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how to play the piano, like you have to learn notes. You already learned in school how to write, didn’t you? I hope so. You have the idea and you put down what you want to say. Then you get somebody to add in the commas and shit where they belong, if you aren’t positive yourself. Maybe fix up the spelling where you have some tricky words. There people do that for you. Some, I’ve even seen scripts where I know words weren’t spelled right and there was hardly any commas in it. So I don’t think it’s too important. You come to the last page you write in ‘Fade out’ and that’s the end, you’re done.”
Chili said, “That’s all there is to it?”
“That’s all.”
Chili said, “Then what do I need you for?”
He heard the elevator as he was opening the door to 325, looked down the hotel hallway and saw Karen coming toward him, Karen in a loose-fitting white shirt and gray slacks. Chili pushed the door open and waited, two copies of Lovejoy under his arm.
“I was in the bar when you came in,” Karen said. “I thought you saw me.” He shook his head saying no, but was glad to see her now, motioning Karen to go in. She said, “Well, I read it.” He followed her into the living room, the pagoda lamps still on, and dropped the scripts on the counter. A light on the phone was blinking on and off.
“You want to check your messages?”
“I can do it later,” Chili said. “Sit down, make yourself comfortable. I want to hear what you think.”
He took off his suitcoat as Karen went over to a fat chair next to the sofa.
“You read the script . . .”
“I could play the sister,” Karen said, “and wear sensible shoes. That would be a switch.”
Chili moved to the sofa, folding his suitcoat.
“I don’t see you doing that one, the sister.”
He laid the coat next to him as he sat down.
“But there isn’t anything else, as it stands, you’d want to do.”
“I wasn’t really looking for a part.”
“There could be a good one though. I got some ideas.”
Karen said, “You do, huh?”
Looking at Karen he could see the phone on the counter above her, the message light blinking on and off. It would have to be Tommy, something about Bones maybe, or Nicki. He began telling Karen how he thought the script needed to be fixed, change the whore to make it a bigger part: how she helps Lovejoy out and pretty soon they have something going.
“The hooker and the florist,” Karen said.
“You wouldn’t have to be a hooker exactly.”
“Mousse my hair and chew gum? Why don’t you check your messages?”
“I can wait.”
“You’ve read the script?”
“Not all of it, but I know what it’s about.”
“You and Harry’ll make a great team. Has he read it?”
“He bought it, he must’ve.”
“You sure? Harry used to have someone else read for him. Then he’d skim it if he thought he was going into production.”
“He told me he read it twice.”
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“This one he might’ve. You like the idea?”
“Basically, yeah, except what I mentioned. The part I read, the ending, I didn’t like ’cause it’s a letdown. You know what I mean? Lovejoy’s just standing there.”
“What do you think he should do?”
“Well, if he’s the star he’s the one ought to make it happen. Get some action going that’s his idea.” She kept looking at him and he said, “I don’t like the title either.”
“Harry thinks he needs you,” Karen said, “but he can’t pay you anything, he’s broke.”
Chili said, “I know exactly how much he doesn’t have.”
“So what do you get out of it?”
“You came here to ask me that?”
She said, “I want to know,” staring at him the way she did last night. It wasn’t the old dead-eyed look exactly, but it wasn’t bad.
“I like movies,” Chili said. “I help Harry make one, I’ll find out what you have to do outside of have an idea and raise the money. That doesn’t sound too hard. I was in the money business and I get ideas all the time.”
She looked so serious he had to smile at her.
“Then I’ll do one, make a movie and put you in it.”
He glanced at the message light on the phone flashing on and off.
Karen was still watching him.
She said, “I took your advice and made a deal with Harry. Not to act in it. The way I see it, if I save Harry a half million by setting him up with Michael, I should have a piece of the action. I told him I want co-producer.”
“What’d Harry say?”
“Harry would agree to anything. But I said I’d only do it if he can get a studio to put Lovejoy into development. So the first thing he has to do is sell the idea to Tower. That’s where he wants to take it. He thinks he can handle Elaine Levin.”
“What do you think?”
“If Elaine doesn’t like the idea, Harry’s not going to sell her on it. If she likes it, it could get made, with or without Michael.”
Chili said, “The script still needs to be fixed.”
“You know that,” Karen said, “and you haven’t even read it.”
He watched her lean over to push out of the chair, then pause and toss her head as she looked at him again, her hair falling away from her eyes—and remembered Karen doing it with blond hair, giving the guy in the movie the same look.
She said, “This might work. You never know.”
He asked the operator for his messages. She said, “Just a minute.” He waited. She came back on saying, “A Karen Flores called. She didn’t leave a message.” The operator sounded Latin. “A Mr. Zimm called. He’ll talk to you tomorrow.” That was it.
Later on, watching Taxi Driver on TV, Chili kept thinking of the way Karen had looked at him and wondered if she was telling him something and if he should’ve asked her to stay and have a drink. But then when Robert De Niro shaved his hair into a Mohawk, Chili started thinking of Ray Bones, even though Ray Bones didn’t have a Mohawk or look anything like Robert De Niro. Maybe it was all those guns De Niro had, wanting to shoot somebody.
15 
Catlett lived way up in the Hollywood hills where you could see the lights of L.A. spread out in kind of a grid and hear coyotes yipping in the dark. Here were all these modern homes built on stilts hanging over the sides of cliffs and there were still wild animals running around free. Catlett, barefoot, wearing a white silk bathrobe, stood at the rail of his deck, nothing below it for about twelve stories to where faint voices were coming from a lit-up swimming pool, a bright little square of light blue down there in the night, a girl laughing now, a nice sound . . . while the Bear told about the Colombian mule, Yayo the yoyo, dumb son of a bitch, still out at the airport.
“Thinks they have him spotted.”
“He call you?” Catlett said, his voice quiet. “How’d he know to do that?”
“He called Miami and they gave him our service number,” the Bear said. “The service calls me and I call the yoyo at LAX. He says the focking guy you told him was a fed left, but two more focking guys just like him took his place. With those focking gones on their legs.”
“Irritable, huh?”
“Making sounds like he’s coming loose on us.”
“Yeah, that’s how those people are.”
“He makes a run at the locker they’ll grab him. Then you have to think,” the Bear said, “pissed as he is, he could give us up too.”