with Harry.
GET SHORTY 239
* * *
Pulling into the parking area beneath the Sunset Marquis he wondered if he should switch hotels. He liked this one, though, a lot. The people here were friendly, relaxed. They gave you free shampoo, suntan lotion, moisturizing cream. The food was good. You could cook in your room if you wanted. There were ashtrays everywhere you looked. A Sunset Marquis ashtray right there by the elevator, if you forgot to take one from your room when you checked out.
Chili unlocked the door to 325 and stepped inside, not too surprised to see the message light on the phone blinking. That would be Harry dying to know how he made out, Harry becoming a nervous wreck lately. He’d tell Harry it was still possible to get the money, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Show Harry, first, he still needed him, then straighten him out about the limo guys—stay away from them. Chili took off his suitcoat, turned to drape it over one of the chairs at the counter and saw that someone had been in here.
Not the maid, someone else. The maid hadn’t come in yet to clean up the room. You could tell, the newspapers on the sofa, the ashtray by the phone . . .
What had caught his eye, the cupboard doors in the kitchenette were open. Not all the way, but not closed tight either, the way he’d left them. But the desk drawer, Chili noticed, was closed, and he had left that one open about an inch. He had set the drawers in the bedroom the same way, some open an inch or so, some closed—a little nervous about security after the Bear had come in and tossed the place and didn’t leave one clue that he’d been here. This one who’d come in either didn’t know how to cover his moves or didn’t care. The Bear had left the ten grand in the suitcase in the bedroom closet, but this one was different, this guy . . .
Chili was about to go in there and thought, Wait a minute. What if the guy’s still here? As he fooled with that idea, looking toward the hall where you went into the bathroom or turned right and two steps took you into the bedroom, he knew who it was. Bones. There was no doubt in his mind now, that fuckin Bones had been here. Or was still here. In the bedroom.
There was one way to find out, but he didn’t want to walk in there, maybe surprise him, even though Bones, if he was there, would have heard him come in. Except that you couldn’t tell what Bones might do, the guy being either too dumb or crazy to act in a normal way.
What Chili did, he called out, “Hey, Bones? I’m home.” Waited maybe ten seconds watching the hall and there he was.
Bones appeared extending a pistol in front of him, some kind of bluesteel automatic. In the other hand he was holding a paper laundry sack you found in hotel closets. Chili didn’t have to guess what was in it. His ten grand. Bones waved the pistol at him.
“Get over there, by the sofa.”
“You don’t need that,” Chili said. “You want to sit down and talk, it’s fine with me. Get this straightened out.”
Chili turned his back on him, walked over to the sofa and sat down. He watched Bones come in the room to stand by the counter, by the suitcoat hanging on the chair, and began to see what was going to happen.
GET SHORTY 241
Bones had on a shitty-looking light-gray suit with a yellow sport shirt, the top button fastened. It might be the style out here, but Bones looked like a Miami bookmaker and always would. Jesus, and gray shoes.
“I gave up looking for the drycleaner,” Chili said. “This place’s all freeways, you can drive around forever and never leave town. How’d you get in here?”
“I told them at the desk I was you,” Bones said. “I acted stupid and they believed me.”
He came to the middle of the room, still pointing the gun, and held up the laundry sack.
“Where’d you get this?”
“Vegas. I won for a change.”
Bones stared at him, not saying anything. Then swung the sack to drop it on a chair.
“Get up and turn around.”
“What’re you gonna do, search me?”
Chili got to his feet. Bones motioned with the gun and he turned to face the painting over the sofa that looked like a scene in Japan, misty pale green and tan ricefields, the sky overcast, not a lot going on there. He felt Bones lift his wallet out of his back pocket.
“You won the ten grand in Vegas?”
“That’s where Leo went before he came here and I lost him.”
“Las Vegas.”
“Yeah, it’s in Nevada.”
“Then how come the straps on the ten grand say Harrah’s, Tahoe? Can you explain that to me?”
There were figures in the painting he hadn’t noticed, people way out in the field picking rice.
Chili said, “You sure it says that, Harrah’s?”
He hadn’t noticed any printing on the money straps either, or didn’t remember.
“You’re the stupidest fuckin guy I ever met in my life,” Bones said. “Let’s see what’s in your pockets.”
Chili shoved his hands in and pulled the side pockets out.
“What you should’ve done was told me the guy was alive and skipped, soon as you found out.”
Chili heard the voice moving away. He looked over his shoulder to see Bones pulling his suitcoat from the back of the chair at the counter.
“Why would I do that?”
“ ’Cause the guy’s my customer now, stupid. His ass belongs to me.”
Bones laid the pistol on the counter, held the suitcoat up with one hand and felt through it with the other. Chili waited for his expression to change. There—his eyes opening wider.
“What have we here?” Bones said. His hand came out of the coat with the locker key.
Chili sat down in the sofa again.
“Give me my cigarettes. They’re in the inside pocket.”
Bones threw the coat at him. “Help yourself.” And held the key up to look at it. “C-oh-one-eight.” Frowning now, putting on a show. “I wonder what this’s for, a locker? Yeah, but where is it?”
Chili sat back to smoke his cigarette and let it happen.
“I checked a bag at the airport, when I came.”
“Yeah? Which terminal?”
Chili hesitated. He said, “Delta,” and it was done.
GET SHORTY 243
Bones said, “You found Leo, didn’t you? . . . Took the poor asshole’s money and put it in a locker, ready to go.” Bones looked over. “Why haven’t you left?”
“I changed my mind. I like it here.”
“Well, there’s nothing for you in Miami.”
Bones was nervous or anxious, touching his thin strands of hair, his collar, making sure it was buttoned.
“How much’s in the locker? Just out of curiosity.”
Chili drew on his cigarette, taking his time. “A hunnerd seventy thousand.”
“Jesus Christ, that drycleaner left with three hunnerd,” Bones said. “I hadn’t got here you would’ve pissed the rest of it away. You knew I was coming, right? That fuckin Tommy Carlo, I know he phoned you.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t know why. ’Less you told him about the drycleaner.”
“I didn’t tell him nothing.”
“What about Jimmy Cap, you tell him?”
Bones paused. He said, “Look, there’s no reason why you and I shouldn’t get along. Forget all the bullshit going back to that time—I don’t even remember how it started. You took a swing at me over some fuckin thing, whatever it was—forget it. You owe me eight grand, right? Forget that too. But, you don’t say a fuckin word about this to anybody. It’s strictly between you and I, right?”
