He said, “I know you do.”
“Is that why you got one?”
She watched him with the phone in his hand now punching numbers. He waited and said, “Bear? Chili Palmer.” She watched him listen for several moments before he said, “Yeah, well he tried. Tell me where he lives.” He listened and said, “I’ll find it.” Then lis
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tened again, longer, for at least a minute, and said, “It’s up to you,” and hung up. “You didn’t answer my question,” Karen said. “Is
that why you bought it?” He said, “I guess so,” and turned to walk out. “You’re going to Catlett’s house—why?” “I’m not gonna spend another twelve years wait
ing for something to fall on me.” “What did the Bear want?” “He’s gonna meet me there.”
27 
Catlett had put on Marvin Gaye to pick him up, Marvin Gaye’s voice filling the house now with “I’ll Be Doggone.” No sun yet: barely starting to get light out on the deck.
This tape he was playing had all of Catlett’s favorites on it gathered from other tapes and records. It had “The Star-Spangled Banner” on it, Marvin Gaye doing our national anthem, and had “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” he did with Tammi Terrell, deceased. Both of them now. Marvin Gaye, the Prince of Motown, shot dead by his own father in the hot moment of an argument, a pitiful waste . . . Catlett thinking, And you can’t shoot a man needs to be done?
If it was the man, Chili Palmer, on the stairs and not the woman. Trying to decide which was what had thrown him off at the time and then the scream coming to finish the job, a scream like he hadn’t heard since Slime Creatures, Karen Flores doing her famous scream, which meant it must have been Chili Palmer on the stairs and maybe he did hit him and the job was done, ’cause Chili Palmer had gone
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down, shot . . . Or had dropped down to get out of the way. All that had been in his head coming home, thinking Karen Flores would call the cops when she quit screaming. That was the reason he wiped the gun clean and almost chucked it in some weeds going up Laurel Canyon; but didn’t.
Came home, put his car in the garage part of the house, ran inside and changed from his black racecar-driver coveralls to his white silk dressing gown, barefoot. Mussed up the bed, mussed up his hair and then combed it again, Marvin Gaye doing his “Sexual Healing” now when he heard the car outside the front and thought of cops. He knew they couldn’t have a court-signed search warrant this soon, so did-n’t worry about the gun; he went to the front window with a sleepy innocent expression ready. But it was-n’t even a car. The headlights aimed at the house close went off and it was a van parked in the drive: the Bear getting out now, coming to the door with a suitcase.
Catlett let him in saying, “You know what time it is?” What anybody would say.
“I want to get rid of this,” the Bear said, holding the Black Watch plaid suitcase Yayo had brought. “I came by last night after you called me, but you weren’t home, so I came in to leave this stuff,” the Bear said, talking all at once, “but then I thought no, I better deliver it in person and you check what’s in here. Less what Ronnie took out for Palm Desert.”
Catlett said, “Wait now. You came in my house last night?”
“I just told you I did,” the Bear said.
This stove-up muscle-bound stuntman sounding arrogant. Catlett took it as strange. He said, “Bear, why you talking to me like that? I thought you and I got along pretty good, never argued too much. I always considered you my friend, Bear.”
“I’m the one falls down the goddamn stairs,” the Bear said. “But you take a fall, that other kind, and I go with you, huh? Well, I don’t need a friend that bad.”
“What?” Catlett frowned at him. “What I said on the phone to you? Man, I was putting you on is all. How’m I gonna scare you? I said, ’cause I was a mean motherfucker, right? When do I ever talk like that?”
“It’s what you are, whether you say it or not,” the Bear said. “I’ll tell you right now, I don’t fucking trust you. I want you to look in this suitcase and see what’s in it, so you don’t say later on I took any.”
Catlett watched the Bear lay the bag on the floor and get down on his knees to zip it open.
“Eight keys,” the Bear said, “right?”
“Right. You want a receipt?”
He watched the Bear zip the bag closed and said to him on the floor, “Listen to Marvin Gaye doing ‘Ain’t That Peculiar,’ Bear. Ain’t it, though. You coming by this time of day, can’t wait? How come you haven’t asked me anything?”
Catlett watched the Bear get to his feet, the size of him rising up in that shirt full of flowers.
“You haven’t asked did I get in the woman’s house without you helping me. Did I do what I went in there for.”
“You didn’t,” the Bear said, “or you’d have told me soon as I walked in. Then you’d give me some shit about keeping my mouth shut, saying I’m in it too.”
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Look at that, Catlett thought, surprised, but not taking it as strange anymore, seeing how the Bear’s mind was working.
“I told you I quit and I meant it.”
Telling him more than that.
“What’s wrong with me?” Catlett said. “You talked to Chili Palmer, didn’t you? Since you quit. When was it, last night? . . . This morning?”
The Bear didn’t answer, or have to, Catlett seeing the dumbass half-a-grin on the Bear’s face, trying to look wise, the Bear here because Chili Palmer was coming.
Catlett said, “Bear, I’m glad you stopped by,” and left him, went in the bedroom and got the big .45 out of the bureau where he’d put it, slipped it in the pocket of his dressing gown and had to keep hold of it on account of the gun’s weight and size. He heard two sounds then, as if timed to come one right after the other:
Heard a car drive up to the front.
And heard Marvin Gaye begin his “Star-Spangled Banner,” recorded at the Forum before an NBA All-Star game: Marvin’s soul version accompanied by a lone set of drums. Listen to it. A way to start this show by dawn’s early light. Marvin’s soul inspiring Catlett, setting his mood, telling him to be cool.
Chili found the house looking for a van parked in front, a little stucco Spanish ranch house, half two-car garage, it looked like, till he was inside and saw how the house was built out into space. Across the living room the doors to the deck were wide open. All he could see out there was sky starting to show light. He wanted to have a look and must have surprised Catlett and the Bear when he walked past them saying, “So this’s one of those houses you see way up hanging over the cliff.” Meaning from Laurel Canyon Drive. It didn’t get any kind of comment.
He half turned in the doorway, light behind him now, to see the Hawaiian Bear standing by a suitcase on the floor, Mr. Catlett in his bathrobe, hands shoved in the pockets, soul music coming from somewhere in the white living room. Hardly any color showing at five-thirty in the morning. White carpeting, white sectional pieces forming a square, white artwork on the walls that might have spots of color. Green plants showed dark, the suitcase on the floor, dark, Catlett’s face dark, his bare feet in the white carpeting dark. He would say he hadn’t been out of the house. It didn’t matter. Chili knew where to begin and was about to when he realized, Jesus Christ, it was the national anthem playing, some guy doing it as blues.
Chili got his mind back on Catlett and started over saying, “I’ve been shot at before—once by accident, twice on purpose. I’m still here and I’m gonna be here as long as I want. That means you’re gonna have to be somewhere else, not anywhere near me or Harry. If you understand what I’m saying I won’t have to pick you up and throw you off that fuckin balcony.”