Harry said, “When can I have the money?”
Getting right down to business. Never mind all the bullshit, huh? This was the meatloaf man.
“Whenever you want it, Harry. The money’s in hundred dollar bills inside one of those jock bags, you know? In a locker at the airport, waiting to be picked up.”
Harry looked at him. “The airport?”
“It was waiting out there on another deal, one that didn’t go through you don’t want to know about,” Catlett said. “Or maybe you should know something about it. I don’t want you to get in any trouble. It was money put there to make a buy, if you know what I mean.”
Harry picked up his glass and took a drink on that one.
“Yeah?”
But was still interested, look at that. Anxious.
“What I’m saying to you, Harry, you could go out there, take the bag out of the locker and be on
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your way, nobody bother you. But you never know
who’s hanging around that airport.”
“You mean cops,” Harry said.
“Well, that’s possible, yeah. Maybe Drug Enforcement individuals—I don’t know. I was thinking more of other people in the product trade know buys are made out there, money changing hands. You understand what I’m saying? They the ones you have to watch out might rip you off. Like if you look, I don’t mean like one of them, but kinda suspicious, you act nervous taking the bag out of the locker . . .”
“I don’t know,” Harry said, shaking his head.
Wanting it, you could tell, but afraid.
“It’s what I’m saying, it’s not the kind of thing you do,” Catlett said. “That’s why I was thinking you could send your boy, Chili Palmer. He gets hit on the head you aren’t out nothing.”
They took Chili’s rented Toyota, down Rodeo to Wilshire to come back around on Beverly Drive. On the way he told Karen about going into a restaurant on Little Santa Monica when he first got here. Went in all dressed up and was put way in the back after waiting at the bar about an hour, while these people who looked like they’d been out camping would come in and get the empty front tables right away. He told her about the worn-out leather jacket Michael had been wearing.
“You buy them new like that,” Karen said. “What did you think of him?”
Chili said he thought he was basically a nice guy, but it was hard to tell. “He was on most of the time. I think he has trouble being just himself.”
“He do any imitations?”
“Michael Jackson.”
“He used to do Howard Cosell constantly.” She said, “You know it isn’t easy being Michael Weir.”
Chili didn’t comment on that, thinking seven million ought to make it a little easier.
They were quiet and then she said, “What’s Nicki like?”
“She’s a rock-and-roll singer.” He thought a moment and said, “She doesn’t shave under her arms.”
“Michael probably goes for that. He thinks he’s earthy.”
“You still like him?”
“I don’t hold anything against him. He’s Michael Weir . . . and he’s great.”
“You mean his acting.”
“What’d you think I meant, in bed? In bed he was funny.”
“Funny in what way?”
“He was funny. He said funny things.”
For a few moments they were quiet again.
“He’s a lot shorter than I thought.”
“That’s not his fault,” Karen said.
Chili dropped her off in front of Tribeca, a storefront kind of café with the name on the plate glass, and drove up the street looking for a place to park.
They weren’t at that old-time-looking bar or anywhere on the main floor. Chili headed for the open stairway and started up. The place could be called the Manhattan or the Third Avenue, that’s what it looked like, one of those typical overpriced New York bar-restaurants. The TriBeCa area, he thought of warehouses, buildings with lofts, but it was as good a
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name as any. He saw a railing along the upstairs, this end of it open, overlooking the bar. And he saw a guy standing near the top of the stairs, the guy a few steps down but not coming down, standing there waiting for him. A guy in a Hawaiian shirt with beef on him and a full reddish-brown beard.
Moving up the stairs Chili got a good look at the guy and his size. Now he saw Bo Catlett appear above the guy to stand on the top step, almost directly behind him, and Chili knew the guy wasn’t going to move. He got within three steps of the guy and stopped, but not looking up now, not wanting to put himself in that awkward position, his head bent back. He was looking at the guy’s waist now at eye level, where the Hawaiian shirt bloused out of the elastic band of the guy’s blue pants, double-knit and tight on him.
Catlett’s voice said, “I like you to meet my associate, the Bear. Movie stuntman and champion weight lifter, as you might’ve noticed. Picks up and throws out things I don’t want.”
Chili looked at the thickness of the guy’s body, at red and gold hibiscus blossoms and green leaves on a field of Hawaiian blue, but wouldn’t look at his face now. He knew they were hibiscus, because Debbie used to grow them on Meridian Avenue before she flipped out and went back to Brooklyn.
Now the guy was saying, “I know Chili Palmer. I know all about him.”
The Bear sucking in his stomach and acting tough, his crotch right there in Chili’s face. This guy was as nuts as Debbie. You could tell he had his stomach sucked in, because the waistband was creased where the guy’s gut ordinarily hung over and rolled it, the pants as out of shape as this guy trying to give him a hard time. But Chili didn’t look up.
Catlett said, “We think you ought to turn around and go back to Miami.”
Chili still didn’t look up. Not yet.
The Bear said, “Take your ten grand with you, while you still have it.”
And Chili almost looked up—this guy as much as telling him he had been in his hotel room, nothing to it, saw all that dough and left it—but he didn’t. Chili kept his eyes on the guy’s waist and saw the stomach move to press against the elastic band, the guy still putting on his show but giving his gut a breather. Chili looked at the guy’s crotch one more time before moving his gaze up through the hibiscus till he was looking at the guy’s bearded face.
Chili said, “So you’re a stuntman,” with the look he’d use on a slow pay. “Are you any good?”
What the Bear did in that next moment was grin and turn his head to the side, as if too modest to answer and would let Catlett speak for him. It made the next move easier, the guy not even looking as Chili grabbed a handful of his crotch, stepped aside and yanked him off the stairs. The Bear yelled out of pain and fear and caught Chili’s head with an elbow going by, but it was worth it to see that beefy guy roll all the way down the stairs to land on the main floor. Chili kept watching till he saw the guy move, then looked up at Catlett.
“Not bad, for a guy his size.”
* * *
Karen saw it.
There was a scene like it in an Eastwood picture only Clint grabs the guy a little higher. The thug asks
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him where he thinks he’s going. She couldn’t remember if Clint had a line. He’s going upstairs in a hotel to have it out with Bobby Duvall. Grabs the guy with one hand and in a Reverse you see him tumble down the stairs to crash at the bottom. It was a western.
Karen had left the table within moments of seeing Catlett stop at the top of the stairs with the bearded guy, the Bear, in front of him, a few steps below, and knew they were waiting for Chili and something was going to happen. As a film sequence it would work from her point of view if she represented a third party in the scene. Then another setup to get the effect of it on her face. But there would have to be close shots too of what was going on. His hand grabbing the guy’s crotch. A tight close-up reaction shot of the guy’s face. As he begins to scream cut to a Reverse to see him go down the stairs. Catlett was down there now. They were leaving, the guy looking back this way, but not Catlett. Karen watched from the upstairs railing, people from tables around her now asking what happened. Chili was coming past the ones at the top of the stairs. She heard him say, “I guess the guy fell.” Now he was looking at her. He came over and she said, “What did he do to you?” Chili shook his head. He touched her arm and they moved through the tables to the corner booth where Harry was standing with his drink in his hand.