The Nice Guys

by Charles Ardai

  “Yes!” March exploded. Holly and Healy looked at him. Jesus. He lowered his voice. “I mean, you know, yes? She was murdered. Yeah. I’m sorry.”

  “But we’re going to bring down the people who did it,” Holly said, firmly.

  “Yeah,” March said, nodding sincerely. “And for a deeply discounted rate.”

  38.

  There were hotels and hotels. Compared to this one, the Burbank Airport Western was a doll house. Two glass towers, connected by an elevated walkway, rose at least thirty stories in the air. At their foot, an enormous swimming pool glowed turquoise in the beams of giant searchlights, the sort they’d have at a movie premiere. And it was a premiere—only the stars in this case were the two-ton vehicles rotating majestically on turntables with beautiful women beside them to add to their luster.

  “Welcome to Los Angeles, and the 1978 Pacific Coast Auto Show!” an announcer’s voice boomed from loudspeakers set up all over the grounds, while on a screen three stories high a projected image showed smiling people enjoying next year’s finest cars. WOOD GRAIN PANELING read one caption. And: RECLINING FABRIC SEATS. And: CARPETED DOOR PANELS. And: STYLED ROAD WHEELS.

  March led the way through the main pavilion and into the lobby of the near tower, Healy following close on his heels and Holly playing caboose. March hadn’t wanted to bring her at first, but she’d put her foot down, and, well, fuck it, he figured she’d earned it if that’s what she wanted. Anyway, who could say she’d be safer by herself somewhere? That had almost ended terribly the last time.

  After asking at the desk, they rode an elevator up to the ninth floor and found their way to a central atrium. They passed a group of long-haired young men who’d tried to clean up and look more Establishment, but only succeeded in looking like hippies in shoplifted duds. Two were wearing pink suit jackets and the third had on cream over a beige bowtie. They were all taking a cigarette break.

  “You guys know where the projection room is?” March asked, figuring these guys for Chet’s peer group.

  One of them, the porkiest, aimed a thumb toward a nearby hallway.

  “You seen Chet, the projectionist?”

  “He just left,” the porky guy said, “like ten minutes ago, went for a drink. And you are…?”

  “In a hurry,” March answered, and headed down the hallway. “Thanks, buddy.”

  “How’d you know my name was Buddy?” the guy called after him.

  But March was past answering. He continued till they got to a locked door marked “STAFF ONLY—DO NOT ENTER.” This had to be it. It was at the end of the hall, and would have a view out the window to the courtyard below. From the hallway window, they could see the projected image currently on display. It showed a car and a man standing before it—Bergen Paulsen, auto industry spokesman—reciting its virtues for the assembled crowds. March couldn’t hear what he was saying through the sealed window, but he assumed the car could not only drive itself but make you a cocktail while you rode. Cars of the future always seemed to do things like that.

  “We’ve got to get in there,” March said, and turning back from the window discovered that Healy already had the lock open. He was rising from one knee and slipping a lockpick back into his pocket. Well. That was handy, certainly.

  March suggested that Holly stay outside and keep watch, maybe from around that corner there? Holly nodded and took up the position. Healy, meanwhile, had opened the door and gone in.

  Inside, they found two projectors set up, both aimed at the open glass doors to the terrace. One projector was running, the footage of Paulsen and his cocktail-making car, and the other had a film queued up to run. Healy ran to that one and unspooled a length, held it up to the light. He just saw frame after frame of—

  “It’s just a bunch of cars.” He squinted to read some type in one run of frames. “ ‘Motor City Pride.’ That’s not it. It’s not the film.”

  “Shit,” March said. He picked up a few film cans he saw lying on a table, but they were all empty. “Fucking Chet. He’s probably still got it stashed somewhere.” He kicked the leg of the table and one of the film cans clattered to the ground.

  The noise covered the sound of the hotel room door unlatching again, and neither of them noticed that someone had come in until they heard the click of a hammer arming a handgun.

  They turned, saw Tally kick the door shut behind her.

  “Tally!” March said. She was dressed in the most stunning coral dress, gold belt, dangling metal earrings, and she’d done something with her hair—it was no longer pinned back, now it was a luxuriant afro. “My god, you look incredible. How do you get your hair to…? It’s magnificent.”

  She waved the gun at him and he put his hands up.

  “Listen,” March said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but there’s been some foul play. Do you know that that suitcase that you gave us, somebody switched it out? There was no money it.”

  Healy saw Tally’s eyes roll and felt his own going as well.

  “No shit,” Tally said, in a no-nonsense voice—a no-more-nonsense voice, to be specific. “Weapons on the floor. Now.”

  Healy reached into his jacket, got his gun out and tossed it on the floor. March reluctantly threw his away too.

  “I guess you killed the projectionist, huh?” Healy said.

  “No,” Tally said, “my associate is out looking for him now. We’ll find him.”

  Healy gave her a serious look, spoke softly. “Tally, let me ask you something. You ever really killed anybody?”

  “In Detroit, yeah. Three times.”

  “Really?” So much for that approach.

  “That’s where this all started,” Tally said. “The Detroit show. That bitch, Misty, shooting her mouth off about her new movie. All the stir it would cause.”

  “Tally…this is not you,” March said. “You’re not a murderer.”

  “She just said she killed three people,” Healy reminded him.

  “I know,” March said, “but I’m saying deep down.” He pointed to his heart, to show how deep down he meant.

  “Hey, look, one’s a mistake,” Healy said, “but, I mean, three, you’re a murderer.”

  “Don’t paint her with that brush,” March said. “It’s easy to live in your world, right, where everyone fits in their place, you pigeonhole people—”

  “See what’s in front of you,” Healy begged him, “she’s got a gun.”

  “You just paint everyone with that brush.”

  “She’s killed three people. Come on, man.”

  “You don’t know her upbringing, you don’t know why she…”

  “No, I’m just telling you—”

  There was a hammering at the door. A low voice called out, “Room service.”

  Well, not a low voice. A high voice, but trying to sound low, like a little girl might.

  Tally was momentarily distracted, and March seized the opportunity to drop to the ground and start fumbling with the leg of Healy’s pants. He was patting Healy’s right calf, his shin. Nothing. He started pawing Healy’s left leg, feeling all around.

  “Shit!” Healy said. He threw one hand up as Tally turned back and brought her gun up again. “No!”

  “What’s wrong with him?” she demanded.

  “I…I don’t know,” Healy said. “I’m gonna ask him. March…?”

  “Yeah,” March said. He had his hand up inside Healy’s pants, was reaching up as far as he could go.

  “Uh…what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Did you move it?” March asked. He was pawing Healy’s thighs now, desperate.

  “Move what?”

  “The fucking gun!”

  “What gun?”

  “The fucking ankle gun!”

  “Who told you I had an ankle gun?” Healy asked.

  “You did! In the car, before we crashed! You were like, oh, check out my ankle gun, you slide your pants up, you show me your ankle gun…”

  Healy just looked confused. Tally lo
oked confused and slightly disgusted.

  “Come on, are you serious?” Healy said. He was starting to look a little disgusted, too. “You fucking serious?”

  “Oh, shit,” March said, realizing, “did I dream that?”

  “Yeah,” Healy said. “Yeah, you moron, you dreamt it.”

  March raised one finger. He was still thinking it through. “No…no…” Then: “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  “Shut up!” Tally waved the gun at them. “Just shut up, both of you.”

  The hammering came at the door again. “Room service!”

  Tally kept the gun on them as she stepped back and threw the door open. “Holly? You can come in now.”

  And Holly did. Wheeling a room service cart. Plates, glasses, a candle, a thermos carafe of coffee.

  Tally laughed. “Very clever, Holly.”

  “Thanks,” Holly said, “I thought so.” She grabbed the carafe and hurled its contents in Tally’s direction. She was drenched in coffee.

  But it didn’t have the desired effect.

  “Why did you just throw cold coffee on me?” Tally asked her.

  “I got it in the hallway,” Holly said, sheepishly. “I thought it was hot.”

  From where he lay, sprawled on the floor at Healy’s feet, March piped up. “I like where your head’s at, sweetheart. That really could’ve worked out.”

  “All right: everybody, in the corner,” Tally ordered and strode toward them. One of her platform shoes slid on the slick of cold coffee puddled on the floor beneath her, and then her legs were going out from under her and she landed flat on her back, a little like Amelia had when she’d flown backward off the hood of their car. And with a similar result: her head struck the edge of a table on the way down, and though her finger tightened reflexively on the trigger, shooting a bullet and shattering a light fixture, Tally was unconscious when she hit the ground.

  March sprang to his feet. “Well.” He straightened his jacket. “That really worked out.”

  “Yeah,” Healy said. He picked up his own gun and grabbed Tally’s while he was at it.

  March slid his back into his holster. “Now we just have to find fucking Chet before John-Boy does.”

  “Yeah,” Healy said again. “Well, that guy said he was going for a drink. You take the roof bar, I’ll take downstairs.” He patted Holly on the arm. She was still trembling. “Well done, kiddo.”

  He headed for the door.

  March was tucking a pillow under Tally’s head. He took a second to pet her hair. Holly stared at him.

  “No reason she has to be uncomfortable.”

  “Right,” Holly said.

  He got up and made for the elevators.

  39.

  Upstairs, downstairs.

  Like that TV show his wife had hated, saying it didn’t reflect Brits well, even though it was made by Brits, wasn’t it? Yes, it was, she conceded; but was every TV show made by Americans a good reflection of America? March didn’t have to answer that one. The fifties hadn’t really been like Happy Days, that was for sure. And probably the thirties hadn’t been like The Waltons.

  Speaking of which.

  March scanned the portion of the upstairs lounge area he could see from the entry hall by the elevators, half hoping he’d spot the son of a bitch, half hoping he wouldn’t. In any event he didn’t. He hoped Healy was having better luck downstairs. Worse luck. Whatever.

  He turned to Holly. “Just wait here. I’m going to take a look around.”

  “I want to help!”

  “You can help by staying put,” he said, and she crossed her arms in a huff.

  “Promise me you’ll get the film?” Holly said.

  “Yeah, sure, I promise,” March said, gazing around, trying to notice faces. It was crowded. John-Boy could be up here somewhere.

  “Pinky promise?” Holly asked, holding up the relevant digit, already crooked for him to take it.

  He hesitated, but there was no saying no to that face. He linked fingers with her. “Pinky promise.”

  She smiled, satisfied. Her dad might break his vows to anyone else—everyone else—but not a pinky promise to her.

  “Fuck,” March muttered under his breath, and headed off, scanning the crowd to either side of him.

  “Hey, pal,” a voice called as he passed one bar, “what can I do you for?” The man behind the counter, a bullet-headed bartender in formal vest, black tie and shirt sleeves, waited for his answer.

  March did his best Jackson Healy impression and turned him down with a wave. He was working, there were killers on the loose, he needed to keep his wits about him.

  The bartender came right back at him: “Free drinks. What are you having?”

  Well, free drinks. He supposed one wouldn’t hurt.

  Hell, you never knew, the bartender might know something.

  * * *

  Downstairs, Healy had missed by no more than ten minutes a scene that the bartender down there was now describing to him. Yes, a man had come by, a tall, good looking man with a bad haircut and a big mole on the side of his face. Yes, he’d been looking for Chet. Yes, he’d found him.

  “You the projectionist?” he’d said, or words to that effect—the bartender hadn’t been paying too close attention, understand?

  Healy understood.

  Chet had swallowed a good mouthful of his drink before responding, a Manhattan, as the bartender re-called—no, a Rob Roy, that was it, a dry Rob Roy, he remembered the kid had been very particular about it, like he knew fuck-all about cocktails at whatever he was, eighteen? If that. For heaven’s sake, did you know what your drink was at eighteen…?

  Healy had been kind of partial to all of them, actually. But that wasn’t the point right now. He tried to steer the bartender back: So, the kid had gone with the tall man…?

  Well, not at first—he had half his drink left, remember. But the tall man had gotten into it with him, saying stuff like “We have a problem on nine” and “Someone knocked over the projector, the film’s all over the floor.” The kid had gone, “Film’s on the floor, really?” and the tall man was like, “Yeah. It’s a mess.”

  And then the kid had gone with him…?

  Well, he took one more swallow of his drink first, his dry Rob Roy, but then, yeah, he’d gotten up and followed the big guy.

  Which way?

  The bartender pointed—and Healy pounded off, right through the side door he was indicating.

  It was a service door, and behind it Healy found a loading dock full of wooden pallets stored on end and metal galley racks waiting for kitchen trays to fill them up. A blustery union man sitting with half his capacious ass on a stool (Capacious, adjective: large in capacity, spacious) pointed him toward the far end of the dock.

  Healy jogged down to that end, peering into the shadows, calling out, “Hey, Chet? Chet?”

  He heard a groan in response, muffled, as if the person doing the groaning was covered under a pile of laundry or something. It turned out to be a pile of garbage, heaped high in a dumpster by one wall. The groaning got louder as Healy approached. He tossed broken-down cardboard boxes to either side and some leftovers from the evening’s kitchen prep: wilted lettuce leaves, carrot peelings, onion skins. Halfway down he found Chet, his face a bloody mass of bruises and broken bones.

  “Hey—hey, Chet?”

  “Uhhh,” the kid moaned. His eyes were closed. Closed, hell—they were swollen shut. Healy had seen fighters who’d gone a dozen rounds that looked better than this kid. Losing fighters.

  But then they’d fought in their own weight class.

  “Amelia’s film,” Healy said, feeling lousy about pressing, but figuring he didn’t have much time—not just because John-Boy was on the move again, also because this kid didn’t look like he had more than a sentence left in him. “Where is it?”

  The kid told him.

  It only took a sentence.

  Which was just as well, since he was dead by the end of it.

&nbs
p; * * *

  John-Boy’s voice came out of the walkie-talkie, and just hearing it again made Holly’s skin crawl. She sat up straighter and listened. “The film is in the projector,” John-Boy said, his voice low and crackling with static. “Repeat: in the projector.”

  “We already checked that,” came the response, and this voice Mr. Healy would’ve recognized, and maybe her dad, but Holly did not. She peered over her shoulder, trying to make it look casual as she did so. The guy speaking into the walkie-talkie was older than her dad, older than Healy, but not old old—just a regular-looking older guy, black, wearing a red three-piece suit, and walking around with a limp, like maybe he’d injured his leg sometime recently.

  John-Boy was talking again: “It’s spliced into the middle, right in the other film.”

  “Tell Tally, she’s the closest.”

  The voice crackled from the speaker. “She’s not answering.”

  “On my way,” said the older man, sounding concerned. As he flicked off the walkie-talkie, he spied Holly looking at him. She turned away, bent her head forward, imagined herself a turtle huddling inside its shell. Maybe he hadn’t actually seen her—she could hope. And if he had, maybe it wouldn’t mean anything to him. She was just a girl who’d noticed a guy talking into a walkie-talkie, that’s all. There was no reason he’d recognize her. People always said she looked nothing like her dad.

  When nothing happened for a minute, she began to relax.

  Then a voice whispered at her ear. “Don’t you know it’s rude to eavesdrop?”

  * * *

  Sadly, the bartender hadn’t known anything other than how to keep pouring piña coladas. But he’d done that skillfully and March was now thoroughly lubricated. Maybe that’s why he didn’t show any reaction at all when the guy in the red suit sidled up behind him and said, “I’ve got a gun pointed directly at your daughter’s spine.”

  “A gun…? Why’s that?” March said. He looked up, saw the two of them in the mirror behind the bar, Holly in front looking downcast, the black guy behind her in his Santa suit—or was it Satan? Someone who dressed all in red, anyway. “Hey, Holly, your buddy here wan’ a drink? They’re free.”