This guy was either dumb or he was making conversation.
“Who, the suits? If I know they’re there, what’s the difference which ones they are? Tell that colored guy you work for he blew it. Whose idea was it, yours or his?” The Bear didn’t answer and Chili said, “Did you see it work in some movie you got beat up in? There’s quite a difference between movies and real life, isn’t there?”
Now Chili was making conversation. For some reason he felt sorry for this guy in his Hawaiian shirt.
“What movies were you in I might’ve seen?”
The Bear hesitated as if he might be thinking of titles. He wasn’t though. He said, “I have to ask you for that key.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“The locker key.”
“I know what one you mean,” Chili said. “I can’t believe what you’re telling me. The setup didn’t work so you want the key back?”
“Catlett says if you don’t open the locker the deal’s off.”
“You serious?” Chili said. “This is how you guys do business? I can’t believe you aren’t dead.”
The Bear kept staring but didn’t say anything.
“Look,” Chili said, “you know as well as I do there’s no fuckin way I’m gonna give you the key, outside of you point a gun at my head. Then we might have something to talk about. Otherwise . . . I’d like you to step away from the car.”
“I don’t need a gun,” the Bear said. “Where is it? If it isn’t on you, it’s around here someplace.”
Chili shook his head, tired of this, but still feeling a little sorry for the guy. The Bear didn’t seem to have his heart in it; he was going through the motions, doing what he was told. Chili looked off in kind of a thoughtful way, turned to the Bear again and kicked him in the left knee, hard. The Bear stumbled, hunching over. Chili grabbed him by the hair with both hands, pulled his head down and brought his knee up into the guy’s face. That straightened him and now Chili hit him high in the
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belly as hard as he could, right under the rib cage. The Bear gasped and sucked air with his mouth open trying to breathe, helpless now and in pain. Chili took him by the arm saying, “Lie down on your back. Come on, if you want to breathe.” He got the Bear down on the concrete, straddled his midsection and reached down to lift him up by the waist of his pants, the same blue ones he had on yesterday, telling him, “Take deep breaths through your mouth and let it out slow . . . That’s it, like that.”
Once the Bear was breathing okay, checking his teeth now, feeling his nose, Chili said, “Hey. Look at me,” and got him to raise his eyes. “Tell your boss I don’t ever want to see him again. He made a deal with Harry and a deal’s a deal. I’m talking about if we get the dough out of the locker. We don’t, then okay, there’s no deal. But either way I don’t want to see him coming around anymore. You understand? Will you tell him that?”
The Bear seemed to nod, closing and opening his eyes.
“What’re you hanging around with a guy like that for? You were in the movies, right? A stuntman? What’s he ever done he can talk about? The guy pimps you and you let him do it. You feel okay?”
“Not too bad,” the Bear said.
“How ’bout when you went down the stairs?”
He touched his left thigh. “I think I pulled my quadriceps.”
“If I was you,” Chili said, “I’d quit that guy so fast. No, first I’d kick him down some stairs, let him see what it’s like. Then I’d quit.”
The Bear didn’t say anything, but had a look in his eyes that maybe he was thinking about it.
“How many movies you been in?”
“About sixty.”
“No shit,” Chili said. “What’re some of ’em?”
* * *
The locker key was down on the first level of the parking structure, stuck in a crack where the pavement joined one of the concrete support posts. Chili made sure nobody was in sight before he picked it up.
Now he drove to the Avis lot to return the Toyota, walked over to National and took out a Cadillac Sedan de Ville, a black one. There was more to this than switching cars just in case. He felt he deserved a Cadillac. If he had one at home, he should have one out here. At least a Cadillac. Driving up 405 he began thinking that if somehow he got the cash out of that locker he’d tell Harry he wanted a ten percent commission on it, then turn in the Cadillac and lease a Mercedes or that expensive BMW. Karen said top agents and studio execs were driving BMWs now. She said a Rolls was too pretentious; low-key was in. Other things to remember: you don’t “take a meeting” anymore, you say you have “a two-thirty at Tower.” If a studio passes on a script, you don’t say “they took a Pasadena.” That was out before it was in. Like “so-and-so gives good phone.” If they say it’s “for a specialized audience” or it’s “a cast-driven script,” that’s a pass. But what Elaine Levin gave Lovejoy was a “soft pass,” which meant it was salvageable. There were a lot of terms you had to learn, as opposed to the shylock business where all you had to know how to say was “Give me the fuckin money.” He’d call Karen later on, after he had a talk with Harry.
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* * *
Pulling into the parking area beneath the Sunset Marquis he wondered if he should switch hotels. He liked this one, though, a lot. The people here were friendly, relaxed. They gave you free shampoo, suntan lotion, moisturizing cream. The food was good. You could cook in your room if you wanted. There were ashtrays everywhere you looked. A Sunset Marquis ashtray right there by the elevator, if you forgot to take one from your room when you checked out.
Chili unlocked the door to 325 and stepped inside, not too surprised to see the message light on the phone blinking. That would be Harry dying to know how he made out, Harry becoming a nervous wreck lately. He’d tell Harry it was still possible to get the money, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Show Harry, first, he still needed him, then straighten him out about the limo guys—stay away from them. Chili took off his suitcoat, turned to drape it over one of the chairs at the counter and saw that someone had been in here.
Not the maid, someone else. The maid hadn’t come in yet to clean up the room. You could tell, the newspapers on the sofa, the ashtray by the phone . . .
What had caught his eye, the cupboard doors in the kitchenette were open. Not all the way, but not closed tight either, the way he’d left them. But the desk drawer, Chili noticed, was closed, and he had left that one open about an inch. He had set the drawers in the bedroom the same way, some open an inch or so, some closed—a little nervous about security after the Bear had come in and tossed the place and didn’t leave one clue that he’d been here. This one who’d come in either didn’t know how to cover his moves or didn’t care. The Bear had left the ten grand in the suitcase in the bedroom closet, but this one was different, this guy . . .
Chili was about to go in there and thought, Wait a minute. What if the guy’s still here? As he fooled with that idea, looking toward the hall where you went into the bathroom or turned right and two steps took you into the bedroom, he knew who it was. Bones. There was no doubt in his mind now, that fuckin Bones had been here. Or was still here. In the bedroom.
There was one way to find out, but he didn’t want to walk in there, maybe surprise him, even though Bones, if he was there, would have heard him come in. Except that you couldn’t tell what Bones might do, the guy being either too dumb or crazy to act in a normal way.
What Chili did, he called out, “Hey, Bones? I’m home.” Waited maybe ten seconds watching the hall and there he was.
Bones appeared extending a pistol in front of him, some kind of bluesteel automatic. In the other hand he was holding a paper laundry sack you found in hotel closets. Chili didn’t have to guess what was in it. His ten grand. Bones waved the pistol at him.