The way Chili told it when he got back to Karen’s and they were in the kitchen: “He fell off his sun deck and was killed.”
She said, “He fell off his sun deck.”
“The railing gave way on him for some reason. When he leaned on it.”
She said, “The railing gave way . . .”
“Yeah, and he fell. I’d say about a hunnerd feet.”
“You went down, looked at him?”
“The Bear did. I never would’ve made it, it’s steep.”
“It was an accident?” Karen said. “I mean you didn’t hit him or push him and he happened to fall?”
“I’ll take a polygraph neither one of us touched him.”
“But you didn’t call the police.”
“Not with a suitcase full of cocaine in the house. Also he had that gun in his hand. He still wanted to shoot me.”
Karen poured their coffee. She sat across from him at the kitchen table and watched him put two spoons of sugar in his and stir it slowly, carefully,
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smoking a cigarette. He looked up at her. She thought he was going to ask if she was still watching him, but he didn’t. He smiled, stirring his coffee. He said after a moment, not smiling now, “You think I might’ve done it. I say I didn’t, but you still think I might’ve. What can I tell you?”
Karen didn’t say anything. He was a cool guy. Or seemed cool because she didn’t know him and maybe never would. She thought, All right, the guy fell off his sun deck. She said to Chili, “Were you scared?”
“You bet I was scared.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“I was scared then, not now. How long you want me to be scared?”
There was a silence. She heard him blow on his coffee and take a sip.
“The meeting’s at two-thirty,” Karen said. “Harry wants to pick us up.”
They sat around the coffee table in the living room part of Elaine’s office at Tower waiting for Michael to get off the phone. Chili listened to Harry saying that as soon as this guy told him the story he knew they had a picture. Elaine saying that from what she’d heard so far it did sound off-trail, a shylock not your usual good guy. Harry saying that was the beauty of it, a hard-on type metamorphosized by his love of a woman. Elaine saying she hoped he didn’t soften up too much, become limp. Chili thinking, Jesus Christ. Michael came over from Elaine’s desk and took a seat next to Karen on the hard sofa. Chili, in his dark-blue suit, looked at Michael in his beat-up flight jacket thinking, What if it’s that same fuckin jacket was at Vesuvio’s?
They waited while Michael put his hand on Karen’s leg, told her she looked great, then started explaining to everybody why he was leaving his agent who—they wouldn’t believe this—could not acquire a property Michael wanted, could not make a deal with the writer, and if an agent couldn’t make a deal with a writer, for Christ sake . . . Until Chili said, “You want to talk about that one or this one?” It got a surprised look from Michael and Harry, deadpan reactions from Karen and Elaine, and the meeting started.
* * *
Elaine: “Mr. Palmer?”
Chili: “Okay. Open at the drycleaning shop. You see the shylock talking to Fay, the wife.”
Michaeclass="underline" “I thought the guy was an agent.”
Chili: “I changed him back to a drycleaner.”
Michaeclass="underline" “You still don’t have a script?”
Karen: “They’re working on the moral dilemma.”
Michaeclass="underline" “That writes itself. I want to know what happens.”
Chili: “Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”
Michaeclass="underline" “Let’s go to the third act and then come back if we want. You build to a climactic scene. What is it?”
Chili: “You’re referring to the action, with Ray Carlo.”
Michaeclass="underline" “Who’s Ray Carlo?”
Chili: “He was Bones, I changed his name. Okay, Randy finally catches up with Leo . . .”
Michaeclass="underline" “Wait. Who the fuck is Randy?”
Chili: “Randy’s the shylock. You need a nice-guy name. You don’t want to call him Lefty, Cockeye, Joe Loop, one of those.”
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Elaine: “Sonny’s nice.”
Chili: “It’s not bad. I know a Lucky, a Jojo, Momo, Jimmy Cap, Cowboy, Sucky, Chooch . . .”
Elaine: “Sucky?”
Michaeclass="underline" “Okay, I’m Randy, for the moment anyway. What happens?”
Chili: “They catch up with Leo the drycleaner, Randy leans on him a little, not much, and Leo tells them, okay, the dough’s out at the airport in a locker. So Randy and Fay have the key and are at the moral dilemma part when Ray Carlo shows up. Actually he’s already there, searching the place when they get home from Leo’s. Carlo, he’s got a gun, takes the key offa Randy and Randy says okay, you win, the dough’s out at the airport. Ray Carlo leaves to go get it and Randy calls the FBI.”
Michaeclass="underline" “All he’s doing is picking up money. What would they arrest him for?”
Chili: “They’d at least give him a hard time. Randy knows this and wants to see it, so he and Fay go out to the airport. They see the bust and look at each other with surprise, ’cause what’s in that locker is not money but cocaine. You understand? Leo was setting them up, or anybody that got on to him.”
Michael, frowning: “That’s how it ends?”
Chili: “No, you still have Leo.”
Michaeclass="underline" “I thought Carlo was the heavy.”
Chili, noticing the way Karen was staring at him: “That’s what you’re suppose to think. No, that’s the surprise. Leo’s the bad guy, from the beginning.”
Elaine: “Good. I like Leo.”
Harry: “Leo has delusions of grandeur, wants to be famous, hobnob with movie stars, entertainers.
Elaine: “He could be fun to watch, while the other guy’s just a heavy.”
Michaeclass="underline" “Leo’s a schmuck.”
Elaine: “He’s sort of schmucky, that’s all right.”
Karen: “He could have some funny lines, out of desperation.”
Michaeclass="underline" “Wait a minute—”
Chili: “Yeah, he could be funny. I still think, though, he oughta fall off the balcony.”
There was a silence.
Michael, quietly: “Okay . . . what balcony?”
Chili: “Leo’s apartment, twenty floors up overlooking Sunset. He’s with this starlet, they’re drinking, doing coke, when Fay and Randy walk in. Basically what happens, here’s Leo and here’s the guy he’s been paying for years and was always scared to death of. But right now Leo’s flying on coke and booze and doesn’t know enough to be scared of thing, this little drycleaner. What he wants to do is put the shylock down—you know what I mean? Dishonor him, this guy he thinks of as a hard-on, a regular mob kind of guy.” Chili paused. “Suddenly Leo jumps up on the cement railing of the balcony and says, ‘Let’s see if you got the nerve to do this, tough guy.’ The starlet screams. Fay yells at him to get down. The shylock doesn’t do nothing, he watches, ’cause he knows this guy basically is a loser. He watches Leo take three steps and that’s it, off he goes, screaming all the way down twenty floors to the pavement.” any
There was a silence again.
Michaeclass="underline" “That’s how it ends?”
Chili: “After that, they find the money in the closet. They have another moral dilemma talk, a short one, and take off for Mexico in a brand-new Mercedes.”
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Michael, to Elaine: “You know what I do in this picture? I stand around and watch.”
Chili: “You want to shoot somebody? Or, hey, you want to play Leo? Take the dive?”
Elaine: “I don’t know why, but Leo fascinates me. The little drycleaner with all that money. I’d like to see what he does with it.”