Inside the mirrored studio were fifteen women and a couple of adventurous men working through the shoulder shakes and robotic instructions of a spry, brown-haired teacher. In the back row, but far from inconspicuous, was Bridgette, and next to her, dancing gamely, was Mercedez. This was her night off, but Bridgette had taken a liking to this tough New York lady and invited her to tag along while she worked out. In the row before them was Jen, who actually moved more gracefully than her younger sibling. Bridgette was flashier, but there was a pleasing flow to Jen that stirred D a bit.
Bridgette and Mercedez spotted D gazing at them. He put on his trademark glare and then, with all the style his six-two, 250-pound frame could manage, he wiggled his hips in his best approximation of a music vide-ho. Both of them burst out laughing but D didn’t stay to milk his joke further. It was very out of character for him. He was as surprised as they were. But he felt good about it. Stress had to escape somehow.
Outside the Reebok on Columbus Avenue, Tony stood next to his Escalade, talking on his cell. “Yeah,” he was saying, “Cameron Diaz will be landing at 11 p.m. Take her from JFK to the Trump Tower and then wait because she may wanna go to Bungalow 8. All right then.” He clicked off and smiled when D approached. “I’ve only seen one bike today and it was one of those little Vespas. No self-respecting bad man is gonna ride that.”
“Cool. I’m gonna break out and then meet you guys at the studio later. Hit me on the two-way if anything jumps off.”
“Well,” Tony said quickly, “something’s already jumping off. The Haze sisters are beginning to get concerned about what you’re concerned about.”
“Come with it.”
“Today in the car they were asking me about what went down the other night. Whatever Ivy is telling them is not hitting the spot. They’ve been around enough to know a cover-up when they hear it. They’re a little too busy now to— Oops, you better turn around.”
Jen exited the Reebok, still moist from her workout but determined to have a private word with D. Her face was still flushed from the dancing. D imagined that’s how she’d look during sex. They walked over to the window of the Reebok store. As they talked, a poster of Venus Williams grimaced over their shoulders. “I know you work for Ivy,” she began, “but he pays you with our money.”
“Relax, Jen, you don’t have to strong-arm me. I know you’re nervous about the other night, but you and your sister shouldn’t worry too much.”
“Just a little, huh?” Jen’s tone was sharp. She was clearly displeased with his answer, but she was going to hear him out.
“Well, I’m not gonna lie to you,” he said. “Everybody wants to be safe. Everybody in this city wants to be safe and everybody in the whole damn world wants to be safe. But the truth is, there’s always gonna be danger out there. All you can really do is be careful and make sure all the things that can be done are done. That’s my job.”
“All that’s what worries me, D. You and your people have never done this before—not for someone as important as my sister. Besides, your responsibilities are about to grow. Against my wishes, Bridgette has gotten our father to recall Hubert. He’s going back to Virginia in the morning. I have my problems with him but I know I can trust him. I’m not sure about you.”
Now D was rocked. He had no idea Jen could be this straightforward and tough. Nor did he think it was a good idea for Hubert to disappear. And what about all this talk that Jen liked him? For a woman who allegedly had a crush on him, she sure was having no problem crushing his ego.
Fumbling for his words, D replied, “Well, Jen, I don’t know what to say. If you are dissatisfied with my work or that of my people, you can certainly have us removed.”
“I’ve discussed that with my sister, but in light of Hubert’s recall, she and Ivy think it would be counterproductive to bring in a whole new New York team right now. They both feel you and your people have done the best you can under the circumstances. But I remain concerned.” Jen’s voice was heatless. Whatever anger she possessed was subsumed in a classically American bureaucratic voice—the voice of a woman used to judging workers and not very interested in nuance. It was a voice that said you were either up to the job or not.
D excused himself and turned on his heel and headed up Columbus Avenue. He cursed that little dance he’d done upstairs. It had probably killed any lingering respect Jen had for him. He felt he’d gotten caught up in the hype—just like any kid who suddenly found himself around stars. Letting Mercedez dance with her was equally bad. None of it was professional. He had fucked up this job just like he was messing up D Security. Now he couldn’t even go back to being a gofer for Bovine. His mother had a life. His brothers had God. He just had scrambling, and, he thought, he was doing a weak-ass job of that.
D crossed to the north side of 72nd Street and hooked a left toward Amsterdam Avenue. Midway down the block he entered La Dinesta, a Cuban-Chinese diner with the best black beans and yellow rice south of Washington Heights. He traded greetings with Mike, the headwaiter with the spiked hair and round black yakuza shades, and headed to the booth where his friend was already enjoying the boneless chicken and black beans.
D had first met the author Dwayne Robinson at a Prince concert in the early nineties. People were standing all over and grooving to the sounds of “Let’s Work” when D noticed a lean, bearded man sitting and scribbling in a notebook with a pen that had a tiny light in its tip. A curious D intercepted the scribe after the show and asked if the guy was a music journalist. Turned out he was a critic at the Village Voice and D had read many of his pieces. After that D became a fan, following his writings so closely that he was one of the first people to purchase the updated edition of his twenty-year-old classic R&B history, The Relentless Beat.
They finally became friends two years later when Dwayne did a profile of Bovine for the Voice. They learned that they were both from the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, though D was about ten years Dwayne’s senior. An older brother–younger brother relationship developed, and it was to Dwayne, more than anyone, that D came closest to telling his family history. Dwayne learned more than most, but no one knew everything—except D, his mother, and Fly Ty.
Now D wanted some specific info from Dwayne but didn’t press for it, instead listening first to his friend relate the tortures of screenplay writing and the pleasures of his wife, Danielle, a love story he never tired of telling. He had a house way out in Jersey (Whitelandia, he called it) where he doted on his son and tended to his bushes. It made D feel optimistic about his own future. Here was another Brownsville boy, another product of a place the city didn’t care about, who was respected for his work, had a family, and was still a good, down brother. D knew his life was different from Dwayne’s—he was older and smarter—but the similarity always cheered him up. Dwayne then prodded D to tell him about his life, which was pretty much composed of D Security’s financial difficulties and his troubled relationship with his sudden savior, Ivy Greenwich, the mention of whom ignited Dwayne’s memory just as D had hoped.
“He came in and out of The Relentless Beat,” Dwayne said between bits of crackling chicken. “At one time or another he managed many of the great soul stars before escaping into the big money in pop and rock. He and Clive Davis are the only old lions left from the sixties who are still active. Everybody else either has made big bank or been put out to pasture.”
“Why has Ivy survived?”
“Well, Clive has made it by being all about songs. Your man Ivy is all about voices. He has a knack for managing people with distinctive voices that somehow cut through on the radio. From Adrian Dukes to Bridgette Haze, music has changed, but the quality of the voices he hooked up with have kept him in the game.”
“Adrian Dukes. ‘Green Lights.’”
“You’ve been listening to too much oldies radio, D.”
“My mother loved that song, man. But believe it or not, that old song is somehow tied in to this situation. Listen to this.” Over his own plate of ric
e and beans and sweet banana, D shared the story of Night’s abduction and how “Green Lights” was used as an instrument of torture. “Why that song, Dwayne? Is there something in Dukes and Ivy’s history that connects to the kidnapping? Something so bad Ivy won’t go to the police?”
“Well, you know how Dukes died, don’t you?”
“Suicide, right?”
“Jumped out the window of the Theresa Hotel. Had been in the same suite Castro stayed in when he visited the UN in ’62. Landed on 125th Street just down the block from the Apollo. Left no note. All they found was ‘Green Lights’ playing on the turntable. The official story is that he was frustrated with the lack of response for his subsequent singles, that he couldn’t take being a one-hit wonder.”
“Come on with it, Dwayne. I know you know the unofficial story.”
“Rumor has it Ivy was having an affair with Dukes’s wife. Based on the photos I’ve seen, the lady was a brick house, Commodores style. While Dukes was on tour supporting his one hit, Ivy was laying pipe to his woman. When he got back home and someone peeped him to her infidelity, he rented the room at the Theresa, got prissy, and tried to be the first black man in space.”
“Do lots of people know about this affair?” D asked.
“You’d have to be from the ancient school or know someone who was.”
“That would explain Ivy trying to ignore the song’s importance. It was definitely a message to him. Plus Night is an R&B singer like Adrian Dukes. But what was that message saying? I guess it was a warning of some kind.”
“Or a reminder that the past doesn’t always stay in the past,” Dwayne suggested.
Afterward they walked across 72nd Street toward the Broadway subway station. “There’s one more thing I can tell you about your boss,” Dwayne said.
“Sure. Whatever you know, I wanna know.”
“Well, it won’t help you figure out what’s going on, but it might come in handy. Before he was Ivy Greenwich, big-time talent manager, he was Irv Greenfield, barbershop owner in one of the black neighborhoods of Brooklyn.”
“A barber?”
“Yeah, when those areas went from Jewish to black, Irv owned a barbershop. He liked the music and he loved the women, so he trained himself to cut black hair and got the best jukebox he could. Next thing he was cutting the hair of singers who needed a white man to navigate the business. That’s how Ivy ended up with his uninhibited white Afro.”
“Damn. Everybody’s got a story.”
“That’s how I eat, D. Collecting them and telling them. Anyway, I’m gonna take my black ass back to Jersey. I’ll catch the train down to Port Authority. What are you doing now?”
“You know me, Dwayne. I love the nightlife.”
“Okay, man,” Dwayne said and gave D a hug. “But watch this vampire shit. Do it too long and you’ll be sucking your own blood.”
Chapter Eleven
In theory, getting into a modern recording studio should be harder than entering a bank vault. There are private phones and closed-circuit TV cameras and security codes on many of the doors. Within a modern studio are hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, master recordings that will generate millions, and artists, producers, and musicians who earn the gross national product of a non-oil-producing third-world country.
So the area inside a studio should be one of the safest places in any American city. In truth, most big-city recording studios are rife with drugs, guns, and more than their share of indiscriminate sex. That’s because studios are no longer—if they ever were—a creative oasis. The posse rules at any studio in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and places in between. It’s the rare young urban musician, black, white, or Latino, who doesn’t allow friends, acquaintances, and friends of acquaintances to hang, as if studios were the rec room at a community college. It’s not that some artists aren’t sticklers, allowing no unauthorized persons into their sessions. The problem is that at any large facility, with many rooms, each artist or producer will have a different policy regarding access. In one room James Taylor could be cutting a folk-pop ballad, while next door DMX might be laying down a testament to man’s inhumanity to dogs. In the common area, a place of vending machines and flat-screen TVs, where people lounge as engineers tweak drum sounds, everybody has to interact. It can make for some very strange bedfellows.
Around 12:30 a.m., D arrived at Right Track Recording, where Power was producing Bridgette Haze’s vocals in room A and RZA was cutting tracks for the Wu-Tang Clan in room B. Pop songbird next to hard-core posse. D was a bit concerned that when he arrived he’d see little Bridgette surrounded by herb-smoking, rowdy Shaolin MCs. And to his dismay, he was right. Out in the main lounge there were Bridgette and Jen on a black leather sofa, squeezed between six young black men sprawled around them on the sofa and floor. The singer and one of the black men, who looked vaguely familiar from a music video, were battling in a furious game of Madden NFL. Bridgette had the Redskins and the young black man had the Steelers. The space possessed the pungent smell of marijuana, Chinese food, and the funk of Wu posse members who wore heavy jackets indoors but no deodorant. The young man closest to Bridgette wore a red bandanna, a red Iverson jersey, and enough bling-bling to illuminate Times Square. A few of the collected group nodded when D entered, but otherwise their focus stayed on Bridgette Haze’s display of vid-game dexterity.
Mercedez was nowhere to be seen, which irritated D, since it seemed to confirm Jen’s concerns. Then, from the direction of the studio, he heard her voice: “Absolutely. There’s not a nightlife situation that D Security can’t handle.”
“Is that right?” a man said, clearly humoring her.
From around the corner came Mercedez with the publicist Rodney Hampton, whose left hand held a digital camera that rubbed up against his wedding ring. “Hey, man,” Rodney said, extending his free hand to D. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again, D. I couldn’t say this the other night, but any black-owned enterprise that lands a contract with Ivy, I salute. I know how difficult that can be.”
D was a little put off by the brothers-in-business rap. Not that he didn’t believe in it—it was one of his bonds with Tony at TZL—but he detected a glibness about Hampton that put him off. For D, every utterance by the publicist seeking common ground was suspect. Hampton brought his digital camera up and snapped a photo of Bridgette and the homeboys.
“This is gold,” he said, with an emphasis on this. The publicist held the camera at an angle so that D could see the digital images stored within. Photo after photo showed Bridgette huddled up and happy with thugged-out young black men. To D, all the shots looked like the box cover from the porn series Black Dicks in White Chicks, but he kept that insight to himself. Hampton continued, saying, “In a few hours these shots will be all over the web, repositioning Bridgette Haze, opening her up to the hip hop audience and setting the stage for this new record.”
“Bridgette Haze, Hip Hop Queen, huh?”
“No,” Hampton corrected, “Bridgette Haze—Queen of Pop. This trip to New York isn’t just for her to hang out with the Wu. Ivy is also gonna have her do some classic New York music.”
“One of the songs wouldn’t happen to be ‘Green Lights’?”
“Whoa!” Hampton exclaimed. “Ivy really has brought you into his confidence. He sees that as the second single. A great but obscure song. We’ll do the video from the stage of the Apollo. Did he tell you that too?”
“No, that’s a surprise to me. Hey, has it always been the plan or is that something that’s come up recently?”
“Oh,” Rodney said, “I believe he called and told me that last week.”
Power popped his head out of the studio. His eyes were red and Buddha-blessed but there was a determined scowl on his lips. Despite (or perhaps because of) the controlled substances in his system, the man looked ready to work.
“Yo, Bridge, you ready to blow for me, hon?”
“Born ready, boo,” she replied. She stood up and handed off the contr
ols to Jen, who handed them off to one of the Wu posse and got up herself.
Someone cracked, “Where the white women going?” and everybody laughed.
“Must be your stank breath,” someone else said, and suddenly the room turned into the Def Comedy Jam, with snaps flying around the room. On her way to the studio, Bridgette stopped in front of D and gave him a hug and patted his thigh. “Quite a dancer, aren’t you?” she quipped, and then headed into the studio. Jen came up to D as well but offered no hug. Hampton excused himself and followed his client.
“Could I speak to you, D?” Jen asked.
“Sure.”
Jen looked at Mercedez as if she wanted her to leave, but Mercedez didn’t budge and D didn’t instruct her to.
“Look, I’m sorry about what I said before. I may have been a little harsh. You understand, of course. Bridgette is my little sister, I have to be protective.”
D eyed her coolly and replied, “No problem, but in the future, you should bring any complaints to Ivy. Until then, my staff and I will do our best to provide your sister with the best security we can.”
“Fine then, D. Okay.” A couple of the Wu posse wondered if Jen would rejoin them on the sofa, but she demurred and joined her sister in the recording studio.
“You know,” he said to Mercedez, “Bridgette told me Jen liked me.”
“Yeah,” Mercedez replied with a shrug. “Well, I think that must be some kind of game they play. I don’t think Bridge is that comfortable letting people know what she thinks. She’s young and all, you know, despite all the hype. I think she’s the one who likes you.”
“She’s way too young for my old ass.”
“Please,” Mercedez said sharply. “My baby’s father was ten years older than me. All you men are pedophiles, whether you admit it or not.”
Chapter Twelve
D’s mother’s future husband sat across from his future son-in-law and sipped nervously on his Jack Daniel’s. Zena Hunter’s son was a big man with a hard, full face that reminded Willis Watson of Deacon Jones, a vicious defensive end who had played for the Rams in the sixties. Deacon Jones had been part of a defensive line known as the Fearsome Foursome, and to Willis, D was part of a fierce foursome—Zena’s four sons.
The Accidental Hunter Page 10
