Get Shorty: A Novel

GET SHORTY 187

“You’re not going to tell me the rest?”

“At this point, basically, that has to be it.”

Michael was giving him a strange look again: not so confused this time, more like he was figuring something out. He said, “Well, if you won’t, you won’t,” and started to grin. “I don’t know how long you’ve been in the business, but that was the most ingenious pitch I’ve ever had thrown at me, and I mean in my entire career. You got me playing the guy, the shylock, before I even realized it was a pitch. So now I have to read the script to find out what happens. Beautiful. Really, that was artfully done.”

Chili said, “Well, actually . . .” The movie star had his head turned and was watching Nicki and her group wailing away. “Actually, what I started to mention, the movie we want you to be in is Mr. Lovejoy. We understand you read the script and like it . . . a lot.”

Now he had to wait for this to make sense, give the movie star time to think about it. Michael said, “Lovejoy,” looking over again. “That’s the one, the florist sees his boy run over?”

“And goes after the guy, to catch him driving his car.”

“What production company was that?”

“ZigZag, Harry Zimm.”

“That’s right, the slime-people guy. I read for Harry when I first started working in features. I did-n’t get the part.”

Chili said, “He turned you down? Come on.”

“I wasn’t Michael Weir then,” Michael said.

He wasn’t kidding either. It sounded strange.

“Anyway, we’re going to Tower Studios with it,” Chili said, and that got a smile from Michael.

He said, “You know what they say about Elaine Levin. She fucked her Rolodex to get where she is. But I’ll tell you something, she didn’t have to if she did. Elaine knows what she’s doing. She made an awful lot of money for Metro up to the time they forced that disaster on her. Did you see it, San Juan Hill?”

“I liked it,” Chili said.

“It wasn’t a bad picture,” Michael said. “It had the facts right for once, the black troops saving Teddy Roosevelt’s ass, but that didn’t sell tickets and it was way overproduced. The picture cost more than the actual war, which hadn’t been done to my knowledge since A Message to Garcia with John Boles. I remember a script called Siboney, the same war, I thought very seriously about doing. That was a fascinating period, the U.S. emerging as a world power, the enactment of the Monroe Doctrine, eminent domain . . . I might look at that script again, Siboney. That was where our troops landed in Cuba.”

“Sounds good,” Chili said, not having any idea what the guy was talking about. He tried to get back to Lovejoy with, “Listen, what we’re thinking—”

But Michael was already saying, “The title does have a nice sound. Build the score around the song. Si-bo- ney, da da da da . . .”

Christ, now he was singing it, against the rock beat in the background.

“Da da da da, Si-bo-ney . . . It’s an old piece but has all kinds of dramatic riffs in it. It can be stirring, romantic, militaristic. Someone like John Williams could score the ass off that picture.”

Chili said, “What I wanted to mention . . .” and paused. The room was quiet again, the band finished

GET SHORTY 189

with their number. “We’re definitely gonna produce the movie at a studio.”

Michael Weir nodded. But now he was getting up, looking over at Nicki raising her guitar strap over her head. He said, “I guess we’re taking off. It was nice talking to you.”

“You have to go, huh?”

“Nicki’s waiting. We’re going to duck out . . .”

“But you like Lovejoy?”

“I like the character, the guy, he has possibilities. But the way the plot develops it turns into a B movie by the time you’re into the second act. Take a look at The Cyclone again, the way a visual fabric is maintained even while the metaphor plays on different levels, with the priest, with the mother . . . so that you never lose sight of the picture’s thematic intent.”

Chili said, “Yeah, well, we’re already making changes. Getting a girl in it, fixing up the ending . . .”

“Sounds good.”

“Can we talk about it, you get a chance?”

“Anytime,” Michael Weir said, moving away. “Call Buddy and we’ll set something up.”

“Buddy?”

“My agent,” the movie star said. “Harry knows him.”

Chili opened the door to 325 to see the message light on the phone blinking on and off. He lit a cigarette before dialing the operator.

She said, “Just a minute.” The one with maybe a Latin accent. She came back on saying, “A Mr. Zimm called. You have a meeting tomorrow, three

P.M. at Tower Studios. He’ll call you in the morning. Let’s see. And a Mr. Carlo called. He said he was going out for the evening and to tell you . . . Mr. Barboni will arrive tomorrow on Delta Flight Eighty-nine at twelve-oh-five. You like me to repeat that?”

Chili told her thanks anyway.

19

Catlett was thinking maybe the best way would be if Lovejoy did have a gun and shot Roxy with it to get his satisfaction.

He was dressed casual today, white linen jacket over French blue India cotton, sitting in Ronnie’s chair in Ronnie’s office waiting for the Bear to come in and report, Marcella’s radio playing Top 40 hits in the other office. There was no reason for her to come in here; Marcella was the kind you said hi to and bye to, you didn’t chat with her.

The audience would like it: see Lovejoy open this old trunk of his, take out a big revolver and load it. Be dramatic, that part, except this was movies and the kind of good guy Lovejoy was couldn’t just go out and shoot the bad guy—like you drive past a man’s house was edging into your business and shoot him off his front steps. Or another time the man was sitting in his car, pull up next to him, bam. The way it was done in real life. The way soon as Yayo threatened him, bye-bye, Yayo, the mean little Colombian now two feet under the desert somewhere off U.S. 10. The Bear had said, “Never again. I don’t clean up after, become an accessory.” The Bear due here any minute now. Yayo’s people in Miami had called asking where he was and Catlett told them, “I saw him take the bag from the locker. He never came back? You have any friends down in Old Mexico could look into it? Check out Acapulco? Ixtapa?” Something you could pull on those people one time only. Losing a hundred and seventy grand and a mule was worth a phone call; it ever happened again, they’d be out. Man, but that money and the stepped-on bag of product in the locker could come in handy for something else now, the way Catlett was looking at his future: his mind going from Lovejoy to Chili Palmer, but most of the time stuck on Chili Palmer and the need to get the man out of the picture.

* * *

The Bear brought Farrah and a video game they plugged into the TV, something to occupy the child while the Bear made his report.

“One, according to the plane ticket on his dresser he’s C. Palmer. Flew here from Vegas and has an open return to Miami. Two, also on the dresser, an Express Mail receipt for a package he sent to a person by the name of Fay Devoe in Miami. Three, the label in his suit and a couple of sport coats are all a men’s store in Miami. So what does that tell you?”

Catlett was watching the little girl playing Top Gun, three years old in a jet fighter, zapping bandits out of the sky. He said, “Look at that child.”

“I mean what else does it tell you,” the Bear said, “outside of he’s from Miami?”

“Not what you’re thinking,” Catlett said. “That he’s connected to Yayo? Uh-unh. He was here before Yayo,