Manipulate Read online

  The elevator door opened and Kenny was standing there waiting. What a transformation. Instead of the security guard uniform, he looked damned smart with a designer linen jacket, light pink shirt and blue jeans. He gave Queenie a peck on each cheek.

  “Hey, Babe. Good to see you.” With a Chinese-tinged accent and rock-hard physique, this hunk of a good-looking guy was pretty darn sexy.

  “Thanks for squeezing us in, Kenny.”

  “Hey, that’s all on you, Queenie.

  Queenie shook her head, smiling broadly. “You are such the lady killer. Hey, meet my new clients, Olivia and Abby.”

  Giving them the once over, Kenny nodded approvingly. “This is not a pick-up line but, if it works, I’m happy. If you gorgeous babes are one percent as talented as Queenie hypes, we can get something cooking.”

  Abby whispered, “What are we talking about?”

  Queenie grinned. “Skyscape wants to expand into more than just a facility for hire. It wants points on the deals that come through here. Hey, it’s great to have acts record here, don’t get me wrong, but I want to make money while I sleep. Like right now, the only time Skyscape makes money is when someone is in here booking the room with a recording. But, if we have a piece of the action, then we can keep making dough even if no one’s in the studio.”

  We didn’t discuss this. Olivia shot a worried look at Queenie. “You’ve signed away our rights and we don’t even have a deal?”

  Kenny answered for the crane lady. “Queenie hasn’t done anything yet. Problem with her and me is we are too honest and tell people what’s on our minds. Could be nothing is going to happen...but, if you don’t go the store, you can’t buy a ticket. And, if you can’t buy a ticket...all you’ll ever do is fantasize about what might be but never was.”

  The faux studio manager grinned. “Me, I wanna check out the store. Window shopping is still free. Coming?”

  For two grown women trying to act like mature professionals, they weren’t doing a very good job at hiding their enthusiasm. How could they? Their New York dreams took another step toward reality.

  19

  Welcome to the Big Apple

  New York

  It took half an hour to get from JFK to their 7th Avenue hotel, simply named, “The Seventh.” While Noah wanted to wait until the next day to sightsee, JJ badgered Noah the whole time until the foundation president succumbed to JJ’s pleading about a short walking tour.

  As they got off the elevator and back onto the street, Noah asked, “So what do you think, JJ? Any first impressions?”

  The Shaolin master wistfully remarked, “The old mingles with the new in New York. I hope we can save enough in China before it all becomes one giant mall. But New York needs something. Too many homeless vagrants, drugs out on the street, girls selling themselves.”

  “They have that in China, too, JJ. It’s hardly perfect but you’re right. They need…” Noah’s words halted in mid-air, his words choked by a thundering wallop to the back of his head.

  Ignoring the pain exploding in his skull, he wheeled around and saw a three-hundred-pound gorilla of a man. Dressed in a cheap black suit with his belly popping out over his belt, the lunkhead moose with steroid shoulders sneered, “Hey, what you doing hanging with faggot Kung Fu man?”

  Noah turned to JJ in his regal blue silk garb with mocking eyes. “I told you to stop dressing like that.” Noah turned to the hulk and poked him in the stomach with fingers from both hands. The fingers penetrated into two inches of soft fat before feeling anything solid. Repeating the gesture, Noah guffawed, “I think you should switch to diet cola.”

  “You’re dead.” With that, the obese hunk grabbed Noah’s wrists and hurled him a dozen feet into the air.

  At the apex, Noah shifted direction with an aerial somersault, landing upright on the roof of a passing cab. As the vehicle passed the brute, Noah sprang out, hands outstretched like Superman, clapping his palms against the big man’s ears with enough force to split his eardrums.

  But the ape man was not only strong, he was deceptively fast. As Noah’s hands touched his ears, the big man’s arms whipped up quickly and snatched Noah’s arms from the sides of his head. Holding tightly onto Noah’s right arm firmly so he couldn’t escape, the big man threw a savage roundhouse to Noah’s left temple.

  He released Noah, who crumpled to the sidewalk. Like a soccer player, the bully’s ham legs kicked at the groaning foundation president. While gawkers gathered around to encourage the gorilla in his brutality, the truth was that Noah was faking the agony. Decades of training with Master Wu and these last weeks with JJ had hardened his body to granite.

  JJ’s expression begged Noah for advice. What should I do? Noah, staying stationary, motioned his eyes in his opponent’s direction. JJ winked.

  “Please, don’t hurt my friend,” cried JJ.

  Distracted, the goon glanced at JJ. This gave Noah the opportunity to spring to his feet. With speedy infuriated fists and workman-like efficiency, Noah landed twisting hammer punches to the thug’s head, chest, and solar plexus.

  Enraged and hardly distressed, the big man grabbed Noah’s forearms.

  Noah dropped to a crouch, minutely loosening his captor’s grip. He freed himself by springing upward and kicked his legs at his enemy’s chest. As the massive man reeled backward, Noah did a handspring with both feet, wrapping both of his legs around the corpulent man’s head. Noah released his opponent’s head, and there was a sickening thunk as it hit pavement.

  Noah yanked him up. Two palms slapped the gorilla’s ears, followed by two rapid fists to the face.

  But, even after that pounding, the built-like-a-brick-shithouse thug smirked, “Is that all you got, pussycat?”

  With Noah’s blows bouncing off him like tennis balls against a practice wall, the gorilla wrapped his arms around Noah in a bear hug.

  The thrill-seeking crowd chanted, “Kill him! Kill him!” inciting the troublemaker to squeeze even harder.

  JJ could see Noah’s eyes glazing over and stepped in to save his weakening friend.

  “No, JJ!” shouted Noah as his eyes locked with the brute’s. He butted his head on his foe’s nose.

  It wasn’t the big man’s first broken nose. He growled, “Cockroach! You die!” His vise-like hold increased.

  “Speak for yourself.” Noah landed a second head butt with as much force as he could muster, this time impacting beyond the goon’s forehead and into his frontal lobe. With the blood vessels behind his forehead disrupted, Noah’s assailant was stunned for a moment, allowing him to break free.

  Noah lifted the three-hundred-pound man over his head and rotated like a helicopter propeller. The bloodthirsty crowd yelled, “Finish him off! Kill him!”

  After a dozen dizzying twirls, Noah tossed the bully to the feet of the crowd. Scanning their crazed faces, he said simply, “Even a cockroach deserves to live.” He then made the Shaolin hand sign to them, and to his defeated opponent.

  The furious and humiliated big man got up and charged at Noah. Noah straightened his arm and balled his fist. Unable to stop his momentum, gorilla’s head met fist and he was knocked unconscious.

  That was too easy. Noah shouted, “Call a doctor. He needs to be checked out.”

  The crowd ignored him; they wanted to celebrate their new hero. Noah was flocked by cab drivers, teenage girls, twenty-something guys, cougars, Wall Street types, gigolos.

  Rebuffing the unwanted adulation, Noah’s gaze turned to the gorilla and saw a Good Samaritan tending to him.

  Satisfied that his victim was in good care, Noah glanced at JJ and nodded. “Thanks, everybody!” he shouted and, with that, he broke away from the flock to join JJ in full flight down the block, weaving in and around all the pedestrians, street musicians and hawkers.

  Two blocks later, Noah shot an over-the-shoulder check and stopped. He and JJ had lost the fan club.

  JJ admonished Noah, “He gave you a hard time because of what I was wearing? I thought freed
om of expression was important in America.”

  “That’s the theory, but theoretically Heaven should have been a sanctuary,” replied Noah.

  “But, Noah, this is America, the land of the free. Americans worship freedom, but I am not free to be who I am. I can’t dress the way I want, can’t be who I want to be.”

  “Get off the pedestal, JJ. No one ever said this was the land of the perfect,” chided Noah.

  A young girl with a barely budding chest stumbled into JJ. Dull, lifeless eyes and fresh needle marks in her arms told Noah and JJ she needed a life change fast. “Hey, Mr. Karate Man, twenty bucks. Do with me whatever for ten minutes.”

  JJ reached into his uniform, pulled out twenty dollars and gave it to her.

  Stuffing it into her bra, she slurred, “So, what’s your pleasure? Remember. Ten minutes. Or give me another ten and I’ll do you both.”

  JJ lifted her up with one hand over his head, positioning her head so she had a clear view of his stern face. “Go home to your family. This is not a place for you. You will die here.” He let her down.

  “Screw you.” Angrily, she pulled a dirty used needle from her pocket. She lunged at JJ, trying to stab him.

  Clueless to her motives, JJ didn’t know what she was trying to do, but Noah did. He gripped her hand and swiped the needle from it.

  “Losers,” she screamed. She broke away from Noah’s grip and staggered down the street.

  Noah and JJ kept watching until she disappeared into the crowd. JJ said softly, “Freedom requires responsibility... Noah, I think New York needs us.”

  Noah nodded. “Maybe, but before we save the world...”

  “Yes, Noah?”

  “Tomorrow, we are going to get you some normal clothes. No more pajamas on the street.”

  20

  Going Gaga

  As Kenny guided the three women around the five recording rooms in Skyscape’s studio complex, Abby and Olivia were in awe. Sure, they had been in recording studios before, but never in a world-class facility with world-class talent. What’s more, they discovered that, at this level, egos were gone. Everyone, including them, was accepted with free-flowing camaraderie between clients and staff.

  In one studio, Kenny got them into the control room where they watched a Grammy award-winning diva rock out with vocals for her upcoming CD. In another there was a rhythm section laying down bed tracks that were as smokin’ hot as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section in their prime. Two others were dedicated mixing rooms where an engineer performed his wizardry—transforming well-recorded performances into the sublime, using all the best gear available from this year and yesteryear.

  “Now, I got a little surprise for you,” said Kenny to the three women as they stood outside the closed door to the final room.

  He opened the door to reveal a magnificent ebony grand piano in the middle of an eight-hundred square-foot room with fifteen-foot ceilings and hardwood floors and an empty microphone stand beside it. He then opened a small rectangular case and removed a classic handcrafted Neumann U47 mic.

  “Like it?” asked Kenny as he connected the microphone to a recording cable. “This rare vintage mic from 1947 is the same model used by Elvis, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Lady Gaga, and Michael Bublé. So now it’s your turn.”

  “What?” gaped Abby. “When?”

  “Now. There’s no point in visiting a recording studio without recording something, so we’ve made fifteen minutes to record a tune off the floor.”

  The studio door opened and Tim walked in. “Hey, Kenny. And nice to meet you, ladies.”

  “Olivia and Abby, meet Tim Martin, Grammy award-winning producer. I told him we’d record a tune and he thought he’d like to watch.” He turned to Olivia. “Which one you gonna sing?”

  Abby swallowed. “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe some jazz standard?”

  Tim dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand. “The world doesn’t need more people singing and playing those tunes. Do something new. Queenie played me a little video you did. Why don’t you do that one?” He glanced over to Kenny and Queenie, both who nodded their consent.

  “You good with that?” asked Queenie.

  “Sure,” nodded Olivia.

  Kenny pointed his finger to the control room window. Behind the studio glass, the engineer saw Kenny give the “start recording sign. The engineer nodded and gave the “thumbs up” sign to start.

  In fifteen minutes, they had three takes of their song, FOREVER I WILL LOVE YOU.

  “Very nice,” said Tim. “Really nice.”

  “It wasn’t that great,” mumbled Abby.

  Tim wagged a finger at her. “Don’t ever turn down a compliment. It might be the last one you ever get. Glad to meet you both but I gotta back to my own session.”

  “Tim’s right. This biz has no room for modesty or humility,” said Kenny as he, Queenie, Olivia, and Abby relaxed in the studio lounge.

  “We just wanted to be honest,” said Olivia.

  “Even worse,” snickered Kenny as he turned to Queenie. “Now, did you sign them yet? Because if you didn’t, I’m offering them a contract right now.”

  “You do that and I’ll kill you,” replied a straight-faced Queenie. A smile beamed at Abby and Olivia. “You guys are quick studies. That’s something we can build a business on.”

  “Shall we sing Forever tomorrow at the showcase?” asked Olivia.

  “Absolutely not. Yeah, we like it but, if nobody else does, you’ve struck out before you got to first base. We stick with the plan. Everybody at Café du Music loves standards. The audience will eat it up and we can start building traction. Then, when the time is right, look out world.”

  “Shouldn’t we have a contract?” asked Abby as she looked in Olivia’s direction for support.

  “That’s fine,” said Queenie. She turned to Olivia. “It will probably take 6-8 weeks to get it done, right, counselor?”

  “If we’re lucky. First draft can be done within three weeks. Then the negotiating starts and we will be going over it point by point and...”

  “No, we won’t,” interrupted Queenie. “This is the deal. I get twenty-five percent of the net after expenses and one hundred percent of the publishing. Those are the two key points. If you don’t like that, we can end the conversation here.”

  Abby looked at Olivia and Olivia looked at Abby. They had no idea if this was good, bad or indifferent.

  Kenny saw Olivia and Abby’s uncertainty and offered, “Listen, I haven’t been in the biz forever but one thing I know is, if it don’t get done fast, it don’t get done. You want to wait for two months? I guarantee the deal will be stale. Queenie’ll find someone who isn’t a pain-in-the-ass lawyer to deal with instead who’s got just as much talent and promise. They’re busking for butts all over New York. Right?”

  Olivia and Abby grudgingly nodded in agreement. Talent was in no short supply in the Big Apple.

  Kenny continued. “So why don’t you do this? Try Queenie out for a week. No contract. You don’t like her, you can walk. But I’m almost certain that after a week you’ll be clamoring to sign any piece of paper she puts in front of you. And remember this. She don’t make no dough unless you do.”

  “Do you mind if we wait for my friend, Noah?” asked Olivia. “He said he’s coming to see us tonight.”

  All eyes turned to Queenie, who reluctantly started nodding her head. “I just got robbed by bandits with the tricks that I just taught them to use.”

  Everyone laughed but inwardly Queenie chuckled the loudest—her strategy worked. In order to get Olivia and Abby onboard, she knew she couldn’t come across like a huckster that promised the world to get the gig. By telling them real problems, real issues, she built a bridge of trust.

  And Noah was showing up. Who could ask for anything more?

  Manipulate.

  “See you tomorrow night,” said Queenie, twirling her boa.

  While the business of the day was done, Queenie’s duties weren’t.


  As she entered her apartment, the loud, rattling bugling calls of her peeved cranes assailed her. They hadn’t seen her for more than twenty-four hours. They were hungry and let their displeasure be known.

  “Yes, yes, of course. I’m so sorry. I know, I know. I haven’t seen you for more than a day but I promise I’ll make it up to you,” cooed Queenie. She walked to a huge thousand-gallon aquarium and scooped out a hundred goldfish of a pound each and put them into three large tubs where she mixed aquatic creatures with hard, uncooked kernels of rice.

  “Chow time.”

  She then opened the chain-link fence in the living room and her prize birds bolted to their meal. As the cranes devoured their meal, she cuddled and rubbed their bodies and necks. Queenie loved these fifteen special pets and they loved her.

  It took the cranes less than fifteen minutes to eat. Hunger satisfied, the birds allowed Queenie to guide them back to their side of the living room. From each bird, she plucked out three feathers and kissed them goodnight. She then closed and locked the fence.

  Queenie stepped across the room to the kitchen and took out a dozen large cans of dog food. She opened the containers and placed them into a dozen large bowls, then mixed raw rice into the dog food.

  She placed the bowls on a food cart, then stepped to the second bedroom. Opening the room, an overwhelming stench of rot and disease sprang out. She wheeled the cart into the room, which was crowded with fifteen birds behind another chain-link fence. Unlike the content, healthy birds she had just left, these birds were diseased, had bloodshot eyes, and festering wounds. Not from neglect but because Queenie had a different use for them. She purposely raised them this way.

  Queenie did not unlock the door for the birds to come out and feed. Instead, she placed the individual bowls about six inches away from the fence so that the birds had to stretch their beaks through the holes in the fence to get to their meal.