“Out of meanness,” Catlett said, “or making a plea deal. You suppose you could go get him?”
“That’s what I was thinking. Tell him the airport’s too hot right now.”
“I appreciate it,” Catlett said.
“You want me to take him anyplace special?”
“I don’t care, long as you get him out.”
“I could take him home.”
“Yeah, but don’t let him go near Farrah, hear? How’s the child?”
“Cute as a bug.”
Catlett said, “Bear? Something else that’s pressing. This man Chili Palmer, staying at the Sunset Marquis. I wonder you could do a read on him for me.
“Chili Palmer,” the Bear said.
“Thinks he’s mean. I wouldn’t mind you ran into him. See if he’s real.”
“I could do that.”
Catlett said, “Shit, everything at once. I also need to know where Harry Zimm’s been hanging out. Put a limo on him”—Catlett starting to grin— “tail the motherfucker in a white stretch.”
The Bear said, “I best take care of Yayo first,” and left.
It was cool out on the deck, Catlett wearing just the thin robe, but felt good, some stars out and that clear sound of voices in the dark, the girl laughing again. People with
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style knowing how to live. It looked like they might be skinny-dipping down there, couple of pink shapes in the blue-lit square. Coyotes watching them from the bushes . . . Young coyote asks his daddy, What’s that looks like a pussy over there? And his daddy says, It’s what it is, boy. They might even be movie people, work either side of the camera, it didn’t make any difference. They were the kind of people he wanted to associate with in his life, not have to fool with fools like Yayo anymore. Even if you had to watch your step in the movie business, keep from getting fucked over, at least the ones doing it had some style. Chili Palmer had it in his own way, something, but it was hard to put your finger on it. Chili Palmer looked like a mob guy and talked like one—not a movie mob guy, a real one— though he could maybe play one in a movie. He had the bullshit to make it work, if the camera didn’t scare him. Ask him what did he bring to Harry’s deal and he says, “Me.” Catlett had to smile, by himself out on his deck and starting to shiver with cold, he had to smile at the man’s bullshit. “Me.” Or was it confidence he had in himself? Either way, it could work for him. And then saying what he did, if writing a script was so easy, saying, “What do I need you for?” He did know a few things about movies, who Morgan Freeman was and how to say Greta Scacchi’s name, without looking like he’d know such things. He let you think he’d read the script but didn’t get sassy when he got caught—no, he listened to it told, wanting to know. That showed confidence, too, didn’t it? The man out in the open with himself. Maybe less bullshit about him than you think. Even though he looked and talked like a mob guy and those guys would bullshit you to death.
Catlett felt himself close to something here and said it out loud to hear it. “You close. You know it? You close.” Thinking, Chili Palmer might know something about movies. Then saying out loud, “But
you know more.”
Time to quit thinking and start doing. Yeah.
Not let anything stand in the way. No.
Not Chili Palmer, not anybody.
* * *
Ronnie said, “I have to make all the decisions around here? Why don’t you decide for a change. It’s not that hard, Cat. You want to go to Mateo’s? The Ivy? You want to go to Fennel? Drive out to Santa Monica? Or we can run across the street to the Palm, I don’t give a shit. But we have to eat, right?”
“I don’t know,” Catlett said, “do we?”
Give him a hard one like that, mess up his head.
“You have anything has to be done around here?”
There wasn’t much that looked like business on Ronnie’s desk. It stayed neat, his girl Marcella in the other office doing the scheduling and billing.
Ronnie said, “Not that I know of.”
Catlett didn’t have a desk. He sat across from Ronnie looking at Ronnie’s cowboy boots up on the desk, ankles crossed, Ronnie low in his big chair, down behind there somewhere.
“Well, I know you got three cars out working. You got to pick up the producer coming in from New York, and later on the rock group that likes the white stretch. I know that much,” Catlett said, “and I barely work here.”
Ronnie said, “You know that, but you can’t tell me where you want to have lunch. Hey, how about Chinois? The curried oysters with salmon pearls, mmmmm.”
Catlett said, “How about Spago?” acting innocent, knowing they didn’t serve lunch, and got a
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mean look from Ronnie. The last time they went there the woman tried to seat them over on the other side of the open kitchen and Ronnie went berserk, told her, “My fucking Rolls is in the front row outside and you want to put us in back?” The man had a point. You sat at the right tables if you expected to be recognized in this town. Ronnie’s trouble was nobody remembered him.
Next, Catlett heard Ronnie’s desk drawer open and saw Ronnie’s automatic come edging out of the V between his crossed cowboy boots and heard Ronnie making gunfire sounds, couuu, couuu, the little guy playing with his Hardballer .45, a pistol ten inches long. Couuu, pretending he was shooting that lady maître d’ at Spago.
“Put it away.”
“I’m not pointing it at you.”
“Ronnie?”
“Shit.”
“In the drawer.”
“I wouldn’t mind somebody trying to rip us off,” Ronnie said. “You know what this would do to a guy?”
“I know I’m not ever having lunch with you no more you don’t put that thing away.” Catlett waited, hearing the drawer slide open and close. “You have a delivery to make, don’t you? Down to Palm Desert?”
“You want to take it?”
“They your friends, not mine.”
Four years of this shit, being the buddy of an idiot. Earlier, when Catlett came in, he told Ronnie they were having trouble with Yayo and Ronnie said, “Which one’s Yayo?” Four years retained on the books as Marketing Consultant, which meant sitting here with Ronnie deciding where to eat. Then having the martini lunches and watching him get shitfaced on those see-throughs. It meant going to Ronnie’s parties with all the glitter twits. Watching Ronnie have his nose bleeds about every day. Put up with all that shit, it was still better than running a dope house or sitting in a boiler room selling fake bonds over the phone. Better than managing a string of bitchy ladies, better than thinking up the everyday kinds of hustles to get by . . . But not better than being in the movie business. He hadn’t mentioned to Ronnie he’d read Mr. Lovejoy or said anything about it since their meeting with Harry. From now on it wouldn’t be any of Ronnie’s business.
“Hey, Cat? How about Le Dôme? We haven’t been there in a while.”
They got a nice table on the aisle in that middle section and Catlett waited for Ronnie to relax with his extra-dry martini before telling him he should take a rest. “You going down to Palm Desert anyway, why don’t you stay awhile, take a month off, man, and ease out, share your toot with some nice young lady. You been working too hard.”
Get the motherfucker out of his hair while he set up making his move.
Back in the office of Wingate Motor Cars Limited, past closing time and the help gone, Catlett sitting at Ronnie’s desk starting to make plans, he got a call from the Bear.
“This guy’s driving me nuts.”
“Where you at?”
“Home. We were out at Universal—you know the studio tour? It’s like Disneyland.”