“Mr. Diversity, the only thing that travels faster than gossip is truth. And the truth is, you’re the diversity czar with a slave-girl fetish. You have a cotton field in the back of your home. You have sack dresses. You have a throwback mammy to boss around. And you have a shrine with the most vile caricatures that I’ve ever seen. But do you know what you don’t have?”
Ian was silent.
“What you don’t have is control. Now, before you fancy bashing my head in and burying me in the cotton field, you should know that everyone in my inner circle knows I’m here. You can’t control this situation. You can’t control me from tearing every picture off this wall.” Ritz ripped another picture. “You can’t control the black female image. And most of all, you can’t control the fact that I am a queen! And not just any queen, I am the Queen of Radio. I will expose your ass and you will be exiled from Hollywood for the rest of your putrid, worthless life.”
In a frenzy, Ritz ripped the remaining pictures off the wall.
“But you can buy my silence. Would you like to deal?”
Ian clenched his jaw. His hands were shaking. He looked terribly weak.
“I asked you, would you like to deal?”
Ian nodded in compliance.
“Good.” Ritz walked to Ian’s desk. “Where’s my contract?”
“Top drawer, to the left,” he said feebly.
Ritz found it and began to read. Ian attempted to join the housekeeper on the couch.
“Oh, no, Ian. I want you to stand. Go over and stand on the platform for me.”
Ian complied.
Ritz scribbled on some pages and tore the others out. She read aloud as she amended the contract.
“‘Ritz Harper is entitled to a traditional pitch meeting with the executive producers of each of the Big Four networks. Ritz Harper is entitled to produce a pilot and six episodes of the show at her home base in New York. Members of her studio audience may include loyal listeners of the Ritz Harper Excursion. Ian Hale will pay for all associated production costs. If the first six episodes earn decent ratings, Ritz Harper will be entitled to taping a full season and shopping it to the network of her choice.’”
“That’s a fairy tale,” Ian said.
Ritz chuckled. “Yeah, but here’s a reality check: head of diversity is a racist, chauvinistic pig. Ritz Harper has Ian Hale’s two-minute racist rant on her hidden camera phone.
“You know, Ian, what I say over the air is like a burp in the breeze. But once this shit hits the Internet, it lives on forever.” Ritz glowered at Ian. “Deal, or no deal? If any of this makes you feel uncomfortable, I could walk.”
“Give me the fucking papers!”
“Oh, and you may want to dig up that cotton field, to show what a good sport you are. I’d like to see those racist relics destroyed, too—all of them. I don’t give a damn about your little throwback mammy. If she wants to hang around and feed your slave fetish, that’s on her. I don’t stand up for dumb-asses.”
“I’m not dumb,” Annie objected. “Ian, you’ve gotta give me a little somethin’ to keep quiet, too.”
Ian spun around to look at Annie. “And what in the fuck do you want?”
She grinned like a Cheshire cat as she squirmed in her seat. “I want this couch.”
20
Jungle
Chas and Rutger fell asleep on the floor of the study. If it was cold, the men didn’t know it. Their intimate spoon position provided all the body heat that they needed. Rutger’s shrieking cell phone pierced the silence.
Chas’s phone was going off, too.
“Hello?” Rutger answered. There was a long pause. “She did what?!”
Chas didn’t answer his phone. He already knew it was about Ritz, and he already knew it was bad. Rutger ended the call and pulled away from Chas’s warm, naked ass.
“Get up. Put on your clothes. Ian’s driver is bringing Ritz.”
“What happened?” Chas really wanted to know.
Rutger didn’t look at Chas as he located his clothes. “It’s not what happened that concerns me. It’s what happens next.”
Chas checked his cell phone. It wasn’t Ritz who was calling him after all. It was Ruff. And his message was ominous: “Chas, it’s Ruff. Look, um, Michelle Davis may be filling in for Ritz for the entire week. No rotations. We like her.”
Fuck! Chas dialed Ritz’s cell. She picked up on the first ring.
“Where you at?” he asked.
“We’re pulling up in front of Rutger’s place now. Get your shit, Chas. We need to get out of here.”
Ian instructed his driver, Bill, to take Chas and Ritz back to the L’Ermitage in Beverly Hills. The two sat silently, not uttering a word, until they were back at their hotel.
21
SATURDAY, 7:50 A.M.
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA
L’ERMITAGE HOTEL
RITZ’S GOVERNOR SUITE
Ritz and Chas remained silent in the lobby. They rode the elevator, which had a few other guests, without a word. But one step inside Ritz’s suite and they exploded with the excitement of two schoolgirls, peppering their talk with an assortment of expletives.
Ritz wanted to go first.
“Chas, I did it!” Ritz shouted. “I’ve got the pitch meeting lined up for Monday.”
“You were with him just to get a pitch meeting? Ritz, what went down over there? I know he called Rutger.”
Ritz told Chas everything—except picking cotton, and kicking the guy’s ass—but she told him everything else.
“And so he presents this generic contract that promises a meeting with network staff members and then he’s released of his obligations,” Ritz continued. “I told him, fuck that. I arrived on his doorstep with fame and a following, and I wanted a real opportunity. I negotiated into the contract that I would get the pilot, a glowing recommendation from his New Actor’s Guild, and a set pitch meeting with executive producers from the Big Four networks on Monday. And I told him that if he didn’t meet my terms, then I would tell my radio audience about his little slave-girl fetish.”
“What slave-girl fetish?”
Oops. Ritz was silent, then said, “Chas, I’m getting a shot at my talk show. I fucking did it!”
“Ritz, you can’t bully your way into a hit talk show. These people are going to play your game, but believe me, they will do everything to make sure you fail. Ritz, you won’t win!”
“Why did you bring me here if you didn’t think I would win?”
“You were challenging my clout, Ritz. I brought you here just to show you I had some. I wanted you to meet Rutger—and, fuck it, that was a good excuse for me to see him again, too.”
“You brought me here just to front, Chas? Just to front?”
“If you wanna put it that way, fine. I know you can’t handle Hollywood. Rutger told me that. No one likes you, you don’t have a presence, and it’s not a good idea to take a chance on this shit with Michelle Davis sitting in your chair all week back at WHOT.”
The earth moved under her toes. Ritz knew instantly that Michelle Davis wasn’t just filling in, she was auditioning for the throne.
“What did you say?”
“Ruff called,” Chas said. “Abigail wants Michelle to fill in for you—all week. She’s sick of running the ‘Best Of’ shows. Gossip has to be done every day, man. You can’t keep running that old Whitney Houston interview.”
“You’ve got to fix it, Chas; you’ve got to make it work. I can’t go back to scrapping for airtime with some half-rate newshound bitch that they’re going to replace me with anyway. Don’t you see what’s happening here? Behind Door A is a new possibility. Behind Door B is a new possibility. Both possibilities are unknown.”
“You’re losing me, Ritz.”
“Okay, it’s a possibility that I may strike a talk show deal out here in California. There’s a possibility that I may return to WHOT and get demoted or worse because of the drama that’s been happening outside of the studio.”<
br />
On that note, Chas lowered his head and massaged his temples. “We need to order some breakfast. All I taste is Rutger.”
“Eeew. You’re nasty, Chas!”
Ritz called room service.
Before and during their breakfast of French toast, orange juice, and scrambled eggs, the two went back and forth over the pros and cons of delving into something new versus returning to something successful.
Finally, Ritz got to the bottom of their disagreement. “I get it now. It’s us in New York. It’s me out here. Chas, I don’t know the first thing about television shows, or producing one, but after spending one night in this town, I know that I need a familiar face around me. Don’t you get it? It would be us here and back at home.”
Chas wasn’t falling for it, not this time, not ever again after Ritz stayed behind at Ian’s place. Ian was right: They were two people in the same place at the same time, but they were not together. They were not a team.
“Here’s the deal, Ritz. It’s Saturday. I’m packing my bags tonight and I will be at WHOT tomorrow. If you’re not there, I will start making moves to produce Michelle Davis. I’ll prep her for your slot. Trust.”
Ritz stood over Chase as he ate. “Are you threatening me, motherfucker? I’m the star, Chas. I’m the star!”
“That’s right. You’re the star and you’re going to do what you want to do no matter who you hurt or who you leave behind. But I’m the star maker, Ritz. I’m going to get mine, going forward. I’m not pouring no more of my energy into you. That’s it.”
“I can’t be at two doors at once, Chas.”
“Yeah, one door is closing and the other one will never open. Now pick one.”
Chas exited her suite without completing his breakfast, saying good-bye, or taking the food cart to the hall. Funny, when they traveled for the award shows, Chas always took the food cart out of Ritz’s room. He knew how funny she was about dirty plates. But now he just didn’t give a damn.
Ritz rolled the food cart into the hall, and before she knew it, the door slammed behind her. She was locked out of her suite. She went to the front desk to get another key. The clerk also handed Ritz a certified letter from Ian Hale. She returned to the suite and opened her letter; it was a confirmed itinerary for her pitch session with the Big Four executive producers, on Monday at 11 a.m., at the Big Four headquarters.
She was excited, scared, confused. She knew she would have to go it alone this time. Ritz called the only person who ever had her back no matter what. Tracee.
22
SATURDAY, 8:53 A.M.
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA
L’ERMITAGE HOTEL
CHAS’S SUITE
Chas lay on the bed fully clothed, reeking of sex and cologne. Partying with Rutger didn’t feel the way it had before. And he knew better than to try to hook up again after Hurricane Ritz had fucked up with Ian. So he lay there. Struggling to digest his breakfast. Struggling to make sense of it all—his life, his lays, his longing for something more stable than the Excursion.
The writing was on the wall: Ritz was going to roll with television. He was going to be ass out. So now what?
As Chas dosed off, his phone vibrated and woke him. It was a text from Hardcore: “I’m in the lobby.”
Chas texted his suite number, then bolted out of bed. Before he could hop in the shower and freshen up, there was a knock at the door. Chas’s stomach fell to his feet. He knew it was Hardcore. And he knew he wasn’t ready for any new company.
Hardcore knocked again. “Hey, Chas, it’s me dude.”
Chas slowly opened the door. “Hey…”
“Oh, it’s like that?” Hardcore teased, pointing to Chas’s disheveled appearance. “You wanna wash up first, nigga?”
Rutger had fucked Chas to sleep. But now all he could think about was climbing Hardcore. The thought alone was a zap of caffeine delivered right to his dick.
“Make yourself at home,” Chas said, heading to the shower. “I’ll just be a minute.”
The studio-gangsta-turned-novice-assassin unlocked the safety from the Russian Baikal converted 9 mm handgun. He screwed on the silencer. He hid the gun inside the invisible inside ankle pocket of his cargo pants.
As the shower ran, Hardcore crept about the room looking for Ritz’s room number, or better yet a spare key. Hardcore was fumbling through the papers on the end table when the shower abruptly stopped. Chas, refreshed and sopping wet, smiled as he did his peacock stroll to the bed. Hardcore was already there, fully dressed.
“Take that towel off,” Hardcore demanded.
Oh, here we go again, Chas thought to himself. Chas was a little on the feminine side, with a slight build and an elegant demeanor, but he was no bottom. When the lights went down, he was in control (except when he was with Rutger, and he still couldn’t explain that). The one-night stands often mistook him for the receiver. But Chas would let them know quickly what he was about.
“You take your pants off,” Chas said, not budging an inch to remove his towel.
Hardcore didn’t move. “Come here, lil’ nigga, and take them off me.”
That sent shivers down Chas’s spine. And he was not too eager to fuck and was too tired to fight. He dropped the towel and crawled over to him. Hardcore surprised himself with how turned on he was. And it made him uncomfortable.
His chocolate brown dick was bulging in his pants. He spread he knees farther apart to situate himself. He didn’t want that faggot Chas to touch him, but then again, his dick wanted him right now.
Chas’s slender fingers toyed with Hardcore’s zipper. In a stealth motion, Hardcore lifted his behind so that the cargo pants would fall midcalf. Hardcore heard the soft clink of the gun when his ankle tapped the leg of the chair.
Chas didn’t hear anything at all. He wasn’t paying attention to anything except the heavy rhythmic breathing from Hardcore’s lips. Why tease? Chas dove right in with random sucking motions. Hardcore was growing weak, his eyes turned to stone and his neck turned to jelly. He wanted some ass. Enough of the mouth shit.
Hardcore stood back. “Bend over.”
Chas refused. He was too sore from Rutger and he wanted some ass, too. “You bend over.”
“What kind of game you playin’, bitch? Turn the fuck around and let me take care of this,” Hardcore demanded, one hand on his throbbing dick.
“No, baby. I’m not taking it. I’ve giving it!”
Hardcore raged, “You wanna give me what, faggot?!”
He punched Chas square in his nose. Chas was in a daze. Hardcore picked him up and threw him on the bed, sending the replica Lotus lamp crashing to the floor.
“Open that ass, nigga! I don’t know who in the fuck you think you playing with!”
Chas’s bloody nose stained the pillow.
Hardcore stepped out of one leg of his jeans. He spat into Chas’s ass crack and climbed on top of the small man, punching him in the back of the head and neck to control him. He shoved his dick into Chas’s ass, not caring that it was hurting him, too.
Chas screamed, only to get punched again.
Caught up in the rapture of his own rage, Hardcore didn’t hear the faint click of the hotel door. In an instant, a flood of light filled the room. Weapons drawn, LAPD officers demanded the thug rapper “Freeze” before he got his head blown off.
Chas was in a heap on the bed, bloody, bruised, and battered from head to toe.
“We’ll get you an ambulance, sir,” said a black cop who had his gun still trained on Hardcore. “Don’t move, Hardcore! Put your hands in the air!”
Oh shit, they know who I am! Hardcore’s dick went soft. He held his hands up in the air. “May I pull up my pants?”
“Do it slowly,” the cop responded.
Hardcore knew now that there was no denying the gay rumors. But worse than that, he would now be known as a rapist, too. He put his leg back inside his pants and pulled them up. He felt the gun inside the inner ankle pocket, and in one swift motion he pull
ed it out and stuck it under his chin.
“Put the gun down!” the officers yelled. A barrage of threats followed.
“Fuck y’all,” Hardcore yelled as he pulled the trigger.
23
SATURDAY, 9:38 A.M.
L’ERMITAGE DAY SPA
WAITING ROOM
Ritz Harper’s ego couldn’t stand the turbulence. She’d had to put her foot down with a British swinger, a racist diversity czar with a slave-girl fetish, and now Chas. Chas broke her heart. She couldn’t believe that he—the man who’d helped her get here, the man who was behind her career from the beginning—would bring her to L.A. just to prove that she wasn’t good enough for television. Chas wanted those animals to break her down because he couldn’t do it alone. And then he threatened to return to the studio to produce Michelle Davis, her replacement?
If the Queen of Radio couldn’t trust her producer, whom could she trust?
The spa masseur came highly recommended. Perhaps he could be her confidant for sixty minutes and help her not only work out the kinks in her sore muscles (that ass-whupping of Ian had taken something out of Ritz, too), but could also help her work out the kinks in her career. Ritz laughed to herself.
A gorgeous Jamaican spa attendant approached Ritz. She looked desperate.
“Ms. Harper?!”
“Yes, baby,” Ritz said, furrowing her brow. “What’s wrong?”
“You have a visitor. Please come to the office.”
“A visitor? I’m at the spa,” Ritz protested. “Can they come back later? I really need this massage.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, this isn’t a social call.”
Ritz secured her plush robe around her frame and followed the young woman into the spa’s management office. A butch cop awaited her. The officer was as tall as Ritz, but wide. She had a short haircut, a tight jacket, and a grim look on her face.
“Ms. Harper, I’m homicide detective Maddow—”
“Homicide! What? Who? Where’s Chas?!”
Ritz Harper Goes to Hollywood! Page 10
