The Darkest Hearts Read online

  The dinner of some twenty or so folks was peppered with women of color in their late twenties and early thirties—black, brown, yellow, and all shades in between—wearing tremendously high heels. Except for Lil Daye, Ant, and D, all the men were either white or Asian, dressed casually but tastefully, with lots of expensive watches. Kurtz worked the room, filling glasses with champagne and giving Lil Daye insights into why investing in art was the next move for the MC’s money. Ant hung on his every word; D had never seen this side of Ant—he looked like a child happy about after-school tutoring.

  “D Hunter?”

  He turned to see a willowy, tattooed, natural-haired brunette standing next to his chair. “My name is Maggie LeClair,” she said. “I’m friends with Ray Ray. He speaks so highly of you, I wanted to introduce myself. Can I sit down?”

  A chair was found and Maggie, who surveyed D with warmth and apparent amusement, chatted him up. As artfully arranged plates of kale salad, seafood, and several vegan entrées arrived, Maggie charmed D with tales of coming to LA from NOLA to model and dance in music videos. D had met many lovely, ambitious women since relocating west, but Maggie had a light, earthy quality different from the metallic sheen so many Hollywood women developed as armor.

  She really got D’s ear when she started talking about Kurtz. “This is my third time here,” she said, “but I have friends who’ve been coming here for parties and such for several years.”

  “Is the wife ever here?”

  “You ever see that old TV detective show Columbo? My daddy still watches it on cable and they never show the wife. Whenever my mother is late—which is all the time—my daddy calls her Mrs. Columbo ’cause she ain’t there. Same goes for Mrs. Kurtz—she ain’t here.”

  D glanced up to see Lil Daye smoking a joint by the window with two women who looked like models, looking out at the Pacific. Ant was now in Kurtz’s ear and the industrialist was listening with interest.

  “I assume Kurtz has made a move on you?”

  “Is the ocean water?” she said, laughing. “But I don’t get down like that. He’s married and I am not about to become some rich man’s mistress. He keeps inviting me out here though. The food is good, the view’s amazing, and I meet cool people.”

  “Thank you,” D said. “I’m flattered.”

  “You’re welcome.” Maggie then lowered her voice. “Plus, that very straight-looking man is into some freaky shit. Literally.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She laughed again, a deep husky sound that made D smile.

  “Let’s take a tour of the place,” she said. “He’ll think we went to fuck. It’ll be a good look for you.”

  D could feel Kurtz’s hot, uncomfortable gaze on them as they strolled out of the dining room up a flight of stairs. The second floor was lined with bedrooms, each lit by blue, green, or red lights. At the end of the hall was a master bedroom. “You know your way around here, don’t you?”

  “Knowledge is king, right?”

  Instead of comforting D, this made him wonder if Maggie was about to set him up. His body tensed as they entered the room. Maybe being alone with this woman wasn’t a good idea.

  Inside a high-ceilinged, blue-lit bedroom were a stunning view of the ocean, a huge Basquiat painting, and a king-size bed with a plexiglass structure about six feet above it. Next to the plexiglass was a clear plastic ladder.

  “What the fuck?”

  Maggie chuckled. “Thought you’d seen everything, huh?”

  “Okay.” D was totally confused. He glanced at the bed and then at Maggie. “What the hell is this for?”

  “Lie on the bed.”

  “I’m not lying in this guy’s bed.”

  “Don’t be afraid, big man. I got you.” She guided a very reluctant D to the bed and pushed him down. He looked up at the clear plexiglass and through to the ceiling. Maggie walked over to the ladder, scooted it closer to the plexiglass, and climbed up. From the bed D saw some very expensive underwear between Maggie’s spread legs.

  “He gets a peep show?”

  She giggled. “He gets a shit-and-piss show.”

  “Stop!” D hopped out of the bed. “You are fucking kidding me.”

  Maggie was laughing so hard she could barely make it back down the ladder. “I guess Mrs. Kurtz wasn’t down anymore. So now she farms out the work.”

  “Have you done this for Kurtz?”

  “I keep my shit to myself,” Maggie said, and laughed some more. D was amused and disgusted. “But I have girlfriends who aren’t so shy. Plenty of sports cars rolling around this town have been financed by this shitstorm. You hungry, D?”

  “Stop it. But I think I’ll have a drink or a joint or something.”

  Back downstairs, the boater-hatted DJ Cassidy appeared and set up his turntables. The dining tables had been pushed back. Dancing soon commenced. Lil Daye seemed a bit jealous that D had bonded with Maggie, trying to kick it to her at one point, but she stayed close to D the rest of the night and into the morning. At one point, Kurtz pulled D to the side. Not to talk business but to say, “That Maggie is a stunner. You did well tonight.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t do much.”

  “That’s always best,” Kurtz said. “If you’re working too hard, it’s probably not for you. I like you and your partners, D. Lil Daye is the star. Ant is the street. You have presence. People are attracted to how solid you are. Hold onto that. Integrity is as valuable as a diamond.”

  D went out in the morning chill, watching the dawn break over the beach. He felt a presence and turned to the side, and there was Maggie, barefoot, with a blanket over her shoulders. “Your friends just left with some of my friends,” she said. “You need a ride? I live in Echo Park but I can drive you if you’d like.”

  * * *

  D nodded off on the way home, waking up as they reached the farmers market on Fairfax and 3rd. “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “Okay,” Maggie replied, “it’ll cost you.”

  They sat there in their party clothes, eating croissants and drinking tea as workers set up stalls and swept up yesterday’s trash. D asked, “You googled me before the party?”

  “I did,” she admitted with a smile. “You sounded like you’d be the most interesting person there.”

  “I’m afraid to ask if I lived up to the online hype.”

  “Then don’t.”

  They both laughed. D hadn’t enjoyed anyone’s company this much in a quite a while. Maggie had a sparkle to her. She also knew things D didn’t, which he found very attractive.

  “I think we’ll be friends,” he said.

  “We’ll see,” she said, smiling as she sipped her tea. “We’ll see.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SURE THING

  Maggie LeClair loved her jab. Her hook was good and uppercuts strong, but her jab snapped like a serpent’s tongue. Her father, a day laborer in New Orleans, had taught her the basics one afternoon when he hadn’t fallen asleep as soon as he got home. Her daddy told her, “You jab a fool in the nose or eye or mouth and that’ll stop most of them cold. After that you can do anything you want—run, kick ’em, trip ’em, bite ’em. Most women will just grab the part you hit and worry about their looks. Most men—well, a lot of men—will be so shocked they got hit so hard by a woman that they’ll take a step back. So then you can decide whether to fight or run. But that jab—that jab will give you the time to decide.”

  From that day on, Maggie shadowboxed, watched Daddy’s old Ali DVDs, and eventually began slipping into a gym in Tremé for sparring sessions. Rumble on Sunset Boulevard here in LA was far from that ratty NOLA gym. This high-tech cardio spot was as much club as gym, sporting hip hop tracks, bright instructional signage (#1 was jab, #2 was cross, etc.), and hyped-up, superfit trainers and life coaches.

  She’d traveled from LA (Louisiana) to LA (Hollywood). Back home, she was a skinny tomboy with overly long limbs. Maggie was a multihyphenate in a city powered by talented dreamers. She glanced i
n the mirrors that fronted the room and surveyed the truly fit, the strivers, and the merely enthusiastic all swinging gloves at new water-based heavy bags.

  After class Maggie took an Instagram photo with her class instructor, a self-described warrior princess named Lelia, and then walked out onto Sunset Boulevard heading west. Posted up at the corner was the same homeless man she’d seen on the Strip the past couple of months. He was tall, black, in his forties, always wearing a dirty overcoat draped over his ragged clothes and shoes. He was talking rapidly today but Maggie couldn’t make out the words.

  The homeless issue in LA really troubled her. Even at the lowest point of post-Katrina NOLA, she’d never seen the displacement and mental illness she’d witnessed in this city. She’d been volunteering downtown at a food pantry every few weeks. That area may have been the historical home of homelessness in the city, but there were encampments and tent cities as far west as the border of Beverly Hills, and then scores of lost people in Santa Monica.

  To Maggie, the homeless were like ghosts in the machine, ever present but never acknowledged, at least not by the wannabe fab people she rolled with. It didn’t make Maggie feel guilty—she’d only been in LA a few years, so she didn’t own the problem. Still, she felt connected to them. Miss a couple of checks and your life was wrecked. She wanted to offer this man some money, but he was too far inside his head to be a beggar. She wondered how he ate and where he slept, but he didn’t seem like someone you could get answers from.

  Reaching the Sunset Plaza parking lot, Maggie made a left and then another left to a Chinese massage parlor, where she got the hour treatment with twenty additional minutes for a foot massage. There were audition pages to read and acting class to prepare for, but a little pampering never hurt anyone.

  On the table, her mind drifted. Ballet class as kid. Volleyball games as a teen. Premed exams. Premed boredom. Football-player boyfriend. Mistake of a stupid weekend in Miami with an Instagram flirtation. Moving to LA along with her college BFF Leslie. Falling out with Leslie over a pair of borrowed boots. Living in a couple of places in the Valley before settling in North Hollywood.

  Booking Wendy’s and Kit Kat commercials back-to-back gave her the first taste of financial security in her young professional life. Being introduced to Samuel Kurtz at an art gallery opening on La Brea. Falling in with a squad of young women who attended his fabulous soirees in Malibu. Affirming that her power in Kurtz’s world was in not sleeping with any of these rich dudes, despite the offers of jewelry and sports cars. And then there was the image of D Hunter.

  Unlike most of the successful men she’d met in LA, D didn’t present himself as a finished product. He was a man in transition, going from where he’d been to somewhere he wasn’t sure of. There was space there for a woman. He wasn’t prepared to fit you in as a trophy wife or to “sponsor” you. With D, Maggie suspected, you could create your own world in tandem with his and not just be pretty piece of his larger puzzle. Plus he was big, strong, cute, and vulnerable. There was a damaged child inside D Hunter, which gave him an air of intrigue.

  After the massage, Maggie got back in her Prius and returned to her current reality. Bills due. Agents to call. Clothes to wash. The future wouldn’t take care of itself. You had to be proactive and make a plan. She turned on Melanie Drift’s podcast Healing Is Not Linear, which was a staple of her drives. Drift had become her guru as of late, a balm over all the little indignities of big-city life. Still, Maggie had to admit, as her car crawled across Sunset toward Crescent Heights, she really wished she could jab LA traffic right in its damn nose.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE DARKEST HEARTS

  The Lodge Room was a converted Masonic temple in the once-gang-ridden, now hipster LA neighborhood of Highland Park, with a balcony that overlooked N. Figueroa Street next to a high-ceilinged bar/restaurant with an ornate chandelier and dinner booths along the walls.

  In another room, there was a Masonic assembly hall turned performance space, with burnished dark-brown wood walls and the floor NBA-quality hardwood. The hall had a mysterious feel, as if the spirit of myriad Masonic rituals still hovered.

  At the back of the room this night was a wide stage hosting something D hadn’t seen in a while: a full old-school rhythm section, including an electric piano, augmented by four real string players, as dapper keyboardist Adrian Younge and former A Tribe Called Quest DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad led their band, the Midnight Hour. The proudly analog ensemble made moody, independently released funk albums and composed scores for film and TV, including the retro-seventies music for Netflix’s Luke Cage. Seeing Ali strictly as a bass player and not behind the ones and twos supporting Q-Tip and Phife Dawg always tripped D out.

  Even more pleasing than watching this glorious band was seeing it fronted by Night, who was doing a guest slot with them.

  They’d already worked out a very midseventies Marvin Gaye–like arrangement of Night’s neosoul classic “Black Sex.” But as D walked toward the stage, the Midnight Hour played the intro to a song D hadn’t heard yet.

  D had expected Night to want to perform “White Men in Suits.” Instead, he was launching into a different song, from his recent “woke” period. He was calling it “The Darkest Hearts.” It wasn’t as explicit as “White Men,” but had a haunting quality like one of Sade’s ballads circa Love Deluxe.

  The sun don’t shine where I’ve been,

  It’s just gray with a slight gust of wind, but I’m not lost;

  I’m not afraid.

  I will hold your hand and we’ll walk away,

  The exit is close by and the gates are unlocked.

  In the distance is clear sky and we are no longer blocked.

  I can see (into the darkest hearts), I lose me (in the darkest hearts),

  I break free (from the darkest hearts).

  A change is gonna come, I promise you that,

  But we gotta walk till we run,

  And I pick up my gat,

  Then it’s time for our fun.

  I can see (into the darkest hearts), I lose me (in the darkest hearts),

  I break free (from the darkest hearts), the darkest hearts,

  Deep in the darkest hearts.

  When the song was over Night looked down at his manager and said, “Work in progress, D.”

  “A good one, my dude.”

  “Yeah,” Night said proudly. “A recent arrival.”

  In the long, narrow backstage area of the Lodge Room, Night and D sat on a lumpy green sofa, marveling at how good it was to hear live strings and a tight R&B/jazz band. “It must be sweet feeling that behind you,” D said.

  “Yes indeed.” Night was as happy as D had seen him in a while. “That shit gives you life. Once I have that audience in front of me, who knows where that will take me.”

  “Looking forward to you turning it out.”

  D and Night shared much unspoken history. Back when D ran his New York nightclub security company, Night was an aspiring singer and part-time gigolo for high-post white ladies of a certain age. He had been “managed” by a very enterprising Italian woman named Rafaella, who found the clients and set the prices (though if they wanted to buy Night gifts, that was between him and the ladies). It didn’t matter how old or wrinkled the client was, Night found a way to pleasure her.

  Night used this illicit cash to cut demos, pay musicians, and hide his embarrassment behind plumes of marijuana. He’d been a downtown nightlife vampire, chatting up record executives and artsy fly girls with equal vigor. His life changed when he was at an Upper East Side gig involving masks of jazz icons. He’d argued with a woman wearing a strap-on dildo who wanted to fuck him. Night had left the party early. The next day, the woman who’d booked him was found dead and the male escort was the number one suspect.

  Helping Night avoid a murder rap was the first time D had stepped out of his doorman role and into quasi-detective status. Through some physical force and using his nightlife contacts, D helped Night clear hi
s name. But that wasn’t the only time D came to Night’s rescue. While driving back from JFK Airport one night, the singer had been kidnapped by a motorcycle gang. It was D who delivered the ransom money and cracked the case.

  These life-and-death situations had bonded these two men, though they rarely talked about them. For both, it was another life in another city. If D had his way, he’d just manage Night full-time. He loved Night’s spirit despite how self-destructive the singer could be. But with the economics of entertainment these days, it didn’t make sense. Living off 10 to 15 percent of a veteran black male R&B star’s earnings was no way to survive in a marketplace where hip hop was pop and R&B vocalizing had been usurped by auto-tuned MCs in turtlenecks. In the newly woke Night, D saw potential for an important What’s Going On or Black Messiah type album. But would anybody care? D wasn’t sure.

  “Yo,” Night said, his tone changing, “you know a woman attorney named Belinda Bowman?”

  “Met her once with Amos Pilgrim. Seems like she wants to get money. She want you as a client?”

  “Yeah, D. Good-looking sista too.”

  “Indeed.”

  “But I’m not sure about her. She said she knew you. But then she went into a whole thing about how she could get me endorsements and I was like, I have a manager. Felt like she was overstepping.”

  D chuckled. “Its all good, Night. She’s a wannabe baller. I’m guessing she was just tryin’ to close.”

  D didn’t feel threatened by Bowman. Hype and hustle fueled the entertainment business like drills did oil. It actually made him feel excited for Night. If a comer like Bowman saw value in his client, it meant there were deals to be made. Let the sharks circle, he thought. I got my harpoon ready.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX