“My turn,” Catlett said, feeling Marvin Gaye behind him and the big .45 in his right hand, inside the silky pocket.
He moved toward Chili Palmer saying, “You mean out there, that balcony? That’s my sun deck,
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man. You gonna try your rough stuff I want to move us off my seventy-bucks-a-yard carpeting, so it don’t get messed up.”
The way Chili Palmer stood looking at him Catlett thought he’d have to show the gun; but the man moved, walked out on the deck looking across to where the canyon road cut through to climb over into the Valley. Catlett glanced aside, motioning to the Bear to go out there too.
“Say you been shot at before,” Catlett said, following them out. “I can believe it. What I can’t understand is you’re not dead.”
“I been lucky,” Chili said, “but I’m not gonna press it. Okay, what can I do, go to the cops and complain? I read in the paper a guy was knocked off and dumped out’n the desert ’cause he was trying to ace this woman out of a movie deal and she had him killed. I was surprised—you know, it’s only a movie. But it’s high stakes, so I guess it can happen. I look at me and you in maybe the same kind of situation. I get shot at over it and I think, you bet your ass it can happen. But I’m in and you’re out. You understand? That’s the way it’s gonna be.”
“It cost forty million and some to make that movie,” Catlett said, “the one the guy was killed over. But you know what? The movie bombed, man, and everybody lost money. It’s high stakes and it’s high risk too. What I’m saying, I’m not gonna let you be in my way.”
He heard Marvin Gaye coming to “home of the brave,” the end of the anthem, and felt a need to hurry, get this done. Time to bring out the Hardballer and he did, putting it on Chili Palmer standing in the middle of the deck.
“You broke in my house and I have a witness to it,” Catlett said, glancing at the Bear. “Witness or accessory, I’ll go either way.” He said to Chili Palmer, standing there looking stupid in a purple Lakers T-shirt and suit pants, “Only no sound effects this time, huh? John Wayne and Dean Martin shooting bad guys in El Dorado.”
“It was Rio Bravo,” Chili said.
“Robert Mitchum was the drunk in El Dorado, Dean Martin in Rio Bravo, practically the same part. John Wayne, he also did the same thing in both. He played John Wayne.”
Chili couldn’t tell if Catlett believed him or not, but it was true. He had won five bucks off Tommy Carlo one time betting which movie Dean Martin was in. He could mention it though he doubted it would interest Catlett much. So he got down to what this was all about and said to him, “Okay, you win. I go back to Miami and you become the mogul, how’s that? I’m not gonna argue with anybody holding a gun on me.” The biggest fuckin automatic he’d ever seen in his life. “I’ll leave today. You want, you can see me get on the plane.” Catlett kept pointing the gun, but with a fairly calm look on his face. Chili had a feeling the guy was going to say okay, go. And then maybe threaten that if he ever saw him again . . .
But it was the Bear, for Christ sake, who got into it then, the Bear saying, “I’m a witness, Cat. Go ahead, do it.” And Chili saw the gun barrel come up an inch or so to point right at his chest.
“You don’t have to,” Chili said, “I’m telling you. It’s not worth it, man.”
That fuckin Bear, now what was he doing? Taking Catlett by the arm, telling him, “You got to
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set it up, have a story for when they ask you how it happened. If I’m in it, I won’t do it any other way. It’s like I used to choreograph fight scenes,” the Bear said. “You’re over there and he’s coming at you. You don’t want to shoot him and he knows it. So you keep backing away till the last second and you don’t have any choice.”
“Like I say, ‘I warned him, Officer,’ ” Catlett said, getting into it, “ ‘but he kept coming at. me . . .’ Hey, but he should have a weapon, a knife or something.”
“We’ll get it later,” the Bear said. “He’s here . . .” The Bear took Chili’s shoulders in both hands and moved him two steps back, toward the door, then motioned to Catlett. “You’re around on that side. Yeah, right there. Okay, now you start backing away. Go ahead.”
Catlett said, “You worked this in a movie, huh?”
“Now you go toward him,” the Bear said to Chili.
Chili didn’t move. He said, “You’re out of your fuckin mind,” and tried to turn, get out of there, but the Bear got behind him to grab hold of his shoulders again.
“This’s okay where he is,” the Bear said to Catlett. “You understand why we’re doing this. You see it happen, you’re able to remember each step when you tell it.”
Chili watched Catlett, about five feet from the railing, the view of Laurel Canyon behind him, give the Bear a nod. “Don’t worry, man.”
“Okay, when I say go,” the Bear said, “I duck out of the way. Give it two beats and move to the railing, quick, you’re desperate now. Grab it with your hand, turn and press your back against it for support as you aim the piece with both hands. You ready?”
Catlett nodded, half turned, ready.
“Go!”
Chili wanted to turn, make a dive for the living room, but the Bear was still behind him, his big arms going around him tight and he couldn’t twist free, couldn’t move because the Bear hadn’t moved, the Bear not even trying to get out of the way.
That’s why Chili was looking right at Catlett as Catlett looking back took two quick barefoot steps to the railing, got his left hand on it, the gun pointing out of his other hand, and kept going, screaming as the railing fell away behind him and Catlett, it seemed for a moment, hung there grabbing at space.
The guy who had sung the national anthem was doing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” Which wasn’t exactly true, Chili thought, standing at the edge of the deck looking down. He could see Catlett, the white silk robe, lying in weeds and scraggly bushes, more than a hundred feet from here, not moving. The Bear came up to stand next to him and Chili said, “Jesus, how’d that happen?”
The Bear started taking bolts and nuts, old used ones, out of his pants pockets. Wiping each one on his shirt before dropping it over the side, he said, “Beats the shit out of me.”
Looking at sky, Catlett knew everything he should have known while he was still up there looking at Chili Palmer instead of the Bear, the Bear too dumb to have the idea himself, shit, he had given the Bear the idea and the Bear had come in his house last night, even told him he did, but he kept seeing Chili Palmer instead of the Bear. Even knowing he was going to do them both he had listened to the Bear
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’cause it sounded like movies and he said yeah, not taking even half a minute to look at it good . . . But, shit, even if he had taken the half a minute and said forget it and then did them both, he wouldn’t know what the Bear had done to his deck, no, he’d walk out there some night hearing bossa nova or the nice sound of that girl laughing, look over the rail at the lit-up swimming pool down there in the dark, movie people having some fun, knowing how to live. He believed he was almost in their yard, but couldn’t turn his head to look, couldn’t move, couldn’t feel nothing . . .
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