Drive Me Crazy (44 page)

“The computer.”

“Bravo.”

“What else? Was it just the book ... or ... what?”

She adjusted herself, leaned in closer. “Underneath that computer was my manumit.”

“You lost me.”

She held that I-have-a-secret smile, sipped her martini.

She said, “They don’t have a clue that Marcus based his persona on Tom Cruise.”

“His persona? What do you mean?”

“Marcus changed his lame image, became over-the-top after he saw the movie
Magnolia.
Started emulating the ‘Seduce and Destroy’ guy Tom Cruise played in the movie.”

“Thought he was doing Sharpton.”

“Tom Cruise.”

I shrugged. “Never saw the movie.”

“A terrified boy hiding inside of someone pretending to be a misogynistic, heartless leader. What a farce. Tom Cruise all the way. A very bad version of Tom Cruise at that.”

“Obviously.”

She shook her head over and over. “Now he believes the hype.”

“A man doesn’t get ahead in this world by holding his tongue and sitting on his hands.”

“Same goes for a woman.” She sipped. “Same goes for a woman.”

She sipped her martini again, looked around the room. My eyes went to the television. Cameras were out in front of Wolf’s home in Hancock Park. Would see that home in my dreams until I couldn’t dream anymore. Saw Wolf’s two little children in the crowd, but I didn’t see Wolf. I saw Lisa’s relatives in the mix. Everybody was so solemn. Los Angeles was waiting.

Sade asked me, “Are you familiar with T.S. Eliot? Or his wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood?”

I rubbed my eyes, told her, “Not at all.”

“I just remembered a poem about their relationship, read it a while ago. Theirs was a rocky marriage that ended up with him committing her to a mental institution.”

“Lot of that going around.”

“It is argued that she was his muse, even sometimes editor, and possibly the mastermind behind his genius. But she also had a mental imbalance that made her do neurotic things.”

“Uh huh.”

“He didn’t give her any credit for anything. She recovered and wrote about how he abandoned her. About how lonely she became.”

She paused, went into her thoughts.

I watched the television. Hoped my mug shot didn’t flash up on the screen.

I said, “You love ‘im. Freeman, you love ’im, right?”

“My blue eyes and dark skin, I’m the perfect reflection of the paradox of who he is. Supposedly so freaking Afrocentric and concerned about issues involving black Americans and the elevation of the mind, but really he’s the ultimate study in narcissism.”

I held my ground. Maybe I wanted to tell her how deadly this game was that she was playing. She didn’t see it as a game, but she was playing chess, trying to checkmate him in the dark. Blood was on my hands because of a game. Blood that would never wash away.

She said, “I
love
writing. I love telling stories.
Love
making a difference. He’s all about the dollar. All about being a celebrity. Wants to be Hollywood-bound so bad it kills me.”

I kept holding that ground.

She shook her head. “He has all the fame. All the
asaewos
photograph him.”

“What does
asaewos
mean?”

“Bitches.
Rude, inconsiderate bitches.” Her eyes went blank. “Marcus loves attention. I’ve lived with him for three years. I’m the soon-to-be wife of the man who sleeps with the bitches who love his books because it boosts his ego, does something for his low self-esteem.”

I stared at my glass. “So, you’re going to marry him.”

She chuckled. “Bobbleheads. T-shirts. And this. And that. He’s a bloody one-man marketing machine who is trying to make the world believe he serves a valuable purpose.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Hype. Straight Hollywood hype. So much sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

“Then why you pick him?”

“Well, it ain’t because he has a thirteen-inch dick, I can tell you that for sure.”

I let her words go by without comment. Didn’t want to stop her flow. Alcohol was both a truth serum and a tongue loosener. That vodka she was sipping made this a lot easier for me.

She said, “I used to see something in him. Saw what was lacking in me.”

I nodded.

She went on, “He couldn’t write a damn postcard, let alone a book.”

She stood up, wobbled a little bit, eyes out of focus.

She gave me a nervous smile, asked, “Shall we move this to my suite?”

I shook my head. “You and Freeman have separate rooms. Same floor?”

“We have separate rooms on separate floors. And separate lives from here on out.”

“No marriage?”

She shook her head. “He’s not worthy.”

I sipped my JD. Saw it clearer now. The dynamics. How Sade had stayed away from Freeman. At the airport. At the book signings. How she had her own room on a different floor. She kept herself in plain sight and away from the scene of the crime at the same time. If I hadn’t been too busy looking for a lion and a jackal I might’ve noticed this from jump street.

She had been close to Freeman, all eyes and ears, the true inside man on this scam.

I said, “You knew they were gonna steal it here. In L.A.”

“She didn’t say exactly when, but I knew it was going to be here. She had four days.”

“Who set this up?”

“Received an e-mail one day. It had one word in it.”

“Manumit.”

“Exactly. Then I met with a woman while we were in Dallas. She never said her name.”

I described Arizona.

Sade nodded.

I said, “That was her. At the airport. We know that, so stop bullshitting.”

Sade smiled.

I said, “You set him up for the hit.”

“You make it sound like an assassination.”

“You’re killing his career.”

“I’m reclaiming mine. That’s what she told me I should do.”

“Who told you that?”

“My mother. She told me to do whatever I had to do to reclaim what was mine.”

Sade gave in, came back and took the seat next to me, an expression of surrender painting her face. I waited. Let her take a few hits of her chocolate martini. The words were dancing around her lips, trying to come out and play. Each sip opened that door a little wider. She reached the bottom of her glass, got down to where the truth lived. Sade ran her hand over her hair, her motion so tipsy, and those words that were trying to get out were set free.

She said, “His book, the
truth is stronger
one, was released on September 10, 2001.”

“The day before Nine-Eleven?”

“The next morning, while he was at the airport waiting to go on tour, the world changed, shut down. No way to fly anywhere. No way to get any television or radio coverage. Died on the vine.
Truth
was decent. For his level of writing, it was decent. That was because I edited it, brought it up the best I could. After the numerous changes I put in, the final piece was a mere simulacrum of the original manuscript. He resented me for that. Told me he did not need my help. But the manuscript he turned in after
Truth Be Told
was ... was simply horrible. Publisher rejected it. Threatened to file a lawsuit to get their money back. Marcus was falling apart.”

“Long story short, the pressure was on and he used your book.”

“Yes. I went against what I believed in, signed that contract and created a monster.”

Crossword puzzle words lined up in my mind. I said, “Plagiarism.”

She shook her head and whispered, “T.S. Eliot and Vivienne Haigh-Wood.”

I wasn’t going to argue. I’d let her believe whatever she wanted to believe.

I sipped my drink, thought about how Freeman had blasted Jayson Blair. If I wasn’t hurting, I would’ve laughed. That Mother Fucker had pulled a Milli Vanilli on the book world.

I said, “I guess, when you think about it, nobody ever really knows who writes a book.”

She nodded. “All they see is the name on the cover.”

I checked my watch, then rubbed my chest, put my fingers on the spots that had been harpooned. Those wounds would heal and leave me two scars. I’d add those to the rest.

Sade sipped her drink. A new chocolate martini had replaced the old one just that fast.

I asked, “Who gets the money from these books?”

“Oh, I get the lion’s share. I’m not insane. It’s my work. Eighty percent of the profits, extraordinary monetary compensation for my labor of love.”

“Eighty percent. How does that work?”

“His attorney drew up a contract between us, then my attorney reviewed it, talked about the ramifications in detail before I allowed him to use my intellectual property. The contract reads like a gag order. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, not even my mother.”

“And you’re not supposed to wear that
Manumit
sweatshirt.”

“That pissed him off good, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. Three cheers for Alfalfa.”

I sipped. She did the same.

I asked, “What else was in the briefcase? Was it just the book?”

“No.”

“What?” I barked at her. “All this shit I’ve been through, hit me with some knowledge.”

Now she was afraid of me. I saw that. The Italian suit was gone, so was that person. I pulled up the sleeves on my sweatshirt, pulled them up enough for her to see the warrior tattoos on my forearms. Her eyes went to those markings, then her attitude adjusted a little more.

“The contract I signed. He kept it chained to his wrist. Kept me chained to his wrist.”

“A legal contract between you and him.”

“Our literary marriage.”

“That’s what this was really all about.”

“Getting that back was... was ...”

“Your manumit.”

“Yes. I got it back. It’s been shredded. And those shreds have been burned.”

She went deep into Quiet Land. So did I. We enjoyed that silent ride for a moment. I didn’t allow my eyes to go back to that television screen. Wanted to tackle one sin at a time. Reverend Daddy said that all sins were equal. Didn’t feel that way, not at all.

She told me, “I want you to seduce me.”

“Why?”

“Because ... I deserve to be seduced... because ... I ... I ... I mean, why not? He does it with... with... them. They want him for no reason other than his photo is on a book. All over the country he does it with them. He has perpetrated a farce and they throw themselves at him.”

“You don’t know that.”

She laughed a laugh that asked me not to insult her.

I asked, “How much did you pay to get this thing handled?”

“I didn’t pay a single cent. Ha. Marcus paid. Two hundred thousand. Over one hundred British pounds. It cost him every dime he had taken in the name of my blood, sweat, and tears.”

“How did they know how much to ask for?”

She smiled a telling smile, one that told me who gave Arizona the banking information.

I said, “So, you’re bankrupting the man?”

She smiled. “He has to pay. He has to spend every fucking dime he’s made on my labor of love. Every dime. He was on the phone transferring money as soon as they asked for it.”

She laughed, ran her fingers through her hair in a beautiful, erotic motion.

I asked, “He paid already?”

“He wants that book. Doesn’t want to lose his fame. Doesn’t want that kind of scandal.”

“So, it’s over?”

“God, no. It’s only beginning.”

“What happens now?”

“I have twenty copies of
Manumit.
Twenty copies of
Dawning.
I mail them to twenty different places. First class. No return address. Marcus’s bloody publishing company. His bloody editor, his publicist, they are all on that list.
New York Times, Publishers Weekly,
and
Essence. Washington Post.
Many others. All get a note from ‘Ms. Avid Reader’ who is ’outraged by this farce.‘ And the note lists the other places that have been notified.”

“Then what? You destroy him? You become famous.”

“That’s not the goal. But maybe. Who knows?
Oprah
.
Regis and Kelly. Trisha
.”

“And you publish the book you’re holding out... what?”

“Under my own name. As it should be.” She took another sip of her drink. “My child will have my name, not that of some surrogate writer. ”

“You wrote all of his books?”

“You’re repeating yourself.”

“It’s the Jack. Bad habit of his. Jack likes to be clear on things.”

“No. Just the one that made him famous.” She moved her hair from her eyes. “He wrote the horrible ones. The ones that have the large fonts on all the signs, the ones no one cares for.”

“He’ll figure this shit out. You know that, right? Soon as you publish the book.”

“Marcus never saw the real book. I refused to let him see the work until it was complete. That way he couldn’t e-mail it to his publisher or agent or whoever. So they couldn’t claim my child as being his. He didn’t get his hands on the computer until I made it here.”

“If you’re so unhappy, and it’s not about the money, why don’t you just leave? You could’ve sent those books out at any time.”

“I did leave. Left a long time ago.”

I wanted to ask a lot of questions, but my eyes went back to that BREAKING NEWS.

Sade closed her eyes and started singing, “
Bashero mi mo fe e.
” Dots and accent marks of joy filling up the room. Her drunken happiness told me why she had stuck around. She wanted to be on the front row so she could watch Freeman fall like Saddam’s statue.

She stood up, stumbled on the pretty stilts she was wearing.

“I’m drunk, Driver. It’s getting late. I’d better go.”

“Let me put you on the elevator.”

Again she asked, “Join me tonight?”