He said, “Harry, you looking at me?”
Harry brought his hand down. “I’m looking at you.”
“I want you to keep looking right here, okay?”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Harry said, going along. Why not? The guy was from Brooklyn or the Bronx, one of those. If he was putting it on he had it down cold.
“Okay, so tell me what’s up.”
He was good, but irritating.
“I don’t have a script,” Harry said, “so I don’t know what you’re talking about. Okay?”
“You don’t have a script,” Chili said. “How about, you happen to have a hunnerd and fifty big ones on you?”
Harry didn’t answer.
“You’re not saying nothing. You remember being in Vegas November twenty-sixth of last year, at Las Mesas?”
It was starting to sound real. “I go to Vegas, that’s where I stay, at Mesas,” Harry said. “Always have, for years.”
“You know Dick Allen?”
“Dick Allen’s a very dear friend of mine.” It still could be a script, something Karen put together. “How far you want to go with this?”
The guy gestured, his hands limp, very natural.
“We’re there, Harry. You signed markers for a hunnerd and a half, you’re over sixty days past due and you haven’t told anybody what the problem is.”
It wasn’t a script.
Harry said, “Jesus Christ, what’re you, a collector? You come in here, walk in the house in the middle of the fucking night? I thought you were some actor, auditioning, for Christ sake.”
The guy raised his eyebrows. “Is that right?” He seemed about to smile. “That’s interesting. You thought I was acting, huh?”
“I don’t believe this,” Harry said. “You break in the house to tell me I owe on some markers? I know what I owe. So what? I go to Mesas I get comped, the whole shot. I got a credit line for as much as I owe—and they send you here to collect?” Harry felt an urge to move, do something. He pushed up out of the chair to look down at the guy, get an advantage on him. “We’ll see about this,” Harry said, picked up the phone and punched the 0. “Operator, how do I get Las Vegas Information?” He listened a moment and hung up.
Chili said, “Lemme give you some advice, okay?”
Harry looked up, the phone in his hand again, about to punch the number.
“You don’t want to act like a hard-on you’re standing there in your undies. You know what I’m saying? You got enough to handle. You got the markers and you got another outstanding debt if I’m not mistaken. What you wanta do, Harry, is use your head, sit down and talk to me.”
It stopped him. “What outstanding debt?”
“Put the phone down.”
“I want to know what you’re talking about,” Harry said, getting a peeved tone now, indignant, “outside of what I owe at Mesas, which they know I’m good for.”
“They know you’re good up to your last trip. After that, as they say, nobody knows nothing.” Chili waited.
Harry hung up the phone. He felt the chair against his bare legs and sat down.
“A marker’s like a check, Harry . . .”
“I know what a marker is.”
“They don’t want to deposit yours and have ’em bounce, insufficient funds, or they find out the account’s closed. That’s embarrassing. So your customer rep, your very dear friend Dick Allen’s been calling, leaving messages on your machine, but you never get back to him. So basically, you want to know why I’m here—I don’t actually work for Mesas, but Dick Allen asked me as a favor would I look you up. Okay, I come to L.A., try your apartment, your office, you’re not anywhere around. So I contact some people I know of, get a few leads—”
“What people?”
“You have high blood pressure, Harry? You oughta lose some weight.”
“What people?”
“You don’ know ’em, some people I was put in touch with. So I start calling around. I call here, Karen tells me she hasn’t seen you. So we talk, I ask her if this’s the Karen Flores used to be in the movies. Yes, it is. Well, how come I haven’t seen you? . . . I remember her in Grotesque with the long blond hair. I start to think, this is where I’d come if I was Harry Zimm and I want to stay off the street.”
“You think I’m hiding out?”
“What’re you getting excited about?”
“I don’t like the insinuation, I’m hiding.”
“Well, that’s up to you, what you like or what you don’t. I called your former wife, the one in Westwood? She goes, ‘I hope you’re a bill collector and you find the cheapskate.’ ”
“You have fun talking about me? Jesus,” Harry said, “that broad used to work for me. She’s supposed to know the business, but apparently has no idea what I was going through at the time.” His gaze moved to the bottle of Scotch thinking of Marlene, who liked her booze, also thinking he wouldn’t mind having one.
“You’re not looking at me, Harry.”
“Why do I have to keep looking at you?”
“I want you to.”
“You gonna get rough now, threaten me? I make good by tomorrow or get my legs broken?”
“Come on, Harry—Mesas? The worst they might do is get a judgment against you, uttering a bad check. I can’t imagine you want that to happen, man in your position.”
“I’ve won there and I’ve lost,” Harry said, staying with the peeved tone. “They carry me and I always pay what I owe. But now all of a sudden they’re worried I’m gonna stiff ’em? Why? They don’t give you a credit line of a hundred and a half unless they know you’re good for it.”
“What’s that, Harry?”
“You heard me.”
“What I heard,” Chili said, “your credit line’s an even hunnerd and they gave you the extra fifty TTO, this trip only, ’cause you had front money, that cashier’s check for two hunnerd thousand, right? Four hours later, the night’s still young, it’s all gone, the two you rode in on and the hunnerd and a half. It can happen to anybody. But now a couple months go by, Dick Allen wonders if there’s a problem here, if Harry Zimm was playing with scared money. He says you never put down more than ten on a basketball game in your life. You come in this time and drop the whole load, like you’re not doing it for fun.”
“I didn’t have to twist any arms. I told ’em what I wanted to put down and they okayed it.”
“Why not? It’s your money.”
“They tell you what game it was and the point spread? Lakers and the Pistons, in Detroit. Which happens to be where I grew up. Now I’m out here I follow the Lakers, had seats up to last year. Not down there with Jack Nicholson, but they weren’t bad seats. You don’t recall the game?”
“I mighta read about it at the time. What was the spread?”
The guy showing interest. It picked Harry up.
“The sports book line had the Pistons by three and a half. The bad boys from Motown over the glamor boys from showtown.”
“You live here,” Chili said, “but you like the Pistons. I can understand that. I don’t live in New York anymore, I’m in Miami, but I still follow the Knicks, put a few bucks on ’em now and then. Even though it’s been years.”