"You can't or you won't?"
"What's the difference?"
"But if you're sure . . ."
"I can't say he's the guy I saw wearing the rug. I even asked him about it, and I shouldn't have. Now he'll burn it, if he hasn't already. The guy was half in the bag and I couldn't get him to come over the counter."
They were quiet for a minute or so, sitting there, until Chili said, "What if Bulkin found out who shot his buddy, the guy in my house?"
"Nothing. Joe Loop's dead."
"I'm thinking now of the guy who sent him."
"You know for a fact he was sent?"
"Since it wasn't anything personal, yeah. Joe wouldn't have been in my house if somebody didn't pay him."
"There's something you not telling me, huh?"
"I'm plotting," Chili said, and took a few moments before he said, "What if you find out who hired Joe Loop, but you don't have enough to bring him up. So you let the word get around and Bulkin finds out who it is."
"Let the word get around," Darryl said.
"Well, you can't just give him the guy's name."
"No, have to be devious. In other words set Bulkin up," Darryl said, "so he takes out the guy hired Joe."
"Yeah, and you get Bulkin for that one."
"Man, you still a criminal aren't you? The way you think. You serious?"
"I told you, I'm plotting. I'm looking at ways it might play out."
"I thought you liked to let it happen, use whatever you get."
"If what happens works, yeah."
"See, but now you trying to make it happen," Darryl said, "and that kind of plotting can get you in trouble. You best tell me, what's going on I don't know about?"
"There's a guy," Chili said, "you could look up if you want to. I can't see him paying a hitter like Joe Loop, but you never know."
"Not till you check it out. What's his name?"
"Raji."
"That's all you have, Raji? The man doesn't have a last name?"
"I'll ask him," Chili said.
He was getting out of the car as Darryl said, "Tell me something," and Chili paused, looking over his shoulder at him. "When you were trying to rile that man, Mr. Bulkin, what'd you think you'd do, he came over the counter at you?"
Chili said, "I thought, shit, if Tommy can punch him out, I shouldn't have any trouble. I'll see you."
IN THE EARLY EVENING Elliot stopped by Raji's garden apartment on Charleville back of the Beverly Wilshire hotel. Raji closed the door on the smell of reefer and incense and the sound of Erykah Badu's mellow voice and came out to the courtyard. It meant he had a woman inside. Out here it was dark and quiet among the plants and smelled nice.
"Guess who I saw?" Elliot said. "I'm coming out of the Big Man's Shop, the one on Fairfax across the street from Ralphs, in the shopping center? See, I was parked over there, looking to cross the street to my car."
"Man, just tell me who you saw."
"Was Chili Palmer. Chili Palmer getting out of a Crown Vic, that plain one they use. A brother come out the other side wearing his suit and said something to Chili Palmer. Then Chili Palmer walked to his car, an old Mercedes back a couple rows, got in and drove away. You understand what I'm saying to you?"
"You observed Chili," Raji said, "talking to a policeman."
"Sitting in the man's car before he got out."
"I understand that."
Elliot said, "If they found Joe Loop, the man could have told Chili Palmer. And that's why Chili Palmer was asking Nicky did he know where Joe Loop was. What he was saying was, he knows. But Nicky don't know what he's talking about 'cause you didn't tell him. Did you?"
Elliot watched Raji shake his head, looking now like he was thinking about it. First shaking his head then nodding it up and down.
"Yeah, like he was telling Nicky," Raji said, "he knows what's going on." Raji got out a cigarette and lit it. "I felt that," Raji said, blowing smoke. "I could tell the man knew something. It's why I didn't say nothing or give you a sign. That's good you caught the man playing his game. You got an eye for what don't look right—why I have you watching my back." Raji drew on his cigarette and blew some more smoke past his man Elliot in the orange glow of the porch light, Elliot's size blocking out the sky. "See," Raji said, "I thought we best sit back till we find out what the man knows, or thinks he knows. Then I thought, Yeah, and let him have Linda—what I said to Nicky—see how she does. She makes it, we show the contract and get our fee as her managers."
"You told me that," Elliot said. "But you the one been doing all the managing."
"I know that."
"While Nicky plays with his phone. What I'm saying," Elliot said, "what you need Nicky for?"
15
* * *
"WHEN I WAS AT CASABLANCA," Hy Gordon said, "you walk in off Sunset you were in Casablanca the movie, Rick's place. They had a stuffed camel in the lobby, palm trees, cane furniture, disco turned way up they piped through the offices. Loud? You wouldn't believe how loud it was—drove me nuts. You couldn't carry on a conversation. But I'll tell you something, the people that worked there thought it was great. They were a mellow bunch of employees, and you know why? Almost everybody was stoned. Management would pass out your drug of choice, on the house. This place, you got a house and that's about it."
Hy Gordon referring to the home of NTL Records. He said it looked like an empty house they put some desks and computers in and called it a record company.
Edie was there, in Hy's office going over the books with him, see if NTL had any money coming in. Edie said that's exactly what Tommy did, bought a house and moved in office equipment. She asked Hy what he wanted, Venetian blinds?
Hy didn't like the bare floors. He didn't like the sales and promotion people in the living room, right where you walked in and saw the staff, these kids in grungy clothes calling record stores and radio stations. Edie said anybody that walked in would see NTL was alive and doing business. Hy didn't like shipping located in the dining room. Edie asked him where he wanted it, in the kitchen. Hy said what did they need a kitchen for?
Chili was there, mainly to meet Dale and Speedy for the first time, in the recording studio rehearsing with Linda. For something to say, show he was interested, Chili asked why they couldn't partition off the front area, dress it up with plants, you know, posters on the walls, posters in the hall that came back here to the main offices?
They didn't pay any attention to him.
Edie telling Hy that Tommy was a businessman, not an interior decorator—Edie standing up for a guy whose death didn't seem to cause her a lot of grief; maybe the black dress a concession. She said Tommy wasn't concerned with decor, he put his time into making money.
"Then where is it?" Hy said. "It certainly doesn't show in the books—whatever kind of accounting system this is, because I don't know."
"He had his own system," Edie said.
"Actually," Tiffany said from the doorway to her office, "he had two sets of books. Tommy said in case he lost one or there was a fire."
Chili said, "He kept both sets here?"
"I think he took the one set home."
Chili and Hy looked at Edie.
She was nodding. "That's right he did, last week. The duplicate set."
Chili said, "Edie?"
"Really. I guess they're still at home."
"You don't keep two identical sets of books," Hy said, "unless they're not identical. I think he's got the real books at home and he's got this set here that's been cooked he shows to artists, the ones that think he's holding out on 'em and they want to see the books."
Chili was looking at Edie again, close enough to see freckles on her chest he hadn't noticed the other day, the neck of her black linen dress scooped low, her legs bare in the short skirt and heels. He said, "Maybe you ought to show Hy the real books, find out what kind of shape we're in."
"I just assumed," Edie said, "these are the same books and Tommy brought them back." She looked at the ledgers
open on Hy's desk, taking her time. "You think the ones at home are different, huh?"
"If they aren't," Hy said, "we're out of business before we start."
"So I've got something critical to our success," Edie said. She turned to Chili now with what she had, her looks as well as the books. "Am I in the movie, Chil?"
TIFFANY FOLLOWED HIM out back to the recording studio, talkative, wanting to know what Edie meant. Was she asking if she was going to be in the movie or someone would play her. Chili said he wasn't sure. Tiffany said, then why didn't he ask her, instead of saying he couldn't do it without her. Chili stopped at the door of the cement-block building in the backyard and turned to Tiffany. "I don't want to know what she meant. I'm not casting, I'm only looking to see if what's going on goes anywhere." He said, "That's all I'm doing," trying not to sound irritated. "Okay?"
Tiffany said, "Cool."
It was hard to look right at her, but he did and then had to ask, "What are those things on your nose?" That looked like tiny sticks piercing the tip of her nose; they stuck almost straight up, like a pair of delicate little horns.
"Batwing bones," Tiffany said.
Chili said, "Oh."
He wondered, opening the door to the control room, where you got hold of batwing bones, and a blast of sound hit them from the speakers: Odessa jamming in the studio, on the other side of the glass partition: Linda working her guitar slung low, singing a line, nodding in time; Dale in a neat sportshirt perched on a barstool; and Speedy, hair to his shoulders and sunglasses behind his barebones drum kit. The studio engineer, talking on the phone, raised his hand to them.
Curtis something, a young guy in a wool shirt, baggy cords and black Converse sneakers. Chili had met him. He heard Curtis on the phone say, "You passed the stone, huh? That's great, man. What'd you do with the Demerol?"
According to Hy the kid had worked for Don Was producing movie music, and Don said Curtis had it, he'd be mixing hits some day. In the meantime, Hy said, he came cheap.
Tiffany was saying, "Hey, they play," sounding a little surprised. "That one of their songs?"
Chili said if it was he hadn't heard it.
Curtis hung up the phone and stepped over to the mixing board. "They're warming up, doing a little AC/DC. That's 'Whole Lotta Rosie' they're playing now. Before they did 'Back in Black' and I have to tell you, Linda's the goods. She plays a very big guitar. You listen close you hear her combining AC/DC rhythm chords with a simple blues-based lead. I'd love to lay some samples around her, fill in, make it bigger. The new one she does called 'Be Cool' I know I could dress up. And the other one, 'Odessa,' has that dramatic baseline to play with."
Chili said, "She's good, huh?"
"Yeah, and she's original, but her music doesn't sound finished to me. It needs some accents, grooves."
"What I have to do," Chili said, "is start listening to the radio, find out what's hot and who's doing what. I hear about all these different kinds of music—metal, new age, pop, urban. . . ."
Curtis said, "There about nine different kinds of metal alone. Speed metal, funk metal, death metal . . ."
Chili said, "I ask people, what's alternative? They don't answer the question, they tell me what radio station to listen to. So what's alternative?"
"Almost anything now," Curtis said, "that isn't hard rock."
"See? Nobody'll give me a straight answer."
"Okay," Curtis said, "what it is essentially is watered-down rock. Or, it could be a ballady kind of punk."
"And what's punk?"
"Three chords and a scream."
"Come on," Tiffany said, "it's way deeper'n that. It started out hardcore, like Bad Religion, then you got straight-edge, like Minor Threat and surf punk like Agent Orange."
"It's all derivative," Curtis said, "even Seattle. Without Iggy and the Stooges, going back thirty years, you wouldn't have any of them. You had the MC5 and the Velvet Underground, but Iggy kicked it off with 'Raw Power' and that's what's still happening. Without Iggy you wouldn't have the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Sex Pistols. What'd Bowie do? He covered Iggy. Then and only then you come to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and what passes for rock they now call alternative."
Chili said, "What about the Rolling Stones?"
And Curtis said, "That's what so much of this stuff today is the alternative of, real rock 'n' roll, the Stones, Aerosmith, Jimi Hendrix, Clapton, Jeff Beck, Neil Young."
Tiffany said she forgot Hendrix.
Chili, staying with them, said, "What about Janis Joplin?"
Tiffany said, "That chick, now you're going way back," and Curtis said you had to include Janis. Chili was looking through the glass at Odessa as they came to the end of the song. He saw Linda raise her hand and motion for him to come in.
Curtis was listing Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Pink Floyd, Eric Burdon, U2, Bon Jovi, Tom Petty . . .
Tiffany was calling them dinosaurs.
Going out the door Chili said, "What about Dion and the Belmonts?"
"WELL, FINALLY," Linda said, "you all get to meet." Linda with a little more West Texas accent since her boys arrived. Chili was introduced: Dale came off his stool to shake hands; Speedy didn't move from his drums, raised a stick in the air and twirled it twice between his fingers.
Chili nodded to him saying, "Speedy, how you doing?"
Speedy didn't say, not a word, chewing gum and looking at Chili like he was waiting for him to prove himself.
So he said, "We got you a gig. This coming Monday at the Viper Room."
Now the little drummer boy with hair down to his shoulders spoke. "What time Monday?"
"Nine o'clock."
"Is that morning or evening? Not that I guess it matters. Who goes out to clubs on Monday?"
Linda said, "Speedo, you're in L.A. now. Monday's the same as any night."
Speedy said, "I'm glad you reminded me."
"Hy Gordon arranged it," Chili said. "He's a good friend of Sal, one of the owners, and Jackie, the talent buyer. Hy's working on some more gigs, and we're leasing a bus for the tour, three weeks on the road."
Speedy said, "What kind of bus?"
This little guy could become annoying. Chili said, "If I told you would it make a difference?"
"Long as it's got a toilet in it. Man, I hate a bus doesn't have a toilet."
Dale said, "Hey, I liked your movie, Get Leo? It was really good."
Chili thanked him and waited, expecting Dale to say something else, but he didn't and there was a lull. Chili tried to think of something to say, still looking at Dale. Ask him what Austin was like? Next thing they'd be comparing Texas and California weather.
Speedy said in the lull, "I use to ride a bus to El Paso, two hundred eighty-two miles looking for work. This one time I had a couple brews at Dos Amigos before I got on the bus? We're out in the middle of nowhere and, man, I had to piss real bad. I went up to the driver and told him, 'Man, I got to piss.' He goes, 'I don't stop this bus for nobody. You have to hold it.' I go, 'Okay, then I'll piss in the bus.' He stopped. I got out and pissed all over the side of the bus standing, you know, close so nobody'd see me, and got back on."
"We'd drive to a gig," Linda said, "like Big Spring or up to Lubbock, Speedy was always stopping to take a leak."
"But he's lying," Dale said. "He stepped from the bus to pee and it took off on him."
"That was one other time that happened," Speedy said. "I walked for two hours to this filling station. I said to the fella there, 'Where in hell am I?' He goes, 'You're in Van Horn, where in the hell did you think?' "
Linda said, "I can remember a water tower with Van Horn on it. I don't think I've ever stopped there.
Chili looked from one to another.
Dale said, "The fella probably wondered what in the hell you're doing there if you don't know where you are."
Chili looked at Speedy.
But it was Linda who picked it up. "Remember the time we drove to Wink looking for Roy Orbison?"
Dale said, "L
ike we expected to see him walking down the street. He'd already moved away."
"Wink is Roy Orbison's hometown," Linda said to Chili and Chili nodded.
"You meet some strange people," Speedy said, "on busses. They ask you where you're headed and then tell you their life story. I met people had nowhere to go, they'd ride busses and hang around the stations till they got kicked out. A girl says to me, 'oh, I stay with my mom, but I can't do it for long on account of she's mental.' Another girl tells me she writes songs, seventeen years old, had a little colored baby with her, you know, part colored. I go, 'Oh, why don't you sing one for me.' It was embarrassing sitting there with her. She had one of those real high sweet voices. Her song was called 'I'm Good with Animals' and it was the stupidest song I ever heard. It's about how animals love her, but men won't give her the time of day. Which I could believe, she wasn't bad looking but had terrible body odor. I said to her, 'Why don't you go home and clean yourself up, take care of your baby?' She said it was the colored baby got her kicked out of the house, her mom and dad wouldn't even look at it. They said she had ruined her life and there was nothing they could do about it. She was going to El Paso to take voice lessons. Had it all figured out. She'd enter beauty pageants and her talent would be singing her own songs she wrote. I told her I'd be looking for her on the Miss America show. Oh, but before that I asked her how she was gonna pay for the voice lessons?" Speedy stopped, his gaze going past Chili to the door.
Edie Athens stood there holding it open.
Linda said, "Come on in, meet my boys."
Edie didn't even look at her, her expression tense, her eyes holding on Chili. She said, "Sinclair Russell's here. He's threatening Hy."
CHILI WALKED in the office, coat open, hands in the pockets of his pants, easy does it, Chili saying, "I'm looking for Sinclair Russell," and Sin and his four rappers crowding the desk turned to face him, bland, deadpan behind their shades; do-rags and wool caps pulled down, loose wool shirts covering their size. One with his shirt open, The Notorious B.I.G.'s face peeking out from a T-shirt. One on the other side of the desk with Hy, holding open a ledger, Hy looking like he was in pain. Sin was the one right in front of Chili—he'd seen his picture enough to know him—a man about fifty in cream-colored warmups and a homburg to match.