Chapter 62

Liz at least waited until the ladies boarded the elevator before turning on me.

“What the fuck, Travis?” she bellowed.

I held my hands apart.

“Who did you call?” she asked.

“One of my former professors at San Diego State,” I said. “He worked on a couple presidential campaigns and he’s an old hand at playing dirty. He taught me a lot and he likes me. So I asked him to use his contacts to find out what he could about some people that used to be in your life. Ryan told me about losing track of you for a day and half in Italy. I had the names of some of the people that you were running with and, since I didn’t think you’d be forthcoming, I had him look into things.”

“You fucking knew and you made me tell you!” Liz spat.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “He found a ton of shit about Caley, Emelda and Anastasia but very little about you that you hadn’t already told me. He said that there were no rumors that he could find about what might have happened during your disappearance. I didn’t tell him any details other than you were off the radar. But I had him use his contacts to get what he could on those ... people ... along with McHenry and DeWitt and Dewey from your label. I had to have something to fight with, Liz, and it didn’t appear to me that you were going to provide it. So ... I did what I had to do.”

Liz was still pissed off but she shook her head.

“And he did this because you’re just a swell guy,” she said.

“No,” I replied. “He did this because I paid him to do it.”

“Don’t look for me to pay you back,” she said.

“I didn’t ask and I won’t,” I said.

“Fuck!” Liz said loudly. “What’s the shit you have on Caley?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” I asked.

“Yes,” Liz said instantly.

“A couple of years ago in Ibiza a young woman from a very prominent New York family got pushed down the stairs at a nightclub,” I said. “She broke her back and is just now learning to walk again. Her father is very, very protective. The girl had cut in on Caley’s partner du jour the night before and ... you can guess the rest.”

“She pushed a girl down the stairs?” Liz asked incredulously.

“Of course not,” I said. “People like Caley don’t do their own dirty work. She had one of her hangers-on push the girl down the stairs. Sadly, that young woman disappeared a few days later and has never been heard from again. But the young woman deposited a large sum of money into her bank account the day before she disappeared. The same day that Miss Cross removed the exact same amount from one of her accounts. It would never hold up in court but ... the man doesn’t really care about the legal system.”

Liz’s glare didn’t lessen in the least.

“So now I have to worry about you dropping something on me that I might have forgotten to tell you if I don’t let you walk all over me, is that it?” she said.

“No,” I said. “Liz, I didn’t have him even pull your tax records. I didn’t do this to hurt you. I did it to insulate you from whatever was coming. In a few days, we’ll have the bio on Lillian Whoever. Ideally, the story will come from a legitimate news agency. That way I can discredit their source and maybe stop things before it ever gets out. The more I think about things, I don’t see it happening that way. It’ll be from a blogger or a tabloid news site. They play fast and loose with the facts all the time. I’ve come to agree that there is no hard evidence to substantiate anything. There couldn’t be. Someone would have tried to extort you long before this if there were. So it’s going to be gossip and innuendo from anonymous sources. The only recourse I can see is to reveal the source and their motive ... and then destroy them if you concur.”

“You didn’t exactly ask my opinion before you threatened to kill someone!” Liz said.

“I never would have actually harmed her,” I said. “Just like I’d never actually let a mobster cut her up into little pieces. But I had to make her believe I would. The threat had to be viable. In order to carry that off, you had to be just as surprised at my instability as she was. They had to leave here worried about a wild card. They’ve been around you long enough to know that you are a really good person at heart. They don’t know anything about me. So ... now they think you’re hooked up with the ‘bad boy’ type all women love.”

“Will you stop trying to be cute?” Liz asked.

“You know, I’ve tried for years to lessen my adorableness and it’s just no use,” I said. “The truth is, things worked a lot better than I thought they would. Slapping the shit out of her really pushed things along.”

“I wanted to slap the shit out of you but I was afraid you’d toss me off the balcony,” she said.

“I would never hurt you,” I said. “I didn’t mean to knock you to the floor when you climbed on my back. I feel bad about that and I apologize. You, on the other hand, really rang my chimes with that elbow you threw.”

“I meant to,” Liz told me.

“I know,” I said, laughing as I rubbed my jaw. “There was intent behind it.”

“I told you to stop being cute!” Liz replied.

“You told me to try,” I retorted. “You’re asking the impossible, Girl.”

Liz lowered her head and rubbed her eyes.

“I’ve been fighting for two days to keep us together,” she said. “Now I need some time away from you.”

“Yeah,” I said with a nod and a frown. “I knew when this was all over that you’d either be impressed by my ingenuity or pissed off beyond belief. I suspected it would be the latter but I hoped for the former. Can I explain my rationale without any more harsh words?”

“Are you going to be a smartass?” Liz wondered (and rightfully so, I thought).

“No,” I told her. “I will do my best to explain things without being a smartass.”

“OK,” Liz said as she sat back down. I sat down opposite her and took a deep breath.

“I received advice about how to deal with that group of people,” I said. “I think you will agree that three of the five people in the room feel little or no remorse for what you all caused. They came out OK and that makes everything good.”

“Yeah,” Liz agreed. “They’re self-centered.”

“They’re sociopaths,” I corrected.

“So you’re a psychiatrist now?” Liz asked angrily.

“No,” I said. “That’s not my description. That is the analysis of a behavioral science specialist for the United States Secret Service.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Liz said.

“I’m not kidding,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I told you my professor worked on presidential campaigns. You can read it for yourself. One of the campaigns he worked for planned to solicit endorsements and/or campaign contributions from your little clique. Here are the psychological profiles of those three women. I can forward them to you if you’d like.”

Liz was looking at my phone and then back to me.

“What did mine say?” she asked with bitterness in her voice.

“I have no idea,” I said. “I did not solicit information on you. I felt I was in a better position to protect you from yourself and I didn’t need the information. I do know that the campaign he worked for approached you and was rebuffed.”

“Rebuffed is a little harsh,” Liz said, searching mightily to maintain her anger.

“Again, not my wording,” I said. “I am merely relaying the information that was passed to me. The others were not approached for obvious reasons. You were. Ergo ... they did not view you as anti-social or a potential embarrassment.”

“Fine,” Liz grumbled.

“After I read this report, I contacted my professor again and he put me in touch with someone he knows,” I said. “That’s who I was talking to last night. He said that the only thing that would break through to these people was fear for their personal safety or a threat to their welfare. They would only cooperate out of self-interest. I ... I suspected Caley Cross would be at the heart of things since you told me about her. She’s unstable, Liz. She’s a fucking time bomb. That’s why she has to disappear from the spotlight. The information I gleaned on her told me that she is ... scared ... about her personal safety. She always surrounds herself with people bigger than she is ... you, Anastasia, a cadre of bodyguards. That’s why I wanted you to insist the security people stay downstairs. It isolated her and made her feel vulnerable.

“As you might have guessed, I didn’t sleep much last night. I thought about the situation you found yourself in. I don’t think any of this was your making. That doesn’t lessen your legal culpabilities but it makes it easier for me to ... justify my continued affection for you. The truth is, I want to be appalled. I want to grab you by the shoulders and shake you and ask how you could be so stupid. That, however, would be counterproductive. I’m angry at you. I want to lash out at you. But at the same time I want to protect you. It’s very conflicting.”

“Tell me about it,” Liz said. “I want to be pissed off at you for ... manhandling Caley like you did.”

“I think you succeeded on that front,” I said, rubbing my jaw again.

“Well, yeah,” Liz said. “I understand that you were doing as you thought best. But I wish you would have let me know it was an act.”

“Um, part of it was an act,” I said. “The part about tossing her off the balcony? I was pretty fucking close. God damn, she got on my nerves.”

Liz laughed and shook her head.

“Yeah,” she said again. “She’s a piece of shit. I think I always knew she was a piece of shit. I look back on that time of my life with genuine disgust. If I could go back and change things I would. I think Nadia might, too. But I also know I can’t. So I’ll do what I can to try to alleviate some of the guilt I feel.”

“I know you would,” I said. “Now, about that time apart ... I wanted to talk to you about the possibility of me going to Dallas from here.”

“You want to talk to me about it or you want to tell me that you’re doing it?” Liz asked.

“I want to get your permission,” I said.

“You don’t need my permission,” Liz said. “You proved that tonight.”

“No,” I countered as I held up a finger. “We agreed that you would let me handle this situation as I saw fit. Correct?”

“I suppose,” Liz answered.

“There is no supposition,” I corrected. “You agreed.”

“Yes,” Liz said with a sigh. “I agreed.”

“OK,” I said. “I agreed that I would discuss any arrangements in Texas with you beforehand. I signed the contract this morning. I am your employee now. So, as your employee, I believe I need to head to Dallas to get things rolling there. It’s a big deal and it’s going to take time. I want your permission to start your marketing campaign for the concert.”

“You can’t,” Liz said.

“I can if you want me to,” I cut in. “Do you recall the phone call to Mr. Granger this morning? All of your PR and marketing is to be handled by your personal staff. Uh, not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s pretty much me.”

Liz tilted her head and looked at me. I got the first genuine smile I’d seen in a day and a half.

“That’s why you wanted me to include the marketing part,” she said. “You knew the label had done nothing and planned to do little. Now I can put up a billboard announcing tickets if I want. That was pretty fuckin’ slick, Tex!”

“It’s nice to have you appreciate my ingenuity a little bit,” I said. “But I want to be clear that I will do nothing without your permission. I will run all offers past you or your designated proxy. That was my agreement with you on this subject and I will live up to it.”