The Nice Guys

by Charles Ardai

  “Mr. March,” said Red Suit, “I want to know what you and your friend did with Tally—”

  March spun on his stool to face them. Holly’s heart fell when she realized he was smashed. Absolutely smashed.

  “Squee-dap!” March squeezed his eyes shut and sang, a poor echo of the jazzy melody playing over the bar’s loudspeakers. “Boo-do-bup-ba! Bippity boo dat boo… How does that song go?”

  Holly sighed in disgust.

  “Get up,” the man said. “Right now. We’re taking a walk.”

  March alit from the stool, teetered a little when he landed. “Lead the way, Santa baby.”

  “No,” the man said, “you lead.” He prodded Holly in the back with his gun. She took her father’s arm and fought to keep him upright as they walked toward the other side of the roof. The empty side.

  “Where we goin’?” March said with a grin. “We gonna watch the birds…?”

  The man cocked his gun. “We’re gonna clear your head. One way or another.”

  * * *

  Down on the ninth floor, in the projection room, a little device with a numbered dial on the front clicked and the dial rotated one step counter-clockwise. There was a notch on the dial above the number zero, and above that, on a metal ring surrounding the dial, there was a red arrow, pointing downward at the top like the flapper on a wheel of fortune. The notch had been two clicks away from the arrow. It was now just one click away. Deep in the guts of this little device, an even littler motor was humming away.

  A wire ran from the base of the device along the floor past where Tally lay, head still on the pillow, and up along the leg of a table. From there, the wire ran into the back of one of the movie projectors aimed out the open glass door of the balcony.

  The one bearing the threaded reels of Motor City Pride.

  * * *

  The older guy had walked March and Holly at gunpoint to the edge of the roof, where a waist-high railing was all that stood between them and a thirty-story drop. The breeze was sharp here. There was just one bird around, and it took off when it saw them coming, flapping away into the night.

  Holly held on tight to her father’s arm as long as she could, but when the man gestured with his gun to let him go, she did. March flopped forward onto all fours. “Ah, Christ. Help him up,” the older man said, and Holly went back to his side and lifted him by one elbow again.

  “Where’s Tally, damn it?”

  March was breathing deeply, his eyes still unfocused. “Tally who?” he mumbled. “Tally ho…” He wagged a finger in the direction of the gun.

  “Why’d you have to bring the goddamn kid?” the older guy said. He seemed genuinely angry about it.

  It seemed to wake March up a little. “I fucked up,” he slurred.

  “Yeah, you fucked up.”

  March started crying. Holly stood there holding onto him, biting her lip. She had to do something. It couldn’t go down this way, it just couldn’t.

  “Go on,” March slurred. “Leggo. I c’n stand.”

  The man waved her away with his gun and she stepped back, trying hard not to think of it as what it was, namely stepping out of the line of fire.

  March swayed a bit, but stayed upright this time.

  Holly looked around desperately, searching for something she could use as a weapon. But there was nothing in her reach. There was a folded wooden chair leaning against the housing of a giant ventilation fan that was maybe in her dad’s reach—but a whole lot of good that was right now.

  She could shout, call for help, but the bar seemed so far away, and the music was loud there, and even if she were heard, which wasn’t likely, a couple of bullets could silence them both before anyone could come to their aid.

  She steeled herself to do the only other thing she could think of: run at the guy, try to jump him, and almost certainly get killed in the process.

  * * *

  Down in the projection room, the little dial turned.

  This time, a bell went ding! and the projector came to life, fan turning, light on, reels beginning to rotate.

  In the courtyard nine stories below, a dozen loudspeakers boomed with the sound of an announcer’s polished voice: “Welcome, Los Angeles, to the finest suite of automobiles Detroit has to offer!”

  John-Boy went rigid, then turned his face toward the giant screen towering overhead, where an image of Bergen Paulsen standing beside an industry insignia was being replaced by footage of a 1978 Ford, first rotating in a showroom, then planted in a suburban driveway. “The word luxury redefined,” the announcer recited. “In addition to the most distinctive stylings, we are bringing you interiors that are comfort assured, combining velour, leather, wood paneling, and improved…”

  Up on the roof, Holly had been about to launch her run at the gunman, but the film starting below had startled her. She looked over at the gunman, hoping maybe it had startled him too, but he was a professional and didn’t seem to have budged an inch. He didn’t even budge when the announcer’s voice abruptly cut out and the car footage ground to a stop, replaced by a counting-down film leader, the radar-sweep hand circling past 3, then 2, then cutting to a frame containing the words “THIS PICTURE IS SUITABLE ONLY FOR ADULTS.”

  Over the railing, Holly saw two naked bodies on the screen, a man and a woman, the man thrusting between the woman’s upraised legs, and the words “A SAVAGE SID SHATTUCK PRODUCTION” emerging from the middle of the screen.

  It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, most recently at Shattuck’s party, and it didn’t faze her too much—she had more pressing things on her mind. But down below, the crowd responded with a mixture of gasps, laughter, and anger. Was this deliberate? A gag of some sort? A mistake?

  The naked bodies were replaced by a medium shot of a busty brunette in a blue pinstripe outfit and black-framed glasses, sitting in a brown leather chair behind a desk that looked remarkably like Judith Kuttner’s. The picture freeze-framed and went monochrome as text appeared on the screen: first Misty Mountains in, and then, below that, How do you like my car, Big boy?

  Somewhere in the crowd, Bergen Paulsen exclaimed, “Oh my god.”

  John-Boy turned away from the screen, his steely eyes following the projection beam back to its source, the brightly lit balcony on the ninth floor. What the hell was Williams doing? This had to be dealt with before it went too far.

  And up on the roof, Holland March was blubbering, wiping his eyes with his forearm.

  Kingsley Williams thought it was unseemly in the extreme. He would be glad to put an end to it, frankly. Not just because it was his job to do so, not just because there was clearly no time left, but because a man like this was no man at all. Dragging his daughter into a situation she should never have been in, and then carrying on in front of her like a weakling. “You want her to see you like this? You fucking drunk.” March was bawling now. “Oh, don’t start that crying shit…”

  March struggled to get words out between soggy gulps: “I want…”

  “You drunk motherfucker, you.” Williams raised his gun, aimed it squarely between the man’s eyes. It was better than this asshole deserved.

  March whined in Holly’s direction, “I love you…”

  “It’s embarrassing,” Williams said.

  “I’m sorry baby…duck…”

  “What?” Holly said.

  Suddenly Holland March wasn’t drunk anymore. And the wooden chair was in his hands. “Duck!” he said.

  She did, and March swung the chair like Mr. October, smacking Kingsley Williams’ gun out of his hand and his hand practically off his wrist. The pistol flew off into the night the way that bird had.

  But it took more than a broken wrist to stop a man like Williams, and he was on March in an instant, grappling with him, forcing him bodily back, socking him with a vicious left to the midsection and a headbutt to the throat. “Motherfucker,” he spat.

  March tried desperately to reach his holster, and Williams tried equally desperately to pry his hand
away.

  If Williams hadn’t been using his left against March’s right, if March hadn’t been only inches from his gun to start with—well, who knows. You can ask what if all night long. Point is, Williams was and March was, and the gun slid out and into March’s hand, and then three bullets—one, two, three—shot out of the barrel and into the center of Williams’ vest. Which got redder and redder.

  Williams staggered back, arms flailing, gasping for breath. He was a dead man, just hadn’t quite got there yet. Fuck. So much for raising the foundation and patching the roof, so much for the trip to Tahiti he’d been putting away for, little at a time. So much for Tally’s scholarship fund. A man could hope to raise his goddaughter right, could pinch and plan, but it’s the Lord decides, yes sir.

  And this bastard—this March, this fucking drunk, this faker—who knew but that he’d already shot poor Tally, same way he’d just shot him?

  As he fell backward, he saw Holly beside him and in an instant of vindictive fury that would cost him his entrance to Heaven, but fuck it, Saint Peter’d probably had him on a no-fly list for decades now, he grabbed Holly’s arm. She was going with him, and see how Mr. Quick Draw liked that.

  * * *

  Without an instant’s thought March launched himself at the falling man. A missile, he was a fucking missile.

  He shouldered Holly out of the man’s grasp, barely registered it as she dropped heavily to the roof.

  Barely registered it because he realized with horror that there was nothing under him but the bullet-riddled body of a middle-aged killer in a red suit and thirty stories of air.

  40.

  This is what was going down on the giant movie screen as March and Williams struggled on the rooftop and then as they fell.

  A porn actor in cheesy old-man makeup was leaning across Misty’s desk. “Well, I’m Bulgin’ Paulsen,” he said, “and I represent the Detroit auto manufacturers! That’s who the hell I am!”

  In the crowd at the foot of the screen, the real Paulsen looked horrified. Squirmed.

  On the screen, Misty rose from behind the desk, seal of the government on the wall behind her. A nameplate on the desk read Judith Kitty-Purr. “You poison our air! The people won’t stand for it!”

  “Nothin’ says they can’t lie down,” Bulgin’ Paulsen cooed.

  “Well…” Misty said, “I might be persuaded to change my mind. Perhaps if we came to a monetary arrangement…?”

  “Maybe I could put you in touch with my staff,” Bulgin’ Paulsen said.

  “That can come later,” Misty said, emphasizing the third word. This was acting at its finest. “First, I’ll take wire transfers to Union Federal, account number two-two-one-two-nine. Just tell me the exact amounts to expect…I’ll also need the dates and check numbers…”

  “What, now?”

  “Right now, big boy.”

  Bulgin’ Paulsen looked worried. “How do I know you’re not wearin’ a wire?”

  Misty ripped open her jacket, popping the buttons and revealing nothing underneath but her 38 triple-Ds. On the giant screen, each nipple was the height of a man. This could easily be discerned as Williams fell past one and March past the other.

  “Do I look like I’m wearing a wire…?” she said.

  That’s what was going down.

  That, and Kingsley Williams and Holland March.

  41.

  Splat.

  42.

  Ah, but that’s misleading.

  Williams, who had gone off the roof first, had momentum in his favor. But in colliding with him, March transferred some of that momentum to himself. He tumbled over Williams’ flailing body and fell in a slightly wider arc, Williams in a slightly narrower one. It wasn’t a very big difference. They only landed a few feet apart. But in Williams’ case that meant hitting the tiled floor surrounding the swimming pool. In March’s case it meant hitting the water.

  It was all a thing of angles. Had he cannonballed in, it would probably have killed him. Landing flat would’ve broken his back and any number of other approaches would’ve snapped his neck like a twig. But what happened was, he went in clean and smooth, if not quite like Phil Boggs off the three meter at Montreal, at least like Greg Louganis off the ten.

  You might wonder if March had maybe been a diver back in high school or at the police academy, but the answer is no. He hadn’t even bothered to fill the pool at his rental, you’ll recall. He really couldn’t give a fuck about swimming or diving.

  So there was no reason at all for him to survive this fall. None. Nada. It was just a matter of dumb luck. Which was really the only kind March had.

  He plunged into the water, kept going, twisting and thrashing. He lost consciousness for just a second, was awakened a second later when his ass bumped hard against the bottom of the pool. Then he was blinking, blinking, trying to make sense of where he was, wondering why he was alive at all, trying to remember not to open his fucking mouth and take the deep breath he was badly craving.

  Fortunately, the water was lit brightly by the searchlights outside, and he saw someone swimming toward him. A good Samaritan, surely. Someone who’d seen him fall and jumped in to help. But then the figure came closer and March could see it was a jowly, balding man in a navy business suit, and not just any jowly, balding man—it was Richard Nixon.

  No. No fucking way.

  March turned tail and swam as fast as he fucking could for the light at the edge of the pool.

  * * *

  At that instant, John-Boy was walking purposefully through the panicked crowd, toward the rotating turntable where a chesty girl in a green dress was promoting a red Chrysler. Behind him, people were shrieking—men and women alike—who’d seen Williams land or, worse, been near enough to be spattered when he did.

  Well, a bit of chaos was a good thing—anyone screaming and running about wasn’t watching the screen, and anyone who might have been trying to listen to the audio track would have a hard time hearing it now.

  But more chaos would be even better, and with that in mind John-Boy casually picked a mini-grenade out of his jacket pocket, pulled the pin, and slung the explosive under the Chrysler. He kept walking, briskly, unholstering an automatic weapon from under his arm as he went. When the grenade exploded a few seconds later, scattering car parts and body parts in every direction, he was already firing up at the ninth-floor window.

  It took a fair number of bullets, but eventually the projector light burst and the giant projection screen went black. Finally.

  Two other things happened then:

  Up on the roof, Holly saw the screen go dark and ran for the elevators. This couldn’t be good. She had to rescue the film. It’s what her dad would’ve wanted.

  And down in the projection room, fragments from the exploding bulb sprayed the room. One red-hot shard of glass landed on Tally’s cheek, and finally she came to.

  * * *

  March’s head broke the surface of the water just as the grenade went off, and he found himself ducking under again to avoid the shrapnel spraying through the air. When he came up for the second time, the danger had passed—or at least that danger had. There was still the danger of getting trampled by the crowds racing in every direction, plus there was the fiery wreck on the turntable, tongues of flame licking high into the air, not to mention the maniac firing an automatic pistol at the hotel building.

  Wait, he knew that maniac.

  With unsteady arms, March pulled himself out of the pool. There was a flattened red pile at poolside, some of it fabric, some of it human. March didn’t look at it too closely. But he spotted a weapon on the edge of the pile—his own, dropped as he fell. He grabbed it, dabbled it in the pool to clean it off, and ran toward where John-Boy had just stopped shooting at the window.

  He wasn’t entirely sober, he realized; he hadn’t been as drunk as he’d pretended when the guy had approached him with Holly at gunpoint, but he hadn’t been as sober as he’d pretended when he’d gone for the home run swing
with the wooden chair either. And even the fall and the dousing in the pool hadn’t gotten him the rest of the way to a clear brain. But maybe that was for the best. Too much clarity wouldn’t serve him well right now.

  He fired off a couple of rounds in John-Boy’s direction as he ran. John-Boy dropped behind a corner of the bar beside him for cover, then popped out just long enough to let loose a barrage at March. The bullets ricocheted off the side of the gold car rotating slowly on a turntable beside him. March jumped over the car’s hood and slid down the other side. His heart was beating a mile a minute and his hands were shaking.

  “God…God…” he heard himself saying. Fuck. Stop it, March. He sat down hard with his back to the car door, forced himself to close his eyes, take steady breaths. There was a car between him and the maniac; he was safe. All he had to do was calm down and then take his shot. Easier said than done, though—the calming down part.

  “You can do this, you can do this,” he told himself, squeezing his eyes tight and gripping the gun in both hands. “Three…two…one…” He spun, went up on his knees, steadied his elbows on the hood, sighted across it, and—

  Where the hell was John-Boy?

  For that matter, where was the bar?

  A new barrage of gunfire blasted toward him from behind, glancing off the car again and very nearly cutting him in half. He tumbled sideways to get away, wound up on all fours like he had on the roof.

  Fucking turntable! Though he could hardly blame the thing for, you know, turning. Fuck him, for not thinking of it, for letting the bastard get behind him. He rolled along the ground, came up firing, in the right direction this time, though he was hardly aiming and had no idea what he’d hit. It hadn’t been John-Boy, that’s for sure, since the crazy mother was striding toward him now, raising his gun—

  A new barrage of gunfire erupted, but not from John-Boy’s muzzle. It came from across the way, a spangled arch decorated with tinsel, where a figure stood wedged up against one side, presenting as narrow a target as possible. John-Boy dropped back, and March booked it toward the arch in a hunched-over duck walk that would’ve done Groucho proud.