The cheers had not yet died before the celebrated speaker did.

Dead, even as he spun to the right from the impact, haloed by a ruby mist, and slumped to the floor. A heartbeat before some woman’s primal shriek split the manufactured beige atmosphere of the ballroom. At which the raucous laughter and applause abruptly switched to the collective intake of about three hundred liters of startled breath by the crowd.

The mystifying, unlocatable sound of three full metal jacket rounds traveling at 1600 mph, each slowed by collision with a mature male’s skull and brain, was at once completely unretrievable by short term memory, yet scored into the viscera of the eighteen hundred souls assembled. As though waking from a shared dream, the crowd as one modulated its gasps into wails, desperate shouts and frantic action (Quite a scene!).

Many ran for the exits. Too many. There would be two fatalities (both catering employees, wouldn’t you know it?) and several dozen other trampling victims rushed to the hospital.

Some stood immobilized by shock. Others, including those seated on the dais, pointed and ran toward the partially open movable partition forty feet to the speaker’s left, while one or two stricken individuals knelt over the world renowned, extremely dead celebrity. To the few brave MDs in the house, who strove with grim determination against the human tide in order to render aid to the beyond-all-aid target, the attendees in full gala dress became a stampede of panicked animals.

As often happens in a moment like this (that is to say, like no other), brave souls - about twenty in number (all men; what are the odds!) - rushed toward the narrowly opened partition, and threw it open wider, in anticipation of … what?

I couldn’t speculate as to what those wide-eyed valiants might have expected, but there I stood, hands raised to the ceiling, the AK-47 laying five feet in front of me on the carpet.

Fully automatic. Three shots in under two seconds.

Until the police arrived (seemed like hours, actually only five minutes), the scene was mayhem - unstinting end-of-the-world mayhem. The rank odor of sweat from the panicked herd permeated.

Amid all this havoc and death, I was roughly searched and stripped of wallet (with my Nevada driver’s license - current except for my most recent address), watch, cell phone, and pocket knife by members of the dais detachment. Additionally, I was restrained in a headlock (without resistance from me, mind you) applied with great zeal by one of the burliest of the cohort.

The metropolitan police department barged onto the scene in full force, led by their dress-uniformed brass. Who then took up positions in this carpeted, draped and chandeliered aircraft hangar that was the grand lobby of the conference center. The three bemedaled top law dogs made themselves available to the panting, pandering press, since it was The Star in there behind the dais, with a blown-out skull that now resembled nothing human.

Meanwhile, two uniforms frisked me (second time), looking for ammo clips that the tuxedo posse might have missed (I told the police officers I was all done; yep, hanging up the spurs). The officers Miranda-ized me, cuffed my wrists and ankles, strapped a Kevlar vest around me and away we went. Paparazzi fighting over ‘gets’ of the “man of the hour”, who was being manhandled into an unmarked (!) black SUV. (Lots of legroom.) Drones buzzed furiously over our heads.

In the two-and-a-half years since the entertainment world lost its beloved “Caesar Augustus”, I have allowed my legal team all the leeway it wanted to try and save me from a death sentence (the State of California calls it ‘life without parole’ - same diff). No high-profile celebrity defense lawyers, these. Three guys and two gals trying to make a buck and not minding the worldwide daily exposure at all. Legal (and maybe media?) careers being made here. 

There is, unfortunately, a track record with cases such as mine [see: Abbot, Jack Henry]. Appeals and publicity ad infinitum. And in the end, the state will have its way, one way or the other.

The noble literary nibs of the publishing industry have been knocking down my door, figuratively. Since the day the police retrieved my Bill of Particulars (you, too, must be tired of the word “manifesto” by now?), which got bannered on every news website in the cyberverse, book hustlers have queued up for a chance to pitch me. (Not me saying it, but) the publication of my twenty-two page treatise on life and death, sacrifice and talent - and ultimately, hate - immediately sparked near-reverent opinions and (we’re not really supposed to say) praise in the media (Cyberspace delenda est) for my writing style and the power of my prose.

Within the same news cycle, the “discovery” of my five self-published novels hit the nets. My entire oeuvrẻ - Earth is Enough, Blackandblack, Palmyra Left Behind, Mother One-Two-Three, and Micro-Love - was bootlegged by any and all. The dead-tree copies of my five “noble failures” - some thirty-seven cardboard cartons of paperbacks -  were seized as evidence from my apartment by the FBI.  

Reputed friends of mine nearly injured themselves scrambling to sell on Ebay the signed copies I had gifted to them. The e-commerce website was forced to remove the controversial books within twenty-four hours (strange how that happened, eh Big P?). A few quick and motivated “friends”/sellers found ready buyers, who now own a little piece of history. To the rest of you hypocrites: take comfort that you still possess a testimonial to our deep and lasting “friend”ship.

So now the fun begins.

$$$ 

The thought may have crossed your mind: how could you be in negotiations with publishers when you are prohibited by federal law from profiting from your heinous crime? Well, I may be estopped from making a nickel on the sales of my life’s work; my blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice. But our negotiations need not have had to do with, you know … money.

No, what I really needed was to find out which of the Big Pub houses was the best fit for someone of my unique infamy. Which one would be willing to identify itself as the sleaziest business on Planet Earth?

By now you probably know which Industry Exemplar stepped forward, and then down to the depths I requested. You know them for their warehouse full of National Book Awards, “the Home of the Multi-Million Sellers”, the spiciest memoirs, and the Book That Everyone’s Reading. Yes, them.

Okay, so The Deal will work like this: 

The Publisher gets exclusive rights to everything I have ever written (and I’m certain they’ve combed my hovel for every last scrap, including shopping lists) as well as everything I will write (although this missive will be our little secret, right?).

PLUS I agree to deliver an autobiography AND a book about the trial AND a sit-down with Big Pub’s dear friend from NPR, the eminent man of letters, Harlan Crumbwell (yeah, how ya like me now?) . This last is to be a three-part, birth-to-prison, tell-all tête-à-tête with the silver-haired mahatma, a one-time runnin’ buddy of Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese!

[A note from the author about the deal and why it embarrassed the media. The gentry media took great pains to assure you they would turn their cameras away from the likes of  us “glory killers” since, I don’t know … Columbine? Virginia Tech? Deprive us of the publicity we so obviously crave (they thought).]

[ At my formal introduction to The Publisher, some blueblood family members’ throats were cleared and some Republican brows were furrowed, but in the end they all signaled their benediction upon our little project. (And to think: my crime might easily have gotten the Nashville tranny treatment) (Except I write so goddam brilliantly.)]

With all this free time on my hands, and with the help of the tech splash afforded me by that inmate-lovin’ California penal system, both of the agreed books are complete and edited to my exact specifications. ROLL THE PRESSES! 

His eminence, Mr. Crumbwell, is in my datebook for next Thursday and Friday, six hours each day. The warden is making his personal conference room (indirect lighting, comfortable chairs) available to us for the interview, and the menus for lunch and dinner have been approved by me (I am a no-fuss type of individual, and I don’t care if Crumbwell doesn’t like the offerings - he can apparently do with some fasting anyway).

So next Friday it is - 7 pm or so (depending on  how long I let Crumbwell slobber over me) I will have fulfilled my legal and moral obligations. A good night’s sleep for my very last, and we will wrap this whole episode in a tidy little package on the morn.

Oh! I forgot to tell you what I get out of the deal!

That’s the beauty part of it.

I get …

NOTHING.

But you knew that. Not allowed to profit a farthing. Nor a guinea (whatever the hell that is). Not a quid, not a bob, not a sou, not a fiver, not a shekel, not tuppence ha’penny! Nor shall I be awarded even a single hryvnia. 

Money is right out. But, as I say, you knew that.

I repeat myself. For affect.

Now, money may be forbidden only to Your Narrator (for what will I need it?), but trust me when I tell you that there are more and more millions of dollars to be made into the far distant future, on top of the $43.6M Bloomberg estimates that our dear Publisher has already banked on the sales and licensing of my five novels and my world-famous “man-oh-man-ifesto” alone. And the meters have not yet started to click on my three newest works.

Oh, many millions. Skidillions.

With all the moolah pouring into their coffers unabated, the Big P has asked if I would like to have my (!) royalties directed to a charitable organization. That made coffee come out my nose!

Look up narcissistic personality disorder on the National Institute of Mental Health website. Tell me what you find re: generosity. I said, “No. Hell AND no! And I will go so far as to demand that not a pfennig derived from the sale of my works go to any charity of any stripe or creed.”

Well, let’s face it. Money is fungible. What comes into their pockets goes where they wish it. They can decide to pump several million into some sob-sister do-gooder scam if they care to (I bet they won’t).

$$$

Well, it turns out I’m not so smart as I think I am (Elon Musk is smart; I am creative and disciplined).

Turns out our dear Publisher is not going to get ALL the money. I have been informed by some legal functionaries on Big P’s payroll that it will have to pay (on my behalf) restitution to the families of the victims. Who knows how much of its windfall Big P is going to have to carve out for that?

Restitution. Really? For Mr. Twelve-Oscars-Nineteen-Nominations? Really? How much has his wife (*cough * beard * cough*) been financially encumbered because of my crime? He of the Holmby Hills estate, villa in Normandy, Napa winery, film production company, points and annuities from all his fifty-one films, six restaurants, a $71M yacht, and his own uber-private country club (which has a policy of not hiring the likes of the other two innocent victims for its wait staff, but more about that later)? What amount could possibly make a difference to an estate that eclipses one or two sh*thole countries in total net worth? I say, give his widow a million a year and let her have a good laugh over it (If HE had the money, he’d go out and buy street drugs and a leather boy).

Not to make light of Justice’s legal money grab - after all, there were two other victims of my crime. Two innocents who, by all accounts, did not deserve to die at that particular moment (collateral fatalities were not essential in my pursuit of infamy). And who will almost certainly leave behind numerous family members in dire financial need. So I am going to guess that the courts will award a settlement in the eight figures. 

[Not that I care, but having heard the surnames of the deceased wait staff - Amangual and Esquivel - I wonder if the two of them were in the country legally (and therefore, could not be hired to work at “Mr. Hollywood”’s exclusive country club). I am not a raving anti-immigrant slobbo, but I try to imagine what happens if both of their extended families are also in the US under similarly “undocumented” status. All of a sudden, the surviving family members are cashing checks for twenty thou at a time, while their neighbors and primas are cleaning hotel rooms. How is that all going to work out for them?]

Additionally, I have directed that The Publisher pay to my surviving relatives - my mother and half-brother, Robert in Lovelock NV - the exact sum of one ($1) dollar each per annum, in acknowledgement of their blood claims to the monetary legacy of my brilliance. They can spend it on cigarettes.

Bottom line: that’s quite a haul for The Big P, reigning master of the dark side of commerce. And every last dollar, peso, and euro of it spattered with the blood of the famous and the not.

This is the justice I have desired and deserved.

Oh, and at long last, after the conclusion of my interview with M. Crumbwell, a certain unnamed agent, who has the credentials required to walk into and out of this maximum-security lockup without so much as a “see here!” from prison security, will deliver to me personally a cyanide tablet, per Big Pub’s covert directions. No one will ever know (this is our little secret) that I paid Big P to suicide me.

Going out on my own terms. Such is the pinnacle of fame that I have attained. Earned.

And you, my belovèd auditor.

To you I dedicate this farewell epistle: to the voice inside my head to which I have paid hypnotic attention ever since I could pick up and caress a pencil. For the last time, thank you for my unimaginably rich life. 

I’m off to the void.  

Have a nice day! 

♥️♥️♥️