But it was weird—hearing that line again.
When she first read it she said to Harry, “You’ve got to be kidding.” It was his line, he was always rewriting, sticking in additional dialogue. Harry said, “Yeah, but it works. You hear the roof being torn off, you look up and say to the guy, ‘Maybe it’s only the wind.’You know why?”
“Because I’m stupid?”
“Because you want it to be the wind and not that fucking maniac up there. It may sound stupid, but what it does, it gives the audience a chance to release nervous laughter.”
“At my expense,” Karen said.
And Harry said, “You going to sulk? It’s entertainment, babe. It’s a put-on, the whole business of making pictures. You ever catch yourself taking it seriously you’re in trouble.”
Karen recited the line. It got a laugh and a picture that cost four hundred thousand to make grossed over twenty million worldwide. She told Harry it was still schlock. He said, “Yeah, but it’s my schlock. If it does-n’t make me famous, at least it can make me rich.”
She might ask Harry in the morning, “Who’s taking it seriously now?” Harry dreaming of a twenty-million-plus production he’d never get off the ground. And a star he’d never sign. With or without her help.
She might ask him, “Remember I told you last night about a picture I’ve been offered?” After a seven-year layoff. She had expected Harry to at least be curious, show some interest. “You remember I wanted to talk about it and all you said was ‘Yeah? Great’?”
Now she was the one taking it seriously, standing on the upstairs landing in her T-shirt . . . listening, beginning to see the stairway and the foyer below as a set.
It would be lighted to get eerie shadows and she would have on a see-through nightie rather than a T-shirt. She hears a sound and calls out softly, “Harry? Is that you?” She starts down the stairs and stops as a shadow appears in the foyer, a moving shadow coming out of the study. She calls again, “Harry?” in a stupid, tentative voice knowing goddamn well it isn’t Harry. If it’s a Zig shadow, now the maniac appears, looks up, sees her. A Zag shadow is followed by a gross, oversized mutation. Either one, she stands there long enough to belt out a scream that will fill movie theaters, raise millions of goose bumps and make Harry a lot of money.
Karen cleared her throat. It was something she always did before the camera rolled. Cleared her throat and took a deep breath. She had never screamed for the fun of it because it wasn’t fun. After only three takes—Harry’s limit—her throat would be raw.
The house was so quiet.
She was thinking, Maybe do one, hang it out there for about five beats. See what happens.
And in almost the same moment heard Harry’s voice coming from the study.
“We gonna sit here all night?”
Now she heard a faint murmur of voices, Harry’s and another voice, but not the words, Harry carrying on a conversation with someone who had walked in her house, or broken in. You could take that seriously. Now she heard Harry’s voice again, unmistakably Harry.
“Yeah? What’s it about?”
Those familiar words.
A question she heard every day when they were living together and Harry got her involved in story development because he hated to read. What’s it about? Never mind a script synopsis, coverage to Harry meant giving him the plot in three sentences, fifty words or less.
Karen went back through the bedroom to the bathroom and turned the light on. She stared at herself in the mirror as she took a minute to run a comb through her hair.
What’s it about? . . . It’s what Hollywood was about. Somebody making a pitch.
5 
While they were still in the other room, the study, getting ready to come out here, Harry said to him, “You’re Chili? . . . I don’t think I caught your last name.”
Chili told him it was Chili Palmer and saw Harry give him that look. Oh? Like he was wondering what the name was before somebody changed it.
They were in the kitchen now. It was as big as the kitchen in the Holmhurst Hotel, Atlantic City, where he had washed dishes a couple of summers when he was a kid, back before they tore the place down to make a parking lot. The fifth of Dewar’s, what was left of it, and a tray of ice were on the butcher-block table. There were all kinds of pots and pans hanging from a rack right above them. He saw Harry, who was sitting at the end of the table facing the door to the hall, look up as he was about to take a drink and stop.
Harry said, “Karen?” sounding surprised. He took the drink then and said, “Karen, say hello to Chili Palmer. Dick Allen sent him. You remember Dick, at Mesas? Chili, this is Karen Weir.”
“Flores,” Karen said.
“That’s right,” Harry said, “you changed it back.”
Chili had been telling his movie idea until this interruption, which he didn’t mind at all, a chance to meet Karen Flores. He sat with his arms resting on the table, looking past his shoulder now at Karen in the doorway, the hall behind her dark. She looked smaller in real life than in movies, about five-two and no more than ninety-nine pounds. She was still good looking, but where was all the blond hair? And the boobs he remembered as big ones for her slim figure. He nodded, saying to her, “Karen, it’s a pleasure. How you doing?”
She didn’t say anything, looking at him as if trying to figure out if she knew him. Or she was giving him a pose, standing there with her arms folded in a Los Angeles Lakers T-shirt that came down just past her crotch and was like a little minidress on her. Middle of the night, never saw him before in her life—she could be on the muscle without showing it. Her legs were nice and tan.
Harry was telling her, “Chili’s the one called you the other day. He says just from talking to you on the phone he had a feeling I’d show up here sooner or later. You imagine that?”
Harry seemed in a better mood since coming out here to get ice and they sat down with their drinks, Harry more talkative. Listening to the movie idea he kept sticking his own ideas in.
Chili straightened, touched the front of his jacket to smooth it down. He thought of getting up but now it was too late. He liked the way Karen kept looking right at him without appearing nervous or emotional, putting on any kind of act. No, this was her. Not anything like Karen the screamer facing the maniac with a butcher knife or seven-foot rats or giant ticks gorged on human blood. He liked her hair, the way it was now, thick and dark, hanging down close to one eye. He noticed how thin her neck was and took a few more pounds off, got her down to around ninety-five. He figured she was now up in her thirties, but hadn’t lost any of her looks to speak of.
“He’s telling me an idea for a movie,” Harry said. “It’s not bad, so far.” He motioned with his glass. “Tell Karen, let’s see what she thinks.”
“You want me to start over?”
“Yeah, start over.” Harry looked at Karen again. “Why don’t you sit down, have a drink?”
Chili watched her shake her head.
“I’m fine, Harry.”
He liked her voice, the quiet way she spoke. She was looking at him again, curious, doing a read.
“How did you get in the house?”
“The door from the patio, in back.”
“You broke in?”
“No, it was open. I mean it wasn’t locked.”
“What if it was?”
That was a good question. He didn’t have to answer it though, Harry saying, “He works for Dick Allen. Got sent here to check up on me.”
Karen said, “Oh,” and nodded. “That makes it all right to walk in my house.”