The Nice Guys

by Charles Ardai

  * * *

  Cruising up Laurel Canyon toward the address on the slip of paper, Healy noted the empty lawns, the lack of unnecessary exercise. Who wanted to be outside when the air was like this? Not that people did a lot of walking in L.A. even on those rare days when the smog was bearable. But a day like today? There was one young girl, maybe twelve, thirteen—just about Kitten’s age, but this one looked like an actual child, not an aspiring hooker—walking along with an oversized book under one arm, and Healy thought back to his own grade school days. He’d never been much of a reader, but there’d been stickball and Indian wrestling and mumblety-peg with jackknives and plenty of other reasons to play outdoors. That had been in the Bronx, though, the Irish side, and they hadn’t invented words like smog yet. You’d get beaten up going to the delicatessen and robbed coming back, but at least you could breathe the fucking air.

  Healy drew to a stop at a traffic light just as it turned red. Watched idly as the girl approached a vacant lot between two houses, snaked under the chainlink fence that was supposed to keep it vacant, and carefully paced out ten steps this way, then six steps over, then three steps back, like she was following a treasure map. He half expected to see her break out a tiny shovel and start digging, but all she did was plop down on the ground, open the book, and begin reading aloud. Strange kid. Someone behind him honked then, and Healy noticed the light had changed. All right, you bastard, I’m moving.

  Few minutes later, he found the address Amelia had given him and pulled over to the curb. It wasn’t a fancy house—kind of run-down, actually, like whoever lived here hadn’t put a lot of care into it. Not that Healy’s own digs were fancy, but at least they were neat, orderly. Spartan.

  Ah, well. He wasn’t here to judge.

  Walking up to the front door, Healy discovered he’d left his knucks home. For a second he thought about driving all the way back to get them, but that was idiotic. He could do this old-school for once. He made a couple of practice fists, cleared his throat, put on his game face, and rang the bell.

  Holland March came to the door, unshaved, bleary, his left wrist swaddled in gauze, and Healy swung with a smile, confident the knucks would’ve been overkill. Maybe literally. You wanted to use the right tool for the job, and this fellow looked like a breeze could knock him down.

  In any event, Healy’s fist did.

  He stepped inside, shut the door behind him, stood over March where he lay, crumpled, on the living room floor. Healy flexed his fingers, suddenly reminded that you wore brass knuckles not just to maximize damage but also to spare your own actual knuckles. But eh, he’d live.

  “Mr. March,” he said, in a measured and reasonable voice, “we’re gonna play a game.”

  Give the man credit, he was struggling back up to his knees. “This is a mistake,” he was saying, “I think you’ve got the wrong house—”

  Healy kicked him, right in the breadbasket, and down he went once more, all the air driven out of him.

  “The game’s called ‘Shut up, unless you’re me.’ ”

  March fought to get his breath back. “I…I love that game.” He put one hand down on a low table, levered himself up.

  Healy waited till March was standing again, then feinted with his left. When March raised his arms to block, Healy came in under with his right. Oof. And he was down again.

  While March caught his breath, Healy looked at the pile of mail on the table. Bills, a catalogue or two. Frederick’s of Hollywood, ha. He flipped open a kidskin wallet, glanced through the cards in their little plastic sleeves. Diner’s Club, Red Cross—

  Healy whistled low. He waved the wallet in March’s direction. “You’re a private investigator?”

  March had managed to crawl over to the nearest wall and sit up, clutching his stomach. “Yeah.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it myself, sometime I might…”

  “You’d be a natural,” March said. “Look…there’s just twenty bucks there. Take it.”

  “I’m a messenger,” Healy said. “Not a thief.”

  “Wouldn’t be stealing,” March said. “I offered.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be right,” Healy said, and put the wallet down again. He walked over to March, looking around at the room as he went. The place wasn’t fancy, but it was nice enough on the inside. Some good furniture, looked solid, not that pressed-wood crap everyone was getting. Brass doodads on the walls. “You can afford to live like this, on a P.I.’s salary?”

  “What salary?” March said, coughing. “I eat what I catch.”

  “You must catch pretty good.”

  March winced as he prodded his tender gut with his good hand. “It’s a rental, okay? I didn’t buy this stuff. We got it furnished. Till we’re back in our place.” Healy didn’t say anything. “Yes, I can afford it. Some months.” He hawked up some phlegm, spat. Looked up again. “So? What’s the message?”

  Healy crouched beside him, gave him his best stare. “Stop. Looking. For Amelia.”

  “I’m not even looking for Amelia! I’m, I’m on this case, she’s just, like, a person of interest, man, she’s not the one I’m—” Healy looked confused, and a little impatient. March saw Healy’s hand start curling into a fist again. “Ah, fuck it. Message delivered. I’m done. Put a fork in me.” He stopped. “Don’t really put a fork in me.”

  Healy stood. “That’s fine, Mr. March. Amelia’s gonna be very happy to hear you got the message so quickly. That’s gonna make her smile, that’s good.” He cleared his throat. “Now. I got one more thing I need to ask you before we’re done here.”

  March closed his eyes. He knew what was coming. “You wanna know who hired me to find her.”

  “That’s right. Now we can do this easy way—”

  “Her name’s Glenn.”

  “—or we can do this the hard way—”

  “My client’s name is Lily Glenn. Two ‘n’s. Old lady, hired me a few days ago to look for her niece. Not Amelia, she’s not the niece, it’s this other woman, who’s actually, you know, kind of…dead. Or maybe not, since the old lady says she saw her, alive, but I’m guessing she really is dead, ’cause the police say they have her body. But anything’s possible, right? Anyway, that’s who I’m looking for, and who I’m looking for her for. For.”

  Healy was speechless.

  “Anything else…?” March spat again, saw some blood in it. Bet there’d be some when he peed too. He stood up, slowly, groaning all the way.

  “You just gave up your client,” Healy said.

  “Well. I made a discretionary revelation…”

  “No, you gave her up, just like that. I asked you one simple question and—” Healy made a chatterbox mouth with his hand and set it flapping. “You gave me all the information.”

  “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  “Some poor old woman pays you good money and that’s how you treat her?”

  March shrugged. There was a counter that separated the living room from the pass-through kitchen and he leaned on it with both hands. Healy’s eyes darted to the counter, but there were no weapons on it, not even a butter knife or something to throw, unless you counted the cookie jar. Which…it was ceramic, kind of heavy, better than nothing. Healy saw March casually slip his hand toward it. Desperate. Sad, really.

  “Ah…” Healy said warningly, and raised one hand to block in case March tried throwing the thing at him. But March didn’t throw it. He reached inside the cookie jar and came back out with a handgun: .38 special, wood grip, snub nosed. He swung it up, but Healy took him down with a lazy right cross to the jaw. He grabbed the gun out of March’s hand as he fell, threw the thing into a corner. March landed on his ass by the wall again.

  Healy bent down, grabbed him by the necktie, used it to slam March’s head against the lower part of the counter. Yep, solid wood.

  “Now, I’m very sorry that you didn’t get the message,” he said, and he really did sound sorry, probably because on some level he really was.
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  “Me too,” March said. Everyone was sorry. “But I get it now. I get it, I dig it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” March said—and then went scuttling across the floor toward where the gun lay. Healy kicked it away just as March’s fingertips brushed it. March let his eyes slide shut and banged his forehead gently against the floor.

  “What about now?” Healy said. “You get the message now?”

  “Yep,” March said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m cool.”

  “All right,” Healy said. “Give me your left arm.”

  “No!” March squeezed his arm tight against his side.

  “Yeah, come on.” Healy bent over him, wrenched his bandaged hand up behind his back. “You cut yourself?”

  “I’m dealing with an injury!”

  “Right, look,” Healy said, “when you’re talking to your doctor, just tell him you’ve got a spiral fracture of the left radius. Got that?”

  “No, wait,” March shouted, “wait, Jesus, man, stop!”

  “Deep breath,” Healy said.

  March didn’t take even a shallow one, he was too busy yammering, trying to talk Healy out of it. Ah, well. Some people just don’t listen.

  There was a loud crack and March screamed.

  12.

  Coming down the front steps, closing the door behind him, Healy saw the girl from the vacant lot coming the other way, toward him. She had a paper grocery sack in one hand, a bottle in the other.

  They stopped, facing each other, at the curb.

  The girl smiled. “Hi. Want a Yoo-hoo?” She held the bag up and Healy heard glass clink inside it.

  “A Yoo-hoo?” He found himself smiling too. “Are you kidding?” He took a look in the bag, pulled one out. “Oh, yeah. You know, I haven’t had one of those in about thirty years.”

  “You a friend of my dad’s?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, we’re…business associates. He’s inside. Resting.” Healy shook the bottle hard. You had to mix a Yoo-hoo, he remembered, or you got the watery stuff at the top. “Hey, didn’t I see you crawling around a vacant lot earlier?”

  “Maybe?” the girl said. “I read there sometimes.”

  Healy nodded. He popped the cap, took a long swig. It went down smooth.

  “ ‘It’s Me-he for Yoo-hoo!,’ ” he said, then realized she wouldn’t know what the hell he was talking about, having just been a baby when those ads were running. Hell, she might not even know who Yogi Berra was. Probably only knew the cartoon bear.

  “Well,” he said. “Thanks again.”

  The girl waved and walked past him to the door while he opened the door of his Chevelle. “Hey,” he called back. “What’s your name?”

  “Holly March,” the girl said.

  “Holly and Holland. Cute.”

  “My dad wanted a boy,” she said. “If I’d been a boy, I’d’ve been Holland junior.”

  “I’m sure he’s glad with what he’s got.”

  She shrugged. “Not usually.”

  Healy got in the car. He kind of wanted to say something more to her, like Your dad’s gonna be mad or You’re gonna need to take care of him. But he had a feeling she’d figure it out. Seemed like that sort of kid. Precocious.

  He took another swallow and drove off.

  * * *

  Later that night, Healy could be seen lugging two colorful cartons down Sunset Boulevard, past the crowd lined up outside the Comedy Store, in through the public door at the front of the club, past the stage where some curly-haired comic was making jokes about gasohol, and then through the private door behind the stage that led to the stairs. As he lugged them, the cartons made the same clinking sound Holly March’s grocery bag had made, and for the same reason. Yogi knew what he was talking about when he endorsed the stuff. And Healy was making up for decades of lost time.

  Which, incidentally, was why he didn’t drink anymore. Because he wasn’t the sort of person who could take a taste and enjoy it and walk away. If he drank a teaspoon he drank a gallon, it was just the way he was wired. And a gallon of Yoo-hoo would just leave you hyper and pissing all night long, not in the calabozo with a shiner, bloody knuckles, and a judge saying, “Do you remember what you did, Mister Healy?”

  Healy was preoccupied enough with these thoughts that he didn’t notice, as he balanced the cartons on one hand and fit his key in the lock with the other, that someone from the club below had come up the stairs behind him. People did that from time to time, hunting for the bathroom, or maybe thinking there might be a better show playing on the second floor. Wishful thinking.

  He half turned to look at the guy, an older man, black, horn-rimmed glasses, three-piece leisure suit. “It’s not a public area up here.”

  The man nodded toward Healy’s door. “What, you’ve got, like, an apartment up here?”

  “If you’re looking for the restroom, it’s back down the—”

  Suddenly his apartment door swung open. Another man stood in the doorway, younger, white, with brown feathered hair and aviator glasses and a black leather jacket. He had a gun in his hand. “We’re looking for Amelia.”

  Behind him, the older guy pulled a gun, too, from the small of his back, a .38 very much like March’s. Took his horn-rims off, tucked them away in a pocket.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Healy said.

  “We’ll see,” the younger one said. And the gun swung up, came smashing down against the side of Healy’s skull, dropping him like a stone.

  Yoo-hoo bottles shattered on the ground.

  13.

  In this corner of Pasadena, the streets rolled up at night, and cars were mostly kept in garages. So Holly March felt awfully conspicuous sitting in the driver’s seat of her dad’s car at the curb outside the Leisure World retirement complex. Not least because she was twelve years old. Only until Thursday, it was true; after that she could at least say she was a teenager. But she had a feeling that “Actually, officer, I’m about to turn thirteen” wouldn’t be much of a defense if she was challenged.

  Not that age should be what mattered. She felt strongly about that. She knew grown-ups who shouldn’t be trusted behind the wheel. Her dad, for instance. Not the most reliable of drivers, to say the least. And not in any condition to drive at the moment. What was he supposed to do, call taxis to take him everywhere? Hire a chauffeur like some Hollywood bigshot? With what money? Meanwhile, Holly knew all her turn signals, was careful and responsible, and her feet reached the pedals. What was the big deal?

  She looked at her wristwatch. Mickey’s big hand was pointing at the nine. How long did it take to say “I quit”?

  When she’d gone into the house and found her father passed out on the floor, moaning softly, at first she’d thought it had been an accident. That nice man couldn’t have done it—he’d drunk a Yoo-hoo with her. But when her dad finally came to, she got the whole story out of him. She’d made him swear he’d go straight to the client and drop the case, soon as they got out of the emergency room. He’d been more than willing. He should’ve never taken this case in the first place, he said.

  But now he’d been in with the old lady for half an hour, and that didn’t bode well. He was such a pushover, her dad. Couldn’t say no to anyone. Especially when there was money involved.

  “Do you really think she’s still alive?” she’d asked him as they drove over here from the hospital.

  “Who?”

  “ ‘Who,’ ” she said. “The one she hired you to find. Her niece.”

  “No. The head medical examiner himself personally I.D.’d the body.”

  “Oh, I bet he did,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I saw that picture you’ve been carrying around.”

  “You’re not supposed to look at pictures like that,” March said.

  “Then don’t leave them lying around the house.”

  “Touché,” March said.

  And afte
r driving some more: “Dad?”

  “What.”

  “Do all men like big ones like that?”

  “Big what?”

  “ ‘Big what.’ ” She rolled her eyes. “Boobs.”

  March stared straight ahead, out the windshield. “Yes,” he finally said. “All men do.”

  Holly had nodded, filed the information away for future reference, kept driving.

  Now she sat by the curb and picked at her fingernails. She checked her watch again. How much longer—

  Then she saw him coming. His head was down, his shoulders slumped. The cast on his arm shone white as he passed under a streetlamp.

  He climbed in beside her.

  “Did you drop the case?” she asked.

  “Sure, yeah,” he said. “Case closed.”

  “Really?”

  He didn’t say anything. He’d meant to quit. He’d tried to quit. Then Lily Glenn had taken out her checkbook.

  “Can I ask you a question?” March said. “Tell me the truth. And don’t take it easy on me just because I’m your father. Just—tell it to me straight. Am I a bad person?”

  What kind of question was that? “Yes,” she said.

  March sighed. “Just drive,” he said.

  14.

  Healy slammed face-first into the wall, slid to the ground. The younger man, the one with the aviators and the jacket and the gun, loomed over him. Gold chains sparkled against his black-and-gold shirt, which he was wearing over a turtleneck. Guy was a fucking fashion plate.

  In the background, the older guy was tossing the place. Which wasn’t so difficult, because how much stuff did Healy have? A TV set, an aquarium, a calendar. Nine shirts in the closet, a few forks and knives and spoons. A can of fish food. The man was pulling out drawers, dumping the contents on the ground. Lots of luck. He wasn’t going to find Amelia in there.

  The younger one crouched next to Healy.

  “I’m going to ask you again. Where is Amelia?”

  Healy sat up. Spotted a cigarette pack lying on the floor where it had fallen out of one of the drawers. He reached for it, but the younger guy slapped it away.