Be Cool

  "Joe Loop says he has to find the man first. The reason he wanted more money."

  "The guy walks in the fucking office, he can't be that hard to find. Chili knows something," Nick said, "or he wouldn't ask about Joe Loop. What? He saw Joe leaving his house that night? He could know him. He would've told the cops. Maybe he did and they picked Joe up. See? It's his way of telling me, asking do I know where he is. Christ, I got two maybe three records ready to break. I'm banging the phones morning till fucking night, and I got this hanging over my head. What's he want Linda for, anyway?"

  The man's mind jumping now from one thing to another. Raji watched him. Drumming his fingers on the desk, moving his swivel chair side to side back and forth like he had bugs crawling on him. Touching his hair, his headset, pulling it off now, banging it down on the desk.

  "I believe this's the first time I've seen you," Raji said, "without your phone on your head. You ask me what he wants with Linda. He wants her. She's choice, man. He wants all he can get and a few times on Sunday is what he wants."

  Look at that. It seemed to calm Nick down, sitting still now, not touching himself anyplace. He looked like he was thinking. Yeah. Now he was shaking his head.

  "The guy's in pictures, he can get laid anytime he wants, he doesn't have to fucking work at it. No, he's got a plan for Linda all laid out."

  "I got a plan, too," Raji said.

  Nick shook his head. "That Chicks-O-Rama shit'll never get off the ground and you know it. Michael, at the label? He even told me they're barely interested now. At best they'll cut a CD and walk away."

  "Michael's pussy, I can talk to him."

  "Raj, Michael doesn't make decisions. All he is's a nice guy." Nick leaned on his desk now, getting into it. "Chili Palmer knows people. He's got clout. His movies are for shit, but he gets 'em made and that's what I'm talking about. He gets things done. If he has plans for Linda, gonna make her a star, he's got a way better chance than you have, with the fucking Chicks."

  Amazing, how the man could change from near whimpering to coming on strong. Raji listened to him.

  Nick saying, "Linda signed a contract with Car-O-Sell Entertainment. Not with Chicks International or Chicks-O-Rama or any kind of chicks. She signed with us, man. And it says in that contract any kind of deal she makes, through a lawyer or any other third party, we get twenty-five percent off the top."

  "In other words," Raji said, "we sit back, see what happens."

  Nick kept nodding his head. "She makes it, we go for our cut. She doesn't, what're we out?"

  ELLIOT WAITED in Raji's office by the wall of windows, standing close to look on an angle at the beach and the ocean, then looking straight down to Wilshire Boulevard. He estimated, multiplying eighteen by ten, it would be a fall from here of almost two-hundred feet.

  The guy in the hotel in Honolulu fell about a hundred feet and that had looked like an awful long way down. A guy he sat next to on the plane. Friendly guy, he liked to talk, ask questions.

  Elliot was on his way to American Samoa for the first time, to look for his daddy who'd gone back there, tired of living in the U.S. The guy on the plane asked him if he was born there. No, born in Torrance. In the military? Elliot said no, but his dad was in the Navy, came to L.A. from Samoa and met his mother. She Samoan? No, she was black, part black and part white. College? Elliot told him he'd gone to Jordan High in Long Beach, quit and was now working in San Pedro at the shipyard. The guy said, "You're a big one, aren't you?" How did you answer a question like that? When they landed in Honolulu Elliot had three hours to kill between flights and the guy invited him to his hotel to relax and have a drink. When they were in the guy's room on the tenth floor, a suite, Elliot had to take a piss. The guy followed him into the bathroom and watched him saying, "You are a big one." He had suspected the guy before, the guy so polite and sounding a little bit like a sissy the way he talked, but looked like a businessman. They went in the living room and the guy said, "Let me see it again and I'll make you a piña colada," sounding more like a sissy now than before. Elliot told him he had to go and the guy said, "You're afraid of little me? Dear boy, you could whip me to death with that snake you have in your trousers." Elliot told him again he was going, but must have been curious or something, seventeen years old, because he didn't walk out. He stood there while the guy said, "Aren't we coy. You knew exactly why I asked you here." His voice going soft then, like he was trying to be seductive. "Didn't you? Come on, be honest." He said, "Oh, what's that?" Raised one finger to touch Elliot's nose, and the next thing he knew the guy was on his tiptoes kissing him on the mouth, his lips wet, Elliot feeling the guy's tongue trying to get in his mouth. What he did was take hold of the guy by his suit and lift him off the floor—the suit up around his ears now, the guy in there looking scared—then pushed him, hard, wanting nothing to do with the guy and, shit, the guy went through the window. A closed window. Shattered the glass going through it and screamed all the way down to the pavement.

  Elliot didn't go to trial. They offered him a plea, called it manslaughter, Man One, and he went to Kulani Correctional on Hilo. He hoped for early release, but got in trouble, injured a hack and shanked some cons for picking on his girlfriend—a cute guy he'd see once in a while now in West Hollywood—and had to do six years straight up, no time off. Shit. When he came home he was a roadie for different bands, a bouncer, then a roadie for the Boo-Yaa T.r.i.b.e., the famous Samoan rappers, and then hooked up with Raji as a way to get connected in the business end. When Raji asked him what could he do Elliot said, "I can throw a man through a hotel window ten floors up. I can break a man's arm, I can cut him good. What you want done?"

  RAJI WALKED IN, right away went to the old-fashioned mirror on the wall that had pegs on it where he hung his Kangols, but didn't hang up the one he was wearing. He looked at the cap in the mirror, turning his head this way and that to check it out, and pulled the peak down a hair closer to his shades. He moved his head to one side now to see Elliot in the glass.

  "You hear him? Chili Palmer? He give Nicky that look-at-me shit."

  "Like he gave you the other night," Elliot said, still by the windows.

  "Yeah, but Nicky's scared of him. The man leaves, Nicky looks at me. 'You didn't say a fuckin word.' I told him, 'He wasn't talking to me, bro, he was talking to you.' If I wanted to straighten the man out right then I'd have given you a nod—am I right?—as he was leaving. Throw him out a window. But this idea come to me. Wait now. What if we let Chili Palmer take Linda Moon. Let him do the work, line up gigs, get her a label, spend promo money on her? Understand what I'm saying? We still hold the contract. She makes it, we move in for our cut as her managers."

  "You and Nicky."

  Both calling him Nicky.

  "Yeah. She don't make it, we haven't taken the bath, he has."

  "So you don't want to whack the guy, Chili Palmer." Elliot making sure, hoping it was what Raji meant.

  "You hear what I just said? We wait, see what Chili Palmer does. Man has money, he's connected, knows people, like he must know some indie promo guys. I'm thinking more and more he could make it happen."

  Elliot said, "I don't do nothing?"

  "You need something to occupy you," Raji said, "keep my car washed."

  Elliot said, "I'll think about it," and saw Raji give him a funny look, like, what's going on here?

  14

  * * *

  THEY WERE IN DARRYL'S CROWN VIC in the second row of cars facing the Ralphs sign, the big oval up there, the eye-catcher of the shopping center on Fairfax at Santa Monica. Left to right, a dry-cleaner, a bakery, the one-hour photo shop they were surveilling, and Ralphs supermarket. Here the center turned at a right angle and continued on to offer orthopedic supplies, submarines, watch repair, eye exams and the last one, family dental care—one of its signs in Russian. Chili's gaze returned to the photo shop.

  "How about the sign that says head shots? And he turns out to be the guy who did Tommy?"

  "I tho
ught that one'd catch your eye," Darryl said. "Look what else. The man has mail boxes, does packaging and shipping, passport photos—they come over here and get in all kinds of businesses. East from here on Santa Monica? The neighborhood's thick with Russians."

  "What's the guy's name?"

  "Roman Bulkin, and he looks it, fifty-six, built like the man you described. Only he's baldheaded, has the fringe around the sides. So without the rug you might not be able to place him at the scene."

  "You want me to go in?"

  "He'll be out, it's getting on that time. His car's right there in front of us, the Lexus."

  "Not the one the shooter used," Chili said.

  "That would be too much to hope for, the man turns out to be stupid."

  "What put you on to Roman?"

  "He's dirty, for one thing. Twice brought up on assault, the people he beat up failed to show. Got him on bank fraud, uttering checks don't belong to him. He's out on bond, that one pending. What ought to interest you, he's also suspected of loan sharking, operating out of his shop."

  "Good luck."

  "I know what you mean. We need a complainant, somebody that got his legs broken."

  "I'll tell you something," Chili said. "There may be a certain amount of satisfaction in breaking a guy's leg that gets behind, but how does he repay the loan if he's laid up? You qualify your customers you don't have to get rough with 'em."

  "I won't argue with you," Darryl said, "you the authority, the same thing Roman Bulkin is in the Russian mob. I get this from the feds. The top man, the boss, is the pakhan. Under him are what they call the authorities, they're the enforcers. Then under them you have the men, and under them the outcasts that make the Turkish coffee and clean up the clubhouse. They have what they call the 'Thieves Code,' the Vorovskoy Zakan, rules like they can't work at any job that ain't a crime. They can't have a wife and family, and the usual about keeping your mouth shut and so on. They have an unwritten rule, they don't take any shit from the police. You mess with them it's serious business."

  "There's a guy coming out," Chili said, "and another one." He looked at his watch.

  "Yeah, it's getting to be that time," Darryl said. "Couple more, they work for Bulkin. You want a close look, there's a pair of binoculars in the glove box."

  Chili brought out the glasses and a manila envelope that came with them.

  "Keep that out too," Darryl said, "we'll get to it."

  Chili laid the envelope on his lap and focused the glasses on the front of the photo shop. "They're all big guys, but they're short."

  "They go over to Yani's now on Crescent Heights," Darryl said, "their private club, and kick back. Like they haven't been sitting around all day."

  "That's what mob guys do," Chili said, "they sit down they take time to arrange the crease in their pants, so the knees don't bag, then check it every few minutes."

  "These people don't dress up much," Darryl said, "but they into every kind of mob crime you can think of. Blackmarket diesel fuel, they buy it and sell it, never pay the taxes. The feds want to bring 'em up on fraud. I want Bulkin on the homicide and get him state time for the rest of his life. These fellas—here comes another one—we're pretty sure work the extortion business. See, what Bulkin does, he takes a picture of a man's place of business, like this Armenian ran a party store. He says Bulkin's people come in, hand him a color photo of his store, the outside, then they tell him, a nice place like this, he ought to have insurance. The Armenian says he has insurance. They tell him he won't need it if he has their insurance, it prevents things happening to the store. They give him a few days to think about it and then come back with another photo of the place, the same shot. This time they don't say a word. They put a match to it and the Armenian watches his store burn up. He ain't gonna take this shit, he goes to the county authorities and files a complaint. Two days later he's shot dead in what looks like a holdup." Darryl turned his head to look at Chili, who was quiet, holding the glasses in his lap now. "Wasn't Tommy Athens in that business, in the old days?"

  Chili said, "That day at Swingers we're having lunch, he's telling me some of his problems. One he mentioned I didn't think anything of at the time. He says here was this ethnic guy—not Russian, ethnic—trying to sell him insurance, a guy who could write a book on the different ways to work it."

  "So Tommy was into it, back then."

  "It was his specialty, selling protection. But when he was telling me about the ethnic guy I had to go to the men's. I was barely listening. But why did you think Tommy was into it himself, before?"

  "Open the envelope," Darryl said. "There's a picture in it."

  Chili pulled it out, an eight by ten color shot of the house in Silver Lake where NTL Records had its Offices: a big one-story bungalow, dark brown, partly hidden among tropical shrubs and trees. It didn't show the recording studio, a cement-block structure behind the house.

  "I'm out there this morning," Darryl said, "talking to Tiffany, girl with the Indian 'do. We're looking around the office, she opens a drawer in Tommy's desk and takes out this shot of the place. She says a guy with some kind of heavy accent dropped it off. He'd come a couple times before when Tommy was out, so this time he left the photo, not giving her any explanation. A few days later the guy comes back and this time Tommy's there. She buzzes him, says the guy's here who left the photo. Tommy comes out of his office, walks up to the guy and nails him, punches him right in the mouth. Tiffany says what was weird, Tommy had on leather gloves. In other words he was ready, waiting for the guy to come back. Doesn't say a word, walks up and decks the guy and throws him out on the street. Tiffany couldn't believe it. She says who was that? And Tommy says, 'A fuckin insurance salesman.' But see," Darryl said, "that's the only time, according to Tiffany, the word insurance was mentioned. The guy didn't get a chance to say a word. So Tommy knew what the guy wanted, didn't he. I asked Tiffany did she think he was Russian. She wasn't sure. I brought her to Wilshire, let her look at my Russian book. Who does she pick out? Mr. Roman Bulkin."

  "If Tommy was alive," Chili said, "you could book him for assault. But you don't have enough to put his homicide on Bulkin."

  "We don't have nothing to put on Bulkin. We're looking to see if the same gun that did Tommy did the Armenian. A positive match could move us closer."

  Chili said, "I hope he comes out soon, I have to go to the bathroom."

  "You have a problem?"

  "High anxiety."

  "Wasn't that a movie? Had what's his name in it, married to Anne Bancroft? High Anxiety . . . And now here come a couple more. And there he is, that's the man right there, Roman Bulkin. Look at him good."

  Chili put the glasses on the squat, baldheaded guy standing in the doorway of the shop, watching two of his guys going to their cars, Bulkin raising his hand to wave.

  "Both his eyes are black."

  "From the broken nose Tommy gave him. Tell me he's the one you saw."

  Chili, studying the guy, tried to see his face as the face in the car again, outside Swingers, with the rug that was too big and come down on his forehead.

  "I want to say yes," Chili said.

  "Man, and I want you to."

  Chili lowered the glasses.

  "He went back inside."

  "But you think it's him."

  "I'm pretty sure."

  "Enough to pick him out in court?"

  Chili thought about it. He said, "No," staring at the photo shop. He said, "I have to see him up close," handed Darryl the glasses and opened the door.

  Darryl said, "Man, he knows you."

  "He's probably made us anyway. He's not gonna do anything with a Crown Vic in the lot. Sit tight, I'll be right back."

  Darryl watched him slipping the photo back into the envelope as he crossed the parking lot.

  BULKIN STOOD BEHIND a glass counter, waiting. Chili walked up and the man's gaze moved to the door and the rows of cars outside, his face in the light, the purple bruises under his eyes turning yellow. He was
as short as the man who shot Tommy. Bulkin looked past Chili and back again and said, "What can I do for you?"

  Chili heard Akim Tamiroff, that kind of accent, the tone quiet, guttural. He laid the envelope on the counter, pulled out the photo and looked up to see Bulkin's sad, damaged eyes staring at him. He said, "Did you take this picture?" And watched Bulkin look down and up again without a pause.

  "I don't think so."

  Akim Tamiroff in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Sullen, his voice a low, grumbling sound, wine-soaked, Pablo drunk saying, I don't think so, Inglés.

  "You a loan shark, Roman?"

  "I don't know what that is."

  "A shylock, guy that loans money. What kind of vig you charge?"

  "You think I loan money?"

  "I think you do it all, Roman—girls, protection, fraud, you kite checks, steal cars and you shoot people. I leave anything out?"

  "You don't know what you want, why don't you go?"

  Chili said, "You've had a few, haven't you? Toss down shots of vodka with the boys? I'm surprised, don't you people get pissed off quicker when you're drunk? What's the Russian word for it, shitfaced?"

  "Why don't you go?"

  "I almost forgot. What I wanted to ask you, how come you don't have your rug on? Your wig, Roman. The one that makes you look like an asshole."

  Chili waited.

  Bulkin looked away from him, his gaze going outside.

  "Roman. Look at me."

  The damaged eyes came back.

  "Yes?"

  "The guy you sent to my house," Chili said, "Ivan Suvanjiev? I know who killed him."

  Chili had to give the guy credit the way he stared back at him not saying a word or moving a muscle or blinking his eyes, the guy hanging on to himself.

  That's all that was said.

  * * *

  CHILI GOT BACK in the Crown Vic.

  "He's the guy."

  Darryl said, "Got him."

  "I know he's the guy," Chili said, "but I can't identify him in court."