Commitment (78 page)

“Who’d you call from Doug’s office?”

“Lorna.
And Tracy.
Greg.”

“You told them?”

“Yup.”

“What’d Lorna say?”

“Not a whole
hell of a
lot.
None of them did.
I think they’re shocked.”

It could have been worse—
they could have told her they
weren’t
shocked.

“Baby, I’m so sorry
. .
.”

“Stop.”
She
put a forefinger over his lips.
“
F
or now, let’s try to concentrate on getting it over with.”

He nodded.
“Okay.”

Brendan
stuck
his head in. “Shawn
. . .
you need to take this call.”

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Steve
Mannes
s
from
Arista
.
”

That’s all he needed right now.
More bullshit.

“He says there’s a clause in your contract that allows th
em to back out if circumstances—now these are his exact words—
“render you incapable of performing your obligations under the agreement” and looks like someone at
Arista
thinks a rape trial
might
be that circumstance.”

Shawn closed his eyes.
“Tell Steve to call Doug.”

“He wants you, man.”

“B, I’m not a fucking lawyer!
Get
him
to call Doug!”

Br
endan held up a hand.
“A’ight.
Chill.”
He disappeared from the doorway.

“Shawn,”
Riley
said
, her voice level
.
“You’re going
to have to calm down.
It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, so you can’t lose it right now.”

“I know.”
She rested a hand on his back
making slow circles.
Then she rested
her chin there, stroking his ne
ck.

“It’ll be okay,” she promised.
“I swear it’ll be okay.”

There was nobody else in the world he needed to hear that from more than her.

The
phone
didn’t
stop ringing.
Mostly
it
was
people Shawn d
idn’t want to hear from anyway.
But he
took
Chris Scaife’s call, because
if he was good for one thing,
Chris had his finge
r on the pulse of the industry
.
He could always tell how
something was going to play—
he had infallible instinct for what
would blow over,
and what
was a career-ender.
And he didn’t sound too encouraging.

“The thing about a r
ape charge, man.
You can’t just beat the rap, you got to disc
redit
her.
Especially you.
You got
that sex-symbol thing going on.
A
rape suspect
is a tough sell
as
a
sex-symbol, y’know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah but I’m not
a sex-symbol though.
That’s not my
thing
.”

“Not to
you
maybe.
You think it’
s about your message and shit.
But straight up
Smooth
, you got like what?
A
forty
-six percent female fan base? You need to keep them happy.
If I was you, I’d get everybody who know
s
what really went down between you and
Keisha
to give interviews, man.
MTV,
Entertainment Tonight
, you name it
.

“Get the word
out there that
she’s lyin’.
The first thing
that shit’ll
do is, i
t’ll keep your fan base intact.
And the second thing is, the DA will take his head out his ass and realize he don’
t
got a case.”

He hated to admit it, but Chris was making sense.

“Yeah, but my lawyer said I sho
uld just work the process, man.
And if I got people on MTV and
Entertainment Tonight
. . .”

“Look. I got lawyers.
I unde
rstand lawyers.
Lawyers do what lawy
ers do, y’know what I’m sayin’?
Let me do my thing.”

“But if they get paid for the interview, that
messes
up their credibility in co
urt.
You might save my career and my
street cred
but get my ass put in jail,” Shawn pointed out.

“Nah.
MTV
doesn’t
pay for interviews.
And I could make sure they don’t take money from anyplace else either.”

Shawn hesitated to ask how Chris could
make sure of a thing like that.
Being implicated in one crime was plenty enough.

“Most everyb
ody is dancers, right?
If they know they could get bumped to the top of my call li
st for work in the future, they’ll
do the interviews for free.”

“Oh, so we bribe them?”

Chris sucked his teeth. “Damn, man.
One little brush with the system and you start using words like
‘bribe’.
This ain’t no bribe. They tellin’ the truth, right?
It’s more like a
n
incentive.”

Shawn laughed.
“Yeah.
Whatever.”

“P
R
, man.
It’s all about P
R.
Juries watch
TV
too.
So you want me to do this or what?”

“I don’t know, man.
Lemme think about it.”

“What you got to think about?
You gettin’ locked up in a minute over some shit you didn’t even do!”

“Lemme talk to
Riley
and call you back right quick.”

“A’ight. Hurry up.
We might
be able to
do something tonight if we move
quickly
.”

g

“Let’s do it,”
Riley said
immediately
when he told her Chris’ plan.
“Call him back and tell him to do it.”

“Hold up, hold up, hold up. You don’t think it’s risky?” Brendan a
sked.
“And kind of aggressive?
Considering we don’t even know
how things look legally yet
.”

“
Aggressive
?
”
Riley
ask
ed leaning forward, her eyes a
fire.
“This woman is falsely accusing my husband of rape, Brendan
.
What coul
d be more aggressive than that?
”

Shawn sat back in his chair, as surprised as Brendan obv
iously was at her reaction.
She was ready to fight for him.
He could see it on her face—
in
the way her jaw had hardened, the squaring back of her shoulders.

“I understand that
Riley
, but he did have sex with her
,
”
Brendan pointed out apologetically.

“Not against her will
!”

“But
a jury could think that
he’s got what’s coming to him
.
Just for being the kinda dude who uses women.
”

“Brendan,
s
he knows that they’re a
dozen
people out there who can testi
fy that she was out to get him.
She doesn’t care about
a damn jury.
She’s trying to destroy his career, and maybe
get some money in the process. Chris is right.
We have to put the criminal charges and the public relations stuff on parallel tracks
.”

Bren
dan sighed and shook his head.
“It’s your call, Shawn
.
What you think?”

“If Chris does this right, I don’t see why it should affect wha
t happens in court
except in a positive way
,” Shawn said, looking to
Riley
for confirmation.

“Yeah, but you d
on’t know if he’ll do it right.
It
could backfire, man.”

“Brendan do you really want him to just take this
sitting down
?
Knowing she’s making the whole thing up, you want him to just go into court like a sheep and
hope that justice will prevail?
”

Br
endan ran a hand over his head.
“I dunno.
Maybe you’re right . . .”

Riley
picked up th
e phone and handed it to Shawn.
“
Well I know. Call Chris,”
she ordered. 

Shawn dialed the number.

The calls
kept
coming until it was time to meet Doug at his of
fice for the trip to the Bronx.
The only person Shawn spoke to was his cousin in Baltimore who told him his grandmother didn’t understand what was going on, so he had nothing to worry about on
that end.
This was one of the
times he wished he had what a lot of other performers of his stature
had
—
an
entourage.
Dozens of people who would
shield
him from
all this crap.

Groupies and paparazzi
trying to get to Cameron, for instance, would have to get past his three bodyguards, his personal assistant and his young
er brother just to
talk
to him.
He used to laugh about that with Brendan when he did concerts
with other rappers.
Some of them would arrive with as many as twenty people in tow
, not including their security.
And every one of them
gots
to get paid
, he’d joked one time.
Today it would be more than worth the money.

“You ready?”

They’d pulled up in front of Doug’s building
as
it
was just beginning to get dark.
Shawn was sitting up front with Brendan and
Riley
had leaned over the back of his seat to cross her arms over his chest.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“So let’s go
.”

“No.”
Shawn turned to look at
her
.
“
You’re going
home.”

A look of con
fusion flashed across her face.
“But . . .”

“I don’t want you running past reporters and
all that mess
.
It might not be like that, but
you
don’t know.
I don’t want you down there.”

Riley
’s sh
oulder’s sagged.
“I can deal with it.”

“No.”
Shawn shook his head.
“Home
.”

She opened her mouth to answer and closed it again.

“I’m
okay,
Riley
.
It’s one night.
I’ll see you in no time.
Look . . .” he dug into his pocket and pulled
out a set of keys
. “. . . go
to the sublet
and get my stuff.
Write a check to Sam Benning an
d leave it on the coffee table.
It’s three months at a twenty-five hundred a month.”

She was nodding, and blinking rapidly
like she was
trying to prevent herse
lf from crying.
She took the keys from his hand and dropped them into her
purse
.
Shawn smiled at her and brushed a finger against her nose-ring before getting out of the car and heading inside.