The Nice Guys

by Charles Ardai

  They were needles all right, and March knew that because he was the one who’d thrown them there. Just a handful, but enough to fill a glassine envelope with the LAPD stamp on it and get Betty Bramden’s boyfriend led out in cuffs.

  With one thing and another, the Blue Bird was closed inside of a month, and though he was never one hundred percent certain that Alice knew what he had done for her or would have approved if she had known, he hadn’t said no when, in an abundance of high spirits on the day the Blue Bird shut down for good, she’d introduced him to a girl called Ruth Dubitsky, who danced under the name Heady Lamarr and proved true to the name when the dressing room door closed behind them.

  Which has what to do with the Erotic Connection, you wonder.

  Well.

  Couple of years in prison and the boyfriend turned himself into quite the jailhouse lawyer, and he never stopped claiming, in letter after letter to the DA’s office, to the newspapers, to anyone who would listen, that he’d been set up. Eventually he found a way to get his conviction vacated, and while no one ever told March his badge was on the line for it, the fact was, March had been a cop at one point and now he wasn’t, and the boyfriend had been a jailbird and now he wasn’t. You might think, after that experience, the man would go into another line of work, but leopards, spots. He opened a new club just a few miles away from where the Blue Bird had been, updated the décor to be less Summer of Love and more Joy of Sex, and he called it the Erotic Connection.

  7.

  Which was why March wanted nothing to do with the place.

  But—you don’t find a business card in the emptied-out apartment of a woman you’re looking for, a business card with something written on it, and just throw it in the trash and call it a day. Not if you’re a private detective. There are plenty of ways to make a living, plenty of better ways than being a private detective, and he hadn’t chosen any of them. March wasn’t the philosophical sort and wouldn’t talk your ear off about how some professions you don’t choose, they choose you, at least not unless he had a whole bunch of drinks in him; but the simple truth of the matter was, the kind of person who gets his P.I. license could no more ignore that business card, having found it, than he could have tap danced across the Grand Canyon.

  So, leery though he was, wary though he was, March headed downtown to the Erotic Connection. It was 1PM by the time he arrived, and the doors were open, though no actual customers were inside. March had watched from across the street for a bit, through the window of a drugstore, but you couldn’t see in, of course, so all he could say for sure was that no one he recognized had entered or left in the past fifteen minutes.

  He crossed briskly, pulled open the door, and went in.

  His eyes took a minute to adjust. The bar was a modern one, all chrome trim and glass, with big wooden speakers mounted up by the ceiling above it and a disco ball lazily turning just beyond. The frosted squares of the dance floor were lit from underneath, blinking on and off, on and off. There was no music playing, and the only girls in sight were the ones painted on the walls.

  “What are you having?” This from the bartender, who stood wiping down the counter with a rag.

  March ordered a beer, got right into it as soon as he’d taken his first swallow. “You know a girl named Amelia? Amelia Kuttner?”

  Got a blank look for his trouble.

  “She’s a brunette, about yea high…?” He held his hand up at about the level of the bartender’s chin. “Hair down to here…?” So far, he could’ve been describing Misty Mountains, but then that was the point, wasn’t it? The aunt hadn’t mistaken this girl for her niece for no reason. Of course, the aunt hadn’t seen her from the front. Odds were Amelia didn’t have all the same physical features Misty had, because how many women did. But the aunt had definitely said dark hair, yea high. “Lives in the neighborhood, or used to, anyway?” Nothing. “Might have met someone here last Tuesday, or the Tuesday before? Some Tuesday…?”

  The bartender shook his head. So far, the only five syllables the man had spoken were the ones asking March for his drink order. For all he knew, the man didn’t speak English and had learned them phonetically. Maybe he just drew the same beer for you no matter what you ordered.

  “Can I show you a photograph…?”

  “Friend,” a voice said, and a heavy hand landed on March’s shoulder. “Drink your drink and let the man do his job, will you?”

  March turned on the bar stool, followed the line of the man’s arm to his shoulder, to the wide lapels of his pristine white jacket, to the burgundy collar of his silk shirt, and from there up to the man’s chin and lips and nose and eyes. He felt like he was assembling a profile out of pieces, like an identikit. He got to the little blue jailhouse tattoo of a cross beneath the man’s right eye before recognition clicked in, and he could see it click for the man, too, at the same instant.

  “You—”

  Which of them had said it? Both of them had. And the man’s grip tightened on March’s shoulder.

  March tensed, started to say something, but found himself drawn forward, his chest pressed against the other man’s, his ear close to the other man’s lips. “After all this time,” Marcus Breydo said. “All these years. You walk into my club.”

  “Um,” March said, and wished he was carrying. “About that—”

  “Shh,” Breydo said. “It’s all right. I’ve found him, too.”

  “Him?”

  “Christ Jesus,” the former boyfriend of Betty Bramden, inveterate strip club impresario, said, releasing his grip on March’s torso, stepping back, and aiming two fingers at his tattoo. “I’ve been reborn in his blood, brother. I’ve begged forgiveness of every man I’ve wronged, as I forgive those who trespassed against me. We’re all sinners.” He squinted at March. “It’s why you sought me out, isn’t it?”

  “Hallelujah,” March said.

  * * *

  After which he got stood a drink and had to hear about Breydo’s conversion, which seemed to have involved a combination of Bible verses and power-lifting on the yard. Not to mention the safety pin dipped in ballpoint ink giving him the permanent mark of the brotherhood. March nodded a lot, and tried not to look like the kid in Sunday school who wished he was out playing with his friends instead.

  “So, man, go ahead,” Breydo finally said, “ask me what you came to ask me.”

  March opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

  “Go ahead,” Breydo said.

  “Do you,” March said, “do you, um, forgive me?”

  “Yes, brother. Yes. I do. I do forgive you.”

  And there was hugging again, which went on long enough that March really needed it to stop. But, gift horses. He let the other man take the lead.

  “Can I ask you one other thing?” March said when the strip club owner finally let go.

  “Yes, brother. Yes. Ask me anything.”

  March took the folded photo out of his pocket. “Do you know a girl named Amelia…?”

  8.

  He did.

  Knew her from the description, remembered hearing her name. She had been there a week ago Tuesday, meeting a man who worked in movies, guy named Rocco, in the distribution end of the business. Dirty movies, the real hardcore stuff. Not a Christian like you and me, brother. Not yet, anyway. Right? God’s grace comes to all in time.

  March nodded. He was getting so good at it.

  They’d been talking about something, some project—not that he’d been listening, they just hadn’t been talking very quietly, understand?

  “A movie project? A porn film…?”

  Breydo shook his head. “I don’t know, it was confusing. Yeah, there was a movie, something about a movie, but also some political thing, maybe some radio thing? She kept talking about doing something on the air.”

  “On the air?”

  “That’s what she said. Her and these other people. She asked if he wanted to meet her crew, said they’d be meeting later on.”

 
Did Breydo know where…?

  That had led him here, to the Iron Horse, in the same zip code as the Erotic Connection but a place of an entirely different stripe. No naked women on the walls here. This was a drinking establishment, and the people in it (and yes, it was relatively full already in the early afternoon) were established drinkers. It was blue collar and no-nonsense, though there was a university campus nearby, and as a concession to the student population there was a crowded bulletin board you passed on the way in, full of mimeographed sheets promoting local gigs and bands and protests and whatnot, all stabbed into the cork with pushpins. March flipped through a few layers. On the air, on the air… He pulled one flyer down, folded it, jammed it in his pocket, went on in.

  The bartender at the Iron Horse looked like he’d been a bruiser once, but that was before he got a job that gave him access to free liquor. He wore a salmon-colored shirt and wore it open, to give his belly a chance to breathe.

  “I think I remember her,” he said, leaning forward on his meaty fists. “Amelia. She was in three, four nights ago. With a tall guy? They sat here for a while, waiting for her friends to show. Drank bourbon martinis.” He said this last with a trace of distaste.

  “Disgusting,” March said, though he wouldn’t have turned one down. “Was the guy buying?”

  “He bought some, she bought some.”

  “Don’t suppose they paid with credit cards, did they?”

  The meaty fists rose from the bar, turned into crossed arms across the man’s chest. “As in, am I going to pull the receipts for you? Fat fucking chance.”

  March dug in his pocket, held out a folded ten-dollar bill. Folded to look like a little origami shirt. Sometimes it helped to make ’em laugh a little.

  “That’s very pretty,” the bartender said.

  “I made it myself.”

  “Yeah?” the bartender said. “I made this.” And he reached under the bar, came up with a carved wooden bat. Like a Louisville Slugger, only heavier.

  March nodded, tucked the bill back in his pocket.

  * * *

  But there was more than one way to skin a cat, like March’s mother always said. Which had been pretty annoying, actually. She used that expression entirely too much. But here it applied. Anyway. If there were credit card receipts that might reveal another address for Amelia, or one for this Rocco, he needed to get his hands on them.

  So: he was crouching in the alleyway behind the Iron Horse, next to a dumpster he assumed was probably reeking, but fuck it, he couldn’t smell a thing, waiting for the lights to go out and the steel gate over the front door to come clattering down. He heard it at last, then footsteps receding, and it was just March and the back door, alone together in the night.

  The knob didn’t turn this time, that would’ve been too much to hope for, but there was a glass panel in the door, not even any chicken-wire reinforcement in the glass, and March figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to smash the thing in. That’s what they did on TV, wasn’t it? March looked in the dumpster, pulled out a scrap of cloth that didn’t look too dirty, started wrapping it around his knuckles. Noticed the writing on his hand again, You will never be happy, fainter than this morning but still there. We’ll see about that, honey. Gonna earn myself another bonus payment. And he smashed his wrapped fist through the glass.

  No alarms sounded, just the tinkle of shards against the ground. This was the part where he was supposed to reach through the opening, turn the handle from inside, let himself in, find the box of receipts behind the bar, rifle through them by the glare of his penlight, pick out the two he wanted, maybe mutter Bingo under his breath, let himself out, wipe down the knob, and beat leather back to March Investigations HQ, aka home. But his wrist hurt.

  He looked down. He was bleeding.

  “Ow, shit. Shit.” He pressed two fingers of his other hand against his wrist.

  Blood seeped through around them.

  “Ow, ow, ow.” He pulled the rag from around his knuckles, wound it around his wrist instead. It soaked through instantly. “Whoa. Ow. Whoa. Lots of blood. Lots of blood. Okay. Okay.”

  He glanced around the alley, staggered a few steps. He was feeling dizzy.

  Goddamn, that was a lot of blood.

  He shifted his grip on his wrist, and a literal jet of blood came spraying up.

  “Okay. Ow. Wait, wait. Okay. Okay.”

  He was teetering in a tight little circle. Or maybe it just felt that way. His eyes started to flutter. Blood all over the place.

  The end of the alley wasn’t so very far, was it? How could it be that far?

  Feet.

  Come on.

  Jesus.

  9.

  He came to in an ambulance, an oxygen mask strapped to his face, the siren screaming.

  He felt the gurney under him bang against the sides as they slalomed through traffic.

  His wrist still hurt.

  There was a medic hunched over him, a tiny Latina fireplug, shouting, but the words were strangely quiet, like his ears were stuffed with cotton batting.

  “I need two units of whole blood! Shit! BP dropping! Stay with me, stay with me—”

  March didn’t listen to any more. Why should he. It was Thanksgiving, and the turkey smelled so good, fresh from the oven, and the candied yams. How a Brit like his wife ever learned to cook Thanksgiving dinner like that he had no idea, but there you go, she was a talented lady. And Holly had blown out the candles on her cake, and what are you talking about, you smell gas?

  And he was out, like a pilot light.

  10.

  The night was quiet now, which was probably because it was morning.

  Barely any cars went by on the highway outside the hospital, and the few that did swooshed past almost in silence, the sound of their tires against the pavement like ocean surf.

  March sat in his wheelchair and waited quietly while the hospital nun locked the wheels.

  It took a while for the cab he’d called to show up.

  When it did, the nun helped him stand.

  His wrist was thickly bandaged.

  “Tell me,” the nun said as she led him to the taxi, “are you willing to find God?”

  It was funny, most days no one talked to him about God. Now in one day he got Breydo and this chick.

  He struggled to speak, his brain still fogged by all the painkillers they’d pumped into him.

  “I’m…I’m still trying to find Amelia.”

  He sank into the cab’s back seat, gave his address to the driver. They drove off.

  When he got home, Holly was there, awake, ready to lead him in and tuck him into bed. She was a good kid. He didn’t deserve her.

  * * *

  He woke up eleven hours later, sore and ragged, still dressed, but in his own bed this time, not a bathtub, not an alley, not a morgue. Last night had not been a success, exactly, but— All right, not in any sense. But he’d learned some things that might prove helpful. He had a lead or two. Didn’t he? He scratched his jaw with his good hand, thought about shaving, thought about going back to sleep, decided he wasn’t sleepy anymore. Bone-tired, but not sleepy.

  At least things were looking up. In the sense that he wasn’t dead. His arm would heal. It was itching more than hurting right now, which had to mean he was out of the woods, right? The part of him that always cautioned him against optimism cautioned him against optimism. But it was hard not to feel he’d been through the worst and come out the other end.

  Now it was just a matter of finding Amelia, and he had a promising start on that; then finding out what her connection was to Misty and the world of porn films, and reporting back to the old lady. Then maybe a vacation.

  At his front door, he heard a knock. “Just a minute,” he called. “Who is it?” And through the door, a friendly voice said, “Messenger service, Holland March home?” A glance through the peephole showed a guy with a genial smile standing there on the stoop.

  “Hi,” March said, opening the door, a
nd Jackson Healy slugged him full in the face.

  WORD OF THE DAY

  Equanimity e-qua-nim-i-ty, noun:

  The quality of being calm and even-tempered; composure.

  11.

  Healy tore yesterday’s page off his Word-a-Day calendar (Vampiric, adjective: tending to drain vitality, blood, or other resources), and looked at today’s entry. He thought for a few moments, then said, “He responded to her vampiric drains on their bank account with equanimity.” He smiled, pleased with himself, and went to make coffee.

  Healy’s place was small, quiet, empty. Spartan, you might say. That had been the word of the day a month back, and he’d saved the page, feeling it described him well.

  On the TV, a newscaster was offering a smog alert—Stage Two, residents cautioned not to engage in any unnecessary exercise until after 6PM tonight, commuters encouraged to keep their windows rolled up on the drive home—and a glance out the window showed him why. A thick crust hung over Sunset Boulevard, and though the blazing sun was working hard to burn some of it away, it didn’t seem to be making much headway.

  Healy picked up a pinch of fish food, dropped some flakes onto the surface of his saltwater aquarium. The tank’s two occupants swam toward the food, began nipping at it as it floated gently down.

  The newscaster had moved on: “In other news, the police have not ruled out mechanical failure in the death of adult film star Misty Mountains, whose car plunged off the road in last Tuesday’s…” Healy went to get dressed.

  His closet held only a handful of clothes—half a dozen plain undershirts, a couple tropical-print button-downs, one blue leather jacket. He chose the next shirt in line and slid the jacket on over it. What was he forgetting? The address. He found the cow-shaped slip of paper with Amelia’s writing on it, shoved it in his jacket pocket. Keys? Check. Hat? Nah. He flicked the light switch, turning out both the lights and the TV set, and out he went, locking up behind him. His brass knuckles gleamed dully from the top of the TV, where he’d left them.