"You know who I love?" Edie said, "Aerosmith. 'Dream On'? I had the hots for Joe Perry, I followed them around on tour and partied with them."
"You were a groupie?"
"Better than that, I did their laundry. The girl who had the job quit and I took over. They travel with a washer and dryer. I'd do everything but Steven's stage clothes, he sends them out. It was fun. I never made it with Joe or any of the guys, but I played tennis with Tom Hamilton." She smiled and seemed a little sad. "I was just a girl then."
Chili said, "Edie, you'll always be a girl, you know how to do it." She liked that, he could tell. "But listen, I was thinking, if you kept the company going I could get involved too, see if it would work as background for a movie."
She said, "Are you serious?"
And knew he had her.
"A movie about the record business. An artist trying to make it. A girl with a band . . ."
"God, Chil, really? I was hoping—but then I thought, no, with Tommy gone you won't think it'll work."
It was too hard to concentrate on her face. Chili said, "Why don't you get dressed and we'll talk about it?"
He got out of there, went into the living room and stood looking around, seeing it now as the lobby of an expensive health club, a spa: walk through there to the pool where one of the guests was drying out. From here Chili had a clear view of Derek, the kid floating in the pool on the yellow raft, sun beating down on him, his shades reflecting the light. Chili walked outside, crossed the terrace to where a quart bottle of Absolut, almost full, stood at the tiled edge of the pool. He looked down at Derek laid out in his undershorts.
He said, "Derek Stones?"
And watched the kid raise his head from the round edge of the raft, stare this way through his shades and let his head fall back again.
"Your mother called," Chili said. "You have to go home."
A wrought-iron table and chairs with cushions stood in an arbor of shade close to the house. Chili walked over and sat down. He watched Derek struggle to pull himself up and begin paddling with his hands, bringing the raft to the side of the pool; watched him try to crawl out and fall in the water when the raft moved out from under him. Derek made it finally, came over to the table and stood there showing Chili his skinny white body, his titty rings, his tats, his sagging wet underwear.
"You wake me up," Derek said, "with some shit about I'm suppose to go home? I don't even know you, man. You from the funeral home? Put on your undertaker suit and deliver Tommy's ashes? No, I forgot, they're being picked up. But you're either from the funeral home or—shit, I know what you are, you're a lawyer. I can tell 'cause all you assholes look alike."
Chili said to him, "Derek, are you trying to fuck with me?"
Derek said, "Shit, if I was fucking with you, man, you'd know it."
Chili was shaking his head before the words were out of Derek's mouth.
"You sure that's what you want to say? 'If I was fuckin with you, man, you'd know it?' The 'If I was fucking with you' part is okay, if that's the way you want to go. But then, 'you'd know it'—come on, you can do better than that."
Derek took off his shades and squinted at him.
"The fuck're you talking about?"
"You hear a line," Chili said, "like in a movie. The one guy says, 'Are you trying to fuck with me?' The other guy comes back with, 'If I was fuckin with you, man . . .' and you want to hear what he says next 'cause it's the punch line. He's not gonna say, 'You'd know it.' When the first guy says, 'Are you trying to fuck with me?' he already knows the guy's fuckin with him, it's a rhetorical question. So the other guy isn't gonna say 'you'd know it.' You understand what I'm saying? 'You'd know it' doesn't do the job. You have to think of something better than that."
"Wait," Derek said, in his wet underwear, weaving a little, still half in the bag. "The first guy goes, 'You trying to fuck with me?' Okay, and the second guy goes, 'If I was fucking with you . . . If I was fucking with you, man . . .' "
Chili waited. "Yeah?"
"Okay, how about, 'You wouldn't live to tell about it?'
"Jesus Christ," Chili said, "come on, Derek, does that make sense? 'You wouldn't live to tell about it'? What's that mean? Fuckin with a guy's the same as taking him out?" Chili got up from the table. "What you have to do, Derek, you want to be cool, is have punch lines on the top of your head for every occasion. Guy says, 'Are you trying to fuck with me?' You're ready, you come back with your line." Chili said, "Think about it," walking away. He went in the house through the glass doors to the bedroom.
Edie, in tiny underpants, was pulling a T-shirt over her head, her hair now thicker than ever, a lighter shade of rusty red.
She said, "Why can't it be about the woman who takes over the company from her dead husband? She doesn't know shit about business, but she has this incredible ear; she hears a new song, she knows right away if she can break it."
"Claws and scratches her way to the top," Chili said. "Sure, that might work. But movie ideas'll have to come later. First let's talk about this guy I want to get to run the company, and what kind of an inducement you can offer him, a guy thirty-eight years in the business. . . ." He stopped as Edie's gaze shifted away from him.
She said, "Derek . . ." and Chili turned.
"I got one," Derek said. "The first guy goes, 'You trying to fuck with me, man?' And the second guy goes, 'If I was fuckin with you, man, you wouldn't know what hit you.' What do you think?"
"You're on the right track, the idea of the line being unexpected," Chili said, "but you aren't quite there yet."
"Wait," Derek said, "I got another one."
But now Edie wanted to know what was going on—"What're you guys talking about?"—as Chili, still looking at the rocker with the ring in his nose, raised his hand and laid it on Edie's shoulder.
He said to Derek, "I know you have to go, but let me tell you another way it can work. What if the first guy, the one who says, 'You trying to fuck with me?' What if all this time he's fuckin with the other guy and the other guy doesn't know it?"
Derek took his time. He said, "Yeah? . . ."
A few minutes later Chili got to meet Tiffany.
SHE CAME IN with a porcelain urn resting on a flat pizza box: Tommy's ashes and an extra-large Primo's Special with anchovies.
Taking the urn Edie said to Tiffany, "Thank you so much for saving me the trip. I don't think I could've done it." She held the urn away from her looking at it.
"I thought the white porcelain with iris petals," Tiffany said, "would go with your decor better than the stainless steel. The stainless steel, you look at it and see your reflection, like you're in it. You can go solid bronze, but that's over a thousand bucks."
"Poor Tommy," Edie said, "may he rest in peace." She gave the urn a gentle shake and stiffened as a rattling sound came from inside.
"That's bone," Tiffany said, "little pieces of bone that didn't get burnt up's what the funeral guy told me. I said, well, Tommy could always make himself heard, in the office screaming at people."
This Tiffany was a big, good-looking girl with her Mohawk, her hair buzzcut on the sides but tufts left as sideburns. She had a nostril ring, a couple on both ear lobes, tattoos on her fingers close to the knuckles that spelled L-A-D-Y on one hand and L-U-C-K on the other. A tat on her upper left arm in a flowery scroll said in two lines Too fast to live/Too young to die.
She came over to Chili while Edie was wandering around the living room with the urn, looking for a place to put it. Derek was on the sofa with the pizza, opening the box on the glass-top coffee table.
"Hi, I'm Tiffany? I love your movies. Tommy said I could be in the one you're gonna do about him? Only I guess you aren't gonna do it now."
"I'm still thinking about it."
"Cool. I'd love to be in it. Tommy said I could play myself? You know, just a secretary taking a lot of shit from whoever plays Tommy, but that's cool. I mean, you know, it's real life, that part."
Chili said, "But you got along w
ith him okay?"
As he said it Derek yelled at Tiffany, "I said no anchovies."
"You said pick up an extra-large special at Primo's," Tiffany said. "Nothing about anchovies."
"You know I hate 'em."
"You're eating 'em, aren't you?"
Derek stood up with a slice in his hand. He said, "This look like I'm eating 'em?" and sailed the slice backhand to land on the marble floor in the foyer and stick there. Now he picked up the box, said, "Huh? Or this look like it?" and sailed the box to slide across the marble and hit the door, pizza slices spilling out.
Chili said, "Come on," motioning to Tiffany and she followed him out to the terrace talking about Derek, how gross he was, how he loved to throw things.
"The other night we happened to watch that old Paul Newman flick Pocket Money?"
Chili nodded. "With Lee Marvin. Not a lot happens in that picture."
"No, but naturally as soon as Derek's stoned you know what he does?"
"Throws your TV off the balcony."
"From three floors up. It lands on the hood of a car, smashes it all to hell, and you know who the car belongs to? The building manager, the guy who's been trying to get rid of us for the past almost year? Derek is so . . . I don't know, stupid, I guess. Or crazy."
"You live with him?"
"On and off."
"Why, if you think he's crazy?"
She looked surprised.
"He can't help it, it's the way he is. He's, you know, that type of person. It's like it's what drives him, whatever it is—you know what I'm saying?—and he has to go with it, ride it out."
Chili didn't try to follow that. He let her speak and said, "He ever hit you?"
"He gets wigged sometimes he tries to. Fuck that, I'll throw a lamp at him or something and walk out."
"You and Tommy were close?"
"He was my boss."
"Didn't he take you out?"
"Yeah, but you know why, don't you? So he'd be seen with the outré chick and everybody would think he's cool. Tommy was that age he had to work at it. Really, that's all it was. Ask Edie."
Chili said, "You two are friends?"
Tiffany started to smile.
"What's funny?"
"You sound like that cop, Darryl? He said he knows you."
"He came to see you?"
"This morning. You guys—you try to put me with Tommy so you can say oh, Derek must've done it, he's crazy anyway, has a temper, likes to break things. He might even be sleeping with Edie, huh? Then you go, well, if it wasn't Derek it was some other insanely jealous guy 'cause it must've been over some chick Tommy was seeing—look at his reputation."
Chili said, "Isn't it possible?"
"Excuse me for putting it like this, but if you were a girl, would you fuck Tommy?"
"I can imagine a girl doing it," Chili said, "for a record contract."
"If she's any good she doesn't have to. If she isn't, who wants her? She can't even get laid. I'm twenty-six," Tiffany said, "what do I know? For one thing I've worked for Tommy since he started NTL. I know as much about his business as he did and I know all the people he knew. You want to hear what I told your friend Darryl?"
"What?"
"I said you should be picking my brain instead of trying to follow Tommy's pecker tracks."
8
* * *
TOMMY ATHENS WAS SHOT and killed on a Monday in September. Two days later Chili Palmer's picture was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.
Film producer last person to see Tommy Athens alive
The tone of the news story assumed Chili and Tommy were old friends. By the third paragraph it described Chili's early careers in Brooklyn and Miami Beach, referring to him in one place as "a former wiseguy." The piece didn't say much about his movies, good or bad.
Chili looked at Darryl Holmes' business card and called him at the Wilshire station.
"You see it?"
"Read every word."
"You told your friend at the paper I was there."
"Uh-unh, they didn't get it from me. Must've been somebody at Swingers recognized you. Those people know their celebrities."
"The guy, the writer, calls me a wiseguy. You know I was never made."
"I believe it says you're said to be one."
"Yeah, he weasels it, but it still says I was one of those guys and I wasn't. Says I wasn't available for comment. You bet I wasn't."
"That's what you get for hanging out with those Italians. At the time you thought you were pretty cool, didn't you?"
"Yeah, sitting around laughing at stupid remarks. As soon as I could get out I did," Chili said. "What about the shooter, you find him?"
"Not yet. You sure he's a white guy?"
"Positive."
"I spoke to the Ropa-Dope people. Sin Russell's opinion, it was somebody Tommy cheated on a record deal, got stoned and capped him. Sin's words. He said if he'd done it it wouldn't have taken any five shots. But said he wouldn't anyway on account of the record company owing him royalty money. So now," Darryl said, "whoever did do it knows you got a look at him. How you feel about being exposed? Gonna stay in the house with the door locked?"
"I'm out at NTL Records," Chili said, "with Edie Athens. She wants to keep the company going, so I talked to a guy I think'll run it for her. He's coming out."
"You in the record business now?"
"I'm finding out how it works, in case I want to use it in a picture," Chili said. "But listen, I got a chance to meet Derek and Tiffany yesterday, at the Athenses'. Tiffany said you spoke to her."
"She fools you," Darryl said, "with that 'do, like a squirrel tail laying on her head, but underneath it the girl's brain works pretty good."
"I got that impression."
"I said to her, 'Ms. Athens told Homicide was Tommy's dick got him in trouble.' Tiffany says, 'Edie wants us to think she was married to a stud. Like she's saying something nice in his memory, and that's all there is to that.' I'm gonna see Tiff again at the office, look at who Tommy's been making deals with. Derek, I haven't seen yet."
"All you'll get out of Derek," Chili said, "is a better understanding of Beavis and Butt-head. I think you can skip Derek as a possible."
Darryl said, "You being exposed now, keep an eye out, look to see anybody might be following you."
"Sit with my back to the wall."
"I'm serious. The man with the rug could be looking for you. You say you don't know who he is, but that doesn't mean he knows it. Put my phone number in your memory, the one here and my home, on the card I gave you. You have a reason to be nervous, call me. Hear?"
NICKY CARCATERRA, now Nick Car, wore a headset working his phone, feet on the corner of his desk, clean white Reeboks pointing out the 18th floor window at the Pacific Ocean.
"Howard, what's up, bro? You guys have a good rap? . . . That's cool. Man, that is so fucking cool. Listen, I want to hear about it but I'll have to call you back. I'm banging the phone like a fucking wildman. Five minutes, bro."
Nick pushed a button on the phone console, looked up to see Raji in the office.
Raji saying, "Chili Palmer—"
Nick held up both hands to stop him, Nick's hands free to gesture, scratch, lock behind his head, while he spoke into the little stainless mike boom that hung in front of his mouth—a mouth he never seemed to shut, always making Raji wait.
"Tracy? Hey, little girl, you have a good time last night? . . . You kidding? I crawled home. No, not yet, he wasn't in. . . . Tracy, I say I'm gonna do something . . . You worry too much. Listen, you need a car to the airport? . . . Okay, next time, little girl. Love you."
"Nick," Raji said, "you know Chili Palmer?"
"I read about him and Tommy, yeah."
"I need to talk to you, man."
But Nick had already pushed a button.
"Larry, you pimp, how you doing? What's going on, man? . . . Larry, you got great ears and I love you, but you got to do more than hum the fucking record, you got to get
it played, man. Otherwise, what good are you? Call me tomorrow."
Nick punched a button.
"Gary. Hey, my brother, what's up? . . . Gare, I'm banging the phone like a fucking wildman. Can you hold a sec? . . . Terrific."
Nick punched a button and glanced at his television on a sideboard, MTV featuring rappers at the moment.
Raji looked over at Ropa-Dope prowling around each other doing their angry shit.
"Mitch, how you doing, my man?" Nick nodded, listening. "Yeah, I know, we lost the bullet, spins are down slightly, but that record still has legs, man. You're the one got it going, from your turntable to the airwaves and I'm in your debt for the rest of my fucking life." Nick paused. "Mitch, you buying any of this shit? . . . Hey, you're still my main man and I love you, bro. Ciao."
Nick pressed a button.
"Gary, my man, tell me you're back in the Apple. . . . Terrific. So what's up? . . . Yeah, I know, you want to kick-start the guy, bring him to life. How about giving him mouth to mouth? . . . Gary, I'm kidding. Hey, but you could fix him up. You know Tracy, she's hot, man. . . . Tracy Nichols, she stays—wait a sec."
Raji watched Nick look toward the doorway to the office and call out, "Robin, where's Tracy Nichols stay in New York?"
Robin appeared in the doorway in her little skirt. "Her name's Nicholson. She stays at the St. Regis."
"Gary? She stays at the St. Regis. Tracy Nicholson. . . . No, I didn't. Christ, I ought to know, I was with her all night. Make it happen, my brother. . . . Yeah, be talking to you."
Raji said, "Nick?"
Nick punched a button and Raji said, "Fuck it," and walked over to a window to look out at date palms, at joggers and rollerskaters, the beach, the Santa Monica pier and the ferris wheel down a ways. Raji's office at Car-O-Sell Entertainment looked out on Wilshire, where it ended at Ocean Avenue. He listened to Nick saying:
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