Get Shorty: A Novel cp-1 Read online

  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 Lovejoy was a “soft pass,” which meant it was salvageable. There were a lot of terms you had to learn, as opposed to the shylock business where all you had to know how to say was “Give me the fuckin money.” He’d call Karen later on, after he had a talk with Harry.

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  * * *

  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 an
d 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.

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  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?”

  “I get to keep the ten in the laundry bag,” Chili said.

  Bones had to think about that one.

  “Look,” Chili said, “I was gonna pay you the eight I owe you out of the ten. See, but now you tell me I don’t have to. So . . .”

  “So I take two out of it and we’re square,” Bones said. “How’s that?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Chili said.

  He looked up the number for the Drug Enforcement Administration in the phone book, dialed it and told the woman who answered he wanted to speak to the agent in charge. She asked what it was in regard to and he said a locker out at the airport, full of money.

  A male voice came on saying, “Who’s speaking, please?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Chili said, “it’s an anonymous call.”

  The male voice said, “Are you the same anonymous asshole called last night?”

  “No, this’s a different one,” Chili said. “Have you looked in that locker, C—oh-one-eight?”

  There was a pause on the line.

  “You’re helping us out,” the male voice said. “I’d like to know who this is.”

  “I bet you would,” Chili said. “You want to chat or you want me to tell you who to look for? The guy’s on his way out right now.”

  This DEA agent wouldn’t give up. He said, “You know there’s a reward for information that leads to a conviction. That’s why I have to know who this is.”

  “I’ll get my reward in heaven,” Chili said. “The guy you want has a bullet scar in his head and is wearing gray shoes. You can’t miss him.”

  24

  “This was Warren’s office,” Karen said, “before he was shipped off to Publicity. Warren Hurst, I think I mentioned him to you.”

  “Beth’s Room,” Chili said, sitting across from Karen at her big oak desk. “The one that said if you did it your way they wouldn’t have a movie.”

  “You remember that.”


  She said it with that nice look in her eyes she had been using on him lately. Interested, letting him know she liked him. The only difference today, she had on glasses, round ones with thin black frames. She was telling him now the office decor was pre-Warren, he hadn’t been here long enough to redecorate; that it wouldn’t be bad in a men’s club, but she wasn’t going to touch it. “Not till I see if I get a vote here.”

  Chili said, “You don’t fool around.”

  “What, taking the job? Why not?”

  Karen’s shoulders moved in the beige silk blouse, the little ninety-pounder behind the big executive desk.

  “I think I’ll be good at it if they let me. Look at the scripts.”

  She picked up one from a stack of about ten and moved it to another part of the desk.

  “Elaine says all of them have spin in varying degrees. That means they’re supposed to be good.”

  She picked up another one. “Beth’s Room, still under consideration.”

  She picked up another and laid it down again.

  “Elaine wants to know what I think.”

  “Tell her the truth.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I got an idea spinning around.”

  “You told me about it.”

  As he said, “It’s getting better,” Karen’s phone buzzed.

  She picked it up. “Yeah?” Said, “Tell him I’ll call him back,” and looked at Chili as she hung up. “Harry. That’s the third time today.”

  Chili said, “I have to call him too, tell him what happened.”

  And Karen said, “That’s right, you were going out to the airport,” her expression changing, her eyes losing that nice glow as they became serious. She took off her glasses as he told her about the DEA guys and hunched her shoulders leaning on the desk, looking right at him but maybe picturing it too, the scene. That was the feeling he had. He finished the part at the airport and she said, “You really did that?” sounding amazed. “So the money’s still there?” He had to tell her about Bones then, and she listened to that part, every word of it, without blinking her eyes. When he finished she sat back in her chair for a moment thinking, still looking at him, then came forward again asking about Bones, who he was. So Chili had to take her all the way back to Vesuvio’s and the leather coat.