Benz rolled north on the Pacific Coast Highway with BlocBoy JB & Drake’s “Look Alive” filling the air along with the scent of a hybrid THC flowing from the cigarette between Lil Daye’s lips.
Ant was driving and D was in the backseat next to Lil Daye. They’d been invited up to Kurtz’s beach house for a small celebration of their new business relationship.

  Though he would never say it out loud, Lil Daye was happy his wife couldn’t make it (and that Kurtz couldn’t reschedule to accommodate her), because he’d been told Kurtz’s LA parties could turn salacious. Whether or not the cultural developments of the last few years had changed Kurtz’s swag, the trio didn’t know, but Lil Daye had his fingers crossed, hoping he hadn’t missed all the fun he’d heard about.

  But before they reached the dinner, it was time for D to ask some questions. “Yo, Ant,” he said conversationally, “I read online you almost had a shoot-out with the Atlanta cops.”

  “Shit,” Ant said, “that wasn’t a real thing. Some cops stopped my car and started talking shit. You know how they be treating us down there, right, Daye?”

  “Oh yeah,” the MC agreed. “They know our cars and plates. They just fuck with us ’cause they ain’t us.”

  “Yeah,” D said, “no doubt. I’ve had my run-ins with the police over the years. It’s just the kind of thing that the white folks in the branding business might get a little worried about.”

  “Long as it wasn’t me,” Lil Daye said, “we’ll be all right, D. I understand what ya sayin’. Ant got a low profile though.”

  From the front Ant asked sharply, “What website you see it on?”

  “It was on Twitter somewhere,” D said, lying casually. “I should’ve screenshot it.”

  “Hmm,” Ant said, “I’m surprised no one forwarded it to me.”

  D wanted to ask about Dorita, but coming behind the cagey way his two Atlanta partners were downplaying the police incident, he’d wait awhile. Linking the two would give away that he knew a lot more than he was saying.

  * * *

  Kurtz’s glass-and-chrome home was on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, like Tony Stark’s in Iron Man. The white walls were decorated with large abstract canvases by well-known eighties painters. The furniture was so shiny the leather couches reflected light. There was nothing warm or womanly about Kurtz’s Malibu spot, though his company’s website touted a twenty-year marriage to his childhood sweetheart.