The Come Up Read online

  The Come Up

  Nia Forrester

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  Copyright © 2015 Stiletto Press, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  1

  He was getting way too old for this.

  Jamal Turner squared his shoulders, shoved back against the crowd, and made his way toward the front of the club. It was a low-end joint in a non-gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn, where it was still possible—if not likely—that a luxury car might be broken into, or outright stolen. Driving had been a risk, but he wanted to make a hasty departure after his mission was accomplished.

  Tonight, the mission seemed fairly simple. Meet and make nice with an artist named Devin Parks. All he had to do was lay eyes on the youngster, size him up and get him to agree to a real meeting. Under normal circumstances that was the kind of errand just about anyone from Scaife could be sent on. Hell, they could send an intern and have them drop the name of any one of Chris Scaife’s labels and most artists would call within hours. Jamal would return to his office the following morning to find voicemail awaiting him, from someone who was eager but trying not to sound like it.

  This time, though, things would be different. Devin Parks was one of the most confounding and exasperating of breeds—he was indie and anti-establishment, and to top it off, hella-talented. Normal scouts wouldn’t do for the likes of Devin Parks. This one would have to be wooed.

  Just as he was about to make it to the edge of the foot-high ramshackle structure that passed for a stage, a young woman in a black dress stumbled across his path and spilled half the contents of her cup on Jamal’s pant-leg.

  “Oh shi… sorry!” She giggled, clearly well on her way to becoming inebriated.

  Wincing, Jamal looked down at the dark stain and kept moving. The sooner he found his contact the better. Meeting Devin Parks was apparently akin to a top-secret spy operation. Because he was suspicious of anything that smelled like ‘The Man’, Parks didn’t like being approached by recording industry insiders so a “contact” was necessary to ensure a civil conversation. This kid was going to be a real pain in the ass if he ever actually became famous. But truth be told, he already kind of was. On the underground club circuit, Devin Parks had made quite the name for himself with his unique blend of spoken word, hip-hop and be-bop, reminiscent of Mos Def’s early days.

  Exploding onto the scene about a year earlier, Parks created the kind of buzz that got lots of labels paying close attention, scouts following him around to clubs and trying to gain his confidence, or buy him off with perks. Jamal himself had heard the stories, about the twenty-something phenom with the pretty-boy face, wiry frame and sun-ripened wheat-colored eyes. Sure to be a goldmine—that was the word on the street. Not much grooming and styling required—a readymade star. Those didn’t happen too often anymore in this new world of manufactured teen idols, so Devin Parks had lots of folks excited, and chasing him around New York like a bunch of starstruck tween girls.

  Jamal was more than happy to watch things play out organically, having long passed the stage of his career where he needed to chase artists. Now, they came to him. But this one was different. His boss had actually heard the music; some independently-produced, poorly-recorded tracks of Devin Parks’ had apparently made their way into Chris Scaife’s state-of-the-art Bang & Olufsen sound system when he picked his son, Deuce, up at college after his freshman year at Notre Dame.

  Listening to one of the more popular tracks as he drove back to Jersey from South Bend, Indiana, Chris had called Jamal from the car and asked whether he’d heard of Devin Parks. The music was original, the hoarse, raw and authentic voice of the artist stirring, and to top it all off, Chris’ nineteen-year old son raved about him.

  Yeah. He’s indie, Jamal replied, knowing immediately what was coming. Chris Scaife didn’t like to be behind the eight-ball on anything.

  Indie? What the hell does that mean? That you can’t get him?

  Just the word, ‘indie’ was a thorn in the side of many a recording executive, and Chris Scaife was no different. He didn’t just dislike being cut out of the action, he found it offensive when good music was butchered by bad production. But in all fairness, not all indie productions were bad. Some just needed a little polish.

  Nah, Boss Man. It just means he doesn’t want to be ‘got’.

  I don’ wanna hear all that, Chris said. Find a way to sign him.

  When that order was delivered, it had just about wrecked Jamal’s quiet Sunday afternoon. He’d been spending it with the fresh-faced, brand-new winner of a popular modeling reality show. She was twenty-one, eager and very, very limber. New models were Jamal’s preference. With their eyes still starry, and a fire in their breasts to be famous, they were generally uninterested in being slowed down by something as pedestrian as a “relationship.” They liked him because he had a rep for being a beast in the sack, was photographed a lot, and could take them places where they would meet people who were already famous and might offer them a leg-up in their careers.

  And he liked them because they were … well, young, and models … and very, very limber.

  But after Chris’ call, Jamal switched into immediate work-mode. He’d never let the big boss down and he wasn’t about to start now, not when his fortunes at Scaife were about to take a sharp upturn. Maybe even all the way to the top. Word was that since his marriage, Chris was looking to pass the baton, take more of a backseat in day-to-day operations and spend time with his wife and kids, do some traveling and consider new ventures outside the music world. Jamal couldn’t say he blamed him. He happened to be very close friends with the wife in question, and Robyn Scaife was just the kind of woman who would make a man want to dramatically change the course of his life.

  And if he played his cards right, Chris Scaife’s life-change could also mean a dramatic change for Jamal as well. He liked the sound of Jamal Turner, Chief Operating Officer Scaife Enterprises. He liked it very much. More than he liked limber young models, in fact.

  So that was how he came to be wading his way through a sea of underage, oversexed, scantily-dressed clubbers, making his way to a spot where his contact would give him a rare, insider intro to American music’s next sure thing. Lifting his hand so he could check the time in the gloom of the club, Jamal saw that it was just after one a.m. This was the place and this was definitely the time, when he was supposed to connect with one of Devin Parks’ childhood friends, who just happened to be an administrative assistant in Scaife’s communications and public relations department.

  Jamal had gotten that information the way he got a good deal of the four-one-one—from the guys in the mailroom. They carted around the mail for the company, doing it the old-fashioned way, because Scaife Enterprises still got lots of snail mail—mostly unsolicited items that couldn’t be submitted online like demos, and sometimes headshots and résumés from recent college grads who just “had to” be in the recording industry. They wanted to make an impression so many of these eager young things put together packages that contained practically their entire life stories—commendations and transcripts, letters of recommendation and pleas which they sent to various executives whose names (but never email addresses) they found online.

  The mailroom guys, becaus
e they rarely delivered anything of consequence, had lots of time to shoot the breeze. And so they always knew whose anniversary it was, who was losing their house, or their husband; whose kid was on drugs, and whose woman was likely cheating on them. They also had a virtual treasure trove of information about who was connected to whom and by how many degrees. And so it was from one of them Jamal learned about the administrative assistant who knew Devin Parks up close and personal and from the time she was practically a toddler.

  After just one phone call, he arranged to meet her at this so-called nightclub where she was willing to give him an intro with the elusive performer, and grease the wheels a little so he could work his magic. And he had no doubt that he could work some magic, even with the notoriously moody Devin Parks. Jamal’s batting average was enviable, no matter the yardstick he was measured against.

  The music throbbed in his chest and the scent of perspiration, perfume and weekend desperation permeated the air. Jamal waited.

  Twenty minutes. He would give her twenty minutes and then he was out.

  _______________

  Makayla Hughes watched from across the club as Jamal Turner glanced at his watch for the third time in as many minutes. In fact, she had been watching him ever since he entered. It hadn’t been difficult to do since he was about a head taller than most of the other men there. And the way he carried himself, with such obvious self-assurance was an attention-getter as well. Not that she didn’t already know who he was—everyone at Scaife did.

  Jamal Turner was SE’s rainmaker. He secured big names and closed even bigger deals, was known to be in the innermost of inner circles of the CEO and founder of the company; and was sought after by headhunters from Sony, Virgin and just about every other entertainment conglomerate on the planet. But Jamal Turner was almost as emblematic of Scaife Enterprises as the man himself. Not too many people could boast of being practical besties with Robyn Scaife, invited to every single family event and able to get on Chris Scaife’s calendar whenever they wanted; but Jamal Turner could.

  Rumor had it he could waltz into Chris Scaife’s office at will, sitting on the edge of his desk and taking the kind of liberties no one else would dare, like calling him “Boss Man” with a mixture of deference and irony that was hard to question. Makayla herself had once heard him do it, when at a company party she was standing just five feet away from Chris Scaife and his pretty wife and Jamal Turner approached them both. Robyn Scaife’s eyes lit up at the sight of him and the boss looked on with barely concealed impatience as his wife and friend embraced. And word on the street was, his lukewarm response to an artist could kill all of Chris Scaife’s enthusiasm for them in an instant. There was apparently no one whose instincts he trusted as much as he did Jamal’s.

  To say that Turner’s reputation preceded him would have been an understatement. Long before she even scored the job in the PR department, Makayla had heard of him, back when she was at CUNY-Brooklyn and scouring the internet for leads on internships in the entertainment industry. His notoriety was partly because he was known to have forged-in-steel loyalty from most of the artists he helped develop, and partly because he was just so damned photogenic. While most recording industry executives toiled anonymously in the business of star-making, Jamal Turner had managed to become somewhat of a star himself among the people in the know, and was frequently “linked”—that vaguely suggestive term which meant ‘rumored-to-be-hooking-up’—to his famous clients.

  He was certainly pictured online with them often enough, but with his dark chocolate complexion, erect, hard-body posture and winning smile, his image just begged to be memorialized in photographs. And somewhere along the line, he’d apparently learned the colors that most accentuated his rich darkness—orange, white, yellows and occasionally a powder blue. He was gorgeous, there was no getting around that—the kind of gorgeous that could make a girl just the tiniest bit pissed off.

  Makayla was a little pissed off now as a matter of fact. Because Turner had called her boss, not her, when he requested the meeting with Devin. And because he was standing at the other side of the club, near the stage like he had better places to be, and a better class of people to be with. But she happened to know that he was homegrown, a kid from the Bronx who’d managed to make good. Like most of the women at Scaife, Makayla had pored over a recent profile in Black Enterprise, complete with photos of him in the clearly pricey Midtown bachelor pad, and a few of him with some of music’s biggest names. But no matter how many recording superstars he was pictured with in magazines and the blogs, Makayla resented him standing there like this dingy little nightclub was beneath him.

  And finally, Makayla was pissed off because she was nervous, and she never got nervous. Not about anyone. But she was just a little intimidated, to tell the truth, by Jamal Turner. He had walked by her countless times in the office, usually accompanied by someone else closer to his pay-grade, looking all confident and larger-than-life and just … delicious as all get-out. She hated to admit it to herself, but the fact that he’d never once turned in her direction with anything approaching interest irked her somewhat. True, she was just an admin assistant, but it wasn’t like she was ugly or anything, and rumor had it that he was one of those men who didn’t even have a “type.”

  When it came to women, he appeared to like them all. He dated lots of famous and beautiful women, but there were also a fair number of regular girls from around the office who he’d been with as well, some model-like and slender, others heavyset and buxom. He’d dated some white chicks, and also sisters as dark as he was. But while they didn’t seem to fit a certain physical type, they all had one thing in common—if their whispered-about post-Jamal behavior was any indication, they mourned the passing of their time with him and would have all loved a reprise of their role as the woman on his arm.

  Looking down at her jeans and black batwing blouse, Makayla wished she’d dressed up just a little more. Not because she was hoping to capture his eye or anything, but she didn’t want to come across as dowdy, either. She might have made more of an effort, but being in a nightclub tonight hadn’t been in her plans and so the time had simply gotten away from her. She’d been trying to get some more studying done before heading out for this “quick meet-up.”

  That was what her boss Serena had called it anyway. Serena was one of five deputy communication directors at Scaife, and handled community affairs, doing the PR for anything related to Scaife’s charities. Rarely if ever did she deal with the more glamorous stuff unless there was a celebrity in need of a little image rehab by visiting a children’s cancer ward, or donating money to a school music program. But from the sound of things, Serena knew Jamal Turner quite well; she certainly seemed eager to help him get to Devin.

  I hate to capitalize on a personal relationship, Kay, she’d said, toying with one of her rather large earrings. But it would be a huge deal if you could just arrange this meet-up. Believe me, Jamal knows how to take it from there. All we’re talking about is an hour out of your Saturday night if you can spare it.

  And since Makayla pretty much wanted to be Serena one day, she’d agreed. She had only been her assistant for six months, and had yet to find a way to distinguish herself, so this seemed as good a way to do it as any. And if Scaife actually signed Devin because of her intro, there was no telling what that might do for her prospects at the company.

  Not that signing Devin was anything even approaching likely.

  Sighing, Makayla began making her way toward Jamal Turner. She only hoped Devin wasn’t in one of his moods tonight and wouldn’t embarrass her. On her way over to the club, she’d texted him to let him know what was up and he’d promised to be on his best behavior. But Devin was temperamental and always had been, with moods as changeable as the weather. If sound-check hadn’t gone well, or if he got his sneakers scuffed on the subway ride over; if there was someone on drums tonight other than his regular guy, or he’d slept a half hour less than usual the night before … there was no telli
ng how he might show out.

  When she was about a foot away from Jamal Turner, Makayla smelled him. She didn’t know how she knew it was him, she just did. It was an unidentified musk, an earthy, sexy, manly scent that had a richness to it that reeked of money. Walking toward him, he seemed even taller, her head would just about reach his chest; the chest that was accentuated in that bright-white long-sleeved shirt in a clingy fabric. Not too many men could pull off a shirt like that without looking cheesy. Tucked into an army-green tailored pant, it, and he, looked perfect.

  Scowling, he reached up and ran a large hand over his closely-shorn head and sighed, taking one last look at his watch. Finally, he pushed himself up and away from the wall where he’d been leaning, with the apparent intention of leaving.

  Makayla cleared her throat. “Jamal,” she said. And when he didn’t hear her over the din, she tried again, speaking much louder this time. “Jamal.”

  He looked about for a moment, not sure who had spoken his name until finally his eyes rested on her. Jamal Turner smiled, and for a moment, Makayla felt her breath stop.

  “You must be …”

  “Makayla,” she managed, extending a hand. “Makayla Hughes.”

  2

  Makayla peeked over the top of her cubicle to see what all the fuss was about. Just down the hallway, near the vestibule there was a sudden bustle of activity and the sound of loud, booming laughter. Letting herself fall back into her chair she looked once again at her computer monitor, trying to regain her focus. As her eyes fell, she took notice of the fraying sleeve of her white button-down, and quickly tucked it under. Just as she did, the laugh and the man it belonged to drew closer.

  He was with Serena. Makayla could tell because interspersed with his deep sonorous timbre, she also heard her boss’ lilting laugh. It was the one she used on the phone when she was talking to the press—her charm-and-impress laugh.