Get Shorty: A Novel

“You have anything has to be done around here?”

There wasn’t much that looked like business on Ronnie’s desk. It stayed neat, his girl Marcella in the other office doing the scheduling and billing.

Ronnie said, “Not that I know of.”

Catlett didn’t have a desk. He sat across from Ronnie looking at Ronnie’s cowboy boots up on the desk, ankles crossed, Ronnie low in his big chair, down behind there somewhere.

“Well, I know you got three cars out working. You got to pick up the producer coming in from New York, and later on the rock group that likes the white stretch. I know that much,” Catlett said, “and I barely work here.”

Ronnie said, “You know that, but you can’t tell me where you want to have lunch. Hey, how about Chinois? The curried oysters with salmon pearls, mmmmm.”

Catlett said, “How about Spago?” acting innocent, knowing they didn’t serve lunch, and got a

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mean look from Ronnie. The last time they went there the woman tried to seat them over on the other side of the open kitchen and Ronnie went berserk, told her, “My fucking Rolls is in the front row outside and you want to put us in back?” The man had a point. You sat at the right tables if you expected to be recognized in this town. Ronnie’s trouble was nobody remembered him.

Next, Catlett heard Ronnie’s desk drawer open and saw Ronnie’s automatic come edging out of the V between his crossed cowboy boots and heard Ronnie making gunfire sounds, couuu, couuu, the little guy playing with his Hardballer .45, a pistol ten inches long. Couuu, pretending he was shooting that lady maitre d’ at Spago.

“Put it away.”

“I’m not pointing it at you.”

“Ronnie?”

“Shit.”

“In the drawer.”

“I wouldn’t mind somebody trying to rip us off,” Ronnie said. “You know what this would do to a guy?”

“I know I’m not ever having lunch with you no more you don’t put that thing away.” Catlett waited, hearing the drawer slide open and close. “You have a delivery to make, don’t you? Down to Palm Desert?”

“You want to take it?”

“They your friends, not mine.”

Four years of this shit, being the buddy of an idiot. Earlier, when Catlett came in, he told Ronnie they were having trouble with Yayo and Ronnie said, “Which one’s Yayo?” Four years retained on the books as Marketing Consultant, which meant sitting here with Ronnie deciding where to eat. Then having the martini lunches and watching him get shitfaced on those see-throughs. It meant going to Ronnie’s parties with all the glitter twits. Watching Ronnie have his nose bleeds about every day. Put up with all that shit, it was still better than running a dope house or sitting in a boiler room selling fake bonds over the phone. Better than managing a string of bitchy ladies, better than thinking up the everyday kinds of hustles to get by . . . But not better than being in the movie business. He hadn’t mentioned to Ronnie he’d read Mr. Lovejoy or said anything about it since their meeting with Harry. From now on it wouldn’t be any of Ronnie’s business.

“Hey, Cat? How about Le Dome? We haven’t been there in a while.”

They got a nice table on the aisle in that middle section and Catlett waited for Ronnie to relax with his extra-dry martini before telling him he should take a rest. “You going down to Palm Desert anyway, why don’t you stay awhile, take a month off, man, and ease out, share your toot with some nice young lady. You been working too hard.”

Get the motherfucker out of his hair while he set up making his move.

Back in the office of Wingate Motor Cars Limited, past closing time and the help gone, Catlett sitting at Ronnie’s desk starting to make plans, he got a call from the Bear.

“This guy’s driving me nuts.”

“Where you at?”

“Home. We were out at Universal—you know the studio tour? It’s like Disneyland.”

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“You took Yayo?”

“I forgot I promised Farrah. Yeah, so I brought the yoyo along. All the guy does is bitch and say fock, in front of my little girl. I gotta dump him somewhere.”

“Bring him by,” Catlett said, “I’ll talk to him.”

Standing at the window Catlett watched the Bear’s blue Dodge van come off Santa Monica, out of traffic and into the drive. By the time Catlett made his way through the offices and the reception room to the garage, the steel overhead door was coming down to seal off street sounds, Yayo was out of the van and the Bear, his Hawaiian shirt today full of blue and yellow flowers, was coming around the front end. There was one limo parked in the garage, the white stretch reserved for the rock group, and Catlett’s car, a black Porsche 911.

He was in his shirtsleeves, a striped shirt with a tab collar, tie in place—had put it on thinking of Chili’s shirt last night; it had looked pretty sharp.

Yayo could use a clean shirt and a shave, comb his hair, Yayo giving him the Tony Montana look with the lip curl. A man that didn’t know how dumb he was.

“You have a nice time, Yayo?”

The little Colombian mule started out in Spanish before switching over to English, saying, “I tell this guy I want my focking money or you in trouble, man, believe me.”

“There’s no pleasing him,” the Bear said, fooling with his beard. “I took his picture standing with this cutout of Magnum P.I.? Tom Selleck, looks real as can be. All he does is bitch.”

Yayo turned enough to tell the Bear, “You think you funny. Is that it?”

“I took him to the Miami Vice Action Spectacular . . .”

“Man, it was shit.”

“It opens,” the Bear said, “here come Crockett and Tubbs on jet skis. It’s like a movie set. You know, some shacks at the edge of the water, we’re in the grandstand watching. The voice-over says, ‘They have ruffled some feathers in flamingo land and the band of smugglers have a dynamite surprise waiting for them.’ It’s all low-grade special effects, but the tourists eat it up.”

“It was all shit,” Yayo told Catlett.

“He kept talking like that,” the Bear said, “saying fock in front of my little girl.”

Catlett frowned, a pained look. “He did?”

“Man wouldn’t shut his mouth.”

“Listen to me,” Yayo said. “I wan’ to leave this place, go home. Wha’ you have to do, get the money and give it to me. Or give me some other money.”

“I gave you the key,” Catlett said. “That’s all you need, and some patience.”

Yayo had that lip curled saying, “I don’t wan’ no focking key. I wan’ the money.”

Catlett stood with his fingers shoved into his pockets. He shrugged saying, “Give it some time, pretty soon there won’t be nobody watching you.”

Yayo pointed a finger at him. He said, “Okay, man, I tell you something. I go the airport and open that focking locker. They bus’ me, I tell them I come to get something for you, tha’s all I know.”

Catlett said, “Tha’s all you know, huh? Wait here a minute, Yayo, I be back directly.”

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He left them: went back to Ronnie’s office and got Ronnie’s big AMT Hardballer .45 auto out of the center desk drawer and racked the slide, knowing Ronnie kept the piece loaded. Catlett walked through offices and the reception room to the garage, closed the door behind him and extended the Hardballer’s long barrel at Yayo, walking up to within ten feet of the man. Yayo didn’t move. The Bear didn’t either.

Yayo cocked his head then and put his hands on his hips, giving Catlett a Tony Montana pose.

“The fock you doing with that?”