Catlett picked up the phone from a deck chair, punched a number for about the twentieth time today and got him. Damn. The Bear’s voice came on and Catlett said, “How you doing this evening?” having decided hours ago to be cool with the Bear, save his emotions.
“The guy faked them out,” the Bear said.
“This Chili Palmer you speaking of? I know that much.”
“You see on the news the drug bust at LAX? They picked up a guy from Miami. Alleged member of organized crime.”
“You watching the news?” Catlett said. “What else? Watch some sitcoms ’stead of calling me?”
“I had to take Farrah to Costa Mesa, to her mother’s. She had the news on and that’s when I saw it. Then I had to stay a while and visit, talk about how I’m always late with the check. I got back, I had to eat. I figured you’d have talked to Harry, found out
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what happened. But I didn’t actually give a shit if you did or not. I don’t work for you no more, or Ronnie. I quit.”
Catlett said, “This the man use to jump offa high buildings talking?”
“Into air bags,” the Bear said. “There’s no cushion under what you’re doing. I got responsibilities, I got Farrah to think about.”
“You always had Farrah. Took her on buys with you.”
“I’m out of it, Cat. Ronnie picked up two keys for Palm Desert. I’ll drop off the rest tomorrow morning and I’m done.”
“Been giving it serious thought, huh?”
“All the way down to Costa Mesa and back.”
“How ’bout we talk about it tomorrow? Tonight, later on, I got one for you doesn’t involve any heavy work. Chili Palmer’s staying with that woman, Karen? I need you to get me in the house.”
“I’m already an accessory on one count,” the Bear said. “You want to get in, bust a window.”
“I’m thinking she might have an alarm system.”
“Good, so don’t do it.”
“Something happened to you, huh? Like that tumble down the stairs shook you up.”
“Or straightened me out,” the Bear said. “It’s different. It isn’t like a stunt gag, you’re ready, you know what’s gonna happen. This guy doesn’t fool around, he comes right at you. You talked to him, yeah, but you don’t know him.”
Catlett said, “Uh-huh,” and said, “Bear, I had an idea. Listen to this.”
Making it sound as though he was starting over and they were still friends.
“You get your saw—no, get your wrench, and fix my deck railing to give way like they do in movies. You know what I’m saying? Like when the guy gets hit he falls against it and it gives way on him? All you do is loosen the bolts that hold the upright part of the rail to the deck. So then I invite Chili Palmer out here to look at my view. Get him to lean over the railing, see what’s down there . . . Huh? What you think?”
“This isn’t a movie, Cat. This guy’s real.”
“It could be done though. Sure, loosen some bolts. I can see it . . . Except how would I get him out here? So I better go in the woman’s house and do him. You helping me.”
There was a silence on the line before the Bear said, “I’m not gonna do it.”
“You sure?”
“I told you, I quit.”
“I hate being alone, Bear.”
“That’s too fucking bad.”
“I hate it so much, man, if I go down I’ll pleadeal you in. Give ’em this ace burglar now one of the West Coast dope kings, if they go easy on the Cat. You dig? Tell ’em where you live, where you keep the product, all that shit they love to hear.”
There was that silence again. This time all the Bear said was “Why?” in a quiet tone of voice.
“ ’Cause I’m a mean motherfucker,” Catlett said. “Why you think?” and hung up the phone.
It was fun playing with the Bear, putting fear in a man his size. Now forget him. He hadn’t needed the Bear to do Yayo or the gas station man in Bakersfield or the fools he did over business, the one in his car waiting at a light, the other one on his front
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steps. He didn’t sit down and plan doing those people. He saw the need and did them. Do this one the same way and don’t think so much, worrying if there was an alarm system in the house. Harry said Chili Palmer had come in the house at night. He didn’t say nothing about any alarm system going off. Chili Palmer had come in the house and turned the TV on and Harry had to go downstairs being the man, but without a gun, ’cause there wasn’t a gun in the house, was there?
It took Harry about two minutes to decide on the Norwegian salmon—anxious to talk, get things going—and another Scotch. Chili kept reading the menu while Michael told them about the curious negative influence his father became in motivating his career. Harry was willing to bet Chili, after all the time he spent on the menu, would order a steak; and he did, the filet rare, baked potato, house salad, the soup, a half-dozen bluepoints and, yeah, another Scotch. But Michael wasn’t finished telling about his dad, this tyrant who manufactured hairpieces and wanted his sonny to follow him in the rug trade, the headwaiter standing by. Then Michael had to look at the menu for a while, Harry willing to bet anything he wouldn’t order from it. It was an unwritten rule in Hollywood, actors never ordered straight from the menu; they’d think of something they had to have that wasn’t on it, or they’d tell exactly how they wanted the entrée prepared, the way their mother back in Queens used to fix it. The seven-million-dollar actor in the jacket a bum wouldn’t wear told the headwaiter he felt like an omelet, hesitant about it, almost apologetic. Could he have a cheese omelet with shallots, but with the shallots only slightly browned? The headwaiter said yes, of course. Then could he have some kind of light tomato sauce over it with just a hint of garlic but, please, no oregano? Of course. And fresh peas in the tomato sauce? Harry wanted to tell him, Michael, you can have any fucking thing you want. You want boiled goat? They’ll send out for it if they don’t have one. Jesus, what you had to go through with actors. The ideal situation would be if you could make movies without them.
“What fascinates me about this one,” Michael said, “is the chance to play an essentially cliché-type character in a way that’s never been done before, against his accepted image.”
Harry liked the sound of that. He wished he could light up, so he could enjoy it more. Chili, busy eating ice cream, might or might not be paying attention.
“It’s not unlike the way I saw Bonaparte in Elba, “Michael said. “The script had him morose, dour, bound by his destiny to play the tragic figure. I thought, yeah, that’s the portrait we’ve all seen, with the hand shoved inside his coat. But why were his troops so loyal? Why were they willing to follow this neurotic guy, with the original Napoleon complex, to hell and back time after time, until finally Waterloo?”
Harry thinking, To Hell and Back, Audie Murphy, about 1955.
As Michael said, “What I did was separate the man from the historic figure, visualize a dichotomy, imagine him offstage making love, getting drunk, generally kicking back . . .” Michael grinned. “No pun intended.”
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Harry didn’t get it.
“And you know what? I saw him rather impish in his off moments. Maybe because he was a little guy and I had to play him that way. I saw him childlike with a love of life, a mischievous glow. I have him telling jokes, mimicking his generals, I do one like a French Howard Cosell. I drink wine, smoke hash and giggle, I moon Josephine a couple of times in the film . . . Anyway it’s this human side that my grenadiers sense, the reason they love me, not the historic figure, and are willing to die for me.”