mirror as she took a minute to run a comb through her hair.
5 
While they were still in the other room, the study, getting ready to come out here, Harry said to him, “You’re Chili? . . . I don’t think I caught your last name.”
Chili told him it was Chili Palmer and saw Harry give him that look. Oh? Like he was wondering what the name was before somebody changed it.
They were in the kitchen now. It was as big as the kitchen in the Holmhurst Hotel, Atlantic City, where he had washed dishes a couple of summers when he was a kid, back before they tore the place down to make a parking lot. The fifth of Dewar’s, what was left of it, and a tray of ice were on the butcher-block table. There were all kinds of pots and pans hanging from a rack right above them. He saw Harry, who was sitting at the end of the table facing the door to the hall, look up as he was about to take a drink and stop.
Harry said, “Karen?” sounding surprised. He took the drink then and said, “Karen, say hello to Chili Palmer. Dick Allen sent him. You remember Dick, at Mesas? Chili, this is Karen Weir.”
“Flores,” Karen said.
“That’s right,” Harry said, “you changed it back.”
Chili had been telling his movie idea until this interruption, which he didn’t mind at all, a chance to meet Karen Flores. He sat with his arms resting on the table, looking past his shoulder now at Karen in the doorway, the hall behind her dark. She looked smaller in real life than in movies, about five-two and no more than ninety-nine pounds. She was still good looking, but where was all the blond hair? And the boobs he remembered as big ones for her slim figure. He nodded, saying to her, “Karen, it’s a pleasure. How you doing?”
She didn’t say anything, looking at him as if trying to figure out if she knew him. Or she was giving him a pose, standing there with her arms folded in a Los Angeles Lakers T-shirt that came down just past her crotch and was like a little minidress on her. Middle of the night, never saw him before in her life—she could be on the muscle without showing it. Her legs were nice and tan.
Harry was telling her, “Chili’s the one called you the other day. He says just from talking to you on the phone he had a feeling I’d show up here sooner or later. You imagine that?”
Harry seemed in a better mood since coming out here to get ice and they sat down with their drinks, Harry more talkative. Listening to the movie idea he kept sticking his own ideas in.
Chili straightened, touched the front of his jacket to smooth it down. He thought of getting up but now it was too late. He liked the way Karen kept looking right at him without appearing nervous or emotional, putting on any kind of act. No, this was her. Not anything like Karen the screamer facing the maniac with a butcher knife or seven- foot rats or giant ticks gorged on human blood. He liked her hair, the way it was now, thick and dark, hanging down close to one eye. He noticed how thin her neck was and took a few more pounds off, got her down to around ninety-five. He figured she was now up in her thirties, but hadn’t lost any of her looks to speak of.
“He’s telling me an idea for a movie,” Harry said. “It’s not bad, so far.” He motioned with his glass. “Tell Karen, let’s see what she thinks.”
“You want me to start over?”
“Yeah, start over.” Harry looked at Karen again. “Why don’t you sit down, have a drink?”
Chili watched her shake her head.
“I’m fine, Harry.”
He liked her voice, the quiet way she spoke. She was looking at him again, curious, doing a read.
“How did you get in the house?”
“The door from the patio, in back.”
“You broke in?”
“No, it was open. I mean it wasn’t locked.”
“What if it was?”
That was a good question. He didn’t have to answer it though, Harry saying, “He works for Dick Allen. Got sent here to check up on me.”
Karen said, “Oh,” and nodded. “That makes it all right to walk in my house.”
Chili didn’t say anything. He liked the way she was handling it. If she was pissed off you couldn’t tell.
“He knew I was gonna turn up here,” Harry said, “just from talking to you on the phone.”
“Why, what did I say?”
“Something about your voice. It was a feeling he had, a hunch. You want to hear his idea?”
Chili watched her. His feeling now was Karen’d say no and tell him to get the hell out of her house. But she didn’t say anything. Or Harry didn’t give her a chance.
“It’s about a guy,” Harry said, “who scams an airline out of three hundred grand. Go on, tell her.”
“You just did.”
“I mean the way you told it to me. Start at the beginning, we see how the story line develops.”
“Well, basically,” Chili said, “this guy owes a shylock fifteen thousand, plus he’s a few weeks behind on the vig, the interest you have to pay, on account of he doesn’t have it. The guy runs a drycleaner’s but spends everything he makes at the track.”
Chili could see Harry ready to cut in and let him.
“You understand what he means,” Harry said. “The guy borrowed money from a loan shark. It’s the kind of situation, you don’t pay you get your legs broken.”
“Or the guy thinks he could get ’em broken,” Chili said. “You have to understand the loan shark’s in business the same as anybody else. He isn’t in it looking for a chance to hurt people. He’s in it to make money. You go to him, you understand that, you’re gonna pay him every week. You don’t like that idea, you don’t have any business going to him.”
Karen said, “Yeah?” Telling him to go on.
“But you don’t make your payments,” Harry said, “you can get your legs broken, or worse.”
“It can happen,” Chili said, looking at Karen, “but it’s not, you know, the usual way. Maybe once in a while you hear about it.”
“If the guy doesn’t think it’s gonna happen to him,” Harry said, “you don’t have a story. That’s the only reason he gets on the plane, he’s scared to death, he’s running for his life.”
“That’s right,” Chili said, “the guy’s scared. I just meant he wouldn’t necessarily get his legs broken in that kind of situation, a few weeks behind. The guy doesn’t know any better, so he gets on the plane.”
“This’s Miami,” Harry said. “He’s going to Vegas. He’s got a few bucks and he’s thinking maybe it’s his only chance.”
“He gets on the plane,” Chili said, watching Karen’s eyes come back to him, “ready to go, and the plane sits there at the gate, doesn’t move. They announce over the PA there’s some kind of mechanical problem, they’ll be there maybe an hour, but keep your seats in case they get it fixed sooner. The guy’s nervous, in no shape to just sit there, sweat it out. So he gets off the plane, goes in the cocktail lounge and starts throwing ’em down, one after the other. He’s in there when the plane takes off . . .”
“Without him,” Harry said. “The guy’s so out of it he doesn’t even know it’s gone.”
“That’s right,” Chili said. “As a matter of fact, he’s still in the cocktail lounge when he hears people talking about a plane crash. But the shape he’s in, he doesn’t find out right away it’s the plane he was on. It didn’t gain altitude on account of something to do with the wind and went down in the Everglades, the swamp there, and exploded. Killed everybody aboard, a hunnerd and seventeen people counting the crew. Then when the guy finds out it was his flight, he can’t believe it. If he’d stayed on that plane he’d be dead. Right then he knows his luck has changed. If everybody thinks he’s dead he won’t have to pay back the fifteen or what he owes on the vig, four and a half a week. He’d be saving himself a pile of dough.”
Karen was about to say something, but Harry beat her.
“Not to mention saving his ass.”
She said to Chili, “The interest is four hundred and fifty a week on fifteen thousand?”
“That’s right. Three percent.”
“But a week,” Karen said. “That’s a hundred and fifty percent a year.”
“A hunnerd and fifty-six,” Chili said. “That’s not too bad. I mean some’ll charge you more’n that, go as high as
