Get Shorty 's Chili Palmer is back. No more Mr. Nice Guy. After a smash hit in Get Leo and a flop in Get Lost, B-movie-producer Chili Palmer is looking for another score. Lunching with a record company executive, Chili's exploring a hot new idea--until the exec, a former "associate" from Chili's Brooklyn days, gets whacked while eating his grilled pesto chicken. Lucky Chili wasn't around for dessert. Segue from real life to reel life. Chili's found his plot. It's a slam-bang opener: the rubout of a record company mogul. Cut to an ambitious wannabe singer named Linda Moon. She has attitude and a band. She's perfect. Zoom into reality. Linda's manager thinks Chili's poaching and he's out to get even, with the help of his switch-hitting Samoan bodyguard. But somebody else beat them to the punch, as Chili discovers when he gets home and finds a corpse at his desk. Somebody made a mistake. . . . "Thoroughly entertaining...wonderful and terrific." -- The New York Times "A thrill ride...This is Elmore Leonard at his best." -- The New York Times Book Review "Devastatingly funny and dead-on accurate." -- Chicago Tribune "Superior, stunningly alive writing... Be Cool is another boss entry in an incredible body of work." -- The Washington Post Book World A Featured Alternate of the Book-of-the-Month Club orty's Chili Palmer is back. No more Mr. Nice Guy. After a smash hit in Get Leo and a flop in Get Lost, B-movie-producer Chili Palmer is looking for another score. Lunching with a record company executive, Chili's exploring a hot new idea--until the exec, a former "associate" from Chili's Brooklyn days, gets whacked while eating his grilled pesto chicken. Lucky Chili wasn't around for dessert. Segue from real life to reel life. Chili's found his plot. It's a slam-bang opener: the rubout of a record company mogul. Cut to an ambitious wannabe singer named Linda Moon. She has attitude and a band. She's perfect. Zoom into reality. Linda's manager thinks Chili's poaching and he's out to get even, with the help of his switch-hitting Samoan bodyguard. But somebody else beat them to the punch, as Chili discovers when he gets home and finds a corpse at his desk. Somebody made a mistake. . . . "Thoroughly entertaining...wonderful and terrific." -- The New York Times "A thrill ride...This is Elmore Leonard at his best." -- The New York Times Book Review "Devastatingly funny and dead-on accurate." -- Chicago Tribune "Superior, stunningly alive writing... Be Cool is another boss entry in an incredible body of work." -- The Washington Post Book World A Featured Alternate of the Book-of-the-Month Club Elmore Leonard is the author of thirty-five novels, including such bestsellers as Cuba Libre , Out of Sight , Riding the Rap , Pronto , Rum Punch , Maximum Bob , Get Shorty , and numerous screenplays. He and his wife, Christine, live in a suburb of Detroit. 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 you know 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 m