Ringer (16 page)

“Shh!”

Grant’s voice lowered to a whisper. “He’s worthless. He’s less than worthless. He’s protecting her! What kind of hit man protects his victim?”

“Yesterday when I met him, before my night at the gym, he told me it’s all part of a plan of some kind. He’s a fairly mysterious character, this Morty, and wouldn’t say why he did that or how he knew about the ring or any of that. He’s a cool cucumber for sure, because he said he considered killing her right then and there. Can you imagine? I mean, if she’d hit her head, or he made it look like she had…”

“He said that?”

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Robert, keep your voice down, please. As I said, he’s a fairly mysterious character.”

“He said he was thinking of killing her there but didn’t? Is this some sort of leverage for the ring?”

“Well, pookie, I think you need to try to weigh your priorities.”

“I have weighed my priorities and my options.” Grant folded his arms. “He can have the ring.”

She gasped. “Bobbie, I think that’s a very mature decision.”

Grant chuckled, waving a finger. “I haven’t built Grant Industries into the giant that it is today by letting people push me around. Robert Tyson Grant settles deals on
his
terms.” He leaned back with a jaunty cock of his head. “I’ll give him the ring, the ring that looks just like the one on my finger. I dropped in at a jeweler on Forty-seventh Street, they photographed the ring and sized it, and they’ll have a copy for me by one o’clock.”

“They can do it that fast?”

“For Robert Tyson Grant
they will
.”

“Oh, sweetums, that is brilliant! Woo hoo! Well, that solves that problem.” They clinked coffee mugs. “To old friends, new friends, and health of the chickens.”

“Chickens?”

“Oh, that’s just a toast I heard on TV or something, I thought it was funny.”

“You look quite ravishing this morning, Dix.” He was positively leering at her. Like a tomcat, he sensed his puss was in heat, only he had no idea it was as a result of me.

“Thank you, sweet Bobbie.” Her smile was forced, and masked the shimmer of guilt she felt for having cuckolded him. “Look, we need to get this show on the road. I was awake early this morning, and I think I figured out the perfect opportunity for Morty to target Purity. On her way home today to East Hampton. The limo can be ambushed and he can pretend to kidnap her or something. These Mexicans do a lot of kidnapping. Anyway, I can suggest it, but it’s up to our hit man how he does it. I think we have the right to say
when
he does it. She hasn’t left yet, has she?”

“Of course not.” Grant’s mood darkened, his eyes hooded. “She drugged the escort, Greta, and slipped out last night, but this morning she called my assistant, Kathy, and said she was doing some shopping and would head back to the hotel in the afternoon. I was going to have her flown by chopper from the West Side heliport out to the estate to make sure she didn’t give us the slip again. My stomach hurts just knowing she’s loose out there in the city. Anything could happen. I need Grant Industries stocks stable now. What with Trade Winds coming down the pike, I need our bond rating rock solid—and I certainly don’t need her interfering with, well, you know. I missed you last night.”

“I missed you, too, babykins. Try to relax. It will all be over soon, and then we can fuck like bunnies all night long.”

“Let’s go back to your place right now!”

“First things first, punkin’. I have to make sure I don’t drop the ball, and I can’t be straddling you like a bronco while at the same time making sure the Mexican arrives at the right place at the right time.”

Grant pouted. “Make sure he isn’t seen by the security cameras at the house.”

“I thought it would be a problem for Morty to make his move on the grounds of the estate. It would look suspicious if your security system somehow went on the blink. No, I think we should send her back by limo. He could ambush the car on the local roads on the way down to the beach.”

He gripped his forehead. “Just make sure the Mexican doesn’t kill or seriously hurt the driver. No reason anybody else should suffer for her sins.”

“You poor darling.” Dixie patted Robert’s cheek. “I’ll get Morty on board, you let me know when she’s on the road.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep calling him by his first name, Dix. It sounds so, well, familiar.”

Dixie looked at him sidelong. “Robert Tyson Grant. You’re not jealous, are you?”

“I don’t like you meeting alone with a hit man. It’s dangerous.”

“I can handle myself, Robert.”

“Yes, but he’s a hit man, he has guns and things, and you’re very, very attractive, he could get it into his head to force you to…”

“You sweet man.”
If only he knew.
Her feeble conscience was assuaged by the notion that she had straddled my loins for Grant’s sake. “He comes near me and—
bam
—a shot right to the testes.”

“Really?”

She winked at Grant and stood. “I am a force to be reckoned with, or hadn’t you noticed?”

As always, Grant watched her behind intently as she walked away, though he noted that it wasn’t swaying the way it normally did.

That long trip to the gym last night must have left her sore.

We see Dixie leave the diner from outside and follow her yellow polka dot halter top as she crosses the street and walks past a swarthy, dark-haired man with heavy eyelids and dark circles under his eyes. He leans against a building, watches her pass, and speaks into his cell phone.

“Helena? It’s Tony. Where you been?”

Let’s do a split screen so we see the palmist making a bologna sandwich in her pantry on the right side, and see her nephew the car service driver on the left.

“Tony, I was up late with Abbie watching TV. I’m just up making breakfast. You get there early like I said?”

“Uhn huhn.”

“You see her?”

“Uhn huhn.”

“She leave with the fella you saw last night, the fella with the champagne bucket?”

“Nuh uhn.”

“How late did you stay last night?” She spread Miracle Whip on the white bread.

“Ten. I hadda get home to Ginny.”

“OK, so Mr. Champagne left sometime late last night, figures. So where did she go this morning?”

“Met a guy in a diner.”

“What diner?”

“Red Flame, off Sixth.”

“What’s the fella look like?” Helena tore open a package of bologna and began slapping slices onto the bread.

“Older, sixty maybe, gray hair on the sides, nice blue suit, maybe six feet.”

“Figures. So where’s she going now?”

“Way down the block.”

“Follow!”

“I gotta make money, Helena, you know that. I gotta get some driving done.” We see Tony start to walk quickly in the direction he saw Dixie go, craning his neck. “I got the baby at home.”

“This
will
make money.”

“I don’t know that.”

She spread Miracle Whip on the top slice for her sandwich. “I’m your aunt.”

“I know that.”

“When I say you’ll make money, you’ll make money.”

“How long am I supposed to follow this broad?”

“All day.”

“All day?” Tony comes to the end of a block and looks in all directions, but does not see Dixie’s yellow polka dots.

“You want me to call your cousin Gina?”

“Gina?”

“Yes, Gina. She’s not doing much these days, not acting in any movies right now, she could use the money.”

“What if, like, the yellow polka dots loses me?”

“Don’t let her.”

“I’m just saying.” Pedestrians streamed all around him.

Helena paused while cutting her sandwich. “You lost her, didn’t you, Tony?”

“Kinda.”

“Abbie?” Helena yelled at the ceiling.

We hear faintly from upstairs, “Yeah?”

“Call Gina!”

The camera pans up from Tony standing on the sidewalk to a glass tower and zooms in on a high window in which Purity Grant stands smoking a cigarette and gazing out over midtown. She’s dressed in her trademark pigtails, white man’s Oxford shirt open at the front, bikini top, and thigh-high moccasin boots. Large dark glasses covered her calculating green eyes. A diet cola can is in her hand. Could there be a more perfect opportunity for a product placement?

We move up into the office where she is standing, and there are two men talking alternately, off-camera. One has a high, fast voice; the other is lower, older, deeper.

High: “So what we’re saying is that you’ve created this marvelously kinetic image of troubled youth, of dissatisfaction.”

Low: “In effect. It is safe to say, Purity, that you have branded yourself. In so doing, you have commodity potential across a wide range of markets.”

High: “We’re talking Gen P personified, rebel zeitgeist, the female James Dean of our times. Your ride through Central Park? Using it! We’ll capture that untamed wench, that mustang spirit in a pair of torn jeans, and a fragrance called ‘Fuck You, Dad!’ with Bad Girl Purity Grant on billboards ten stories high, bareback, police cars with flashing lights blurred behind you, your nipples covered with electrical tape!”

Purity knit her brow and half-turned. “How much?”

Low: “Compensation will depend on many factors, Purity, and we suggest you have an agent negotiate that for you. Ultravibe Media can suggest some that are tightly woven into the business and can guide you sagely through this process so that your needs are amply met.”

She took a drag and blew out smoke. “How much
up front
are you offering?”

Low: “Well, ahem, there will of course be a signing bonus, and we’re thinking that a reasonable first offer that would fit industry standards for endorsements of this kind might be in the low six-figure range…”

High: “There are residuals, sweetie, and royalties and bonuses. We’re talking about jeans, fragrances, handbags, jewelry—I mean, sky’s the limit on this sort of thing.
Reality TV.
That knock your socks off? Hm? This is just the beginning, the ground floor.”

Purity nodded at the carpet and then turned back to the window. “You must have some first offer? In writing?”

Low: “Yes, we at Ultravibe Media have draft contracts drawn up for you and your agent to look over. However, there is something you must know, Purity, and it is written into the contract. As I said, you have branded yourself for a particular young adult that we are trying to market to. You have a countercultural image that we are proposing you, in effect, use to sell a variety of retail goods. This is a lucrative deal, and we do not make it lightly, and we place a high value on the image that you have cultivated for yourself.”

High: “An album! Do you sing? Doesn’t matter. We have people.”

Purity smirked but did not turn. “So what you’re saying is that I’ll be contractually obligated to continue to have the tabloids pissing off my stepfather. IOW, you’re going to pay me to piss off my stepfather to sell clothes to other people who want to piss off
their
fathers? Spiffy.”

Low: “I would say that you have characterized the launch of your brand accurately.”

High: “Purity will be the bad girl that is
so
good!”

“What if I’m not pissing off my stepfather on a regular basis? What then?”

Low: “That, I’m afraid, would erode the brand.”

“Breach of contract?” Purity turned to look at them off screen.

Low: “Most likely.”

“What if my stepfather dies?”

High: “Oh my God! The funeral!
Hello?
Black is the new ‘it’ color, every pissed-off chick who hates her dad buys the Purity Grant veil! Black torn jeans and a veil that is also a sleeveless tee. Can’t you see it! Is he sick? Is he dying? Bob, really, this could be
huge
!”

Low: “I don’t think that the brand is entirely dependent on your stepfather, Purity. You fly in the face of all authority. The target market yearns to capture a piece of that for themselves by buying your products but without going to jail.”

“MEGO.” She turned back to the window, smiling to herself. “So as long as I’m arrested now and again, my ‘brand’ is maintained?”

Low: “I would think that would fall into the definition of the brand that the current contract stipulates.”

“What about jail?”

High: “BE STILL MY HEART!”

Low: “Your agent would have to find some vehicle to ensure that any royalty distributions or profits you might reap directly as a result of a prison term met with state and federal laws.”

“So, he might be able to stash it for me somewhere if I went to prison?”

Low: “That is between you, your agent, and your legal counsel. So, Purity, does this sound like a venture that would interest you?”

“What about a triple play?”

A pause as we hear Low and High exchange a whisper.

Low: “Triple play?”

“That’s right. What if I have three major events in my life in a week?”

Low: “Define major event.”

“Take this down, guys: A major event shall be defined for the purposes of this contract as any event whereby Purity Grant is in the
Daily Post
or tabloid with equivalent readership, both online and in print, to include but not limited to Purity’s arrest, Purity’s disappearance, a Purity sex tape released to the media, Robert Tyson Grant’s death, Purity Grant’s death, etc. A triple play shall be defined for the purposes of this contract as any three major events occurring within seven calendar days (one hundred and sixty-eight hours) and entitling Purity Grant to ten million dollars for each event, payable in a lump sum directly to Purity Grant within thirty calendar days. However, in the event that Purity Grant’s reported death ends up false, that part of the triple play can occur within one year of the last major event to qualify. This contract is confidential, and any release of its contents by your company to any person outside your organization will result in a ten-million-dollar bonus to be paid to Purity Grant—in Ultravibe Media company stock or cash—within thirty calendar days from the day that that information is published either in print or online or reported in any media outlet.”