Chili watched Catlett, about five feet from the railing, the view of Laurel Canyon behind him, give the Bear a nod. “Don’t worry, man.”
“Okay, when I say go,” the Bear said, “I duck out of the way. Give it two beats and move to the railing, quick, you’re desperate now. Grab it with your hand, turn and press your back against it for support as you aim the piece with both hands. You ready?”
Catlett nodded, half turned, ready.
“Go!”
Chili wanted to turn, make a dive for the living room, but the Bear was still behind him, his big arms going around him tight and he couldn’t twist free, couldn’t move because the Bear hadn’t moved, the Bear not even trying to get out of the way.
That’s why Chili was looking right at Catlett as Catlett looking back took two quick barefoot steps to the railing, got his left hand on it, the gun pointing out of his other hand, and kept going, screaming as the railing fell away behind him and Catlett, it seemed for a moment, hung there grabbing at space.
The guy who had sung the national anthem was doing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” Which wasn’t exactly true, Chili thought, standing at the edge of the deck looking down. He could see Catlett, the white silk robe, lying in weeds and scraggly bushes, more than a hundred feet from here, not moving. The Bear came up to stand next to him and Chili said, “Jesus, how’d that happen?”
The Bear started taking bolts and nuts, old used ones, out of his pants pockets. Wiping each one on his shirt before dropping it over the side, he said, “Beats the shit out of me.”
Looking at sky, Catlett knew everything he should have known while he was still up there looking at Chili Palmer instead of the Bear, the Bear too dumb to have the idea himself, shit, he had given the Bear the idea and the Bear had come in his house last night, even told him he did, but he kept seeing Chili Palmer instead of the Bear. Even knowing he was going to do them both he had listened to the Bear
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’cause it sounded like movies and he said yeah, not taking even half a minute to look at it good . . . But, shit, even if he had taken the half a minute and said forget it and then did them both, he wouldn’t know what the Bear had done to his deck, no, he’d walk out there some night hearing bossa nova or the nice sound of that girl laughing, look over the rail at the lit-up swimming pool down there in the dark, movie people having some fun, knowing how to live. He believed he was almost in their yard, but couldn’t turn his head to look, couldn’t move, couldn’t feel nothing . . .
28
The way Chili told it when he got back to Karen’s and they were in the kitchen: “He fell off his sun deck and was killed.”
She said, “He fell off his sun deck.”
“The railing gave way on him for some reason. When he leaned on it.”
She said, “The railing gave way . . .”
“Yeah, and he fell. I’d say about a hunnerd feet.”
“You went down, looked at him?”
“The Bear did. I never would’ve made it, it’s steep.”
“It was an accident?” Karen said. “I mean you didn’t hit him or push him and he happened to fall?”
“I’ll take a polygraph neither one of us touched him.”
“But you didn’t call the police.”
“Not with a suitcase full of cocaine in the house. Also he had that gun in his hand. He still wanted to shoot me.”
Karen poured their coffee. She sat across from him at the kitchen table and watched him put two spoons of sugar in his and stir it slowly, carefully,
GET SHORTY 299
smoking a cigarette. He looked up at her. She thought he was going to ask if she was still watching him, but he didn’t. He smiled, stirring his coffee. He said after a moment, not smiling now, “You think I might’ve done it. I say I didn’t, but you still think I might’ve. What can I tell you?”
Karen didn’t say anything. He was a cool guy. Or seemed cool because she didn’t know him and maybe never would. She thought, All right, the guy fell off his sun deck. She said to Chili, “Were you scared?”
“You bet I was scared.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“I was scared then, not now. How long you want me to be scared?”
There was a silence. She heard him blow on his coffee and take a sip.
“The meeting’s at two-thirty,” Karen said. “Harry wants to pick us up.”
They sat around the coffee table in the living room part of Elaine’s office at Tower waiting for Michael to get off the phone. Chili listened to Harry saying that as soon as this guy told him the story he knew they had a picture. Elaine saying that from what she’d heard so far it did sound off-trail, a shylock not your usual good guy. Harry saying that was the beauty of it, a hard-on type metamorphosized by his love of a woman. Elaine saying she hoped he didn’t soften up too much, become limp. Chili thinking, Jesus Christ. Michael came over from Elaine’s desk and took a seat next to Karen on the hard sofa. Chili, in his dark-blue suit, looked at Michael in his beat-up flight jacket thinking, What if it’s that same fuckin jacket was at Vesuvio’s?
They waited while Michael put his hand on Karen’s leg, told her she looked great, then started explaining to everybody why he was leaving his agent who—they wouldn’t believe this—could not acquire a property Michael wanted, could not make a deal with the writer, and if an agent couldn’t make a deal with a writer, for Christ sake . . . Until Chili said, “You want to talk about that one or this one?” It got a surprised look from Michael and Harry, deadpan reactions from Karen and Elaine, and the meeting started.
* * *
Elaine: “Mr. Palmer?”
Chili: “Okay. Open at the drycleaning shop. You see the shylock talking to Fay, the wife.”
Michael: “I thought the guy was an agent.”
Chili: “I changed him back to a drycleaner.”
Michael: “You still don’t have a script?”
Karen: “They’re working on the moral dilemma.”
Michael: “That writes itself. I want to know what happens.”
Chili: “Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”
Michael: “Let’s go to the third act and then come back if we want. You build to a climactic scene. What is it?”
Chili: “You’re referring to the action, with Ray Carlo.”
Michael: “Who’s Ray Carlo?”
Chili: “He was Bones, I changed his name. Okay, Randy finally catches up with Leo . . .”
Michael: “Wait. Who the fuck is Randy?”
Chili: “Randy’s the shylock. You need a nice-guy name. You don’t want to call him Lefty, Cockeye, Joe Loop, one of those.”
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Elaine: “Sonny’s nice.”
Chili: “It’s not bad. I know a Lucky, a Jojo, Momo, Jimmy Cap, Cowboy, Sucky, Chooch . . .”
Elaine: “Sucky?”
Michael: “Okay, I’m Randy, for the moment anyway. What happens?”
Chili: “They catch up with Leo the drycleaner, Randy leans on him a little, not much, and Leo tells them, okay, the dough’s out at the airport in a locker. So Randy and Fay have the key and are at the moral dilemma part when Ray Carlo shows up. Actually he’s already there, searching the place when they get home from Leo’s. Carlo, he’s got a gun, takes the key offa Randy and Randy says okay, you win, the dough’s out at the airport. Ray Carlo leaves to go get it and Randy calls the FBI.”
Michael: “All he’s doing is picking up money. What would they arrest him for?”
Chili: “They’d at least give him a hard time. Randy knows this and wants to see it, so he and Fay go out to the airport. They see the bust and look at each other with surprise, ’cause what’s in that locker is not money but cocaine. You understand? Leo was setting them up, or anybody that got on to him.”
Michael, frowning: “That’s how it ends?”
Chili: “No, you still have Leo.”
Michael: “I thought Carlo was the heavy.”
> Chili, noticing the way Karen was staring at him: “That’s what you’re suppose to think. No, that’s the surprise. Leo’s the bad guy, from the beginning.”
Elaine: “Good. I like Leo.”
Harry: “Leo has delusions of grandeur, wants to be famous, hobnob with movie stars, entertainers.
Elaine: “He could be fun to watch, while the other guy’s just a heavy.”
Michael: “Leo’s a schmuck.”
Elaine: “He’s sort of schmucky, that’s all right.”
Karen: “He could have some funny lines, out of desperation.”
Michael: “Wait a minute—”
Chili: “Yeah, he could be funny. I still think, though, he oughta fall off the balcony.”
There was a silence.
Michael, quietly: “Okay . . . what balcony?”
Chili: “Leo’s apartment, twenty floors up overlooking Sunset. He’s with this starlet, they’re drinking, doing coke, when Fay and Randy walk in. Basically what happens, here’s Leo and here’s the guy he’s been paying for years and was always scared to death of. But right now Leo’s flying on coke and booze and doesn’t know enough to be scared of thing, this little drycleaner. What he wants to do is put the shylock down—you know what I mean? Dishonor him, this guy he thinks of as a hard-on, a regular mob kind of guy.” Chili paused. “Suddenly Leo jumps up on the cement railing of the balcony and says, ‘Let’s see if you got the nerve to do this, tough guy.’ The starlet screams. Fay yells at him to get down. The shylock doesn’t do nothing, he watches, ’cause he knows this guy basically is a loser. He watches Leo take three steps and that’s it, off he goes, screaming all the way down twenty floors to the pavement.” any
There was a silence again.
Michael: “That’s how it ends?”
Chili: “After that, they find the money in the closet. They have another moral dilemma talk, a short one, and take off for Mexico in a brand-new Mercedes.”
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Michael, to Elaine: “You know what I do in this picture? I stand around and watch.”
Chili: “You want to shoot somebody? Or, hey, you want to play Leo? Take the dive?”
Elaine: “I don’t know why, but Leo fascinates me. The little drycleaner with all that money. I’d like to see what he does with it.”
Harry: “Sure, the guy must think he’s died and gone to heaven.”
Michael: “Elaine—”
Elaine: “He wouldn’t have to take the dive, would he?”
Karen: “Not if he lives on the ground floor.”
Michael: “Is it a comedy? At this point, who knows?” Grins. “I can see why you don’t have a script. All you have is an idea, and you know what ideas are worth.”
Chili: “Michael?”
Michael: “I’m going to London tomorrow. New York a few days and then grab the Concorde. But I’ll put my writer on it first. By the time I get back next month we should have a treatment we can play with and then go right into a first draft.”
Chili: “Michael, look at me.”
Michael, grinning: “Right. That’s what it’s all about, right there, the look.”
Chili: “You don’t mind my saying, Michael, I don’t see you as the shylock.”
Michael: “Really . . . Why not?”
Chili: “You’re too short.”
* * *
Harry waited till they were in the car, driving along the street of sound stages toward the main gate.
“You have to be out of your mind, talk to a guaranteed box-office star like that. You blew any chance of getting him.”
Chili, in the backseat, kept quiet. It was too hard to explain why during the meeting he started seeing Michael as Leo, thinking that if he wanted to play Leo, great; and after that couldn’t see him as the shylock. It had nothing to do with the fact he didn’t like the guy or trust him or would never loan him money, the guy was still a great actor.
Karen said, “Harry, we knew going in he’d back out sooner or later, it’s what he does.”
“Then what was the meeting for?”
“Elaine, she loves the whole idea, except the ending. You heard her, she thinks Pacino would be perfect.”
Chili said, “He’s kinda short too, isn’t he?”
“They all are,” Karen said. “You shoot up.”
They drove through the gate and followed a side street to Hollywood Boulevard.
“What if,” Chili said, “Leo hops on the railing and makes a speech. Says how he sweated, worked his ass off all his life as a drycleaner, but he’s had these few weeks of living like a movie star and now he can die happy. In other words he commits suicide. Steps off the balcony and the audience walks out in tears. What do you think?”
Karen said, “Uh-huh . . .” Harry said he wanted a drink and Karen said that wasn’t a bad idea. Chili didn’t say anything, giving it some more thought. Fuckin endings, man, they weren’t as easy as they looked.
The Extras
I. ALL BY ELMORE: THE CRIME NOVELS; THE WESTERNS II. SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY III. IF IT SOUNDS LIKE WRITING, REWRITE IT IV. MARTIN AMIS INTERVIEWS “THE DICKENS OF DETROIT” ~
This section was prepared by the editorial staff of PerfectBound e-books, who thank Mr. Gregg Sutter, Elmore Leonard's longtime researcher and aide-decamp, for his unstinting support and help in the assembling of this material.
Further riches await the reader at the website that Mr. Sutter maintains, www.elmoreleonard.com, and in “The Extras” sections of other PerfectBound editions of Elmore Leonard’s novels (“All by Elmore” and “Selected Filmography” come standard in each e-book).
All by Elmore
The Crime Novels
The Big Bounce (1969); Mr. Majestyk (1974); 52 Pickup (1974); Swag* (1976); Unknown Man #89 (1977); The Hunted (1977); The Switch (1978); City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit (1980); Gold Coast (1980); Split Images (1981); Cat Chaser (1982); Stick (1983); LaBrava (1983); Glitz (1985); Bandits (1987); Touch (1987); Freaky Deaky (1988); Killshot (1989); Get Shorty (1990); Maximum Bob (1991); Rum Punch (1992); Pronto (1993); Riding the Rap (1995); Out of Sight (1996); Be Cool (1999); Pagan Babies (2000); “Fire in the Hole”* (e-book original story, 2001); Tishomingo Blues (2002); When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories (2002).
The Westerns
The Bounty Hunters* (1953); The Law at Randado* (1954); Escape from Five Shadows* (1956); Last Stand at Saber River* (1959); Hombre* (1961); The Moonshine War* (1969); Valdez Is Coming* (1970); Forty Lashes Less One* (1972); Gunsights* (1979) Cuba Libre (1998); The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories* (1998).
As of November 2002: Unless otherwise indicated (*), all titles are available from PerfectBound e-books. All titles are available in print form in dazzling new editions by HarperTorch paperbacks, with the exception of: The Moonshine War (1969); Swag (1976); “Fire in the Hole” (2001). “Fire in the Hole” is available within PerfectBound e-book and William Morrow hardcover editions of When the Women Come Out to Dance (2002).
The Crime Novels
The Big Bounce (1969)
Jack Ryan always wanted to play pro ball. But he couldn’t hit a curveball, so he turned his attention to less legal pursuits. A tough guy who likes walking the razor’s edge, he’s just met his match — and more — in Nancy. She’s a rich man’s plaything, seriously into thrills and risk, and together she and Jack are pure heat ready to explode. But when simple housebreaking and burglary give way to the deadly pursuit of a really big score, the stakes suddenly skyrocket. Because violence and double-cross are the name of this game — and it’s going to take every ounce of cunning Jack and Nancy possess to survive ... each other.
Houston Chronicle: “[Leonard is] a sage poet of crime.”
From the novel:
She was facing him now, her cold look gone and smiling a little. Of course it’s loaded.
“You going to shoot something?”
“We could. Windows are good.” “So you brought a gun to shoot at windows.” “And boats. Boats ar
e fun.” “I imagine they would be. How about cars?” “I didn’t think about cars.” She seemed pleasantly
surprised. “Isn’t that funny? “Yeah that is funny.” “There’s a difference,” Ryan said, “between breaking
and entering and armed robbery.”
“And there’s a difference between seventy-eight dollars and fifty thousand dollars.” Nancy said, “How badly do you want it?”
Mr. Majestyk (1974)
Vincent Majestyk saw too much death in the jungles of Southeast Asia. All he wants to do now is farm his melons and forget. But peace can be an elusive commodity, even in the Arizona hinterlands
— and especially when the local mob is calling all the shots. And one quiet, proud man’s refusal to be strong-armed by a powerful hood is about to start a violent chain reaction that will leave Mr. Majestyk ruined, in shackles, and without a friend in the world — except for one tough and beautiful woman. But his tormentors never realized something about their mark: This is not his first war. Vince Majestyk knows more than they’ll ever know about survival ... and everything about revenge.
Bergen Record: “First rate ... an excellent thriller ... well-plotted and smoothly written and crackles with suspense.”
From the novel:
Majestyk was running across the open scrub, weaving through the dusty brush clumps, by the time Renda got out of the car and began firing at him with the automatic, both hands extended in the handcuffs. Majestyk kept running. Renda jumped across the ditch, got to the fence, and laid the .45 on the top of a post, aimed, and squeezed the trigger three times, but the figure out in the scrub was too small now and it would have to be a lucky shot to bring him down. He fired once more and the automatic clicked empty.
Seventy, eighty yards away, Majestyk finally came to a stop, worn out, getting his breath. He turned to look at the man standing by the fence post and, for a while, they stared at one another, each knowing who the other man was and what he felt and not having to say anything. Renda crossed the ditch to the Jag and Majestyk watched it drive away.
52 Pickup (1974)
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