Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

Author:Elmore Leonard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9788759506059
Publisher: Lindhardt og Ringhof
Published: 1996-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

17

He thought Raji’s would be a cocktail lounge with entertainment, a Hollywood nightspot. It turned out to be a bar with pinball machines and video games making a racket, also a counter where you could buy Raji’s T-shirts, in case you wanted to show you had actually come in here. Sometimes it was hard to keep an open mind. Chili, in his pinstripe suit, nice tie, wondered if any regular people came here or just these kids trying to look like heroin addicts. He said to one of them, “How come there’s no sign out in front?”

The kid said, “There isn’t?”

He said to the kid, “I see they have Yul Brynner in the sidewalk outside.”

Part of Hollywood’s famous Walk of Fame, the names of 1,800 show-biz celebrities inlaid in stars.

The kid said, “Who’s Yul Brynner?”

Chili said to the bartender, a young guy who looked normal, “How come there’s no sign out in front?” The bartender said it was down temporarily while they reinforced the building against earthquakes. Chili asked him how come there weren’t any barstools? The bartender said it was a stand-up kind of place: A and R guys from the record companies didn’t like to sit down, they’d catch a group and then come back upstairs to have their conversation, where you could hear yourself think. He told Chili Guns N‘ Roses had been signed out of here. Chili said no shit and asked if Nicki was around. There were “Nicki” posters by the entrance. The bartender said she was downstairs but wouldn’t be on for a couple hours yet.

“You in records?”

“Movies,” Chili said.

He had never made it with Nicki or even tried, but she still ought to remember him. The idea, get her to ask him to drop by the house, say hello to Michael and he’d take it from there. Get next to him.Look at me, Michael. See what happens.

Chili went downstairs to an empty room with a bar and a few tables, hearing a band tuning up, hitting chords. It reminded him of bands at Momo’s cranking up, doing sound checks, setting those dials just right, then blasting off loud enough to blow out the windows and he’d wonder what all that precision adjusting was for. Maybe they said they were reinforcing the place against earthquakes, but it was to keep the rockers from shaking the walls down, and that’s why they played in the basement here: the bandstand through an archway in a separate room that was like a cave in there and maybe would hold a hundred people standing up.

There were four guys, three with guitars and a guy on the drums. He didn’t see Nicki anywhere, just these four skinny guys, typical rock-and-roll assholes with all the hair, bare arms tricked out with tattoos and metal bracelets, all of them with that typical bored way they had. Looking over at him now standing in the archway, but too cool to show any interest. Some dickhead in a suit. Chili stared back at them thinking, Oh, is that right? Any you assholes want to be in the movies? No chance.

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