Get Shorty (15 page)

It took Chili a couple of minutes to figure Michael Weir out. He wanted people to think he was a regular guy, but was too used to being who he was to pull it off.

The two of them sitting at the table now, Chili asked him if he wanted a drink. Michael, watching Nicki and her band through the archway, said yeah, that sounded like a good idea. Chili asked him what he wanted. Michael said oh, anything. Did he want Scotch, bourbon, a beer? Michael said oh, and stopped and said no, he'd like a Perrier. Still watching Nicki and the band. They hadn't started to play. Chili looked over at the bar, not open yet, thinking he'd have to go all the way upstairs to get the movie star his soda water. Right then Michael said, “They're a tough audience.”

Chili noticed the movie star's expression, eyebrows raised, like he'd just heard some bad news but was more surprised than hurt.

“My Michael Jackson went right by them.”

Oh—meaning his moonwalk routine. Chili said, “It looked good to me.” It did.

“To do it right you put on a touch of eye makeup, white socks, the glove . . . I was a little off on the voice too, the baby-doll whisper?”

Chili said, “I couldn't hear that part.”

“But I can understand it, guys like that, their attitude. It has to do with territorial imperative.”

Chili said, “That must be it,” feeling more at ease with the movie star, knowing a bullshitter when he met one. It didn't mean the guy wasn't good.

“I'm not certain why,” Michael said, “but it reminds me of the one, the third-rate actor doing Hamlet?” Michael smiling with his eyes now. “He's so bad that before long the audience becomes vocally abusive, yelling at him to get off the stage. They keep it up until the actor, finally, unable to take any more, stops the soliloquy and says to the audience, ‘Hey, what're you blaming me for? I didn't write this shit.' “

Now they were both smiling, Michael still doing his with his eyes, saying, “I could tell those kids I didn't invent Michael Jackson . . . someone else did.” Chili wondering, if it doesn't bother him, why didn't he just drop it? Chili looking for the right moment to bring up
Mr. Lovejoy.

He was ready to get into it, said, “Oh, by the way . . .” and Nicki's band kicked off, filling the room with their sound, and Michael turned his chair to face the bandstand through the archway. They were loud at first, but then settled down and it wasn't too bad, more like rhythm and blues than rock and roll. The beat got the tips of Chili's fingers brushing the table. Michael sat with his hands folded in his lap, his legs in the baggy pants stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed, the laces of one of his Reeboks loose, coming untied. He
looked more like in his thirties than forty-seven. Not a bad-looking guy, even with the nose, Chili studying his profile. There was no way to tell if Michael liked the beat or not. Chili thought of asking him, but had the feeling people waited for the movie star to speak first, give his opinion and then everybody would say yeah, that's right, always agreeing. Like with Momo, the few times Chili saw him in the social club years ago, noticing the way the guys hung on to whatever Momo said. It was like you had to put kneepads on to talk to this man who never worked in his life.

Chili leaned into the table saying, “You might not remember, but we met one time before.”

He gave the movie star time to look over.

“In Brooklyn, when you were making
The Cyclone,
that movie.”

Michael said, “You know, I had a feeling we'd met. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, the occasion. Chil, is it?”

“Chili Palmer. We met, it was at a club on 86th Street, Bensonhurst. You dropped by, you wanted to talk to some of the guys.”

“Sure, I remember it very well,” Michael said, turning his chair around to the table.

“You were, I guess you were seeing what it was like to be one of us,” Chili said, locking his eyes on the movie star's the way he looked at a slow pay, a guy a week or two behind.

“Yeah, to listen more than anything else.”

“Is that right?”

“Pick up your rhythms of speech.”

“We talk different?”

“Well, different in that the way you speak is based on an attitude,” the movie star said, leaning in
with an elbow on the table and running his hand through his hair. Chili could see him doing it on the screen, acting natural. “It's like ya tone a voice,” the movie star said, putting on an accent, “says weah ya comin' from.” Then back to his normal voice, that had a touch of New York in it anyway, saying, “I don't mean where you're from geographically, I'm referring to attitude. Your tone, your speech patterns demonstrate a certain confidence in yourselves, in your opinions, your indifference to conventional views.”

“Like we don't give a shit.”

“More than that. It's a laid-back attitude, but with an intimidating edge. Cut-and-dried, no bullshit. Your way is the only way it's going to be.”

“Well, you had it down cold,” Chili said. “Watching you in the movie, if I didn't know better I'd have to believe you were a made guy and not acting. I mean you be
came
that fuckin guy. Even the fink part,” Chili said, laying it on now. “I never met a fink and I hope to God I never do, but how you did it must be the way finks act.”

The movie star liked that, starting to nod, saying, “It was a beautiful part. All I had to do was find the character's center, the stem I'd use to wind him up and he'd play, man, he'd play.” The movie star nodding with Nicki's beat now, eyes half closed, like he was showing how to change into somebody else, saying, “Once I have the authentic sounds of speech, the rhythms, man, the patois, I can actually begin to think the way those guys do, get inside their heads.”

Like telling how he studied this tribe of natives in the jungles of Brooklyn. That's how it sounded to Chili.

He said, “Okay, I'm one of those guys you mention. What am I thinking?”

The movie star put on an innocent look first, surprised. What? Did I say something? The look gradually becoming a nice-guy smile. He ran both hands through his hair this time.

“Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying an actual metamorphosis takes place, I become one of you. That wouldn't be acting. I had the opportunity one time, years ago, to ask Dame Edith Evans how she approached her parts and she said, ‘I pretend, dear boy, I pretend.' Well, I'll get involved in a certain life, observe all I can, because I want that feeling of realism, verisimilitude. But ultimately what I do is practice my craft, I act, I pretend to be someone else.”

“So you don't know what I'm thinking,” Chili said, staying with it.

It got another smile, a tired one. “No, I don't. Though I have to say, I'm curious.”

“So, you want to know?”

“If you'd like to tell me, yeah.”

“I'm thinking about a movie.”

“One of mine?”

“One we're producing and we want you to be in,” Chili said, seeing the movie star's eyebrows go up, and one of the arms in the worn-out leather jacket, raising his hand as Chili tried to tell him, “It's one you already know about, you read.”

But Michael wasn't listening, he was saying, “Wait. Time out, okay?” before lowering his arm and settling back. “I don't want to come off sounding rude, because I appreciate your interest and I'm flattered, really, that you'd think of me for a part. But, and here's the problem. My agent won't let me go
anywhere near an independently financed production, I'm sorry.”

Chili got to say, “It isn't that kind—“ and the hand shot up again.

“My manager along with my agent, the business heads, they've made it our policy. Otherwise, I'm sure you can understand, I'd have pitches coming at me from independents day and night.” The movie star shrugged, helpless, his gaze moving off to the band.

“You think I'm talking about wiseguy money,” Chili said. “No way. This one's gonna be made at a studio.”

It brought the movie star partway back.

“I'm not connected to those people anymore. Not since I walked out of a loan-shark operation in Miami.”

That brought the movie star all the way back with questions in his eyes, sitting up, interested in the real stuff.

“What happened? The pressure got to you?”

“Pressure? I'm the one applied the pressure.”

“That's what I mean, the effect that must've had on you. What you had to do sometimes to collect.”

“Like have some asshole's legs broken?”

“That, yeah, or some form of intimidation?”

“Whatever it takes,” Chili said. “You're an actor, you like to pretend. Imagine you're the shylock. A guy owes you fifteen grand and he skips, leaves town.”

“Yeah?”

“What do you do?”

Chili watched the movie star hunch over, narrowing his shoulders. For a few moments he held his
hands together in front of him, getting a shifty look in his eyes. Then gave it up, shaking his head.

“I'm doing Shylock instead of
a
shylock. Okay, what's my motivation? The acquisition of money. To collect. Inflict pain if I have to.” Michael half-closed his eyes. “My father used to beat me for no reason . . . Take the money I earned on my paper route, that I kept in a cigar box . . .”

“Hold it,” Chili said. “I was a shylock—what do I look like?”

“That's right, yeah,” Michael said, staring at Chili, his expression gradually becoming deadpan, sleepy.

“You the shylock now?”

“Guy owes me fifteen large and takes off, I go after him,” the movie star said. “The fuck you think I do?”

“Try it again,” Chili said. “Look at me.”

“I'm looking at you.”

“No, I want you to look at me the way I'm looking at you. Put it in your eyes, ‘You're mine, asshole,' without saying it.”

“Like this?”

“What're you telling me, you're tired? You wanta go to bed?”

“Wait. How about this?”

“You're squinting, like you're trying to look mean or you need glasses. Look at me. I'm thinking, You're mine, I fuckin own you. What I'm
not
doing is feeling anything about it one way or the other. You understand? You're not a person to me, you're a name in my collection book, a guy owes me money, that's all.”

“The idea then,” the movie star said, “I show complete indifference, until I'm crossed.”

“Not even then. It's nothing personal, it's business. The guy misses, he knows what's gonna happen.”

“How about this?” the movie star said, giving Chili a nice dead-eyed look.

“That's not bad.”

“This's what I think of you, asshole. Nothing.”

“I believe it,” Chili said.

“I turn it on when I confront the guy.”

“Yeah, but you haven't found him yet.”

Chili watched the movie star wondering what he was supposed to do next, giving him a strange look, Chili wondering himself exactly what he was doing, except he could see it right there in his mind so he kept going.

“The guy took off for Las Vegas.”

“How do I know that?” The movie star picking up on it.

“The guy's wife tells you.”

Chili paused, the movie star waiting.

“Yeah?”

“The wife wants to go with you on account of her husband skipped with all her money . . . three hundred grand,” Chili said, starting to roll and not seeing anywhere to stop, “they conned off an airline after this jet crashed the guy was supposed to be on but wasn't and everybody was killed.”

The movie star was looking at him funny again.

“If the guy wasn't on the plane . . .”

“He was, but he got off just before it left and blew up. So his bag's on the plane, his name's on the passenger list . . .”

“The wife sues the airline,” the movie star said, nodding. “This is a gutsy babe.”

“Good looking too.”

“The husband takes off with the money, plus he still owes me the fifteen large,” Michael the shylock said, “and the wife and I take off after him. Go on. When do I meet up with the guy and give him the look?”

Chili had to think about it. Tell Michael what actually happened or what he thought would sound better?

“It's not that simple,” Chili said. “You have to be careful. Leo, the husband, isn't much to worry about, outside of he could try and nail you from behind if you get close. But there's another guy that comes along, a hard-on you happen to owe money to. A mob guy. He knows about the three hundred grand and would like to take you out anyway, on account of a past situation.”

This time when Chili paused, wondering how to get back to where this thing had started, the movie star said, “This actually happened, didn't it? It's a true story.”

“Basically,” Chili said.

“You're the shylock.”

“I was at one time.”

“So, did you find the guy? What's his name, Leo?”

“I found him,” Chili said, “yeah.”

That was a fact. But now he didn't know what else to say, or how he actually got this far into it.

“You understand, you're pretending you're a shylock.”

“Yeah? Go on.”

“I mean that's all we're doing. You wanted to see if you can think like a shylock, get in his head. So I gave you a situation, that's all.”

“You're not going to tell me the rest?”

“At this point, basically, that has to be it.”

Michael was giving him a strange look again: not so confused this time, more like he was figuring something out. He said, “Well, if you won't, you won't,” and started to grin. “I don't know how long you've been in the business, but that was the most ingenious pitch I've ever had thrown at me, and I mean in my entire career. You got me playing the guy, the shylock, before I even realized it was a pitch. So now I have to read the script to find out what happens. Beautiful. Really, that was artfully done.”