“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.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
Chili said, “Well, actually . . .” The movie star had his head turned and was watching Nicki and her group wailing away. “Actually, what I started to mention, the movie we want you to be in is Mr. Lovejoy. We understand you read the script and like it . . . a lot.”
Now he had to wait for this to make sense, give the movie star time to think about it. Michael said, “Lovejoy,” looking over again. “That’s the one, the florist sees his boy run over?”
“And goes after the guy, to catch him driving his car.”
“What production company was that?”
“ZigZag, Harry Zimm.”
“That’s right, the slime-people guy. I read for Harry when I first started working in features. I did-n’t get the part.”
Chili said, “He turned you down? Come on.”
“I wasn’t Michael Weir then,” Michael said.
He wasn’t kidding either. It sounded strange.
“Anyway, we’re going to Tower Studios with it,” Chili said, and that got a smile from Michael.
He said, “You know what they say about Elaine Levin. She fucked her Rolodex to get where she is. But I’ll tell you something, she didn’t have to if she did. Elaine knows what she’s doing. She made an awful lot of money for Metro up to the time they forced that disaster on her. Did you see it, San Juan Hill?”
“I liked it,” Chili said.
“It wasn’t a bad picture,” Michael said. “It had the facts right for once, the black troops saving Teddy Roosevelt’s ass, but that didn’t sell tickets and it was way overproduced. The picture cost more than the actual war, which hadn’t been done to my knowledge since A Message to Garcia with John Boles. I remember a script called Siboney, the same war, I thought very seriously about doing. That was a fascinating period, the U.S. emerging as a world power, the enactment of the Monroe Doctrine, eminent domain . . . I might look at that script again, Siboney. That was where our troops landed in Cuba.”
“Sounds good,” Chili said, not having any idea what the guy was talking about. He tried to get back to Lovejoy with, “Listen, what we’re thinking—”
But Michael was already saying, “The title does have a nice sound. Build the score around the song. Si-bo-ney, da da da da . . .”
Christ, now he was singing it, against the rock beat in the background.
“Da da da da, Si-bo-ney . . . It’s an old piece but has all kinds of dramatic riffs in it. It can be stirring, romantic, militaristic. Someone like John Williams could score the ass off that picture.”
Chili said, “What I wanted to mention . . .” and paused. The room was quiet again, the band finished
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with their number. “We’re definitely gonna produce the movie at a studio.”
Michael Weir nodded. But now he was getting up, looking over at Nicki raising her guitar strap over her head. He said, “I guess we’re taking off. It was nice talking to you.”