Chapter 5 – The Response I

Seated across from Walter Kilborn, Buster flashed one of his brightest smiles... or that's what he tried to do, as what came across was more of a lopsided, quivering smirk. He dropped it before anyone noticed and thought he was constipated. Kilborn was too busy going over last-minute details with his staff to really notice what Buster was doing, but the lamp operator, a young-ish cheetah, gave him a funny look... mission failed.

They were in a suite at the Majestic Palace for the interview, curtesy of Lester McCray. Though Buster knew the rest of the troupe would like to show up for support, he only brought Miss Crawly along, and assured them that he'd have things under control. He was a bit surprised at the speed and ease at which he'd managed to score the interview with Kilborn. Crystal's smear campaign certainly raised his profile. Silver linings and all that.

Fiddling with his bowtie for the umpteenth time, Buster turned to his assistant and silently mouthed, "Do I look okay?" Miss Crawly gave him a warm smile and a slow nod. That was the last time he got to check because things accelerated faster than he liked. Before he knew it, the cameras were on, and the interview had officially begun.

"Hello Buster," Walter Kilborn started.

"Hello Walter!" Buster replied, full of pep. Maybe too much.

"Before we dive in, why don't you introduce yourself?"

"Oh! Um, well, I'm Buster Moon... as you already know," he said, followed by nervous laughter. "I'm a theater producer and I run the New Moon Theater in Calatonia. I fell in love with theater when I was six years old and it's been a big part of my life ever since. Most recently I've run... or ran, rather, the smash hit Out of This World right here in Redshore City."

Kilborn gave a nod. "Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let's get to the purpose of this interview. You reached out to us after Jimmy Crystal made some very concerning allegations about you. He called you a fraud, a conman, and a liar, among other things."

"I'm not surprised," Buster said. "Crystal is a bully and his go-to is name-calling. He twisted the truth to make himself look like a victim. I wanted to clear the air and set the record straight."

"There certainly seems to be plenty of bad blood between you two. But before we go in-depth on the allegations, I'm curious about before the two of you clashed. You say you run a theater in Calatonia. Most people would consider that living the dream, yet somehow you ended up in Redshore City auditioning for Jimmy Crystal. How did that come about?"

"The New Moon Theater is wildly successful, so don't me wrong, but I felt like my troupe and I were ready for a bigger stage and audience. And the Crystal Tower Theater seemed like the perfect stage."

"It sounds like you weren't exactly invited; Crystal claimed you crashed his auditions."

"Funny story, that one," Buster said with more nervous laughter. He'd have to get that under control. "We reached out to Crystal Entertainment and they sent a scout to one of our shows. She was a little less than impressed and said we weren't good enough."

"That must have been devastating to hear."

"I admit, it was very demoralizing. But I knew we were good enough, so I made a decision that night that we were going to get on a bus and take our act straight to her boss."

"That's quite a length to travel out of spite."

Buster frowned in confusion. "Spite? What? No, this was initiative! Determination!"

"I'm assuming breaking into Crystal Entertainment was part of that initiative and determination." Kilborn was deadpan as ever, and being unable to tell if there was sarcasm in that statement threw Buster for a loop

"Uhh..."

"How do you think all the acts that had appointments and waited their turn would feel knowing the group that got the job wasn't even supposed to be there?"

"Walter, you weren't there," Buster said. "It was a bloodbath. Crystal wasn't hiring any of those guys!"

"So, your excuse for jumping the line is that they weren't good enough?"

"That's not what I was implying!"

"Mm..." Kilborn hummed. Well, that was new. Buster had no idea what that meant. He shouldn't read too much into it, he knew that, but he couldn't help it. "Crystal wasn't a fan of your original performance, was he?"

"We barely got started before he buzzed us. I can't tell you if he'd like it or not because he never really got a chance to hear it."

"And that's when you pitched Out of This World? I have to ask, Clay Calloway in space... why not lead with that? Were you just sitting on that idea?"

"It was my friend Gunter's idea. He saved the audition! Once he put it out there, I punched it up enough to make it appealing to Crystal."

"How much of this show actually existed at this point? Or did it spring to life right there on the spot?"

"Uh, the latter, Walter."

"And then Clay Calloway was added to the mix. Do you consider yourself a liar, Buster?"

Buster squeezed his hands against his knees, gave a pained grin, then thought better of it. "I can stretch the truth sometimes."

Kilborn paused for a moment, his expression unreadable, then he continued, "I need some clarification about these next few points, because Crystal was very adamant about there being no truth here. Did you know Clay Calloway at this point?"

Buster fought back a grimace. "No."

"Did you have permission to use his music?"

"No..."

"Did you have any connection in any shape or form to Clay Calloway that would make your promise to get him to do this show remotely plausible to someone that was going to finance it?"

"Uhh..."

"To recap, you infiltrated Crystal Entertainment, took someone else's idea when your own was rejected, and 'punched it up' with as many lies about Clay Calloway as you could muster until Jimmy Crystal opened his wallet." Kilborn clenched his jaw, and Buster's heart sank. "Stretching the truth implies there is some truth to stretch. This is starting to sound a lot like fraud."

Buster almost fell out of his seat. "Whoa, whoa! That's a loaded word. Let's not go there."

Kilborn's eyes narrowed just a bit. "Would you prefer skullduggery? I don't think that quite carries the same legal ramifications."

Buster felt he was slipping, losing what little ground he had with the capybara. How did Jimmy Crystal of all people manage to whip up better rapport with this guy than he could?

"I've heard enough about that situation," Kilborn said. "Let's move on. Crystal says he eventually discovered your deception on his own and gave you a second chance. Is this when you finally reached out to Clay Calloway?"

"Actually, I sent my assistant before then to see him."

"You sent your assistant to recruit one of the greatest rock legends of all time?"

"I can admit, not my brightest decision," Buster said. "But I did go to see Calloway with my friend Ash. She was instrumental in convincing him to join us."

"Explaining the circumstances behind the show to Clay Calloway must have been awkward, I imagine."

Buster gave an awkward smile but said nothing.

Kilborn pressed again. "He does know that you used his name for personal gain, yes? Before he ever agreed to do the show?"

"Well, you see..."

"Mm..." Not that again. "Crystal must have been happy when you told him about Calloway."

"He... he barely reacted. He was too angry about Porsha."

"That's right, he said you fired her."

"I didn't fire her!" Buster exclaimed. "I gave her a new role that was right for her!"

"What was wrong with the role she had? Crystal gushed about how she got the part."

"That was unfortunate timing," Buster recalled. "Rosita was stricken with sudden onset acrophobia and Porsha took advantage of that. Let me be very clear about this, she's very talented, but the acting needed for the lead role was just... outside of her wheelhouse, and Crystal made it very clear that I didn't have much of a choice about her being in the show. When I told Porsha I was giving the role back to Rosita, she was devastated..."

"You felt she overreacted," Kilborn said. "Between your direction and her acting coach, she must have had some idea that she wasn't quite cutting it, yes?"

"There... was no acting coach."

That signature look of skepticism came to Kilborn again. "It's safe to assume that you weren't truthful with her about the quality of her acting beforehand."

Buster could only sigh in response.

"I understand," Kilborn said. "She wasn't originally meant to have the role. She wasn't part of your vision. She was an intruder and there wasn't much interest in helping her live up to the part."

"If you're implying I sabotaged her performance, that didn't happen," Buster said, an undercurrent of annoyance in his voice. In fact, he was growing increasingly annoyed by the angle of this interview.

"Oh, I don't think you caused her to flop," Kilborn said, unmoved. "I just don't think anyone was there to catch her when she fell. She was humiliated in front of mostly strangers. I can see why she reacted the way she did and ran to her father. Considering you spent most of your working relationship lying to Crystal, it's not much of a surprise that he would take his own daughter's word over yours." If Kilborn saw the deep frown on Buster, he didn't react. "And I'm going to be honest with you, Buster. You haven't convinced me that his experience working with you wasn't a nightmare like he described when I spoke with him. I am genuinely surprised he didn't fire you sooner."

"Me? A nightmare? Look, I shouldn't have lied about Calloway, I know that. But Crystal was already domineering before he found out, and he was just plain hostile afterward."

"Hostile in what way?"

Jimmy Crystal's words seared Buster with as much vitriol as when he first heard them.

You really think I'd let a lowlife little amateur loser like you humiliate me?

"He used demeaning and degrading insults against me." Buster clasped his hands together and squeezed as he relived them. "Lowlife. Amateur. Loser."

Kilborn paused for a moment as he seemed to mull those words over. "But you would agree there was some truth in his anger, yes?"

"Are you suggesting that he was right to call me those things?"

"A con artist is a type of lowlife and you've already admitted to conning him. Amateur—it was quite sloppy and unprofessional the way you created and handled this entire situation, and you needed Crystal because you had no inroads or experience with the Redshore theater circuits. As for loser... you made grand promises to him and, from his perspective, he invested in a failure."

Buster felt his stomach churn in disgust. "Are you seriously justifying his abusive language?"

"Words hurt but they have meanings. You admitted that Crystal became hostile after you humiliated him through deceit and manipulation. This isn't justification, it's examination. I'm drawing a direct line of correlation from your behavior to his reaction. None of this is random."

"It wasn't just insults, there were threats! Threat's he acted on! He nearly killed me after what happened with Porsha!"

"What exactly did he do?"

Buster's gaze fell as pain registered on his face.

Kilborn leaned forward, his tone surprisingly soft, as he said, "I know you came here to talk about this, but if you're feeling too uncomfortable, we don't have to broach the subject."

"No, no... I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with what happened, but I need to talk about this." Buster took a deep breath before he continued, "Crystal didn't believe me about Porsha. He screamed at me..." His breaths drew quick and shallow. "Grabbed me... held me over his balcony and tried to drop me from his skyscraper..."

"That sounds harrowing," Kilborn said. "How did you survive that encounter?"

"I held on for my life! But Crystal's assistant Jerry was there, and he told him about his live interview with Linda Le Bon. Crystal stuffed me in a closet promising to pick up where he left off when he was done. If Suki Lane hadn't freed me... he..."

Kilborn gave a slow nod. "I see. Since we've now tackled the subject, I wanted to let you know that someone reached out to us earlier about the alleged incident and wanted to weigh in."

Was Suki coming to his rescue again? That brief feeling of relief evaporated when a staffer brought Kilborn a phone and he heard the capybara address the person on the other line.

"Hello Jerry."

"Hi Walter!" Oh, that was Jerry alright, coming through loud and clear over the speakerphone.

"Buster alleges that Crystal tried to drop him from his balcony, and you were there to witness it."

There was a short pause before Jerry said, "What? No, that's absurd. That never happened."

Buster resisted the urge to snatch the phone from Kilborn and scream into it. "Jerry, just tell the truth! I know you're afraid Crystal might hurt you, but—"

"Hurt me? The only one hurting anyone is you. You hurt him. You're hurting him now!"

"Jerry," Kilborn said, "you're saying there is no truth whatsoever in that Crystal almost killed Buster in his office?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Jerry replied. "Don't be fooled, Walter. I've seen this guy work his deceptive magic in person. Buster Moon builds a house of lies and we are forced to be his tenants!"

Buster ran his hand through the fur on his head. "What does that even mean?"

"It means you are a liar," Jerry hissed.

"But you're the one that's lying right now!"

"You are a lying liar!"

"You've made your point," Kilborn said, appearing slightly perturbed.

"Just one more thing," Jerry said. "FREE MR. CRYSTAL! FREE MR. CRYSTAL! FREE—"

"Thank you, Jerry." Kilborn quickly handed the phone back to his staffer. Jerry's chant continued as the staffer slipped into another room.

Buster was fuming, pushing himself into his seat like a petulant child with no other options. "That was low, Walter."

"You feel I crossed a line?"

"I just relived that very traumatic experience and you bring Jerry out to refute me like it's nothing."

Kilborn seemed taken aback. "It's your word against Crystal's, or it would be if he wasn't gagged by his lawyers. He's not even allowed to speak on the alleged incident, so in reality it's just your word. You said Jerry was there. I'm doing my due diligence to find the truth in the story."

"Your due diligence sounds a lot like a sympathy campaign," Buster snapped. "You're trying to make everybody feel sorry for him, but guess what? His lawyers put a muzzle on him for a reason, and that's because they know he did it! You can keep trying to guilt me about his situation but, after what he put me through, it's not going to work."

"All I'm doing is respecting both parties while seeking out the truth—"

"You want the truth?" Buster said, unaware that he was baring his teeth and clutching the armrests. "Here's the truth: Jimmy Crystal is an asshole that got what he deserved!"

It was the moment the soft gasps from Kilborn's staff reached Buster's ears that he knew he had screwed up royally. Even Kilborn was rendered speechless. Finally, the capybara made a motion with his hand, and the cameras shut off.

"I think you need a break," he told Buster, his tone hardened.

"Y-yeah," Buster agreed. "Yeah, I think I do..."

A/N

An interview so contentious it had to be split across two chapters!