Be Cool

by Elmore Leonard

  "Okay, they sell a hundred thousand but get paid for eighty at two and a quarter each. That's a royalty of twenty thousand you deduct from the hundred and a half, the advance. Mikey goes, 'But first we have to manufacture the CD.' What, that doesn't come out of the twenty percent they took off the top? No way. They deduct twenty-five percent for packaging and ten percent for merchandising and marketing, what they call 'free goods,' plus another ten percent for store discount offers and, say, ten grand for an indie promoter to go to work on the record. I said, 'Mikey, the royalty's down from two and a quarter now to seventy-eight cents. You take out ten grand for the promo guy and now, on the sale of a hundred thousand records, we'd owe you twenty-two hundred dollars.' "

  Elaine said, "You're going too fast."

  Chili said, "What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?"

  And Elaine said, "Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. That's the best line in the picture. Everything else is expository."

  "But the picture worked," Chili said. "Mikey isn't done. He says, 'You take your twenty percent as manager. You give your lawyer ten percent.' He means if we had one. He says, 'We have to work together, Chili'—bringing me over to his side—'to make the record happen.' Hy Gordon said, 'I bet anything he gives you the tree analogy,' and he did. The label, the manager and the lawyer are the tree and its branches. They nourish the fruit, the fruit being the artist. The tree has to be healthy to bear good fruit, or else the fruit falls to the ground and rots."

  Elaine frowned. "Why does that sound familiar?"

  "Peter Sellers," Chili said, "in Being There."

  "Yeah, the musings of an idiot. I had a question. . . . What about the recording session? Who pays for that?"

  "The artist, and that can run, with a producer, a hundred and a half easy, the way labels spend your money. If you want to shoot a video for MTV—what's it cost to make a five-minute movie? Anywhere from a hundred grand to over a million. You get that pretentious bullshit they turn out. In other words the label offers what looks like a pretty nice advance, only you never see any of it."

  A kid from the mail room wheeled in a television set with a VCR attached while Chili was talking. Elaine pointed to where she wanted it. The kid left to find a CD player and Elaine turned to Chili.

  "How did you do that figuring so fast, come up with a royalty of seventy-eight cents?"

  "I know percentages," Chili said.

  She seemed to accept that. Why not. Next question, "Your meeting with the A&R guy—is that in the movie?"

  "I know it's a very talky scene," Chili said, "but can't you see Steve Buscemi playing Mikey? It's there if the screenwriter can use it."

  "I thought you were going to write it. You said you could go directly to script, skip the treatment."

  "Actually, I think I could. A guy that ran a limo service told me one time there's nothing to writing a screenplay. You just put down what you want to say, then you get somebody to add the commas and shit, fix up the spelling if it needs it. The way this one's going I think it'll write itself."

  "You know," Elaine said, "if it doesn't work you can always make something up. It's what writers do. When they're not lifting ideas from other movies."

  Chili got up and went over to the television set with the video. He said, "Let's wait and see what happens," shoved the cassette into the VCR and came back to his chair with the remote. "This was made over a year ago by a friend of Linda's. That's the front room of the house where she lives. . . . And there's Linda."

  Strapping on her guitar, motioning toward the kitchen now to bring her band out. "She's got the looks," Elaine said. "You think she can act?"

  Chili said, "I wouldn't be surprised. She has moods she can turn on and off. That's Dale, her bass player, and the other one's Speedy Gonzales, her drummer. You notice his kit? Two drums and a couple of cymbals, that's all he uses. Linda says he has an awful disposition he takes out on his drums."

  Elaine said, "That's their music?"

  "No, that's why I brought the CD. They're just goofing around, doing one of the Hanson numbers. You know, those three kids? This was their big hit a couple years ago. Linda doesn't do any Odessa numbers on this. They're having fun, uh? The band broke up right after."

  "Why?"

  "They weren't getting anywhere."

  "Why do they think they can make it now?"

  Chili said, "They've got me," sounding a little surprised.

  Elaine took time to look at him, but didn't say anything. They watched the video until Elaine looked this way again, past Chili this time, and said, "Michael," and Chili looked around to see Michael Weir in the office, looking at the TV set as he came over to the desk.

  Michael rubbing the palms of his hands together the way he did, Michael saying, "Chil, good to see you, man. What've we got here, some dailies? You're doing a picture and you didn't call me? Shame on you."

  "It's a home movie," Chili said, "friends of mine. No shylock in it."

  Michael said, "Hey, but that's a cute babe."

  Elaine said, "No shylock, Michael, but how about a gay Samoan? Would that interest you?"

  "A Samoan," Michael said, sounding inspired and began gesturing with his hands as he sang, " 'Oh I want to see some mo-ah of Samoa. . . .' I forgot the rest, but it's a catchy little tune, uh?" Without a pause he said, "Chil, you know where Get Lost went wrong? It finally hit me—you dropped the amnesia too soon. I get my memory back and the bit's gone. What I should've done was pretend to still have amnesia after that, get some more mileage out of it. 'Amnesia, the trick of the mind to remain sane.' "

  "Spellbound, Gregory Peck," Elaine said. "Michael, we're in a meeting."

  "Oh, I thought you were watching Tammy Gets Laid. Yeah, that's a cute chick. How might I experience the pleasure of some of that, Chil?"

  "Get a stepladder."

  Michael looked at Elaine. "You hear that? After all the money I made for this ungrateful asshole."

  Elaine said, "Michael, will you get out of here, please?"

  He said, "Okay, but you just lost me for the gay Samoan part," and walked out.

  Chili looked around to make sure he was gone.

  "Is he serious?"

  "Michael has to have the last word. You ought to know that by now."

  For a minute or so they watched Linda and Odessa doing Mick and the Stones doing 'Satisfaction' with Elaine tapping her fingers on the desk now. When her phone buzzed she picked it up and listened, pressed a button and said, "Your buddy the cop," extending the phone to Chili.

  He stood up to take it, said, "Darryl?" and watched Linda doing her Mick Jagger strut while Darryl told him about Russians and about Joseph Anthony Lupino. He listened for another couple of minutes, said, "Yeah, I know where it is. What time?" He listened again, looking at his watch, and said, "I'll see you there." Chili handed the phone back to Elaine. Sitting down again he used the remote to stop Linda in her tracks.

  Elaine was waiting. "Yes?"

  "Two Russians, both on Darryl's organized crime list, identified the dead Russian and claimed his body for burial. They said they had no idea what he was doing in my house. Joe Lupino? The guy dumped in Griffith Park? So far no one's inquired about him being missing."

  Elaine said, "I thought everyone had someone."

  "Not if the someone doesn't want to be associated with you. Also, Darryl said . . . Elaine?"

  She was looking at Linda frozen on the TV screen, but now turned to Chili. "I'm listening. Darryl said . . ."

  "The same gun was used on the guy in my house."

  "The same gun," Elaine said, "but not necessarily the same person using it?"

  See? She was quick. And now Chili was nodding.

  "Right. And if that's true . . ."

  Elaine took her time now. "I must've worked on plots not much different than this. The same gun . . . Okay, Joe Lupino was hired by someone to shoot you—assuming there's nothing personal between you and Joe. Is there?"

  "I told you, I don't even know him."
>
  "So Lupino shot the Russian by mistake. The Russian was there to shoot you, because you saw him or another Russian shoot Tommy Athens. Now, the picnicker—what's his name?"

  "Vernon."

  "Vernon tells us two African-American colored guys shot Lupino. Executed him, with his own gun. Again, assuming Lupino shot the Russian. You think?"

  "Definitely. That works, Elaine. Darryl says Joe Loop's skull was fractured sometime before he was shot. They hit him over the head, that could be when they took his gun."

  Elaine said, "But does it work as a movie? You play those scenes out, the audience will know everything that's going on."

  "So?"

  "Where's the suspense?"

  "They don't know how it turns out, do they?"

  She had to say it:

  "You don't either."

  "I'll tell you something," Chili said. "When I was playing around with Get Leo I remember thinking, Fuckin endings, man, aren't as easy as they look. But the picture worked, didn't it? You have to be patient, Elaine. You have to let it happen."

  She saw him look at his watch and then across the room to the television screen, at Linda there in midstrut. He said, "I'll leave the video and the CD with you," still watching the screen.

  Elaine said, "You're meeting your cop friend?"

  He turned to her now.

  "Darryl's got a Russian he wants me to look at. But I got another stop to make first."

  13

  * * *

  CHILI COULD SEE NICKY in there turned to face the windows, feet on the corner of his desk, hands free to gesture, wave in the air. Chili could hear him too and said to Nicky's secretary, who was getting ready to leave, "You think he'll be on the phone long?"

  "For the rest of his life," the secretary said, hanging a straw bag from her shoulder. "It's what he does, works the phone. Rip his headset off he dies."

  Chili said, "You sound like you're quitting."

  "Really? No, I'm going to the dentist. You can wait if you like," Nicky's secretary said, coming around to where Chili stood. "I saw your films and it's a pleasure to meet you." She shook Chili's hand. "I'm Robin. I'd love to talk to you but I've got to run."

  Chili watched her wave going out the door.

  Robin, huh?

  He turned to Nicky's office and walked in on him working his headset: "Larry, you still there? . . . Listen to me. Don't over-think it, you sound like an A&R guy. That's your problem, now what's your excuse?"

  Chili stood a few feet from the desk watching the promoter from slightly behind him, almost in profile, Nicky Carcaterra looking fratty in his UCLA sweater and Reeboks, a Yuppie wiseguy talking jive. Nicky telling Larry, "I'm going through flaming hoops, man. What're you doing? . . . I gave you targets right off the tracking sheet. . . . Larry, if you can't move the fucking product . . . Yeah, okay."

  Chili watched him press a button on the console.

  "Mitch. Nick Car, man. I'm calling in regard to your future. Which reminds me, you want to go to the Rose Bowl this year or the Super Bowl? . . . Okay, how many? . . . Jesus Christ, you taking all your advertisers? I don't know if I can swing that many, but I'll try. Listen, Mitch? Right now you have the unique opportunity of being the very first station on the coast, man, to spin Roadkill right up to the Top Forty. . . . I know you're alternative, that's why I'm calling you, bro."

  Chili glanced at the television set, MTV without sound, and there was Raji coming in with a copy of Hits, Elliot the Samoan behind him. Raji seemed to hesitate seeing Chili, but then came on, walked past him without a word, holding the magazine in two hands now, high. He dropped it flat on the desk and the sound it made, like a hard pop, brought Nick twisting around in his chair.

  He said, "Jesus Christ," seeing Chili, then went back to his ocean view as he said, "No, Raji dropped something, no problem. Mitch, what I want to tell you, Roadkill is alternative, basically. I'm gonna bring Derek by and let you talk to him. . . . Derek Stones. We'll kick it around and come up with a definition. . . . I'll call you, bro, let you know when."

  Nick brought his Reeboks off the desk and swiveled around with a look that seemed pleasant enough, eyebrows raised. "Chil, it's good to see you, man. You got all dressed up to stop by? What can I do for you, man? Have a seat." He said to Raji, "I use to know this guy, the model for the famous shylock in his movies." Back to Chili: "That Get Lost wasn't bad. I was thinking of naming a group Amnesia, only I'm afraid they'd forget their charts. Have to hit 'em over the head every time they go on." Nick looked like he was ready to grin if Chili did.

  Chili stared back at him deadpan. He pulled a chair away from the desk, turning it a little toward Raji, who took the other chair now as Chili sat down, Raji wearing his cap straightahead today, the peak down on his eyes, his bodyguard Elliot waiting in the doorway.

  "Out of curiosity," Raji said, "tell us what the fuck you doing here."

  Chili held his gaze on Nick. He said, "First, I want to know which one I'm talking to. Am I talking to you, Nicky, or'm I talking to this guy here?"

  "You talking to both of us," Raji said, "we partners."

  Chili said, "Is that right?" still looking at Nick.

  "Chil and I go back," Nick said to Raji. "We understand each other." And said to Chili, "Maybe you want to say, whatever it is, in private."

  "I can say it to you here," Chili said. "Where's Joe Loop?" Hit Nick with it and watched him touch his headset, looking for a moment like he was going to take it off, but he didn't.

  "Joe Loop, that old guy?"

  "Joe Loop, the one and only. Where is he?"

  Nick turned to Raji. "You know what he's talking about?"

  Chili said, "Nicky. Look at me."

  "What?"

  "Where's Joe Loop?"

  "How the fuck do I know where he is?"

  "You telling me you don't know?"

  "Why would I? The last time I saw him—I don't even remember when it was."

  "You don't know where he is."

  "No, I don't." Nick sat back like he felt he was off the hook.

  Until Chili said, "Nicky?"

  "Chil, I don't go by that name." He turned to Raji again. "Tell him, will you?"

  "Nicky," Chili said. "Look at me."

  "What?"

  "I'm saying this to you one time only," Chili said. "Car-O-Sell—the stupidest name of a company I ever heard of—no longer represents Linda Moon. She quit, doesn't want to have anything to do with you. You try to intimidate her, threaten her in any way or attempt to do her bodily harm, you'll regret it as long as you live, if that."

  Chili got up from the chair and walked away from them, over to Elliot standing in the doorway, walked up to him and at the last moment Elliot moved aside. Chili went through the outer office to the hallway and pressed a button for the elevator.

  He waited.

  Now he heard the door to the Car-O-Sell offices open and close and heard the Samoan coming in no hurry, his steps clicking on the tile floor—not to get rough and cause pain, he would've done that inside. No, this was Elliot's scene, coming with something to say.

  Chili turned his head as Elliot reached him.

  "Yeah?"

  "You were talking to the wrong man in there."

  "I was?"

  "Nick don't know shit."

  "How about Raji?"

  "What he knows he ain't talking about."

  "You really Samoan?"

  "More than enough."

  "How about your name?"

  "I'm Elliot Wilhelm as long as I say I am."

  "Lemme see the eyebrow thing again."

  Elliot raised it, staring into Chili's eyes.

  "On cue, you got it down. So I have to talk to the right person I want to learn anything."

  "You have to talk straight first. I call the studio, they say you not there anymore."

  "Man, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you, you ask for Elaine Levin. I'll fix it. Call Elaine, tell her you're the Samoan bodyguard. She'll know what you're talking about
and set up a time for you to come. I'll be there and we'll talk."

  "About a part in a movie."

  "One I already have in mind. It'll help if what you tell me is interesting. You understand? What I want to hear. Then we can talk about a screen test."

  "No bullshit this time."

  "I give you my word as a man," Chili said, and thought of a question to ask him.

  "Elliot, are you a homosexual?"

  "Everybody thinks so. What do you think?"

  "I think you go either way."

  Elliot winked at him. "Double your pleasure, man. Like they say about that chewing gum."

  The elevator arrived and Chili left him standing there.

  THE FIRST THING Nick said to Raji, right after Chili walked out, "You sit there, you didn't say a fucking word."

  "The man was talking to you, not me. I told you about the time, what he said to me outside the club. He's taking Linda? You said, 'Oh, you didn't kick his ass? You didn't punch him in the mouth?' He give you the same shit he gave me and you sit there and took it, didn't you. Gives you the word, man, threatens your life you touch her, and you don't kick his ass, punch him in the mouth, you don't even say nothing back to him."

  "I couldn't figure out," Nick said, "where he was coming from. Why he wanted to know about Joe Loop."

  "Why didn't you ask him?"

  The man looked like he was in misery, none of that hip phone shit coming from him now. Asking, "Have you seen Joe?"

  "Not since I paid him, gave him what he had coming. Was yesterday."

  "What's he waiting for?"