Get Shorty: A Novel

what this executive is up to. Like if he’s about to leave with a property he hasn’t told the studio about. They want to know if he might be negotiating someplace. I look at the man’s telephone notes, play his recorder, see who’s on his Rolodex, get to know him. This guy C. Palmer has got nothing that puts him with anybody or tells what he might be doing. He’s too clean. The only thing he had written down on his note pad was ‘Raji’s, Hollywood Blvd. near Vine.’ ”

Catlett frowned. “Raji’s? Man, that’s a hard rock joint. You can tell looking at Chili Palmer he ain’t into that metal shit. I might have to look into that one.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” the Bear said. “You shoot him, you’ll never see me again.”

Catlett started frowning again. “No, man, I don’t want that on my conscience. Focking Yayo, that was different, he could’ve hurt us. And I mean both of us, right? You buried that monkey chaser you were protecting your own ass as much as mine. No, what I’m thinking . . . Bear, you listening?”

“I can hear you.”

“We got the cash out the airport and the stepped-on bag that ain’t worth shit. What I’m thinking, what if Chili Palmer went out there to pick it up?”

Catlett waited for the Bear to turn his head this way, the Bear nodding, seeing the picture.

“Yeah?”

“We even call the feds. Make that anonymous kind of phone-in tip they love to get. What would happen?”

“You’d be out a hundred and seventy grand.”

“When they bust him, haul his ass off to jail.”

“You don’t care about the money?”

“We got stuff for it, didn’t we? We’re not out nothing.”

“He’ll tell the feds he was set up.”

“I ’magine he will, but how’s he gonna put it on me? I don’t even know the man and there isn’t anybody seen us together.”

“Harry has.”

“I can talk to Harry,” Catlett said. “No, the trick will be getting Mr. Chili Palmer to go out to the airport and open that locker.”

Find some way to work that or do it clean and quick, the way Farrah was zapping jets out of the sky.

Catlett said, “Man, she’s gooood.”

The Bear said, “That’s my little ace.”

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Ray Bones came off the Delta flight to find a young guy with more hair and gold jewelry than he needed holding a square of laundry cardboard that said MR BARBONE in black Magic Marker. The young guy’s shirt was open halfway down, his sleeves turned up twice. He said, “Mr. Bar-bone? Welcome to L.A. I’m Bobby, your driver. Mr. DePhillips asked me to extend you his best and be of help any way I can. You have a good flight?”

Bones said, “I hope you drive better than you fuckin spell. My name’s Barboni, not Bar-bone.”

Northbound from the airport on 405, Bones rode in the backseat of the Cadillac enclosed in dark glass. He commented on the traffic. “Shit, this isn’t bad. Miami, we got bumper to bumper all day long.” He asked Bobby the driver, “What’s that over there?”

“Oil wells,” Bobby said.

“They’re ugly fuckin things. You got oil wells and freeways. You got smog . . .”

“You ever wanta go to the beach,” Bobby said, “here’s the freeway you take, we’re coming to.”

“I live in Miami Beach,” Bones said, “and you want to show me a fuckin beach? The sun ever come out here, or you have this smog all the time? Jesus. Where’s downtown at? I don’t see it.”

Four-oh-five to Santa Monica Boulevard to the Beverly Hilton, Bobby telling Bones it was the home of Trader Vic’s, if he liked Chinese. Bones said he hated it. They pulled up to the hotel entrance and got out.

“What do you have for me?”

Bobby opened the trunk, brought out Bones’ luggage, one bag, went back in and came out with a black leather attache case. “Compliments of Mr. DePhillips. The names and phone numbers are in here. The same ones that were given to your friend Mr. Palmer.”

“What else?”

“It’s in there too. Beretta three-eighty, a nice one.”

“Gimme the car keys.”

“I’m suppose to drive you.”

“Frank DePhillips said extend me his best wishes and help me out any way I want, right?”

“Yeah . . .”

“So gimme the fuckin keys.”

Bones handed the kid five bucks and told him to get a haircut.

20

In the car on the way over, Harry told Chili and Karen what to expect. “We’ll sit down and start schmoozing about the business. Who got fired, divorced, had an abortion, entered a treatment center, moved back to New York, died of AIDS, came out of the closet . . . We’ll get offered something to drink like Evian water or decaffeinated coffee and Elaine will ask if Lovejoy was inspired by a true story reported in the media— since you don’t see that many original ideas that are original and weren’t stolen from a book or a picture made forty years ago—and that’s when I begin to ease into the pitch. I say, ‘You know why you ask that, Elaine? Because Lovejoy is about life, about universal feelings of sorrow and hope. It’s about redemption and retribution, the little guy’s triumph over the system . . .”

Karen said, “Harry, you’re full of shit.”

He said, “If I’m wrong then I haven’t made something like three hundred pitches in my career. You’re talking to a distributor or studio execs, it’s the same thing.”

Karen said, “You haven’t met Elaine Levin.”

Chili had his dark pinstripe suit on, striped shirt and conservative dark tie, walking into Elaine’s office in the Hyman Tower Building on the Tower Studios lot, Hollywood, California. It wasn’t like an office; it was like a big old- fashioned living room with a dining L, but unfinished, or as if all this furniture was in the wrong room. A dark-haired woman in her forties, wearing glasses down on her nose was sitting at a dining room table talking on the phone. She covered it with her hand as they came in and said, “Hi, I’ll be right there. You want a soda, mineral water, some coffee?” She was from New York, no question. Karen gave her a wave saying thanks, but they just had lunch. Harry said to Chili, “What’d I tell you?” They sat down in the living room part, Chili next to Karen on a dull-green sofa that looked like an antique and felt like one, the seat round and hard. Harry was moving his butt around in a chair with a carved wood back and arms, trying to get comfortable. The floor and the walls were bare, no carpeting, no pictures or anything. As Chili was looking around Karen said, “Elaine’s redecorating. All this stuff goes.” Harry said, “Studio office, one week it’s Old English, the next week art deco moderne. You know who makes out in this town, the interior designers. On account of turnover.” Harry started pushing himself up and now Karen got up, so Chili did too as Elaine came over to them, her hand out.

She was smaller than Chili thought she’d be, maybe five-two in her stocking feet, which was the way she actually was, wearing a beige suit with the sleeves pushed up but no shoes. She wasn’t bad looking though, even with that mop of hair all over the place, like she hadn’t combed it in a week. Shaking

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Harry’s hand she said, “Harry, I feel as if I know you. I’ve been a fan of yours ever since Slime Creatures. They remind me of so many people I know in the industry.” Harry told Elaine he’d been following her career with interest ever since she broke in. Elaine turned to Chili and gave his hand a good grip as Karen introduced them and Elaine said, “My word, both the gentlemen in suits, I’m flattered. You should see the way most of them come in, like they do yard work and I guess some of them do, the writers, if they’re not parking cars.” Still holding on to his hand she said, “Chili Palmer, hmmmm,” in the slow way she spoke. It surprised him,