“Hi—yes, no, he didn’t, this is someone else’s work,” I said, gesturing to the suit, and she laughed.
“Okay, okay, I got you. But damn, girl. You free tomorrow?”
“Um. No, not really, actually, I’m now cripplingly in debt to pay for this suit and I, uh… appreciate it… flattered but gotta work, so uh, where’s Kingmaker?”
“Kingmaker’s at his base,” Beer Belly said, jabbing his thumb to the same corner as before. “You wanna grab a slice?”
“I can’t afford that and you guys can’t keep comping me pizza.”
They still cheered for me as I stomped across the room to Kingmaker, who was still wearing the same tracksuit and stupid fucking durag. I wondered if he ever washed them. He put a hand out like he wanted to dap me up.
“‘Ey, Julie!” he said. “How’s my new king doing!”
I slapped his hand away, slamming my hands down on the table and leaning towards him. “That studio below your office,” I said. “Who’s in charge of management there?”
“You look fine. Any supermodels pick you up there?”
“Um—uh—that’s not important,” I said, my face hot. If he knew how much time I spent hanging out with Helena while she introduced me to people as Cassandra Evans-Pierre, he’d be livid. But if he wanted to criticize, thenhecould have Helena look him in the eye and ask him to come do shots with her and he could try saying no to that. I was only human! “The management, Kingmaker.”
“Sit down. I’ll ask them to grab you a slice. Only three bucks.”
“For fuck’s sake, Kingmaker. The management!”
“Yo, Julie!” Beer Belly said from behind me, and I looked at where he had a plate with a slice of pizza. “Take your pizza.”
“What—I already addressed this!”
“Nah, nah. It’s from a bad batch. We was gonna throw it out.” He winked. “You know, abad batch.”
I slumped against the booth seat with a sigh. At least in all this shit, the Tasty Slice people were some real ones. “You know, I don’t even know your name.”
“Everyone calls me Tubman.”
“Like Harriet?”
“It’s cause I like long baths.”
Sure. Guess I saw how he and Kingmaker got along. “Appreciate it, Tubman.”
Kingmaker was finally willing to play along once I sat down with the slice of the, wink wink, bad batch. “Boss’s name is Sean Cambrey. Why, you looking to take over production?”
“I’ve got a… partnership.”
He lit up. “What’d I tell you?”
“Listen, Kingmaker, nothing up there went according to plan, and it is a fucking miracle I am here in one piece. It’s not like I have ajob.I just have someone who might be willing to consider kickbacks and working with me if I get people onboard with her app.”
“No battle ever goes to plan,” he said. “But a king knows how to win the war.”
“Dude, shut up. I’ve gotta talk to Sean.”
He shook his head. “No dice, Julie. Sean don’t talk to just anyone. Ain’t gonna be easy to just chat to him. And if you come around just to sell him something, he’s gonna be pissed off at you.” He dropped a pose like he was DJing again. “And worse, he’s gonna be pissed off at me.”
“That’s the only part you care about. And stop playing the invisible turntables, man.”
He put his hands down, but he was still pissing me off. “You’ll have to look elsewhere for this collaboration of yours.”
“You’ve gotta have leads, right?”
