Get Shorty - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The book's story centers around Chili Palmer, a small-time shylock (or loanshark) based in Miami, who is sent after Leo Devoe, who has scammed an airline out of $300,000 in life insurance by faking his own death. Leo had been aboard a plane whose flight was delayed, prompting Leo to disembark and go drinking in the airport bar. Leo misses the plane's actual takeoff, and when it crashes, his "widow" receives a check for $300,000, money which Leo takes to Las Vegas. His trail leads Chili to Las Vegas, where the loanshark finds a more interesting assignment: the casino is looking to collect from Harry Zimm, a horror film producer based in Los Angeles. Palmer, himself very interested in the movie industry, takes the extra assignment and heads for Los Angeles.

Palmer lets his interest in the movie industry overshadow his collection job. He sneaks into the house of Karen Flores (Zimm's friend) in the middle of the night, startling both Zimm and Flores, and after he tells Zimm he has to pay his Las Vegas markers, he then explains that he has an idea for a movie. Zimm is immediately taken in by Palmer's charm and his movie idea, although Flores is still skeptical. Palmer recounts Leo Devoe's story in the third person, and recalls chasing Leo to Las Vegas as if it were an incomplete work of fiction. Flores is smart, and points out that the story clearly isn't fictional, she saw the plane crash in the news in the past week, and Palmer is obviously the shylock mentioned in the story. The next morning, Zimm asks for Chili's help in dealing with a good script he wants to buy. Zimm tells Chili that this script, Mr. Lovejoy, could be Academy Award worthy material. "It'll be my Driving Miss Daisy," Zimm assures Palmer. There are, however, two problems: Zimm doesn't own the script, his writer's widow Doris Saffron does, and she wants $500,000 for it; and he guaranteed a $200,000 investment from Bo Catlett, a local limo driver and drug dealer, to make another movie called Freaks. (Zimm gambled Catlett's $200,000 away in Vegas in hopes of making the $500,000 he needed for Mr. Lovejoy). In a meeting with Catlett and his sidekick Ronnie Wingate, Zimm and Palmer tell them that, while their investment in Freaks is sound, they are making another movie first. Catlett tells them to move the money into this new picture; Zimm says he cannot, as the new movie deal is "structured."

Meanwhile, Catlett is involved in a Mexican drug deal which doesn't go through. He has left the payment in a locker at the L.A. airport, but the Colombian sent to receive the money, Yayo Portillo (Catlett keeps calling him Yahoo), doesn't feel safe unlocking the locker with so many DEA agents staked out nearby. Catlett later meets Yayo back at his home, and after Yayo threatens to tell the DEA who Bo is, Bo shoots him.

Catlett soon offers the locker money to Zimm as an investment, telling him to send Palmer to get the money. Palmer senses something wrong, signs out a nearby locker as a test, and sure enough is taken for questioning by drug officials when he tries to open it.

Palmer and Flores are meanwhile seeking the interests of Michael Weir, a top-tier Hollywood actor to whom Flores was once married, to play the lead in Zimm's film.

The loose ends are tied up when Ray Barboni comes to Los Angeles looking for the money Palmer collected from Leo Devoe, only to find the key to the locker from the failed drug deal in one of Palmer's pockets. Thinking Palmer has stashed his cash in a locker, he goes to the airport and is busted by drug officials. In a final showdown with Catlett, Catlett is double-crossed by his partner, Bear.

The novel ends with Zimm, Palmer and Flores having visited a few production studios and wondering why writing the ending of a story was always the hardest part.