Catlett, smiling, said, “Hey, Farrah. Hah you, little honey bunny? You come see the big airplanes?”
“I been on airplanes,” Farrah said. “My daddy takes me to Acapulco with him.”
“I know he does, honey bunny. Your daddy’s good to you, huh?”
Little Farrah started to nod and the Bear nuzzled her clean little face with his beard saying, “This here’s my baby sweetheart. Yes her is. Arn’cha, huh? Arn’cha my baby sweetheart?”
“Man, you gonna smother the child.” Catlett raised the little girl’s chin with the tips of his fingers. She seemed tiny enough to get lost in that shaggy beard, one tiny hand hanging on to it now, her tiny body perched on the Bear’s arm. The Bear was going to fat but had taught bodybuilding at one time, worked as a movie stuntman and had choreographed fight scenes. Catlett thought of the Bear as his handyman.
“You know that place they use to shoot 77 Sunset Strip?”
“Yeah, up by La Cienega.”
“Harry Zimm’s office is right across the street, white building, you see venetian blinds upstairs. I need to get in there, pick up a movie script. If you could meet me there tonight, open the door . . .”
“You want, Bo, I’ll go in and get it.”
“No, you do the B part and I do the E.”
“I know that,” Farrah said in her tiny voice. “A, B, E, C, D.”
Catlett was smiling again. “Hey, you a smart little honey bunny, ain’cha?”
“Yes her is,” the Bear said.
12
Chili reached Tommy Carlo at the barbershop but didn’t get a chance to talk about The Cyclone and Michael Weir.
Tommy said, “I been wanting to call you, but you didn’t gimme a number. Ray Bones is looking for you. He’s got some kind of bug up his ass, can’t sit still. He kept after Jimmy Cap about he wants to go to L.A. till Jimmy tells him to go ahead and fuckin go, he’s tired hearing about it.”
Chili was at the desk in Karen’s study, the chair swiveled so that his back was to Harry, across the room. Harry was sitting on the floor; he had the cabinet in the bookcase open and was going through magazines.
Chili said, “You hang out with Jimmy Cap now?” keeping his voice low.
“I happen to be by there when they’re talking, I notice Bones, how he’s acting.”
“You pay him the eight yet?”
“Fuck no, he’ll get it when he gets it. Chil, it doesn’t have nothing to do with money, you know that. I hate to say I fuckin told you, but I did. I told you, don’t start nothing with him that time.”
“You said don’t say nothing, and I didn’t.”
“No, you broke his fuckin nose instead.”
Talking about something that had happened twelve years ago, still hanging over him. “The guy only has room in his brain for one thing,” Chili said, “that’s the problem, he’s a fuckin idiot.”
“He don’t like the way you talk to him. You ever showed him any kind of respect at all, he wouldn’t be on your ass.”
“I should’ve hit him a half-inch lower that time, with the thirty-eight. You think he’s coming out, uh?”
“I know he is. He asked me where you’re staying. I told him I didn’t know. I still don’t.”
“When’s he coming?”
“He never said, but I think the next couple days.”
Getting into the kid stuff again and sounding stupid, hearing himself, Jesus, like he was reverting, talking like those hard-ons sitting around their social clubs.
“Wait a minute,” Chili said. “How’s he know I’m here?”
“I told him you went out to Vegas on a collection job and they sent you to L.A.”
“What’d you tell him that for?”
“He already knew it. I don’t know how unless— did you talk to the drycleaner’s wife since you’re out there? What’s her name, Leo’s wife? I know Bones went to see her and maybe she mentioned it. This was yesterday.”
“Tommy? What makes you think I told Fay I was going to Vegas?”
“I don’t know—it musta been something Bones said. I just assumed.”
“I’ll call you back,” Chili said, hung up and dialed information to get the number of Paris
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Cleaners in North Miami. Fay answered the phone. Chili asked her how she was doing. He was going to take his time, ease into it, but Fay started talking right away, sounding anxious to tell him.
“A man came to see me said was a friend of yours? He asked had I spoken to you since Leo was killed and I said yes, I had. He asked what it was we talked about. I said oh, nothing in particular, and he hit me with his fist. I have a black eye and my jaw hurts something awful, I try to eat on that side? It might be broken. When I get off I think I’ll go the doctor’s and see about it.”
“Fay? You told him what we talked about?”
“He asked had I given you any money and then, yeah, he made me tell him. If I didn’t he was all set to beat me up.”
“I mean, you told him Leo was alive?”
“I had to.”
“And about the money, the settlement?”
“He went through my things and found the letter from the airline the check come in.” “Fay, what else did you tell him?”
“That’s all.”
“What about the woman Leo knows out here, Hi-Tone Cleaners?”
“Oh. Yeah, I might’ve mentioned her, I forget.”
That meant she did. Chili was pretty sure.
“I was kinda groggy from him hitting me.”
“There was nothing you could do, Fay.”
She said, “I guess now everybody’s gonna know about Leo, what he did.”
“No, I think just us three,” Chili said. “The guy won’t tell anybody. I think what he’ll do is try and find Leo, get the money for himself.”
Fay said, “Well, how are you doing otherwise? Are you coming back here sometime?”
Chili gave her Karen’s number, hung up and called Tommy Carlo at the barbershop.
“Tommy, did Bones say anything to Jimmy Cap about Leo?”
“Not that I heard. Why?”
“Only that he was gonna come looking for me?”
“That’s what he said.”
“He didn’t tell you anything, I mean about Leo?”
“Like what?”
“Nothing,” Chili said. “Listen . . .” and asked about Michael Weir and the time he was in Brooklyn making the movie.
Tommy said yeah, he knew guys talked to him personally, had Michael Weir to their club, one on 15th corner of Neptune, another place on 86th Street. Yeah, they shot scenes in Bensonhurst, Carroll Gardens, on the bridge, the Bush Terminal docks, the amusement park . . . “That movie, you know, was from a book called Coney Island, but Michael Weir had it changed, he didn’t like the title. He said to call it The Cyclone and they did.”
“The Cyclone,” Chili said, “the roller coaster.”
“Yeah, the roller coaster. You remember the movie? Michael Weir, he’s Joey Corio, he’s running the fuckin roller coaster in the beginning part, before he gets in with the guys and he’s made. So the guys call him Cyclone. ‘Hey, Cyc, how you doing?’ You don’t remember that?”
Chili looked up to see Harry coming to the desk with a stack of magazines. “I’ll talk to you later,” Chili said, paused, lowered his voice then as he said, “Tommy? Find out when’s he coming out. I’ll call you,” and hung up.
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“Michael’s in every one of these,” Harry said, dropping the magazines on the desk. “Recent ones in American Film and Vanity Fair, about the picture he just finished, called Elba. This one, there’s a cover story. Everything you ever wanted to know about him. There’s a picture of Karen in there and also his present live-in.”
Chili picked up the magazine, Premiere, to see Michael Weir full face, almost life-size, grinning at him. The guy had to be up in his late forties but looked about thirty-five. Not bad looking, thick dark hair he wore fairl
y long, kind of a big nose. There was that Michael Weir twinkle in his eyes, Michael telling his many fans he was basically a nice guy and didn’t put on any airs. It said next to the picture in big letters, MICHAEL WEIR, and under it, smaller, WILL THE REAL ONE PLEASE STAND UP?
“He’s got a big nose,” Chili said. “I never noticed that before.”
“Prominent,” Harry said.
“It’s big,” Chili said, opening the magazine to the cover story, a full-page color shot of Michael in a faded work shirt and scruffy jeans, wearing black socks with his Reeboks. See? Just a regular guy who happened to make seven million every time he did a movie. Chili started to tell Harry his observation in a dry tone of voice, but caught himself in time.
What was he putting Michael Weir down for? He didn’t even know the guy.
He had that fuckin Ray Bones on his mind now, that was the problem, and he was taking it out on this actor who happened to have a big nose and liked scruffy jeans.
The beginning of the article, on the opposite page, had for a title over it, WEIR(D) TALES. On the next two pages were more pictures of Michael, Michael in different movies, Michael in The Cyclone holding a gun and looking desperate, Michael with Karen—there she was—still a blonde.
Chili turned the page, looked at more pictures, still thinking about Ray Bones, realizing Bones would check out the woman at Hi-Tone Cleaners and if he didn’t find her he’d use his connections, talk to the lawyers that ate raw fish, and next he’d be coming this way to check out Harry Zimm. That fuckin Bones, all he did was mess things up.
“Here’s the one he’s living with now,” Harry said over Chili’s shoulder as he turned the page. “Nicki. She’s a cutie, except for all that hair, a rock-androller. They met at Gazzarri’s, on the Strip. Nicki was performing with some group.”
“You know what?” Chili said, looking at a color shot of Michael and Nicki by a limo, both in black leather jackets. “I think I know her. There was a girl with a group we used quite a few times at Momo’s . . . Only her name was Nicole.”
“That’s close,” Harry said. He ran his finger down a column of the story. “Here. She’s twenty-seven, born in Miami. Performed with different groups . . . she’s a singer.”
“So’s Nicole,” Chili said, “but her hair’s a lot blonder and she’s older.” He picked up the phone and dialed the back room of the barbershop.
Tommy said, “I talk to you more in L.A. ‘n when you’re here.”
“There was a group we had at Momo’s about seven eight years ago, the girl singer’s name was Nicole?”
“Sure, Nicole. Man, I wanted to jump her so bad.”
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“She had blond hair, almost white?”
“Yeah, but not necessarily. I meant to tell you,” Tommy said, “we talking about Michael Weir? Nicole lives with him. Only now she’s Nicki.”
“You sure it’s the same one?”
“I just read about her, putting together a group. She was out of music for a while.”
“How old would Nicole be, thirties?”
“Around there, thirty-four.”
“This one’s twenty-seven.”
“Hey, Chil, it’s the same broad, take my word.”
“What’s the name of the group?”
“Prob’ly ‘Nicki.’ I’ll check, see what I can find out.”
Chili gave him Karen’s number and hung up. He said to Harry, “I was right, I know her.”
Harry said, “Yeah, but does she know you?”
Now they were having a drink while they looked at magazines, Chili learning facts about Michael Weir: that he had three homes, three cars, three ex-wives, a dirt bike he rode in the desert, liked to play the piano, cook, didn’t smoke, drank moderately . . . That he had appeared in seventeen features he was willing to talk about . . . That while grips and gaffers loved him, directors and writers “were not that enchanted by Michael’s tendency to trample indifferently on their prerogatives; but since he was arguably a genius . . .”
Karen walked in on them in her neat black suit, looking good, calm, but maybe putting it on, and Chili learned a little more about her and about the movie business. Karen said, “Nothing’s changed in ten years—you know it?” Harry raised his glass saying, “And it never will. Let me guess what happened. No, first tell me who was there.” Chili, at the desk, became the audience, looking from one to the other.
Karen: “You know Warren Hurst?”
Harry: “Never heard of him.”
Karen, looking at their drinks: “He’s one of the production v.p.’s, a new guy. I don’t think he’ll last.”
Harry, as Karen picked up Chili’s drink, took a big sip and handed him the glass: “Who else?”
Karen: “Elaine Levin . . .”
Harry: “No—what’s she doing at Tower?”
Karen: “Harry, she runs production. Don’t you read?”
Harry: “What, the trades? I’ve missed a few lately.” To Chili: “This’s good. Elaine Levin, a few years ago was selling cosmetics . . .”
Karen, lighting a cigarette: “She was at UA and then Metro nine years.”
Harry: “Okay, but before that she was at an ad agency in New York, right? Elaine comes up with an idea for a cosmetic she calls ‘Bedroom Eyes’— you put it on you increase your chances of getting laid. The head of a major studio says to her, ‘Honey, if you can sell that shit you can sell movies.’ Next thing you know she’s a vice-president of production.”
Karen: “Elaine started in marketing.”
Harry: “And how long was she there? That’s what I’m talking about, before they moved her into production, this broad that sold eye makeup?”
Karen: “Harry, everybody used to do something else. What about when you were Harry Simmons making slide films, How to Load a Truck?” To Chili: “Did you know Zimm wasn’t his real name?”
Harry: “The only thing I wasn’t sure of, should Zimm have one m or two? Hey, but I was always a
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filmmaker, behind the camera. These people that run the studios, they’re lawyers, former agents. They’re strictly money guys.”
Karen: “What are you, Harry?”
Harry: “They wouldn’t even see movies, I’m convinced, they didn’t have a screening room on the lot. That’s why with few exceptions I’ve remained independent. You know that song Old Blue Eyes does, ‘I did it my way’? . . .”
Karen: “But now you’re going to a studio.”
Harry: “I have no choice. But you know which one? Tower, I just decided. Play the power game with Bedroom Eyes, see if she’s any good. Get in there and compete with all the ass kissers and bottom feeders, all the no-talent schmucks that constellate around the studio execs who don’t know what they’re doing either. All trying to figure out what the public wants to see. How about teenagers from outer space?”
Karen: “It’s been done.”
Harry: “Well, I got a property I know is gonna go into release. We open on a thousand screens we’ll do over ten mil the first weekend. You oughta read it, see what I’m talking about. Why Michael would be the perfect Lovejoy. Karen? One phone call, I’m in business.”
Chili watched her stub the cigarette out in the ashtray, maybe giving herself time to think. Harry said, “I’m gonna be optimistic, okay?” Karen didn’t answer and Harry, after a moment, brought it back to where they had started.
“You haven’t told us what happened at the meeting.”
“I thought you wanted to guess.”
“Okay. They liked what you did and’ll let you know.”
“I didn’t read. I turned down the part.”
“I thought you wanted to do it.”
“I changed my mind,” Karen said, and walked out.
“You know what happened,” Harry said to Chili. “They told her don’t call us, we’ll call you, and she won’t admit it.” Harry paused to sip his drink. “I’m serious about going to Tower.” He paused again. “I’ll wait’ll Kare
n’s in a better mood and lay the script on her.”
“I thought,” Chili said, “I was gonna read it.”
“What’d you bring, one copy?”
Chili thought about it and said, “I’m going back to the motel, get cleaned up and check out, find someplace over here to stay. Lemme have the key to your office, I could stop on the way back, pick up a script for myself. How would that be?”
Karen, still in the neat black suit, was at the kitchen table pouring a Coke. Chili watched her from the doorway—where she had stood last night in the Lakers T-shirt.
“Can I ask you a question?” She looked up at him and he said, “Why’d you change your mind?”
“About the part? I can’t say I was dying to do it.”
Karen looked down to pour some more Coke in the glass, careful that it didn’t foam over. Chili got ready to say well, maybe he’d be seeing her sometime, when she looked up at him again.
“I probably would’ve taken it though. But during the meeting I got into what we were talking about this morning, my feeling guilty? You know . . .”
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Chili said, “Why you let the daughter walk all over you.”
“Yeah, I questioned that, and the answer I got, it’s what the audience expects, it’s what they want to see. I said, but if I’m not stupid, if I realize in the end I’m being used, why don’t I realize it right away? Warren goes, ‘But if you did, Karen, we wouldn’t have a movie, would we?’ In this tone. You know, like I’m an idiot. It really pissed me off. I said well, if that’s the way you want to do it, I’ll see you.”
“They try to talk you into it?”
“Elaine did, in a way. I got the feeling the studio forced the script on her and she has to go with it. She said, well, the story isn’t exactly a great idea—she knows—but it’s involving, reflective, has resonance, a certain texture—those are all story department words. I said, ‘Yeah, and lines no one would say except in a movie.’ Warren goes, ‘But that’s what it is, Karen, a movie.’ Elaine stared at him without saying a word, like she was thinking, Where did I get this guy? You have to understand, there are movie lines and there are movie lines that work. Bette Davis comes out of a cabin, walks up to a guy on the porch, gives him a flirty look and says, ‘I’d kiss you but I just washed my hair.’ I love it, because it tells you who she is and you have to like her. But some of the stupid lines I’ve had to deliver . . .”
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