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Leo had to think about it, but he did. Went to the deep chair facing the coffee table, sat down and stared at his briefcase.
Chili said, “I don’t know how you stayed in business, Leo, you’re so fuckin dumb. Or how you ever got this far. But now you’re through. I’m gonna explain to you why and I hope you’re not too dumb you don’t understand what I’m saying. Okay?”
So Chili laid it out, told how Ray Bones was now in the picture and the kind of guy Bones was, the reason Leo and Annette would have to disappear or else risk serious injury. That seemed simple enough, a no-option kind of situation.
Leo thought about it a minute and said, “Well, I’m not going home.”
Look how his mind worked.
“I don’t care where you go, Leo.”
“I mean back to Fay.”
“That’s up to you.”
“After what she did to me?”
“You aren’t only dumb, Leo, you’re crazy.”
Leo thought about it another minute and said, “I don’t see any difference who takes the money, you or this other guy. Either way I’m cleaned out.”
“Yeah, but there different ways of getting cleaned out,” Chili said. “Ray Bones’ll take everything you have —”
“What—you ,won’t?”
“Leo, listen to me. When I say everything, I mean even that sporty hat if he wants it. Your watch, that pinkie you have on . . . and then he’ll hit you with some kind of heavy object if he doesn’t shoot you, so you won’t tell on him. I won’t do that,” Chili said, “take your jewelry or hurt you. You have three-ten in the case, right? I’m gonna take the three hundred you scammed off the airline, but the rest of it, the ten grand? I’m gonna borrow that and pay you back sometime.”
He knew Leo wouldn’t understand what he meant, Leo squinting at him now.
“You take all my money, but you’re borrowing part of it?”
“At eighteen percent, okay? And don’t ask me no more questions, I’m leaving,” Chili said.
He picked up the briefcase as he rose from the sofa and Leo came up out of his chair.
“You’re saying you want me to
“I’m not asking you, Leo. What I’m saying is I’m gonna pay you back.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Yeah, but how’re you gonna pay me?”
Chili was moving toward the door. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I mean you won’t know where I am. I don’t even know where I’ll be.”
“I’ll find you, Leo. You leave a trail like a fuckin caterpillar.” Chili reached the door and opened it.
Leo saying now, “Wait a minute. What’s this eighteen-percent-a-year shit? You want to borrow ten, the vig’s three bills a week. You hear me?” Chili crossing the hall toward the stairway, shaking his head, Leo yelling after him, “Fifteen for the vig plus the ten, that’s twenty-five big ones you go a whole year, buddy! You hear me?”
Chili stopped. He turned around. As he started back he saw Leo’s scared look just before he slammed the door shut. Jesus, he was dumb.
17 
He thought Raji’s would be a cocktail lounge with entertainment, a Hollywood nightspot. It turned out to be a bar with pinball machines and video games making a racket, also a counter where you could buy Raji’s T-shirts, in case you wanted to show you had actually come in here. Sometimes it was hard to keep an open mind. Chili, in his pinstripe suit, nice tie, wondered if any regular people came here or just these kids trying to look like heroin addicts. He said to one of them, “How come there’s no sign out in front?”
The kid said, “There isn’t?”
He said to the kid, “I see they have Yul Brynner in the sidewalk outside.”
Part of Hollywood’s famous Walk of Fame, the names of 1,800 show-biz celebrities inlaid in stars.
The kid said, “Who’s Yul Brynner?”
Chili said to the bartender, a young guy who looked normal, “How come there’s no sign out in front?” The bartender said it was down temporarily while they reinforced the building against earthquakes. Chili asked him how come there weren’t any barstools? The bartender said it was a stand-up kind of place: A and R guys from the record companies didn’t like to sit down, they’d catch a group and then come back upstairs to have their conversation, where you could hear yourself think. He told Chili Guns N’ Roses had been signed out of here. Chili said no shit and asked if Nicki was around. There were “Nicki” posters by the entrance. The bartender said she was downstairs but wouldn’t be on for a couple hours yet.
“You in records?”
“Movies,” Chili said.
He had never made it with Nicki or even tried, but she still ought to remember him. The idea, get her to ask him to drop by the house, say hello to Michael and he’d take it from there. Get next to him.
Chili went downstairs to an empty room with a bar and a few tables, hearing a band tuning up, hitting chords. It reminded him of bands at Momo’s cranking up, doing sound checks, setting those dials just right, then blasting off loud enough to blow out the windows and he’d wonder what all that precision adjusting was for. Maybe they said they were reinforcing the place against earthquakes, but it was to keep the rockers from shaking the walls down, and that’s why they played in the basement here: the bandstand through an archway in a separate room that was like a cave in there and maybe would hold a hundred people standing up.
There were four guys, three with guitars and a guy on the drums. He didn’t see Nicki anywhere, just these four skinny guys, typical rock-and-roll ass-holes with all the hair, bare arms tricked out with tattoos and metal bracelets, all of them with that typical
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bored way they had. Looking over at him now standing in the archway, but too cool to show any interest. Some dickhead in a suit. Chili stared back at them thinking, Oh, is that right? Any you assholes want to be in the movies? No chance. They were turned toward each other now, one of them, with wild blond hair sticking out in every direction, talking as the others listened. Now the blond-haired one was looking over this way again, saying, “Chil?” The middle one.
Christ, it was Nicole, Nicki. They all looked like girls—that’s why he thought she was a guy.
“Nicki? How you doing?”
He should’ve spotted her, the skinny white arms, no tattoos. Nicki handed her guitar that had a big bull’s-eye painted on it to one of the guys and was coming over now, Nicki in black jeans that were like tights on her and, Christ, big work boots, smiling at him. Chili put his arms out as she raised hers, high, and saw dark hair under there in the sleeveless T-shirt, Nicki saying, “Chili, Jesus!” glad to see him and it was a nice surprise, knowing she meant it. Now she was in his arms, that slender body tight against him, arms around his neck giving him a hug, hanging on, while he kept thinking of her armpits, the dark tufts under there like a guy’s, though she certainly felt like a girl. Nicki let go but kept grinning at him, saying, “I don’t believe this.” Then saying over her shoulder to the guys, “I was right, it’s Chili, from Miami. He’s a fucking gangster!”
The way they were looking at him now—he did-n’t mind her saying it.
“That’s your new band, huh? They as good as the one you used to have?”
Nicki said, “What, at Momo’s? Come on, that was techno-disco pussy rock. These guys
