In the gift shop Chili bought an L.A. Lakers T-shirt, purple and gold, and a black canvas athletic bag, a small one. The T-shirt went in the athletic bag inside the paper gift-shop bag. He looked around at the souvenirs, all the different kinds of mementos of Los Angeles, at the wall
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of books and magazines. There was a scruffy kid about eighteen who looked promising, checking out the skin magazines. Chili went up to him and said, “You want to make five bucks, take you two minutes?” The kid looked at him but didn’t answer. “You go over to those lockers across the aisle there and put this in C-017.” The kid still didn’t say anything. “It’s a surprise for my wife,” Chili said. “But you have to do it quick, okay? While she’s in the can.” That sounded as if it made sense, so the kid said yeah, okay. Chili gave him the paper bag his purchases were in, a five-dollar bill and three quarters. The kid left and came back with a key that had C-017 on the round flat part of it.
What Chili didn’t do was look around the terminal to see if he could spot any suits—the way in movies you saw them standing around reading newspapers. That was bullshit. Maybe you could spot them if you were out here all the time doing business. Maybe the limo guys could spot them and that’s why the hundred and seventy grand was sitting untouched in the locker. Chili had no doubt it was there or this wouldn’t be a setup. The suits grab you with something incriminating, with what they called “suspected drug money,” or there could be more than cash in the locker, some dope, to make the bust stick. There was no sense in looking around, because if it was a setup Catlett would have called it in and the suits would be here dressed all kinds of ways watching locker No. C-018, here and there but not standing anywhere near the locker, so why bother looking?
What Chili did, he left the airport for a couple of hours: drove over Manchester Avenue where he found an Italian place and had a plate of seafood linguine marinara and a split of red. While he was here he wrote the Newark flight number and arrival time on a piece of Sunset Marquis notepaper. It seemed like a lot of trouble, the whole thing, but it was better to have a story just in case, not have to make one up on the spot.
By half past twelve he was back in the Delta terminal waiting at the gate where 83 was due to arrive at twelve-forty. It was on the ground at five past one. He watched all the passengers come off the plane and out through the gate till he was standing there by himself. Okay, he turned and walked down the aisle now to the bank of thirty-three lockers, three high, where C-018 was about in the middle. He looked both ways, taking his time, waiting till a group of people was passing behind him, giving him a screen, giving him just time enough to open C-017, grab the black athletic bag, leaving the gift-shop bag inside, and close the locker. He got about ten yards down the aisle, heading for daylight, when the black guy in the suit coming toward him stopped right in his path.
“Excuse me, sir. Would you come with me, please?”
Now there was a big guy in a plaid wool shirt next to him and another guy, down the aisle, talking on his hand radio. All of them out in the open now. The black guy had his I.D. folder open. They were Drug Enforcement. As Chili said, “What’s wrong?” acting surprised. “What’s this about?” The black guy turned and started off.
The one in the plaid shirt said, “Let’s follow him and behave ourselves. What do you say?”
They took him to a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY the black guy opened with a key. It was bare and bright inside the office, fluorescent
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lights on. Nothing on the metal desk, not even an ashtray. There were three chairs, but they didn’t ask him to sit down. The one in the plaid shirt told him to empty his pockets and place the contents on the desk, actually using the word contents. But that was as official-sounding as it got. Chili did as he was told acting bewildered, saying he thought they had the wrong person. The black guy opened his wallet and looked at the driver’s license while the other one pulled the Lakers T-shirt out of the athletic bag and felt around inside. They glanced at each other without giving any kind of sign and the black guy said, “You live in Miami?”
“That’s right,” Chili said.
“What’re you doing in Los Angeles?”
“I’m in the movie business,” Chili said.
They glanced at each other again. The black guy said, “You’re an investor, is that it?”
“I’m a producer,” Chili said, “with ZigZag Productions.”
“You have a card in here?”
“Not yet, I just started.”
The one in the plaid shirt looked at the “contents” on the desk and said, “Is that everything?”
“That’s it,” Chili said. He watched the black guy pick up the note with the Newark flight number and arrival time written on it. Chili said, “I’d appreciate your telling me what this is about.” He could act nervous with these guys without trying too hard.
“I got a John Doe warrant here,” the one in the plaid shirt said. “I can strip-search you if I want.”
“Pat him down,” the black guy said.
“Why don’t I strip-search him?”
“Pat him down,” the black guy said.
Chili was starting to like the black guy, his quiet way, but couldn’t say as much for the other one. The big guy in the plaid shirt put him against the wall, told him to spread his legs and did a thorough job going over him as the black guy asked what he was doing at the airport. Chili said he was supposed to meet his wife, but she wasn’t on the flight. The black guy asked why, if he lived in Miami, his wife was coming from Newark? Chili said because they’d had a fight and she left him, went back to Brooklyn. He said he asked her to come out here, maybe with a change of scenery they could get back together and she said okay, but evidently changed her mind. He didn’t mention it was twelve years ago she’d left him.
The black guy said, “Your wife a Lakers fan?”
“I am,” Chili said. “I’m a fan of everything that’s
L.A. I love it out here.” And looked over his shoulder to give the guy a smile.
The black guy said he could go. Then, when Chili was at the desk, asked him, “What was the number of the locker you used?”
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?”