The Nice Guys

by Charles Ardai

  They were coming around the side of City Hall. “Fuck those guys,” March said. “You can always see their mouths moving.”

  “You can what?” Healy asked.

  “Ventriloquism. Doesn’t work.”

  “Sometimes it does.”

  “Never.”

  They passed a folding card table with a pile of gas masks on it, old military surplus stuff, and two girls behind it who looked like they were eighteen or nineteen and wished they’d been born long enough ago to be hippies. There was a stack of flyers, too, and one of the girls lifted two from the top and held them out to Healy and March. The other one said, “Welcome! Would you like masks…?”

  Healy shook his head and they continued to the top of the steps. That was where they first saw the crowd. It had to be at least fifty people, all lying on the steps of the municipal building, arms and legs spread wide so that each person took up as much room as humanly possible. And, yes, they all had gas masks on. Because, you know, the air. The birds.

  March took a long look at the crowd, at their hand-lettered placards and ratty khaki jackets with peace patches sewn on, at the handful of cops standing around on the perimeter wondering what they had done to pull this assignment, and turned to Healy with a smile. “All right. Well. Goodbye,” he said.

  “Hey, hold on,” Healy said, “what do you mean, goodbye?”

  “This is Amelia’s protest group. Her crew. She’s in there somewhere. So. Have at it.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Healy said, “how do you know she’s in there?”

  “I’m telling you, this is her group. The people she introduced Rocco to. She started it.”

  “Okay, but if she’s holed up somewhere right now, hiding, scared, what makes you think she’s going to be here…?”

  “Of course she’s gonna be here,” March said. “It’s her protest group.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “I’d like to stop saying that.”

  “I heard what you’re saying, it’s her protest group,” Healy said, “but—”

  “I don’t hear you hearing me,” March said. He walked up to the edge of the crowd, stopped with his feet just an inch away from the upturned soles of one protestor’s Doc Martens. “Hey, Amelia?” he shouted. “Amelia?”

  No response.

  Healy joined in: “Amelia?”

  Silence. It was at that point that March realized, for the first time, that the whole plaza was strangely quiet. No chanting, no shouts, no Hey hey, ho ho. What kind of protest was this?

  “She’s not here,” Healy said.

  “She’s here.” March raised his voice. “Amelia?”

  Finally, from somewhere in the middle of the huddled pile of bodies, a voice answered. It was a woman’s, high-pitched and muffled by the gas mask, but you could sort of make it out. “We can’t talk to you.”

  “What?” March said. “Who said that?”

  “We can’t talk to you,” came the voice. “We’re dead.”

  “You’re—” March dry-washed his face with his hand. He looked down at his shoes, started counting to ten. Gave up after four. “Yeah, okay, I get it. Very clever. I’m hip.” He raised his voice again: “But this is actually a really serious matter.”

  “So is this,” came the protestor’s voice. “We’ve all been killed.”

  “No you haven’t.”

  “Fuck you, man,” came a second muffled voice, a man’s. “We’re dead.”

  A guy on the edge of the crowd smoking a hand-rolled cigarette leaned in toward March. He not only looked like Charles Nelson Reilly, he sounded like him too. “They can’t talk to you, man. They’re dead.”

  “Yeah,” March said. “Thanks. That’s helpful.”

  The smoker nodded, smiled. Healy asked him, “What’s the protest about, do you know?”

  The smoker took a long drag, then shouted, “Hey! Any of you know what you’re protesting?”

  The second protestor who’d spoken shouted back, “The air!”

  “Air,” said the smoker, taking another puff.

  “You’re protesting the air?” March said.

  “The pollution!” the guy shouted back. “The birds can’t breathe!”

  “So you all died because of the pollution?” Healy asked.

  A pause. “Right,” came the voice.

  “What about the gas masks?” Healy wanted to know. “They didn’t save you?”

  Longer pause. No one had an answer to that one.

  Until someone did, a new voice, a low baritone. “They didn’t work.”

  March waded into the crowd, trying not to step on anyone, but not trying too hard. “Can we get back to Amelia here?” He heard someone curse as he stepped on her hand. So sorry. “Look, Amelia?” He put both hands to his mouth, making a megaphone, though did that actually do anything? Did it make your voice any louder? Anyway, he did it. “We know you’re here! We need to speak with you!”

  Yet another protestor answered, another woman, sounded like a tenor. The four of them could’ve been a fucking gas mask barbershop quartet. “Hey, dickhead. She’s not here.”

  “Of course she’s here,” March said. “This is her protest group.”

  March glanced back at Healy for help, but the big guy just shrugged.

  “She’s not here because of her boyfriend,” came a new voice, and now it was a quintet.

  “Her boyfriend,” March said, turning toward the section of the crowd the new voice had come from. “Why?”

  “Her boyfriend died. Like, really died. Three days ago.”

  “He died? Wait, then where is she?”

  “Sorry, can’t help you,” the new voice said. “We’re dead.”

  “Goddamn it.” March looked up at the sky, found nothing he was seeking there. Just smog. So maybe these idiots had a point. But he really didn’t much care.

  “All right,” he shouted. “Which one of you cock-and-balls wants to make twenty bucks?”

  17.

  They were in March’s car. He was steering with his injured hand, his right resting by the controls for the radio and the cigarette lighter, and when the latter popped out, he used it to light a Camel. Healy was next to him, riding shotgun. In the back seat, one of the protestors had his gas mask pushed back on his head. His name was Chet. He looked about eighteen years old. He was twenty dollars wealthier than he had been when he got up in the morning, and he was directing them to their destination.

  “Make a left here,” he said, pointing, and March took the turn, drawing up to the sidewalk in front of…well, what would you call it? Not a house. Not anymore.

  It looked like something a giant child might construct out of matchsticks. Burnt matchsticks.

  They got out and—carefully—entered the structure. March knew a thing or two about home fires. Well, a thing, not two, but that was enough to know this had been an especially bad one. There was basically nothing left. No roof, no walls, just a few charred beams and the wreckage of some furnishings that wouldn’t burn: the stove, the toilet.

  “What the fuck is this, Chet?” Healy asked.

  “Dean’s house. Amelia’s boyfriend. I told you, he burned to death.” He looked around. “This place looks so much bigger now.”

  March said, “Did you even really know Amelia, Chet?”

  “Yeah, well, kind of like, mainly through Dean?” He shrugged. “Dean was a filmmaker—I kind of like experimental kinds of films, that’s kind of how we met, ’cause I’m kind of in the business myself.”

  “Yeah?” Healy said. “What do you do?”

  “Projectionalist.”

  March and Healy exchanged a glance. They had the next George Lucas on their hands, clearly.

  “Yeah, anyway,” Chet went on, “Dean had like this whole room filled with film stock. One day it just went up—whoof. Cost the guy his life and his life’s work. Kind of, I don’t know, kind of makes you think, right?”

  “Not really,” March said.

&n
bsp; Through the no-longer-a-wall fronting on the street, March saw a neighborhood kid bicycling past, a boy maybe fourteen years old with floppy hair down to his chin, skinny arms poking out of a sleeveless T. “Hey kid!” March called. “You know the guy who lived here?”

  The kid braked his bike. “Maybe. What’s it to you?”

  Another tough guy. In a few years, he could take over teaching Healy’s course.

  Chet piped up: “He’ll give you twenty bucks if you answer.”

  “Wait, I didn’t say that,” March objected, but the kid’s eyes had lit up.

  “Twenty bucks, man. Or you can blow.”

  March took a deep, deep breath. He was running low on cash, and it’s not like he could get more today—the banks would close any minute. But he handed the kid a pair of tens.

  “Thank you,” the boy sang, cramming the money in his jeans. “Yeah, I knew the dude. Filmmaker dude. Saw him making a film last month.”

  Chet said, “Experimental film, right?”

  “I guess… More like a nudie film.”

  “You see a girl about five-eight,” March asked, “dark hair, named Amelia?”

  He shook his head, hair flopping in his eyes. “Nope. Saw that famous chick, though.”

  “What famous chick?” Healy asked.

  “The dead one. Porn star. Misty something.”

  “You saw Misty Mountains here?”

  The kid nodded and grinned. He must’ve really seen Misty Mountains.

  “But you didn’t see this other girl, Amelia,” March pressed.

  “Nope,” the kid said. “I hung out for a while, too. Talked to the producer. His name was Sid…uh, Sid Hatrack.”

  “Nobody’s name is Hatrack,” March said.

  “Whatever,” the kid said. “I tried to get a job. Offered to show my dick. ’Cause I got a big dick.”

  “Awright,” March said, turning away. That was enough of that.

  “That’s very nice,” Healy said. “You sure you didn’t see another girl?”

  “Nope,” the kid said. “You guys want to see my dick?”

  March said, “Nobody wants to see your dick, dude.”

  “Twenty bucks?”

  “We already paid you twenty bucks,” March began, then stopped himself. “What am I saying?”

  “All right,” the kid said, and began pedaling away. He called over his shoulder, “Fags!”

  “Hey, kid,” March called back.

  “What?”

  “What was the name of that film?”

  “I don’t know…” He thought hard. “Wait, yeah, I do. It was on the cans of film. Stupid title. How Do You Like My Car, Big Boy?”

  18.

  Night had fallen, and they were driving. March was at the wheel, and he was still fuming.

  “ ‘Do you want to see my dick?’ Unbelievable. This is what I’m talking about, it’s over. The days of ladies and gentlemen are over, this is what Holly’s looking down the barrel of. This is what she’s dealing with, the fucking Chets of this world, and that idiot.”

  “Well,” Healy said, trying once again to change the subject, “one thing we know for sure, something funny’s going on.”

  “No there’s not. Guy burned up. It happens,” March said. “Trust me, I know.”

  “It happened three days ago, the exact same day Amelia fell off my radar.”

  March chuckled. “Your radar.”

  “Something’s going on,” Healy insisted. “And we’re going to find out what.”

  March drove on, through darkness punctuated by grimy signs and grimier lives.

  “Fine. You got me for two days. But two days is two days. That’s the deal. Like it or lump it.”

  “Sure,” Healy said. “Just to clarify—I decide to ‘lump it,’ what does that involve?”

  “I don’t know,” March said. “It’s from the Bible.”

  They turned onto Hollywood Boulevard, where the signs were bigger, brighter, and advertised movies like Jaws 2 and Airport ’77 rather than lube jobs and car washes. Nothing else changed much.

  “Let me tell you what two days of detective work looks like,” March said. “You drive around like an asshole. You’re going to spend half the time interviewing guys like Chet, you spend the other half trying to translate from fuckhead-speak to English, and when it’s over, the only thing that’s changed is that the sun went down twice.”

  “And nothing ever works out, is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Never.”

  “But you get paid,” Healy said.

  “Sometimes.” March noticed something out of the corner of his eye. “Hey. Son of a bitch. Hatrack.”

  “What?” Healy asked, but March was already pulling over, coming to a stop at the foot of a giant billboard.

  “Hatrack. Look.”

  Looming above them, lit like a thousand suns, was a sign topped by the words A “Savage” Sid Shattuck Production. At the bottom was the name of the movie, Pornookio, the letters all flesh-colored and the two middle Os sporting erect pink nipples. In between was a painting of a man with the red cheeks and long wooden nose of the puppet boy, only the nose was curved up like a giant dong and three women were straddling it. The one riding the tip, with just a sheet around her to cover her breasts, was Misty Mountains.

  Healy said. “Sid Shattuck? Who’s that?”

  “Savage Sid, the porn king,” March said. “Experimental films, my ass. They were making a porno. And that kid said Shattuck was there.”

  “Well, he didn’t burn up,” Healy said. “So let’s go talk to him.”

  * * *

  March was on the phone, its cord stretching behind him as he paced around the living room, while Holly prepared dinner: buttered toast and canned corned beef, her specialty.

  “I said I’d like to speak to Sid personally. I’m asking after a friend of ours, Amelia. I’m an old friend. Yes.”

  Holly glanced through the front window. Healy was waiting in the driveway, hands in his pockets.

  “Why don’t we invite him in?” she asked.

  March covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “No animals in the house, sweetheart.” He went back to his call. “Yeah, I’m here. Say that again? Okay. Thank you very much.” He handed the receiver to Holly to hang up. She dropped it on the sofa.

  “Was that the number you got for Sid Shattuck?”

  “Yeah,” March said, grabbing his cigarettes and matches. “They’re getting ready for a party. I asked about Amelia, and they said she’d be right back.”

  “Back? Like she’s been staying there?”

  “Yeah,” March said, and struck a match. He touched it to a Camel.

  “So we found her!”

  “Maybe.” March shook out the match, went to the closet, began strapping on his shoulder holster. “Can you stay at one of your friends’ tonight?”

  “I can stay with Jessica, but…” She headed over to the stove, turned off the burners. Stuck the corned beef back in the cabinet. So much for dinner. “You’re going to a party?”

  “I’m going to a big party,” March said. He was struggling to get the holster strap over his cast. She helped him with it. “Jacket?”

  Holly dug his jacket out of a pile of clothes on the sofa. She looked unhappy.

  “Sweetheart, it’s a job. I’ve got to take it. If I don’t, we won’t get to live in such a nice house.”

  “I hate this house,” Holly said. “We’re not even supposed to be here.”

  “Go to Janet’s.”

  “Jessica’s.”

  Like he knew the difference. Wait, maybe he did. “Which one is she?”

  “The one with brown hair.”

  March smiled. Brown hair. There was a distinctive feature. “She the one with the glass eye…?”

  “The one that you like,” Holly said, sort of disgusted.

  “…and, like, the Hitler ’stache?”

  Holly heaved a sigh, got her own jacket on, and walked out.

  Near th
e front steps, she passed Healy. Right about where he’d drunk one of her Yoo-hoos before. She’d left the front door standing open, and he started toward it.

  She watched him climb the steps, tried to think of something to say that would keep this evening from spiraling further out of control. “I’m friends with a cop, you know,” she finally called out.

  Healy stopped in the doorway. “Is that so?”

  “He likes my dad a lot too.”

  “Maybe they should get married,” Healy said.

  Fuming, she turned and headed down to the street, where her father’s car was parked.

  * * *

  This time, they were driving to Bel Air, and it might as well have been in a different state. Hell, it might as well have been on a different planet. No billboards dotted the landscape here, and no grime, either. Even the stars seemed to sparkle a little more brightly in the heavens, especially if you’d started the evening with a bump, as March figured most of Sid Shattuck’s guests would have.

  He, personally, didn’t do that shit. You had to draw the line somewhere. But a drink never hurt, and he’d taken a bracing swallow before getting behind the wheel. He’d offered the pint to Healy, but the guy had declined, even after March had wiped the mouth of the bottle ostentatiously. And fuck, what difference did it make, it was alcohol, wasn’t it, wouldn’t that kill all the germs anyway?

  But Healy had refused, and that had returned the evening to the sour note it had been on ever since they’d left the burned-out wreck of Dean’s house.

  They didn’t talk most of the way, then Healy started grilling him. “So, you know…the old lady…did you believe her?”

  “What about?”

  “When she said she saw Misty alive that night. Did you believe her?”

  “God, no. She’s blind as a bat.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She has actual Coke bottles for glasses,” March said. “You paint a mustache on a Volkswagen, she says, ‘Boy, that Omar Sharif sure runs fast.’ ”

  “But she read the license plate number off a moving car,” Healy said. “And remembered it.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “The lady’s not blind, and she’s not crazy.”

  “And…?”

  “I’m just saying, she saw something.”