“Harry? What’re you doing?”
“I’m putting my shirt on.”
He moved to a window to be moving, doing something while he worked on the goddamn buttons.
“Is that okay? So I don’t catch cold? But I’m not gonna get all dressed for some friend of yours thinks he’s funny.”
“Friends don’t break in, Harry, they ring the bell.”
“Yeah? What about stoned they might.”
Karen didn’t comment; she was clean now, above it. Harry looked out the window at the backyard, overgrown around the edges, a tangle of plants and old trees surrounding the lawn and the pale oval shape of the swimming pool. It looked full of leaves.
“Does Miguel skim the pool? It needs it.”
“Harry—”
He said, “I’m going,” and got as far as the door. “If somebody broke in, how come the alarm didn’t go oft?”
“I don’t have an alarm.”
“You have it taken out?”
“I never had one.”
That’s right, it was the house in Westwood, where Karen had lived with him. She’d come in, forget to touch the numbers to turn it off . . . Marlene had the alarm system now and the house that went with it. He had married Marlene, his director of development, after Karen left to marry Michael. Then when both marriages ended at about the same time he told Karen it was a sign, they should get back together. Karen said she didn’t believe in signs. Which was a lie, she read her horoscope every day. Marlene was married to a guy who at one time ran production at Paramount and was now producing TV sitcoms, one of them a family with a Chihuahua that could talk. Tiny little dog with a tiny little fake Puerto Rican accent. Why chew look hat me like dat? The dog always fucking up. He was thinking of Karen in the Westwood house instead of this one, her own place, a semi-French château high up in Beverly Hills, above the lights of L.A. Built in the late twenties for a movie star and passed on to others.
From the doorway he said to Karen, “Why chew make me do thees?”
“Because I’m a girl,” the pale figure on the bed answered, “and you’re bigger than I am. A lot.”
Harry moved down the curved staircase in his shirt and boxer shorts, the monotone sound of voices becoming more distinct; he could hear words now and what sounded like audience response, the volume turned up to be heard on the second floor. He believed it was the Letterman show. The tile in the foyer was cold on his bare feet. Mexican tile now and primitive art, hardwood floors except in the study, all the fat comfortable slipcovered furniture from Michael’s time gone. And yet there were pictures of him in the study, among the dozens of photographs of movie people and movie posters covering the paneled walls.
He crossed to the study, the door open partway, dark inside except for the glow from the big thirtytwo-inch Sony. There, David Letterman talking to someone—not Shecky, it wasn’t his voice.
Harry couldn’t see the desk, where he and Karen had sat with the bottle of Scotch, schmoozing, Karen telling him she was reading a script she might do. Oh, really? Want to get back into it, huh? Great. Biding his time until finally making his presentation: here is my tremendous opportunity, but here are the problems. Pause. Waiting then for her to say, Maybe I can help. No, she tells him he ought to lose weight.
Still, there was hope. Asking him to spend the night was a good sign. Looking after him, saying he was in no condition to drive. It meant she cared. Though not enough to let him sleep with her when he suggested it, as kind of a trip down memory lane. Spunky Karen said, “If you think nostalgia’s going to get you laid, forget it.” He could take the guest room or a cab. Fine, sleeping with her wasn’t that important anyway; they were back on familiar ground with one another. When he did slip into her bed, later, Karen said, “I mean it, Harry, we’re not going to do anything.”
But, she didn’t kick him out.
So he felt pretty good pushing open the door to the study, telling himself there was no one in here. If there was it would be one of Karen’s friends, no doubt stoned, some bit-part actor thinking he was funny. Okay, he’d nod to the guy very nonchalantly, turn the TV off and walk out.
Moving into the glow from the big Sony now, most of the room dark, he saw David Letterman talking to Paul Shaffer, his music guy, the two of them acting hip. Harry felt his bare feet in the warm carpeting. Felt himself jump and said, “Jesus Christ!” as Letterman and Paul Shaffer vanished, the screen going to black in the same moment the desk lamp came on.
A guy Harry had never seen before was sitting there, hunched over a little, his arms resting on the desk. A guy in black. Dark hair, dark eyes, that lean, hard-boned type. A guy in his forties.
He said, “Harry Zimm, how you doing?” in a quiet tone of voice. “I’m Chili Palmer.”
3 
Harry pressed a hand against his chest. He said, “Jesus, if I have a heart attack I hope you know what to do,” convinced the guy was a friend of Karen’s, the way he was making himself at home, the guy staring at him out of those deep-set dark eyes but with hardly any expression.
He said, “Where you been, Harry?”
Harry let his hand slide down over his belly, taking his time, wanting to show he had it together now, not the least self-conscious, standing there without his pants on.
“Have we met? I don’t recall.”
“We just did. I told you, my name’s Chili Palmer.”
The guy speaking with some kind of East Coast accent, New York or New Jersey.
“Tell me what you been up to.”
Harry still had a mild buzz-on that made him feel, not exactly reckless, but not shy either.
“You mean what am I doing here?”
“You want, you can start with that.”
He didn’t appear upset or on the muscle. But if he had a key to get in—Harry assuming that—the guy was closer to Karen than just a friend, Karen maybe going in for rough trade now.
Harry said, “I’m visiting, that’s all. I’m up in the guest room, I hear the TV. . . . You turned it on?”
The guy, Chili, kept staring, not saying anything now. Typecast, he was a first or second lead bad guy, depending on the budget. Hispanic or Italian. Not a maniac bad guy, a cool bad guy with some kind of hustle going. But casual, black poplin jacket zipped up.
The answer came to Harry and he said, “You’re in pictures, right?”
The guy smiled. Not much but enough to show even white teeth, no doubt capped, and Harry was convinced of it. The guy was an actor friend of Karen’s and she was in on it—the reason she was so anxious to get him down here—setting him up for this bullshit audition. The guy scares hell out of you to prove he can act and you give him a part in your next picture.
“Did you stop to think what if I had a heart attack?”
The guy didn’t move, still doing the bit, no expression, very cool.
He said, “You look okay to me, Harry. Come over here and sit down. Tell me what you been up to.”
The guy wasn’t bad. Harry took one of the canvas director’s chairs by the desk, the guy watching him. He knew how to stare without giving it much. The angle was nice too: the guy lean and dark, the bottle of Scotch, the ice bucket and the glasses he and Karen had left, in the foreground. Harry raised one hand and passed it over his thinning hair. He could feel it was losing its frizz, due for another permanent and touch-up, add some body and get rid of the mousy gray trying to take over. The guy had a full head of dark hair, as that type usually did, but close-cropped so you could see the shape of his head, like a skull. It was a nice effect.