Larger Than Lyfe (36 page)

The secretary rang the bell and received no answer. She rang it again and still received no response. Just as she walked off down the hall back toward the bank of elevators, Mars leaned out his door.

“Yeah. What’s up?” he grumbled.

Mars Buchanan was clearly a very attractive man, even though it was pretty evident that he had been working diligently over what appeared to be more than a week’s time to let himself go to absolute shit. He was unshaven, with a healthy film of stubble on his face and on his usually bald head. His clothes were a mess. He wore the wrinkled trousers that belonged to a very expensive, Italian suit and a white wife beater T-shirt that looked as if he’d vomited on it.

“I’m here from the offices of David Weisberg, Keshari Mitchell’s attorney,” the secretary stated as evenly as she could, attempting to hold her breath from the stench of Mars. “The reading of Keshari Mitchell’s will is today and Ms. Mitchell made very clear specifications that Mr. Weisberg could not proceed with the reading of the will until every heir, including you, was present at Mr. Weisberg’s office. Everyone is assembled right now in Mr. Weisberg’s office…except for you. How long will it take you to get dressed?”

“I’m not going to the reading of any will,” Mars slurred. Then he proceeded to cry. “I loved her so…much,” he said, sounding like a broken, little boy.

The secretary pushed past him into his apartment and found her way to Mars’s kitchen. She put on a pot of coffee, and then rushed off to his bedroom to locate fresh clothes for him to wear. She also started a hot shower for him.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mars grumbled, watching the strange secretary making her way, uninvited, through his apartment. “Who ARE you?”

“I already told you that, Mr. Buchanan,” the secretary responded. “Now…how quickly do you think that you can manage to go in there and wash the funk off you and get shaved? I’ve got hot coffee right here to get you on your way. Here…drink some.”

She held the cup up to his lips maternally, and then pushed him toward his bedroom. It took more than an hour for the coffee to start doing its job and for Mars to get showered and shaved.

David Weisberg called the secretary on her cell phone. “CELESTE!” he snapped. “What the fuck is the hold-up?!”

“Mr. Buchanan is really quite a mess, David. I’m helping him to pull himself together. We’ll be back at your office in about an hour.”

The other heirs had been waiting in the conference room as patiently as they could, making small talk and occasionally checking their watches. David Weisberg offered to have one of the other secretaries call Chin Chin and order lunch. While the heirs were beginning to become restless, they weren’t hungry and all of them courteously declined the offer. Andre DeJesus made comments about other appointments on his schedule for that day. David held up a hand to reassure all of them.

“Keshari was very specific about wanting each and every one of you present before I proceed with the reading. My secretary is on her way back to the office as we speak. For those of you who have other engagements today, I would advise you now to make the necessary calls or texts to reschedule.”

Moments later, the double doors of the conference room opened and Mars Buchanan made his appearance, seemingly with some assistance from David Weisberg’s secretary, Celeste. In black wool trousers and a black, V-neck, cashmere sweater that rippled around every carefully chiseled muscle of his biceps, he was enough to cause everyone in the room to pause their thoughts. This was the gorgeous specimen of a man who Keshari Mitchell could not help falling in love with.

He wore dark, Gucci sunglasses, but Celeste suggested that he remove them. When he did, his eyes had a difficult time adjusting to the bright light of the conference room. His eyes were swollen and red from more than a week of crying and drinking. Misha’s heart immediately went out to him, and she patted the seat beside her for him to come and sit down. Everyone in the room watched him and felt the unbelievable sadness and grief emanating from him. It was clear that Keshari Mitchell’s untimely death had un-raveled him emotionally.

David Weisberg immediately began the readi
ng. The first portion
of the will was all of the inconsequential legalese that is included in every professionally prepared last will and testament by a testator with substantial holdings. David Weisberg read through all of it as quickly as he could.

“…and, therefore,” David Weisberg read, having reached the actual distribution of assets, “I leave the most significant portion of my estate, Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment, to my best friend, my sister, Misha Michelle Tierney. Misha Tierney will hold eighty percent ownership of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment with the remaining twenty percent being broken down as follows: ten percent to Andre DeJesus and ten percent to Sharonda Richards, both of whom are current employees of Larger Than Lyfe Enter-tainment. If any of the new owners should choose to relinquish or sell all or any
portion of their ownership shares of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment, these shares can only be offered for sale to Mars Buchanan or David Weisberg, my attorney, and an escrow account has been established for the buyback of these shares should the need present itself. As the new holders of a percentage of ownership of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment, Andre DeJesus and Sharonda Richards shall also take on new job titles. Both of them shall be named respectively ‘senior vice president of operations’…

“As the new ‘president and chief executive officer’ of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment, Misha Tierney shall perform in precisely the same capacity as I did. She holds majority in the decision-making of every facet of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment@ operations. Hers is the exclusive signature on all checks and contracts designating budgets and allocating funds from Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment revenues. Because Misha Tierney possesses little experience in the management of the business affairs of a major record company, Andre DeJesus and Sharonda
Richards, as the new senior vice presidents of operations, as well as new shareholders in ownership of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment, possess a vested interest and shall be responsible for educating Misha in all facets of this music industry as well as all facets of the day-to-day operations of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment…

“…to the warmest, kindest, most honest, most special man that I’ve ever met in my life, I must, first, say thank you for loving me. Words cannot begin to convey how much you meant to me. To you, I leave my mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. The mansion and its grounds have a current market value of $16.2 million. You can, of course, do with the property whatever you so choose. If you decide to keep the property, a special fund has been set up for complete upkeep of the mansion’s grounds, for security, property taxes, and payroll of the mansion’s servant staff for the next five years. I hope that
you treasure this gift because I truly treasured the time that we spent there together…”

Mars became wracked with sobs. Misha hugged him and tried to console him, feeling his pain, tears coursing down her own cheeks as she watched the horrible struggle that he’d been having with his emotions since the day that Keshari had left them. They’d loved her so much. Yet, clearly, it had not been enough.

“…to my assistant, Terrence Dwight Henderson, who consistently went above and beyond the responsibilities of his job title to satisfy me. He became a brother and a dear friend to me and I bequeath the cash sum of two million dollars.”

There was an instant catching of breath around the room. Terrence started to cry. His partner rubbed his back consolingly and handed Terrence his handkerchief to dry his tears. Keshari had just turned her executive assistant into a millionaire.

Marvin Shabazz was designated as the new “director of artists
and repertoire.” The Palos Verdes mansion was to be sold and the proceeds split among organizations that were important to Keshari. The AIDS Research Foundation, Susan B. Komen Cancer Foundation, and several substance abuse outreach and recovery programs in Southern California were specifically referenced. There was more than one million dollars’ worth of jewelry, which had been left to Misha. Keshari left the yacht to Mars. Keshari had six, luxury automobiles that would be sold and the proceeds used to pay outstanding creditors. Keshari also had substantial stock holdings that, curiously, wer
e not mentioned in the will. Funds in Keshari’s personal bank accounts would be used to pay all of
her outstanding creditors. The furnishings and substantial artwork in both of Keshari’s homes were left to Mars Buchanan.

The media, having gotten wind of the reading of the will a couple of days before, swarmed the small group of heirs as soon as they exited David Weisberg’s offices. The heirs quickly got into their respective cars and sped away. When the news aired locally later that evening, media had somehow found out how Keshari Mitchell’s estate had been distributed and reporters began to speculate about whether or not a very inexperienced Misha Tierney, while a prominent and very successful party promoter and events planner, would be able to fill Keshari Mitchell’s sizeable shoes in the music business.

K
eshari had held her staff to the highest professional standards and her staff continued to demand the highest professional standards of themselves after Keshari’s passing. The entire staff at Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment worked around the clock to help Misha become fully acclimated with day-to-day procedure at the busy record label.

Cassandra Harrington of VIBE Network was flown in from Chicago for her and Misha to be formally introduced. Cassandra Harrington was saddened by the tragic loss of such a young, unbelievably intelligent, personable and indomitable force in music. She k
new Misha’s work as an events planner and she wished Misha well in her new role as president and CEO of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment.

The record label was moving full steam ahead toward the multimillion-dollar, televised, nationwide talent search grand finale. Everyone was extremely excited. Just as Keshari had envisioned, the nationwide talent search was bringing massive exposure to Cassandra Harrington’s VIBE Network as well as to Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment and the two, powerful, Black women who controlled these two, major business enterprises.

The LTL staff crunched a lot of overtime with Misha and Andre DeJesus at the helm to wrap up all remaining details and produce an event that they knew Keshari would smile down from heaven and be immensely proud of. The media was anxious to
cover the event as inside information leaked to them promised that the week-long event would be spectacular. Other music industry heads were anxious to see the outcome of the very expensive event as they considered doing similar projects themselves.

A dynamic, pyrotechnic show and an unbelievable theme that was a hip-hop track that segued into R & B and then jazz opened Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment’s “Nationwide Search for a Star.” For nearly a month, expensive billboards, TV commercials, magazine and newspaper ads, as well as radio and internet advertising, had dominated the airwaves, building massive public interest for a spectacular week of not-yet-signed music talent and an absolutely spectacular opening night at Kodak Theatre in Culver City, California.

Tickets to the event were the hottest tickets on the market and
had been listed for astronomical amounts on eBay for weeks. Keshari’s death, the scandal immediately preceding her death, the scandalous stories that followed her death, and even the current media speculation that Keshari was still alive and had merely faked her death to avoid federal prosecution and a successful attempt on her life by gangsters, were just some of the factors that combined to make “Nationwide Search for a Star” a bigger music event than even the Grammy Awards. And, with entertainment’s hottest party promoter and events planner at the helm, the after-parties surrounding the week-long even
t promised to be the venues where everybody who was anybody wanted to be as well.

Twenty, beautiful, scantily clad, female dancers and a troupe of Bronx, New York break dancers took the stage and hyped the opening of the show to the thumping bass lines of the theme and the kind of lyricism that had placed Larger
Than Lyfe Entertainment
at the top of the music industry food chain. The audience inside the packed theater could not contain their excitement. There were screams and smiles and fans holding up posters to show their support for their favorite contestants as the live television cameras panned the seating areas.