The one in the plaid shirt looked at the “contents” on the desk and said, “Is that everything?”
“That’s it,” Chili said. He watched the black guy pick up the note with the Newark flight number and arrival time written on it. Chili said, “I’d appreciate your telling me what this is about.” He could act nervous with these guys without trying too hard.
“I got a John Doe warrant here,” the one in the plaid shirt said. “I can strip-search you if I want.”
“Pat him down,” the black guy said.
“Why don’t I strip-search him?”
“Pat him down,” the black guy said.
Chili was starting to like the black guy, his quiet way, but couldn’t say as much for the other one. The big guy in the plaid shirt put him against the wall, told him to spread his legs and did a thorough job going over him as the black guy asked what he was doing at the airport. Chili said he was supposed to meet his wife, but she wasn’t on the flight. The black guy asked why, if he lived in Miami, his wife was coming from Newark? Chili said because they’d had a fight and she left him, went back to Brooklyn. He said he asked her to come out here, maybe with a change of scenery they could get back together and she said okay, but evidently changed her mind. He didn’t mention it was twelve years ago she’d left him.
The black guy said, “Your wife a Lakers fan?”
“I am,” Chili said. “I’m a fan of everything that’s
L.A. I love it out here.” And looked over his shoulder to give the guy a smile.
The black guy said he could go. Then, when Chili was at the desk, asked him, “What was the number of the locker you used?”
Chili paused. “It was C . . . either sixteen or seventeen. He said, “Can I ask you—are you looking for a bomb? Something like that?”
“Something shouldn’t be there,” the black guy said.
“Why don’t you get the attendant to open all the lockers and take a look? Maybe you’ll find it.”
“That’s an idea,” the black guy said. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s what I’d do,” Chili said. “I’d make sure I got the right guy next time.”
That was it. Time to collect his “contents” and his new bag and leave. He didn’t like the way the black guy was looking at him.
23 
Chili didn’t see the stuntman until he was up on the third level of the parking structure. There he was, the Hawaiian Bear, standing by the Toyota. So he must have been here all day. Walking up to him Chili said, “I don’t know how I could’ve missed you with that shirt on. It’s the same as the other one you had on only the hibiscus are a different color, right?”
The Bear didn’t answer the question. He looked okay, no cuts or bruises showing from his fall down the stairs. He said, “So you didn’t have the key with you.”
Chili said, “You think I’d be standing here? You set somebody up and you want it to work, it has to be a surprise. Can you remember that?”
“You spotted them, huh?”
This guy was either dumb or he was making conversation.
“Who, the suits? If I know they’re there, what’s the difference which ones they are? Tell that colored guy you work for he blew it. Whose idea was it, yours or his?” The Bear didn’t answer and Chili said, “Did you see it work in some movie you got beat up in? There’s quite a difference between movies and real life, isn’t there?”
Now Chili was making conversation. For some reason he felt sorry for this guy in his Hawaiian shirt.
“What movies were you in I might’ve seen?”
The Bear hesitated as if he might be thinking of titles. He wasn’t though. He said, “I have to ask you for that key.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“The locker key.”
“I know what one you mean,” Chili said. “I can’t believe what you’re telling me. The setup didn’t work so you want the key back?”
“Catlett says if you don’t open the locker the deal’s off.”
“You serious?” Chili said. “This is how you guys do business? I can’t believe you aren’t dead.”
The Bear kept staring but didn’t say anything.
“Look,” Chili said, “you know as well as I do there’s no fuckin way I’m gonna give you the key, outside of you point a gun at my head. Then we might have something to talk about. Otherwise . . . I’d like you to step away from the car.”
“I don’t need a gun,” the Bear said. “Where is it? If it isn’t on you, it’s around here someplace.”
Chili shook his head, tired of this, but still feeling a little sorry for the guy. The Bear didn’t seem to have his heart in it; he was going through the motions, doing what he was told. Chili looked off in kind of a thoughtful way, turned to the Bear again and kicked him in the left knee, hard. The Bear stumbled, hunching over. Chili grabbed him by the hair with both hands, pulled his head down and brought his knee up into the guy’s face. That straightened him and now Chili hit him high in the
GET SHORTY 237
belly as hard as he could, right under the rib cage. The Bear gasped and sucked air with his mouth open trying to breathe, helpless now and in pain. Chili took him by the arm saying, “Lie down on your back. Come on, if you want to breathe.” He got the Bear down on the concrete, straddled his midsection and reached down to lift him up by the waist of his pants, the same blue ones he had on yesterday, telling him, “Take deep breaths through your mouth and let it out slow . . . That’s it, like that.”
Once the Bear was breathing okay, checking his teeth now, feeling his nose, Chili said, “Hey. Look at me,” and got him to raise his eyes. “Tell your boss I don’t ever want to see him again. He made a deal with Harry and a deal’s a deal. I’m talking about if we get the dough out of the locker. We don’t, then okay, there’s no deal. But either way I don’t want to see him coming around anymore. You understand? Will you tell him that?”
The Bear seemed to nod, closing and opening his eyes.
“What’re you hanging around with a guy like that for? You were in the movies, right? A stuntman? What’s he ever done he can talk about? The guy pimps you and you let him do it. You feel okay?”
“Not too bad,” the Bear said.
“How ’bout when you went down the stairs?”
He touched his left thigh. “I think I pulled my quadriceps.”
“If I was you,” Chili said, “I’d quit that guy so fast. No, first I’d kick him down some stairs, let him see what it’s like. Then I’d quit.”
The Bear didn’t say anything, but had a look in his eyes that maybe he was thinking about it.
“How many movies you been in?”
“About sixty.”
“No shit,” Chili said. “What’re some of ’em?”
* * *
The locker key was down on the first level of the parking structure, stuck in a crack where the pavement joined one of the concrete support posts. Chili made sure nobody was in sight before he picked it up.
Now he drove to the Avis lot to return the Toyota, walked over to National and took out a Cadillac Sedan de Ville, a black one. There was more to this than switching cars just in case. He felt he deserved a Cadillac. If he had one at home, he should have one out here. At least a Cadillac. Driving up 405 he began thinking that if somehow he got the cash out of that locker he’d tell Harry he wanted a ten percent commission on it, then turn in the Cadillac and lease a Mercedes or that expensive BMW. Karen said top agents and studio execs were driving BMWs now. She said a Rolls was too pretentious; low-key was in. Other things to remember: you don’t “take a meeting” anymore, you say you have “a two-thirty at Tower.” If a studio passes on a script, you don’t say “they took a Pasadena.” That was out before it was in. Like “so-and-so gives good phone.” If they say it’s “for a specialized audience” or it’s “a cast-driven script,” that’s a pass. But what Elaine Levin gave
