Table of Contents
Interviews & Essays
On Tuesday, February 9th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Elmore Leonard to discuss BE COOL.
Moderator: Good evening, and welcome back to our Auditorium, Elmore Leonard! We are thrilled to have you with us tonight, and we're all looking forward to chatting about BE COOL. Before we begin, how are you tonight?
Elmore Leonard: Well, fine, yeah, I'll be happy to answer any questions -- about the book, or whatever!
Yoli from NYC: Mr. Leonard, I have just begun reading your latest, BE COOL, and the beginning reads like the formulation of the idea...a filmmaker who is developing his pitch as it comes to him. Is there any parallel in these early scenes to the way the book evolved?
Elmore Leonard: Well, that's the whole idea of the book is that Chili Palmer, now in the film business, is looking for an idea for a movie. So it's obviously written for the movies, to be made into a movie. Still, of course, the purpose is to entertain. The purpose of any of my books is to entertain.
Greg Leding from Springdale, AR: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us tonight. I enjoy writing during my free time, but find it difficult to get going. How do you tackle a writing project? Thanks again.
Elmore Leonard: Well, what I did when I first started to write in the 1950s, I had a job, and I had a growing family, so I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning and I wrote for two hours every morning. And I did most of 30 short stories and five books that way. So that's my suggestion -- you can find the time, if you really want to do it.
Henk from Boston: In the beginning of the book, you thank the Stone Coyotes. Could you tell us about the role the Stone Coyotes played in your writing the book?
Elmore Leonard: As I started the book, I decided that Chili Palmer would become the manager of a rock group, but I wasn't sure what kind of rock they would play. So I began listening to different groups, and I was listening especially to all the women singers that had become popular in the last few years, and I was listening to them and wondering if I could style the woman singer in the book after one of them. And I was in Los Angeles researching, talking to people in the record business and the music business, and happened to go to The Troubadour, and I saw the Stone Coyotes, and right away I thought, This is the music that has to be for the band in the book. Rock with a little twang in it, a country twang in most of the songs. So I talked to Barbara Keith, who writes their music and performs and is the guitar player, and I talked to her about using their music. Not the band itself, not their personalities, but their music, that I would give to the band in the book. The band in the book is called Odessa. And we're good friends now, the Stone Coyotes and I.
Peter Wittenberg from Houston: I have read that a year ago, you made the switch from writing westerns to the detective/mobster genre you write now. Realizing that you need to make money, writing is still an art. Was this transition difficult?
Elmore Leonard: I left westerns at the end of the '50s, 1961, [with what] I thought would be my last western was published, and that was HOMBRE. I was tired of westerns, but at the same time, the market for westerns had all but disappeared because there were so many on prime-time television, so people stopped buying the books and reading the stories and the magazines. The magazines were no longer published, so I was a little apprehensive about crossing over to another genre -- crime -- but I felt that I could bring something maybe a little bit different to it, too, because I wasn't influenced by any of the crime writers that came before me. So I just began making up what I consider contemporary stories with what I consider a little crime added to them, and I've been having a good time doing it. I think the main difference in what I write and many crime stories is that the emphasis in my books -- all the emphasis is on the characters rather than the plot.
Mike Jastrzebski from Minneapolis: Do you feel it's become harder for an unpublished writer to become published? Do you have any suggestions on how to succeed in today's marketplace?
Elmore Leonard: I think it's harder today than it was when I started. There were so many magazines publishing short stories then. I learned to write selling to Dime Western, Zane Grey Western, Argassy, all kinds of pulp magazines, and the pay was only two cents a word, but at least you were able to sell, and learn how to write. I think today you just have to decide this is what you are going to do. You've got to become very, very determined, and you have to read. You have to read to find out about the different styles of writing, and to find the one that fits you the best and most effectively. It's the sound of writing that you develop -- your own sound. Or as it's usually called, your voice, your voice as a writer. Read contemporary writers very, very closely and study the differences in styles. And then find a writer that you really like and imitate him. It's just an exercise -- imitate him, and sooner or later, your own attitude and voice will come out of it.
Disgruntled Web Producer from New York: Yo, Dutch! If you
had to kill someone, how would you do it? Don't worry, I won't use the information for anything! Thanks!
Elmore Leonard: Hmm... Well, it couldn't be with a gun, because I don't have one. I can't imagine killing anyone, unless it's in such a rage because something has happened to maybe my wife or one of my children, and in such a rage, I'd just go at 'em with my bare hands. I don't know. But I'm really not one to go into rages, if you're familiar with my prose.
Moyra from MI: Who is that gal on the cover of your book?
Elmore Leonard: That is not an individual, a real person -- it's not one who is identifiable with the story. She's more part of the design with the word "cool" than an individual.
John from East Village: Hello, Mr. Leonard! I've read a lot of your work, and I always enjoy it. I was wondering, since I read a lot in the genre, why are there so many crime novels set in Florida, Detroit, and L.A. (not to mention New York, Chicago, and Nome, Alaska)? I noticed in your bn feature that you live in the Detroit area. Are you simply writing what you know? Or is there something about those places? Thanks!
Elmore Leonard: I think that, fortunately, there is something about those places. When I started using Detroit as a location for my books, it was because I lived here, and have lived here since the mid '30s, but at that time, Detroit had the reputation as the murder capital, and that added some jazz to the idea of a book set in Detroit. Florida is a good setting because there is a such a tremendous mix of people, from the superrich in Palm Beach, down to Miami, where you have the Cuban influence, and in addition to that the Mariel Boat Lift supplied the area with a lot of criminals. I've used New Orleans, I've used Atlantic City, Los Angeles, I think I'll go back to Detroit for the next one.... At least I'm fooling with that idea. I think New York is in capable hands -- I don't think I'd touch New York. I'd have to learn it first. I wouldn't mind using Australia, but I'd have to live there a few years to pick up the lingo.
Nick from Utah: Mr Leonard, I love your books and films based on them. Are there any movies currently in production, or have you yourself thought about directing?
Elmore Leonard: No, I didn't even think about directing when it was possible to learn that crap. I'm about 50 years past that. There's nothing in production of mine right now. Quentin Tarantino has four of my books: He has a western called FORTY LASHES LESS ONE, FREAKY DEAKY, KILLSHOT, and BANDITS. I know he would like to appear in KILLSHOT with another director, and there are people working on FREAKY DEAKY and, I think, BANDITS. CUBA LIBRE is in development with scripts being written right now, and we hope that BE COOL will get into development pretty soon at MGM.
Kate from Houston, TX: All of your characters seem to be flawed...even the cool guys. Looking at President Clinton, who has proven himself to be flawed -- he could be one of your characters! What do you think?
Elmore Leonard: Yeah, I think President Clinton could be one of my characters in a different role, not as president of the United States. I don't know what I'd make him. I'd make him, I dunno, a federal officer of some kind, see how he does. As to my characters -- well, they are all flawed, because I think we all are! We're not that predictable. I've never been interested in the superhero, and I've learned also not to simply have my women hanging around. They have to be as real as the men. That's what I strive for, is realism, to the point that you recognize these people. I remember an editor asking me once, "Where did you get this character?" -- it was a character in GLITZ, a former Detroit cop. And I said to the editor, "Are you kidding? I know 150 of them!" But I start when I develop characters, I start with a type, and when I get to know the characters, if I can make them talk, then that's the important thing. Then the character becomes real to me. After I finish a book, for the next few weeks, every once in a while I wonder what the characters might be doing. Then finally they just fade off.
Bill from Sylmar, CA: Do you ever work on more than one novel at a time?
Elmore Leonard: No, I never work on more than one novel at a time, because when I write a novel, I don't know what it's about until I get into it. Until I present the characters and find out who they are, and I just make it up as I go along, I never know how it's going to end. So that's enough to keep in my mind without trying to think of another plot.
Marc Adams from Minneapolis: Congratulations on the Oscar nomination for the screenplay for "Out of Sight." Will you be writing the screenplay for "Be Cool"?
Elmore Leonard: Well, I didn't write the screenplay for "Out of Sight." That was Scott Frank, and I called him this morning at a quarter of six L.A. time to congratulate him. He was up -- he had listened to the telecast of the announcements. So right now he's very busy: He's writing a couple of screenplays as well as the book. He is one writer, the only one I know, who can keep several balls in the air at one time like that. But I'm not interested in writing the screenplay; I'd rather get into another book. So they'll have to find someone else.
Greg from Arkansas: Mr. Leonard, I've read that you do most of your writing on legal pads rather than a computer. Do you find that this helps you? Thanks.
Elmore Leonard: Actually, they're not legal pads, they're 8 1/2" x 11" yellow pads that are unlined. I have them made up at a print shop. And I've always used these. I've used these since I wrote my first story, in 1951. I don't have a computer. I compose in longhand and then put it on my typewriter. I do have an electric typewriter now, after the secondhand manual typewriter I used for 20 years quit.
Jonathan from Seattle: Given the opportunity to eat dinner with three of your favorite authors, who would you go with?
Elmore Leonard: Hmm. Three of my favorite authors. Wow. Well, two of them are dead. If I could bring them back, I would have dinner with Hemingway, Richard Bissell, and Shakespeare. That would be a group.
Paul from Morris Plains, NJ: What was the last book you read and really liked?
Elmore Leonard: It was Ed McBain, THE BIG BAD CITY. I don't ordinarily read that much in my genre, but I know with Ed McBain you can't go wrong.
Pac87@aol.com from xx: Having worked in Hollywood, do you think you depict an accurate portrayal of the business side of Hollywood?
Elmore Leonard: In GET SHORTY? Yeah, I think it's accurate. I think it's very accurate. I don't think it's exaggerated at all. It's not unkind, either. I did use some experiences -- I used things that I know of and what I've felt -- but I don't know.... It's written from a point of view -- it's Chili's point of view, the character, and it's how he sees it. And I certainly don't see it in the same way necessarily. Because there is a scene right away, Chili and another character are rewriting a script. And that's the way it is: Scriptwriting is rewriting, but very often it falls into the wrong hands. Read the interview in Newsweek this week with Warren Beatty and four other screenwriters and what they say about it, working in Hollywood.
Chuck from Atlanta: You make use of dialogue better than anyone. How do you perfect it? What are your thoughts on Hollywood, and which film of yours is your favorite?
Elmore Leonard: I concentrate on dialogue. I move my stories with dialogue, so I'm very much aware of how people talk. I listen. I don't eavesdrop; I just listen when someone is talking to me. Hollywood, I think, is a lot of fun. It's easy to make fun of, too, but I don't think I've ever been unjust. I mean, after all, I'm welcome back. Well, the last few I've thought were all great. "Out of Sight," "Jackie Brown," "Touch," and "Get Shorty" -- I've liked them all, and they were all different. Certainly "Get Shorty" was the funniest and was produced as a comedy, and I don't write comedies, but I could hear my characters talking. The dialogue came across as I heard it when I was writing it. And the reason it worked is because the characters didn't think they were being funny.
Moderator: How do you plan to celebrate New Year's Eve 1999?
Elmore Leonard: I hope that we have a New Year's Eve party that was as good as the last one we had!
Gerald from New York: Hello, Mr. Leonard. Your books manage to present vivid characters in the most efficient amount of space. How do you get to know your characters so well? Do you do much rewriting before turning in the final product? Thank you.
Elmore Leonard: I rewrite all the time. That's what writing is. I write in longhand because I can cross it out faster and keep writing and get to the bottom of the page. And the thing is, what you crossed out is still there. You know, I just write a paragraph at a time. I rarely just get two people talking and the scene just races. But as I get to know the character and the way the character speaks, then the character begins to tell me things. This particular type of person, you know what he would do, you know?
Mary from Minnesota: The wife of a man who has just finished a mystery novel but is not yet published (and has been wanting to write all his life), what would you recommend I do to support him in this process? I am trying to convince him to stay home full-time and write as I make enough money to get us by.
Elmore Leonard: You're a saint! My lord! The man should be extremely grateful! I don't know why he wouldn't want to take you up on it.
Sharon from Steamboat Springs, CO: Are you thinking about your next book yet? What can we expect next from you?
Elmore Leonard: In the next book, I'm thinking about a woman who has been into crime. She's been into insurance fraud, but she's arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and she's sent to prison in Florida. She comes out of prison after 16 months wanting to be a stand-up comic and use material from the prison -- what it's like, life in the joint. So I visited a prison in South Florida, and the superintendent asked for volunteers who would like to talk about humor in prison. And 15 ladies volunteered, and we met, we sat in a room, and we talked about what's funny about prison. I said -- that was my first question -- I sat down and I said, "What's funny about prison?" And almost in unison they said, "The guards!" So I got enough material, I think, for my character's first attempt at stand-up comedy.
PJ from Butler, NJ: How do you think your writing has evolved with the 30-plus books you have written?
Elmore Leonard: I think my writing definitely evolved from the '50s up into the '80s. I think it takes you at least a million words or about ten years to have any confidence in what you're doing, and to be sure of the style that you want to develop, which comes out of your attitude. How you see the world. I happen to see a lot of humor in the world, but I don't present it as humor. So I still try to make it better, and at the same time I experiment in ways that probably the reader wouldn't even be aware of. At the same time, I'm trying to think of good ideas, situations, because I'm never trying to think of the whole idea for a book. I think, for example, the woman ex-con stand-up comic might -- I'm sure I'll go with her, but I'm not sure of other characters that I see her with. So I'll just have to find out what's going to happen. That's the interesting thing about making it up as you go along. You, the author, want to know what's going to happen next.
Georges from Northwest Indiana: I love your works. What do you read when you want to get your mind off of writing?
Elmore Leonard: Well, I read a lot of magazines. I read short stories. I'm reading Martin Amis's collection right now of stories and, I think, essays, called HEAVY WATER. And I've been researching, too, of course. Whenever I'm writing a book, I don't read fiction; whatever I read is research. For BE COOL, I read a number of books on the music industry. I'm reading a book about Hollywood, EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS. I'm reading a book about an expedition to the North Pole on a ship called the Narwhal, THE VOYAGE OF THE NARWHAL, and Barbara Kingsolver's book set in the Congo, THE POISONWOOD BIBLE. Well, THE PERFECT STORM and INTO THIN AIR -- you read both of those one after the other. They seem to go together -- they came out at the same time. I don't know why.... And a book called WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES by Philip Gourevitch. STORIES FROM RWANDA is the subtitle. And that should do it.
Moderator: Thank you, Elmore Leonard! It was a pleasure chatting with you tonight. Do you have any closing comments for the online audience?
Elmore Leonard: Well, I hope that I was of some help. I know that some of my answers were sort of muddled as I try to think at the same time as I talk. And I don't talk that much about writing. I don't have a group of writers that I hang out with, mainly because I would rather not talk about it. But I've enjoyed it this evening, and I hope that you've been satisfied!
Read an Excerpt
They sat at one of the sidewalk tables at Swingers, on the side of the coffee shop along Beverly Boulevard: Chili Palmer with the Cobb salad and iced tea, Tommy Athens the grilled pesto chicken and a bottle of Evian.
Every now and then people from the neighborhood would stroll past the table—or they might come out of the Beverly Laurel, the motel next door—and if it was a girl who came by, Tommy Athens would look up and take time to check her out. It reminded Chili of when they were young guys in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and Tommy never passed a girl on the street, ever, without asking how she was doing. Chili mentioned it to him. "You still look, but you don't say anything."
"Back then," Tommy said, "I went by the principle, you never know if it's there you don't break the fuckin ice. It didn't matter what they looked like, the idea was to get laid, man. Our young bodies required it. Now we're mature we're more selective. Also there's more quiff in this town per capita, you take into account all the broads hoping to get discovered. They act or they sing, mostly bad, either one. Turn around and take a look—walking her dog, the skirt barely covers her ass. Look. Now she's posing. The dog stops to take a leak on the palm tree it gives her a chance to stand there, cock her neat little tail. She ain't bad, either."
"Yeah, she's nice."
Chili turned to his salad. Then looked up again as Tommy said, "You doing okay?"
"You want to know if I'm making out?"
"I mean in your business. How's it going? I know you did okay with
Get Leo, a terrific picture, terrific. And youknow what else? It was good. But the sequel—what was it called?"
"Get Lost.""Yeah, well that's what happened before I got a chance to see it, it disappeared."
"It didn't open big so the studio walked away. I was against doing a sequel to begin with. But the guy running production at Tower says they're making the picture, with me or without me. I thought, well, if I come up with a good story, and if I can get somebody else to play the shylock . . . If you saw
Get Leo you must've noticed Michael Weir wasn't right for the part. He's too fuckin short."
"Yeah, but it worked," Tommy said, "because the picture was funny. I know what you're saying, though, a little guy like that into street action isn't believable. Still, it was a very funny picture."
"Also," Chili said, "I didn't want to have to deal with Michael Weir again. He's a pain in the ass. He's always coming up with ideas for a shot where you have to re-light the set. So I said okay to doing a sequel, but let's get somebody else. The studio asshole says, in this tone of voice, 'If you don't use the same actor in the part, Ernest, it's not really a sequel, is it?' He's the only person in L.A. calls me Ernest. I said, 'Oh, all those different guys playing James Bond aren't in sequels?' It didn't matter. They'd already signed Michael and had a script written without telling me."
"This is
Get Lost you're talking about?"
"
Get Lost. The guy's in a car wreck and wakes up in the hospital with a head injury. He doesn't remember anything about his past life, his name, anything. Has no idea he's a shylock with mob connections or the car wreck wasn't an accident. I said to the studio guy after I read the script, 'You serious? You want to make an amnesia movie? It's what you do when you don't have an idea, you give the main character amnesia and watch him fuck up.' The studio guy says, 'Ernest,' like he's the most patient fuckin guy in the world, 'if you don't want to produce the picture tell me, we'll get somebody else.'"
"So you made it and it stiffed," Tommy said. "So? Make another one."
"I suggested that. I said to the studio guy, 'While we have our momentum up why don't we try it again? Call it
Get Stupid.'"
"It sounds like," Tommy said, "you aren't as tight over there as you were."
"What, at the studio? I've got a three-picture deal at Tower, one to go, and I got a good friend. They fired the nitwit was running production and hired Elaine Levin back. She's the one okayed
Get Leo, then quit for different reasons, like doing sequels; they ironed out the problems and she's back. The other day I ran into her having lunch. She asked if I had anything worth putting into development. I said, 'How about a girl works for a dating service fixing up lonely guys?' Elaine goes, 'And this lonely shylock who happens to be short comes in?' I told her no shylocks of any size, and that's all I told her."
"Why? That's all you had?"
"You don't want to tell something you're thinking about, hear it out loud yourself for the first time, unless you know what it's gonna sound like. It has to have an edge, an attitude. So you have to know your characters, I mean intimately, what they have for breakfast, what kind of shoes they wear. . . . Once you know who they are they let you know what the story is."
He could tell Tommy didn't know what he was talking about.
"What I'm saying, I don't think of a plot and then put characters in it. I start with different characters and see where they take me." He watched Tommy nod his head a few times. "Anyway, getting back to the dating service . . . I got a flyer in the mail, the kind of letter it's addressed to the occupant?"
"You look at all that shit?"
"I like to open mail. This one invites you to come in, tell 'em who you are, what you're looking for in the opposite sex, or give 'em a call. That's what I did."
"An escort service. Yeah, I ran one for Momo."
"Tommy, this isn't hookers, it's legit. They bring couples together, match 'em up."
"I thought you were seeing that broad from the studio, Sharon something?"
"Karen Flores. She married a writer."
"You're kidding me."
"Fuckin screenwriter. Those guys, most of 'em don't even know where the commas go. You have to rewrite half their stuff."
"Karen dumped you so you try a dating service?"
"Tommy, I'm looking for a character, for a movie. I want to hear what a girl from a dating service sounds like. This one I talked to, soon as I heard her voice and the beginning of the pitch? I thought, This could give me an idea. So I put her on tape."
Tommy was nodding again. "Okay, but what if you work up this idea, you go to Tower with it and your friend Elaine doesn't like it?"
"I go to another studio. Tower has first look, that's all. They turn it down I can take it anywhere I want."
"Okay, say you do and you keep getting turned down."
"What's your point?"
"You always wear a tie?"
It stopped Chili for a moment. He said, "When I feel like it," and pressed his chin down to look at the tie he was wearing with his navy-blue summer suit: tiny red polkadots on a deep-blue field, his shirt a pale blue. "What's wrong with it?"
Tommy Athens was wearing a T-shirt with words on it under a chambray workshirt that hadn't been ironed, wornout prewashed Levis and pumpup Nikes, Chili noticing the shoes when Tommy arrived, twenty minutes late for their lunch date. He held his arms out now to display himself, presenting his midlife girth.
"This is how you dress in this town you're in arts and entertainment."
"Or you do yard work," Chili said.
"Same difference, on the surface. You don't dress to impress. You don't give a shit how you look, your talent speaks for itself. But in case there's any doubt"—Tommy nodded toward his car, parked on the street behind a Ford pickup—"you pull up in your fuckin Rolls and it says who you are, nails it. What're you driving these days?"
"Mercedes. I'm around the corner."
"New one?"
"Seventy-eight, a convertible."
"You can get away with that. Where you live?"
"On Rosewood."
"Never heard of it."
"Kind of a Spanish-looking house. Only you can't see it, there's a giant hedge in front."
"Beverly Hills?"
"Los Angeles."
"What's the zip?"
"Nine oh oh four eight. Couple of blocks from Chasen's."
"That's Los Angeles County where you are, but you're all right, you're practically in Beverly Hills. What I'm talking about is image. I wore a suit and tie. . . ." Tommy paused. "We're both in the same business, right? Basically? Entertainment?"
Chili wasn't sure about Tommy but nodded anyway.
"So this is true of both of us. I
know that if I wore a suit and tie, unless I'm going to a funeral or it's a black-tie function . . . I take that back. Even when it's black tie you don't wear a tie anymore."
Chili said, "You wear one of those shirts you look like a priest."
Tommy seemed to agree, shrugging his big shoulders. "You might. Or, the kind of people I associate with in business, you wear black, yeah, but it might only be a tux coat or tails with a pair of jeans and cowboy boots. Though your shitkickers are big, too, with steel toes. You go, my man, with the prevailing style. If I was to wear a suit and tie let's say to a recording session? They'd look at me like I was from Fort Wayne, Indiana, or some fuckin place. Say I got an idea for the recording, I want to lay in some more tracks, beef it up. If they don't feel good about me, bro, where I'm coming from, they're not gonna listen. The producer, the engineer, the band, shit, the
band, the friends of the band, they're all into casual to farout attire, whatever they feel like wearing. I'm standing there in a suit and tie? At best I look like a fuckin agent, and who listens to agents."
He was serious.
Chili nodded to show Tommy he was giving it some thought. He said, "So where should I get my clothes, the Salvation Army?"
"See?" Tommy said. "You got an attitude problem. You know better—all you have to do is look around at the people here, the way they're dressed, but you have to be different."
"I've never been here before."
"Swingers, people in music and people that wanna be come here to hang out. Listen to what they're talking about. Recording sessions, who had to go back to rerecord, who's doing heroin, who kicked it, who left what band and went somewhere else. You hear how the record companies are fuckin 'em over. How they can't get this or that label to listen to their demos . . . You look around, though, you can't tell the ones that've made it from the wannabes."
Chili said, "That's why we're here, for the fashion show?"
Tommy pushed his plate away and laid his arms on the table, getting closer to Chili.
"I called you 'cause I got an idea for a movie."
Chili had to go to the men's but paused. Maybe this wouldn't take long. "What's it about? Can you pitch it in twenty-five words or less?"
"I can tell it in one word," Tommy said. "Me."
"Your life story?"
"Not all of it, no. You have to be careful where the statute of limitations might not've run out. See, I think you're the guy to do it, Chil, 'cause you and I have shared some of the same experiences, you might say. I tell you something, you know what I'm talking about. But I want to be sure you're connected at a major studio and not pissing everybody off with your attitude."
"You mean the way I dress?"
"The way you antagonize people, the ones putting up the dough, for Christ sake. If they're signing the check I think they got every right to get what they want."
"A studio exec reads a script," Chili said, bringing a Cohiba panatela from his inside coat pocket. "He puts the script down, calls the agent who sent it to him and says, 'Man, it's a terrific read, but not what we're looking for at this point in time.'"
Tommy waited. "Yeah? . . ."
Waited as Chili snipped off the end of the Cohiba with a cigar cutter and lit it with a kitchen match he struck with his thumbnail, Chili saying, "The studio exec has no fuckin idea in the world what they're looking for. If he did he'd have somebody write it."
Tommy was pointing a finger at him now. "The one thing you've always had going for you, Chil, you're the most confident guy I know. You have a cool way of making it sound like you know what you're talking about."
"You saying I'm a bullshit artist?"
"One of the best. It's the main reason I think, in spite of your attitude, you can get this movie made."
"Based on your life as what, a record promoter? Get into all that payola business?"
"Based on how I worked my ass off to become one of the highest paid indie promoters in the industry, and to where I am now, with my own label, NTL Records, Inc. That payola, they work it different now. You remember a guy named Carcaterra?"
"Nicky Car, Nicky Cadillac," Chili said, "a punk, yeah."
"He's a big indie promoter now, Car-O-Sell Entertainment. Gets the juice from the label and dazzles the program directors with it, guys at the radio stations who make up the playlist. Takes 'em to Vegas for the fights, to the Super Bowl. . . . He's Mr. Nick Car now. You call him Nicky he'll have one of his goons bust all the windows in your car. This's some fuckin business, I'm telling you."
"What's NTL stand for?"
"Nothing to Lose. My wife Edie's a partner. You met her at some Lakers games and a couple of functions. The redhead."
Edie Athens, you bet. Several times, sitting next to her at the Forum, Chili had felt her hand on his thigh, turned his head to see her staring at him, letting him know here it was if he wanted it.
"I told her," Tommy said, "I was gonna see you today. Edie goes, 'Absolutely, Chili's the guy to do it.' Anyway, I got offices and a recording studio out'n Silver Lake. I got some up and comers in the world of punk rock, and I got an artist I just signed and I'm ready to break, Derek Stones, with Roadkill. It use to be a hair band, now they do post-metal funk with a ska kick. You have any idea what I'm talking about?"
"Tommy, I was right there we're doing the music tracks for both my pictures. I got a pretty good idea what's being played."
"Then you must've heard of my hip-hop group, Ropa-Dope. They do that gangsta shit and, man, does it sell. Only no matter what you do for 'em it isn't ever enough. Try and please rappers. I'm in my office I look up, here's five big African-American niggers standing right up against my desk with their arms folded. The dinge in the middle is Ropa-Dope's manager, Sinclair 'Sin' Rus
sell. Not Russell, man, Rus
sell. I greet him in the customary manner, 'Yo, Sin, my man. What's happening, my brother?' Sin looks at me like he's about to come over the fuckin desk. 'I called you two hours ago, motherfucker, and you never return my call.'" Tommy raised the palm of his hand straight up. "Swear to God, you don't pick up when they call you could get fuckin killed.
"I got Ropa-Dope on my back—they want to look at my books, see if I'm up to date on royalty payments. I got this ethnic asshole wants to sell me fire insurance. You believe it? I could've written the fuckin book on what this guy's doing. I threw him out."
Chili was getting up from the table.
"Where you going?"
"The men's. I had two iced teas waiting for you and two more since."
"But how's it sound, the idea?"
"You don't have an idea yet," Chili said. "You have a setting, where the idea develops, becomes your plot." He turned to leave and looked back. "You need a girl in it."
"I got all kinds. What do you want?"
"A singer, trying to get discovered."
"On the boulevard of broken dreams—it's been done. How about a broad with a Mohawk? My secretary, Tiffany. Outside of the haircut and tattoos all the girl parts are there."
Chili walked away from the table, Tommy calling after him, "Think about who's gonna play
me."
He made his way through the coffee shop to the men's room aware of glances but thinking of a girl named Linda Moon. Different ideas now beginning to come together in his mind. A movie about a guy in the record business. A movie about a girl who worked for a dating service.
That was her name, Linda Moon.
He could hear her voice again on the phone telling him—once she'd given up trying to sell him on coming in—that her real life was music and up until last year she had her own band. Now all she did—once in a while a recording studio would call when they needed a backup vocal for one of the current pop stars and the dating-service girl's voice would be on a hit record, somewhere in the mix. And, she was with a group that played clubs and private parties in the L.A. area, saying if he ever got out and wanted a few laughs . . . She had an easy drawl, an accent he thought of as from somewhere Out West rather than Down South. She told him the group she appeared with was called Chicks International, a white chick, a black chick and an Asian chick; and it was embarrassing every time they got up to perform, because they did covers, none of their own stuff; they didn't have anything. He remembered saying it was a way to get started, see how you work together. And she came back at him saying if you wanted to get on the charts you had to do your own songs, "with an attitude." He liked that. And then she said it wasn't bad enough doing covers, "we're doing the Spice Girls, and those chicks can't even fucking sing."
There was a silence after that.
Chili stood at the urinal, cigar clamped in his jaw, hearing Linda's voice on the phone telling him, "I'm sorry, it just slipped out." He asked her name and she said Linda, Linda Moon.
There was more, several minutes of conversation with the tape recorder running. He had listened to some of it again to hear her voice, this girl with the easy drawl, nothing put-on about her. The next time he'd listen to her with story in mind: a girl who could sing but didn't like what they were doing . . . Why didn't she quit?
Chili walked back through the coffee shop thinking of what he'd say to Tommy. Surprise him and sound interested. Give him a scenario off the top of the head: The guy who plays Tommy Athens is the main character. His name . . . Tommy Amore, like the song, the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie. The girl . . . she's with a group but wants to do her own stuff, so she comes to Amore Records. Walks in, Tommy takes one look at her and love is instantly in the fuckin air. But is she any good? Let's say she has the potential, she'll make it if she listens to Amore, does what he tells her. But Linda has ideas of her own. She fights Amore every step of the way. While this is going on the subplot develops. Some deal Amore thought was behind him's now giving him fits. The real Tommy will start nodding his head because it could be true. Like in
Get Leo you have the plot, talk a star into making your movie, and you have the subplot, try to keep from getting killed while you're doing it. Make it up as you're telling him. Which is what movie pitches sound like anyway.
Chili Palmer came out of Swingers looking at his watch. It was 1:50 in the afternoon of a nice sunny day in mid September, the temperature 80 degrees, the traffic on Beverly Boulevard steady, the way it always was during the day.
A four-door sedan, black, needing a wash, was turning onto Beverly from the side street, Laurel Avenue, and had to stop before making the turn. For a few moments the car was directly in front of Chili pausing to relight his Havana. He noticed the front-seat passenger and stared at the guy, no more than fifteen feet away, because the guy's hair didn't go with his face. The face had seen a lot more years than that thick, dark hairpiece, a full rug that appeared too big for his head. The guy turned now, he was wearing sunglasses, and seemed to be looking right at Chili. But he wasn't, he was looking past him, and now the car was moving again, making the turn on Beverly but still creeping as it moved past the cars parked along the curb, past Tommy's car—the white Rolls sitting there like a wedding cake—came even with the Ford pickup and stopped. Chili waited. It was like watching a scene develop:
The front door of the sedan opened and the guy with the rug got out. A wiry little guy fifty or so wearing some Korean girl's hair so he'd look younger. Chili felt sorry for him, the guy not knowing the rug made him look stupid. Somebody ought to tell him, and then duck. He looked like the kind of little guy who was always on the muscle, would take anything you said the wrong way. Chili saw him looking toward Swingers now, staring. Then saw him raise both hands, Christ, holding a revolver, a nickelplate flashing in the sunlight, the guy extending the gun in one hand now, straight out at arm's length as Chili yelled, "Tommy!" Loud, but too late. The guy with the rug was firing at Tommy, squeezing them off like he was on a target range, the sound of gunfire hitting the air hard, and all at once there were screams, chairs scraping, people throwing themselves to the ground as the plate glass shattered behind Tommy still in his chair, head down, broken glass all over him, in his hair. . . . Chili saw the guy with the rug standing there taking in what he had done. Saw him turn to the car, the door still open, and put his hand inside, on the windowsill. But now he took time to look this way, to stare at Chili. Took a good look before he got in and the car drove off.
A woman said, "Oh, my God," and turned to make her way out of the crowd gathering to look at Tommy Athens hanging slumped in his chair, Chili right there now feeling people all around him, closing him in. Voices asking if the man was dead. Asking if anyone had called for a doctor, an ambulance. Asking if the guy who got shot was somebody. A voice saying, "They called nine-eleven." A voice near Chili saying, "You were with him, weren't you?" Another saying, "They were together."
It looked like Tommy had been shot in the head, only one shot hitting him of the five Chili could still hear and count, but the one was enough. Chili stood there not saying a word. He had watched it happen without seeing it coming, and that scared him. Jesus, feeling sorry for the guy in the rug, wasting time like that, instead of yelling at Tommy as soon as the guy was out of the car.
He knew he ought to get out of here right now, or spend the rest of the day telling homicide detectives what he was doing with Tommy Athens, why they were having lunch. Why he wasn't at the table when Tommy got popped. They'd look Tommy up on their computer, they'd look them both up, shit, and go round and round about their other life for a few hours.
But he couldn't just walk away, not with all these witnesses, all these helpful citizens waiting to turn him in, dying to cooperate with the police. He looked around and saw faces staring at him. They looked away when he stared back, and moved aside as he worked his way through the crowd, some good-looking girls, not one of the guys wearing a suit and tie. By the time he got to the corner both EMS and a black and white had arrived and two uniforms were telling everyone to stay where they were for the time being, don't anybody leave. The first thing the uniforms did was collect the driver's license of each witness: the ones who said they'd gotten a look at the guy before the plate glass shattered.
Detectives arrived in a Crown Vic and followed pointed fingers to Chili Palmer, spoke to him for a few minutes and asked would he mind coming to the Wilshire station with them, La Brea and Venice Boulevard; they'd bring him back to get his car.
Chili didn't say yes he would mind or no he wouldn't. He kept his mouth shut looking at the scene again, starting to rewrite it in his mind, the guy playing Tommy no longer the lead. You couldn't have the star get popped ten minutes into the picture.
No, but it could be the way to open it. A movie about the music business.
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