Bones appeared extending a pistol in front of him, some kind of bluesteel automatic. In the other hand he was holding a paper laundry sack you found in hotel closets. Chili didn't have to guess what was in it. His ten grand. Bones waved the pistol at him.

"Get over there, by the sofa."

"You don't need that," Chili said. "You want to sit down and talk, it's fine with me. Get this straightened out."

Chili turned his back on him, walked over to the sofa and sat down. He watched Bones come in the room to stand by the counter, by the suitcoat hanging on the chair, and began to see what was going to happen.

Bones had on a s.h.i.tty-looking light-gray suit with a yellow sport shirt, the top b.u.t.ton fastened. It might be the style out here, but Bones looked like a Miami bookmaker and always would. Jesus, and gray shoes.

"I gave up looking for the drycleaner," Chili said. "This place's all freeways, you can drive around forever and never leave town. How'd you get in here?"

"I told them at the desk I was you," Bones said. "I acted stupid and they believed me."

He came to the middle of the room, still pointing the gun, and held up the laundry sack.

"Where'd you get this?"

"Vegas. I won for a change."

Bones stared at him, not saying anything. Then swung the sack to drop it on a chair.

"Get up and turn around."

"What're you gonna do, search me?"

Chili got to his feet. Bones motioned with the gun and he turned to face the painting over the sofa that looked like a scene in j.a.pan, misty pale green and tan ricefields, the sky overcast, not a lot going on there. He felt Bones lift his wallet out of his back pocket.

"You won the ten grand in Vegas?"

"That's where Leo went before he came here and I lost him."

"Las Vegas."

"Yeah, it's in Nevada."

"Then how come the straps on the ten grand say Harrah's, Tahoe? Can you explain that to me?"

There were figures in the painting he hadn't noticed, people way out in the field picking rice.

Chili said, "You sure it says that, Harrah's?"

He hadn't noticed any printing on the money straps either, or didn't remember.

"You're the stupidest f.u.c.kin guy I ever met in my life," Bones said. "Let's see what's in your pockets."

Chili shoved his hands in and pulled the side pockets out.

"What you should've done was told me the guy was alive and skipped, soon as you found out."

Chili heard the voice moving away. He looked over his shoulder to see Bones pulling his suitcoat from the back of the chair at the counter.

"Why would I do that?"

" 'Cause the guy's my customer now, stupid. His a.s.s belongs to me."

Bones laid the pistol on the counter, held the suitcoat up with one hand and felt through it with the other. Chili waited for his expression to change. There-his eyes opening wider.

"What have we here?" Bones said. His hand came out of the coat with the locker key.

Chili sat down in the sofa again.

"Give me my cigarettes. They're in the inside pocket."

Bones threw the coat at him. "Help yourself." And held the key up to look at it. "C-oh-one-eight." Frowning now, putting on a show. "I wonder what this's for, a locker? Yeah, but where is it?"

Chili sat back to smoke his cigarette and let it happen.

"I checked a bag at the airport, when I came."

"Yeah? Which terminal?"

Chili hesitated. He said, "Delta," and it was done.

Bones said, "You found Leo, didn't you? ... Took the poor a.s.shole's money and put it in a locker, ready to go." Bones looked over. "Why haven't you left?"

"I changed my mind. I like it here."

"Well, there's nothing for you in Miami."

Bones was nervous or anxious, touching his thin strands of hair, his collar, making sure it was b.u.t.toned.

"How much's in the locker? Just out of curiosity."

Chili drew on his cigarette, taking his time. "A hunnerd seventy thousand."

"Jesus Christ, that drycleaner left with three hunnerd," Bones said. "I hadn't got here you would've p.i.s.sed the rest of it away. You knew I was coming, right? That f.u.c.kin Tommy Carlo, I know he phoned you."

"Yeah, but he didn't know why. 'Less you told him about the drycleaner."

"I didn't tell him nothing."

"What about Jimmy Cap, you tell him?"

Bones paused. He said, "Look, there's no reason why you and I shouldn't get along. Forget all the bulls.h.i.t going back to that time-I don't even remember how it started. You took a swing at me over some f.u.c.kin thing, whatever it was-forget it. You owe me eight grand, right? Forget that too. But, you don't say a f.u.c.kin word about this to anybody. It's strictly between you and I, right?"

"I get to keep the ten in the laundry bag," Chili said.

Bones had to think about that one.

"Look," Chili said, "I was gonna pay you the eight I owe you out of the ten. See, but now you tell me I don't have to. So ..."

"So I take two out of it and we're square," Bones said. "How's that?"

"Sounds good to me," Chili said.

He looked up the number for the Drug Enforcement Administration in the phone book, dialed it and told the woman who answered he wanted to speak to the agent in charge. She asked what it was in regard to and he said a locker out at the airport, full of money.

A male voice came on saying, "Who's speaking, please?"

"I can't tell you," Chili said, "it's an anonymous call."

The male voice said, "Are you the same anonymous a.s.shole called last night?"

"No, this's a different one," Chili said. "Have you looked in that locker, C-oh-one-eight?"

There was a pause on the line.

"You're helping us out," the male voice said. "I'd like to know who this is."

"I bet you would," Chili said. "You want to chat or you want me to tell you who to look for? The guy's on his way out right now."

This DEA agent wouldn't give up. He said, "You know there's a reward for information that leads to a conviction. That's why I have to know who this is."

"I'll get my reward in heaven," Chili said. "The guy you want has a bullet scar in his head and is wearing gray shoes. You can't miss him."

24.

"This was Warren's office," Karen said, "before he was shipped off to Publicity. Warren Hurst, I think I mentioned him to you."

"Beth's Room," Chili said, sitting across from Karen at her big oak desk. "The one that said if you did it your way they wouldn't have a movie."

"You remember that."

She said it with that nice look in her eyes she had been using on him lately. Interested, letting him know she liked him. The only difference today, she had on gla.s.ses, round ones with thin black frames. She was telling him now the office decor was pre-Warren, he hadn't been here long enough to redecorate; that it wouldn't be bad in a men's club, but she wasn't going to touch it. "Not till I see if I get a vote here."

Chili said, "You don't fool around."

"What, taking the job? Why not?"

Karen's shoulders moved in the beige silk blouse, the little ninety-pounder behind the big executive desk.

"I think I'll be good at it if they let me. Look at the scripts."

She picked up one from a stack of about ten and moved it to another part of the desk.

"Elaine says all of them have spin in varying degrees. That means they're supposed to be good."

She picked up another one. "Beth's Room, still under consideration."

She picked up another and laid it down again.

"Elaine wants to know what I think."

"Tell her the truth."

"Don't worry."

"I got an idea spinning around."

"You told me about it."

As he said, "It's getting better," Karen's phone buzzed.

She picked it up. "Yeah?" Said, "Tell him I'll call him back," and looked at Chili as she hung up. "Harry. That's the third time today."

Chili said, "I have to call him too, tell him what happened."

And Karen said, "That's right, you were going out to the airport," her expression changing, her eyes losing that nice glow as they became serious. She took off her gla.s.ses as he told her about the DEA guys and hunched her shoulders leaning on the desk, looking right at him but maybe picturing it too, the scene. That was the feeling he had. He finished the part at the airport and she said, "You really did that?" sounding amazed. "So the money's still there?" He had to tell her about Bones then, and she listened to that part, every word of it, without blinking her eyes. When he finished she sat back in her chair for a moment thinking, still looking at him, then came forward again asking about Bones, who he was. So Chili had to take her all the way back to Vesuvio's and the leather coat.

This time when he finished Karen said, "He'll tell the DEA guys you set it up. Won't he?"

"If they get him," Chili said. "Yeah, Bones'll try to put it on me. If they come around looking and I get hauled in, I say I don't know what he's talking about."

"But they saw you there today," Karen said, "at the airport."

"Yeah, well, they'd still have to prove I put the money in the locker and there's no way they can do that, 'cause I didn't. I never touched that locker. If I see I'm in too deep I can always give 'em Catlett. But I don't want to go through all that right now. Even if I didn't have to post a bond it would be annoying, the way they keep after you asking questions. So I checked out of the Marquis. Now I have to find another place."

She was giving him that amazed look again. "You're serious."

"Yeah, I tried the Chateau Marmont, see if I could get Jean Harlow's room, but they're full up. One thing I did, not knowing any better at the time, I told the DEA guys I was with ZigZag. They didn't write it down, so they might not remember it, and I didn't have a card to give them. But if they do, they'll look up Harry, try to find me that way."

"What Harry will have trouble accepting," Karen said, "you didn't get the money, not that you could go to jail."

"Yeah, I'll have to explain it to him. Once Bones found the key, the way his one-track mind works it was out of my hands. I had to let it happen."

"I'd like to have seen that," Karen said. She pushed out of her leather chair, came around the desk in a black skirt a few inches above her knees and leaned against the edge of the desk, close, looking down at him. He thought for a moment she was going to touch his face. She said, "I'll bet you have scars ..."

"A few."