"Excuse me?"

"What are these media blood-suckers willing to pay for an interview?"

Max scratched his head, his own nervous habit which he immediately caught and turned into a smoothing of his hair. Though he wanted to rip his hair out, instead. Christ! He couldn't believe this. The son of a bitch was going to fuck everything up. Money? He expected to be paid for being interviewed?

Max had to watch his temper. He couldn't make it sound as if he even cared whether or not they did the interviews. He couldn't make it seem as though Barnett was doing him a favor. He didn't want Barnett thinking these interviews would be his payback. He needed to think quickly. He needed to appeal to Barnett's core values, to those few essentials that made him tick. One of which, certainly, was not money.

"You're going to be a celebrity overnight, my friend," Max told him, smiling and shaking his head as if he could hardly believe it. "I've got messages from NBC News, 60 Minutes, Larry King and even Bill O'Reilly's The Factor. You're going to have something money can't buy. But I can understand if you'd rather tell them all to go screw themselves. Whatever you want to do. It's entirely up to you."

He watched as Barnett thought it over, forcing himself to keep quiet, to pretend it didn't matter. He concentrated on breathing, on not thinking about how much he wanted this, how much he needed this. He tried to keep his fists from balling up. And in his mind he couldn't stop repeating, almost like a mantra, "Don't you dare fuck it up."

"Bill O'Reilly actually wants me on his show?"

Max swallowed another sigh and calmly managed to say, "Yep, tomorrow night. It's up to you, though. I can tell him…hell, I can tell them all you don't want to put up with the whole lot of them. Whatever you want to do."

"That O'Reilly guy always thinks he's so tough." And now Barnett was smiling again. "I wouldn't mind telling a few of those assholes what I think."