“What do you have for me?”
Bobby opened the trunk, brought out Bones’ luggage, one bag, went back in and came out with a black leather attaché case. “Compliments of Mr. DePhillips. The names and phone numbers are in here. The same ones that were given to your friend Mr. Palmer.”
“What else?”
“It’s in there too. Beretta three-eighty, a nice one.”
“Gimme the car keys.”
“I’m suppose to drive you.”
“Frank DePhillips said extend me his best wishes and help me out any way I want, right?”
“Yeah . . .”
“So gimme the fuckin keys.”
Bones handed the kid five bucks and told him to get a haircut.
20 
In the car on the way over, Harry told Chili and Karen what to expect. “We’ll sit down and start schmoozing about the business. Who got fired, divorced, had an abortion, entered a treatment center, moved back to New York, died of AIDS, came out of the closet . . . We’ll get offered something to drink like Evian water or decaffeinated coffee and Elaine will ask if Lovejoy was inspired by a true story reported in the media—since you don’t see that many original ideas that are original and weren’t stolen from a book or a picture made forty years ago—and that’s when I begin to ease into the pitch. I say, ‘You know why you ask that, Elaine? Because Lovejoy is about life, about universal feelings of sorrow and hope. It’s about redemption and retribution, the little guy’s triumph over the system . . .”
Karen said, “Harry, you’re full of shit.”
He said, “If I’m wrong then I haven’t made something like three hundred pitches in my career. You’re talking to a distributor or studio execs, it’s the same thing.”
Karen said, “You haven’t met Elaine Levin.”
Chili had his dark pinstripe suit on, striped shirt and conservative dark tie, walking into Elaine’s office in the Hyman Tower Building on the Tower Studios lot, Hollywood, California. It wasn’t like an office; it was like a big old-fashioned living room with a dining L, but unfinished, or as if all this furniture was in the wrong room. A dark-haired woman in her forties, wearing glasses down on her nose was sitting at a dining room table talking on the phone. She covered it with her hand as they came in and said, “Hi, I’ll be right there. You want a soda, mineral water, some coffee?” She was from New York, no question. Karen gave her a wave saying thanks, but they just had lunch. Harry said to Chili, “What’d I tell you?” They sat down in the living room part, Chili next to Karen on a dull-green sofa that looked like an antique and felt like one, the seat round and hard. Harry was moving his butt around in a chair with a carved wood back and arms, trying to get comfortable. The floor and the walls were bare, no carpeting, no pictures or anything. As Chili was looking around Karen said, “Elaine’s redecorating. All this stuff goes.” Harry said, “Studio office, one week it’s Old English, the next week art deco moderne. You know who makes out in this town, the interior designers. On account of turnover.” Harry started pushing himself up and now Karen got up, so Chili did too as Elaine came over to them, her hand out.
She was smaller than Chili thought she’d be, maybe five-two in her stocking feet, which was the way she actually was, wearing a beige suit with the sleeves pushed up but no shoes. She wasn’t bad looking though, even with that mop of hair all over the place, like she hadn’t combed it in a week. Shaking
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Harry’s hand she said, “Harry, I feel as if I know you. I’ve been a fan of yours ever since Slime Creatures. They remind me of so many people I know in the industry.” Harry told Elaine he’d been following her career with interest ever since she broke in. Elaine turned to Chili and gave his hand a good grip as Karen introduced them and Elaine said, “My word, both the gentlemen in suits, I’m flattered. You should see the way most of them come in, like they do yard work and I guess some of them do, the writers, if they’re not parking cars.” Still holding on to his hand she said, “Chili Palmer, hmmmm,” in the slow way she spoke. It surprised him, this offhand manner she had about her, talking a lot but in no hurry. Maybe her mind somewhere else. Not what he’d heard about dynamic women executives. Elaine sat down, now the four of them around a coffee table where there was a big ashtray loaded with butts. She brought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of her jacket saying, “Mr. Lovejoy . . .” and Chili got ready to take his first meeting at a movie studio.
Harry: “What hooked me, Elaine, is the theme. Redemption and retribution, the little guy’s triumph over the system.”
Elaine: “Yeah . . . well, I’m as turned on by redemption and retribution, Harry, as anyone; but what’s the system he triumphs over?”
Harry: “The legal system.”
Elaine: “I don’t see the ending exactly as a triumph. The man who killed his boy is dead, but Lovejoy would still owe—what is it, a hundred thousand to somebody, the guy’s heirs?”
Harry: “We’re revising the ending . . .”
Elaine: “Good.”
Harry: “Roxy has brought Lovejoy to court, but the case is still pending when Roxy is killed. So Lovejoy keeps his flower shop, doesn’t have to pay anything.”
Elaine: “Uh-huh, yeah . . . But what about motivation? Why he goes after the guy with a video camera.”
Harry: “Why? To see justice done.”
Elaine: “But it isn’t. The guy gets his license revoked again—so what?”
Harry: “What we plan to do as part of revising the ending, is have Lovejoy do something to cause Roxy’s death. I don’t mean murder him, but not have Lovejoy just standing there either.”
Elaine: “That gets us back to his motivation. I can’t see this mingy florist becoming so vindictive.”
Harry: “Who, Lovejoy?”
Elaine: “Even his name.”
Harry: “We’re thinking of changing it. No, but the idea—here’s a guy you think is a schlub, right? But beneath that quiet exterior he’s passionate, impulsive and extremely likable. Once you get to know him.”
Elaine: “He’s passionate? Who does he fuck?”
Harry: “You mean in the script?”
Elaine: “In his life. His wife left him—who does he sleep with. He’s quiet, low-key, yeah, but does that mean he doesn’t fuck?”
Chili couldn’t believe he was hearing her say that. There were all kinds of movies where nobody got laid in them. Unless she meant it as something the guy did that you never saw. Like people in movies never went to the bathroom even though you
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know they would have to.
There was a pause, a silence right after Elaine spoke. And then Karen got into it.
Karen: “What he needs—what the story needs is for somebody to give him a kick in the ass, get him going. I’m thinking about a woman who’s been abused by Roxy, knows his life, his habits, that he’s into something illegal. And she also knows he’s driving—that’s it, when he’s not supposed to. Otherwise where does Lovejoy get the idea to catch him at it? She goes to Lovejoy and lays it out. Let’s get this son of a bitch. Catch him driving. What’s the girl’s name in the script, the hooker?”
Harry: “Lola.”
Karen: “Lovejoy, Ilona, Lola—come on. Call her—I don’t know—Peggy. Working class but bright. From a big family she’s had to help support. Worked all her life . . . Roxy’s hobby is making porno films he shows to his friends. He gets Peggy stoned and shoots nude footage of her. She discovers it, burns the tape and he beats her up . . . This is the kind of situation I mean, not necessarily what will work best. But get her personally involved. Where does the video camera come from? It’s Roxy’s. She rips it off . . . You see what I’m getting at?”