surprise. Leo’s the bad guy, from the beginning.”
Elaine: “Good. I like Leo.”
Harry: “Leo has delusions of grandeur, wants to be famous, hobnob with movie stars, entertainers.
Elaine: “He could be fun to watch, while the other guy’s just a heavy.”
Michael: “Leo’s a schmuck.”
Elaine: “He’s sort of schmucky, that’s all right.”
Karen: “He could have some funny lines, out of desperation.”
Michael: “Wait a minute—”
Chili: “Yeah, he could be funny. I still think, though, he oughta fall off the balcony.”
There was a silence.
Michael, quietly: “Okay . . . what balcony?”
Chili: “Leo’s apartment, twenty floors up overlooking Sunset. He’s with this starlet, they’re drinking, doing coke, when Fay and Randy walk in. Basically what happens, here’s Leo and here’s the guy he’s been paying for years and was always scared to death of. But right now Leo’s flying on coke and booze and doesn’t know enough to be scared of thing, this little drycleaner. What he wants to do is put the shylock down—you know what I mean? Dishonor him, this guy he thinks of as a hard-on, a regular mob kind of guy.” Chili paused. “Suddenly Leo jumps up on the cement railing of the balcony and says, ‘Let’s see if you got the nerve to do this, tough guy.’ The starlet screams. Fay yells at him to get down. The shylock doesn’t do nothing, he watches, ’cause he knows this guy basically is a loser. He watches Leo take three steps and that’s it, off he goes, screaming all the way down twenty floors to the pavement.”
There was a silence again.
Michael: “That’s how it ends?”
Chili: “After that, they find the money in the closet. They have another moral dilemma talk, a short one, and take off for Mexico in a brand-new Mercedes.”
GET SHORTY 303
Michael, to Elaine: “You know what I do in this picture? I stand around and watch.”
Chili: “You want to shoot somebody? Or, hey, you want to play Leo? Take the dive?”
Elaine: “I don’t know why, but Leo fascinates me. The little drycleaner with all that money. I’d like to see what he does with it.”
Harry: “Sure, the guy must think he’s died and gone to heaven.”
Michael: “Elaine—”
Elaine: “He wouldn’t have to take the dive, would he?”
Karen: “Not if he lives on the ground floor.”
Michael: “Is it a comedy? At this point, who knows?” Grins. “I can see why you don’t have a script. All you have is an idea, and you know what ideas are worth.”
Chili: “Michael?”
Michael: “I’m going to London tomorrow. New York a few days and then grab the Concorde. But I’ll put my writer on it first. By the time I get back next month we should have a treatment we can play with and then go right into a first draft.”
Chili: “Michael, look at me.”
Michael, grinning: “Right. That’s what it’s all about, right there, the look.”
Chili: “You don’t mind my saying, Michael, I don’t see you as the shylock.”
Michael: “Really . . . Why not?”
Chili: “You’re too short.”
* * *
Harry waited till they were in the car, driving along the street of sound stages toward the main gate.
“You have to be out of your mind, talk to a guaranteed box-office star like that. You blew any chance of getting him.”
Chili, in the backseat, kept quiet. It was too hard to explain why during the meeting he started seeing Michael as Leo, thinking that if he wanted to play Leo, great; and after that couldn’t see him as the shylock. It had nothing to do with the fact he didn’t like the guy or trust him or would never loan him money, the guy was still a great actor.
Karen said, “Harry, we knew going in he’d back out sooner or later, it’s what he does.”
“Then what was the meeting for?”
“Elaine, she loves the whole idea, except the ending. You heard her, she thinks Pacino would be perfect.”
Chili said, “He’s kinda short too, isn’t he?”
“They all are,” Karen said. “You shoot up.”
They drove through the gate and followed a side street to Hollywood Boulevard.
“What if,” Chili said, “Leo hops on the railing and makes a speech. Says how he sweated, worked his ass off all his life as a drycleaner, but he’s had these few weeks of living like a movie star and now he can die happy. In other words he commits suicide. Steps off the balcony and the audience walks out in tears. What do you think?”
Karen said, “Uh-huh . . .” Harry said he wanted a drink and Karen said that wasn’t a bad idea. Chili didn’t say anything, giving it some more thought. Fuckin endings, man, they weren’t as easy as they looked.
The Extras
I. ALL BY ELMORE: THE CRIME NOVELS; THE WESTERNS II. SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY III. IF IT SOUNDS LIKE WRITING, REWRITE IT IV. MARTIN AMIS INTERVIEWS “THE DICKENS OF DETROIT” ~
This section was prepared by the editorial staff of PerfectBound e-books, who thank Mr. Gregg Sutter, Elmore Leonard's longtime researcher and aide-decamp, for his unstinting support and help in the assembling of this material.
Further riches await the reader at the website that Mr. Sutter maintains, www.elmoreleonard.com, and in “The Extras” sections of other PerfectBound editions of Elmore Leonard’s novels (“All by Elmore” and “Selected Filmography” come standard in each e-book).
All by Elmore
The Crime Novels
The Big Bounce (1969); Mr. Majestyk (1974); 52 Pickup (1974); Swag* (1976); Unknown Man #89 (1977); The Hunted (1977); The Switch (1978); City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit (1980); Gold Coast (1980); Split Images (1981); Cat Chaser (1982); Stick (1983); LaBrava (1983); Glitz (1985); Bandits (1987); Touch (1987); Freaky Deaky (1988); Killshot (1989); Get Shorty (1990); Maximum Bob (1991); Rum Punch (1992); Pronto (1993); Riding the Rap (1995); Out of Sight (1996); Be Cool (1999); Pagan Babies (2000); “Fire in the Hole”* (e-book original story, 2001); Tishomingo Blues (2002); When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories (2002).
The Westerns
The Bounty Hunters* (1953); The Law at Randado* (1954); Escape from Five Shadows* (1956); Last Stand at Saber River* (1959); Hombre* (1961); The Moonshine War* (1969); Valdez Is Coming* (1970); Forty Lashes Less One* (1972); Gunsights* (1979) Cuba Libre (1998); The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories* (1998).
