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“That’s what Michael does,” Karen said. “He turns the story around to suit himself and then walks away. The shylock becomes a brain surgeon. The drycleaner—who knows?”
“I’m thinking of making him an agent,” Chili said, “and his wife, Fay, a rock-and-roll singer. It’s a little different’n what I told you and Harry. She comes here with the shylock and they fall in love looking for Leo. Also there’s a mob guy that’s after them.”
Karen stopped and turned to him. “His name Ray Bones?”
“Yeah, but I think I’ll change it. I don’t want to get sued. I’ve had enough of Ray Bones to last me the rest of my life.”
They started walking again, strolling toward the house. Karen’s shoulders hunched in the bulky sweater, hands shoved into the sleeves. She said, “What about Catlett?”
“He’s not in it.”
She said, “Are you sure? You have an idea for a movie based on something that actually happened, but now you’re beginning to fictionalize. Which is okay, like bringing Fay into it more . . .”
Chili said, “After I saw that’s what Lovejoy needed.”
“That’s fine—but what exactly are you keeping and what are you throwing away?”
“Well, if I have Bones as the bad guy, what do I need Catlett for? It’s not about making a movie, it’s about getting your hands on money without getting killed. Or it’s about a moral dilemma, as Michael says. If they do get their hands on the money, can they keep it? Michael says no.”
“So you resolve that,” Karen said. “You have action, suspense, romance, good characters . . . You have that wonderful scene with Bones in the hotel room. He takes the locker key and you set him up.” She paused and said, “It’s cool the way it works, but you can’t end the picture with it. What happens next, at the airport, is offstage. But if it did play as a scene you wouldn’t be in it.”
“You mean the shylock.”
Karen said, “Yeah, right,” thinking of something else. “What you might do is play the hotel room scene with Leo instead of Bones—it’s too good to throw away. Leo finds the key, leaves to pick up the money and you call the DEA.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“But you did.”
“Yeah, to Bones. I wouldn’t do it to Leo.”
She said, “Well . . . I don’t know. I like Catlett as a character, if you could use him somehow. Doesn’t he fit into this at all?”
“He’s Harry’s problem.”
“Isn’t Harry in it?”
“I left that part out, the shylock looking for him.”
He thought of Catlett again. He thought of the Bear, the Bear falling down the restaurant stairs, but didn’t see how he could use that either.
Karen said, “I wouldn’t throw anything away just yet,” as they reached the patio and she turned to him. She looked cold, hugging herself with her hands in the sweater sleeves. “What’re you going to call it, Chili’s Hollywood Adventure?”
“That’s a different story. I like it, though, so far.”
She said, “What happens next?”
He said, “I’m ready if you are.”
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* * *
He’d open his eyes and she’d be watching him, the first time smiling, and he remembered her telling him Michael said funny things. Then she’d close her eyes and he’d close his, moving with her, all the time moving, and he’d open his eyes and she’d be looking at him again, face-to-face in the lamplight. She was feeling it, not just going through the motions, he could tell by her face, a certain look around her nose and mouth that was almost a snarl, but her eyes would still be looking: like she was riding a bike with no hands to look at something she was holding, doing two different things at once: her body turned on and having a good time, but her mind still working on its own, watching, until her eyes glazed over and it became more the way it usually was in those final moments of hanging on, no time to think or do anything but ride it out. She opened her eyes with kind of a dreamy look, thoughtful, and said it was like falling backwards . . . a time you could let go knowing you were safe. He wondered if she analyzed everything she did and had been watching, before, to see her effect on him. When Karen left the bed, went into the bathroom and came back a few minutes later, he got to see all of her at once—a picture he now had for life— before she turned the lamp off and got back in bed.
Chili had his arm ready in case Karen wanted to snuggle in, as they usually did after, but she stayed on her side and was quiet. They were alone in a different kind of dark now that they’d made love, a dark for sleeping. He thought, Okay, fine. Though had expected there would be a little more to it. It surprised him when she said, lying there in the dark, “I’ve been watching you.”
“I noticed that.”
“I think you could be an actor. I know you’re acting sometimes, but you don’t show it.”
“You thought I was faking?”
“No, I don’t mean then.”
“What was I doing? I was auditioning?”
“We made love,” Karen said, “because we wanted to. That was the only reason.”
“Yeah, but you were watching.”
“For a minute.”
“A minute—it was a lot longer’n that.”
“Why’re you getting mad? I say I think you could be an actor, you take it the wrong way.”
“I don’t like being watched.”
“That could be a problem.”
“Why would it?”
“If you want to act.”
“I never said I did.”
“You don’t want to, then don’t.”
It was quiet for a minute or so.
“You don’t mean become a movie star. More like a character actor.”
“Let’s talk about it in the morning. I’m beat.”
“I ever made a movie, you know who’d go set it? My mother and my two aunts. Tommy, he’d go, for a laugh.”
Karen didn’t say anything, meaning that was the end of it.
He could see himself in different movies Robert De Niro had been in. He could maybe do an Al Pacino movie, play a hard-on . . . He couldn’t see himself in ones, like say the one where the three guys get stuck with a baby. They don’t know how to take care of it and you see these big grownup assholes acting cute. Put on a surprised look and that was as
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far as they could take it. People liked that cute shit, they went to see it. But, man, that would be hard, try and act cute.
What else could he play? Himself? The shylock?
No, he’d start trying to act like himself and it wouldn’t work, because acting wasn’t as easy as it looked. He knew that much. No, what he needed . . .
He heard Karen’s voice in the dark say, “I forgot to tell you. The Bear called.”
Chili said, “Yeah?” even though for some reason he wasn’t surprised. “He say what he wanted?”
“He left a number.”
“I’ll call him in the morning.”
The Bear could wait. What he needed to think about was an ending. And maybe a title. Get Michael. Except that wasn’t the movie, that was real life. He kept getting the two mixed up, Chili’s Hollywood Adventure and whatever the other one was . . .
He must have heard the sounds coming from downstairs, because something woke him up before he heard Karen say, “Not again.” He turned over on his back and was looking at a faint square of light from the window reflected on the ceiling. Karen said, “It’s Harry, downstairs.” He could hear the sounds as faint voices now, a movie playing on the TV in the study. “Harry pulling the same stunt on you,” Karen said. “He was drinking, I’m sure of it, and got this wonderful idea.” He saw Karen sitting up, her face and breasts in profile. Another picture to keep. The clock on her side of the bed—seeing it behind her—said 4:36.