The Nice Guys

by Charles Ardai

  A uniformed guard led Judith Kuttner down the hallway toward where they were sitting, then gestured for her to sit, too. At least the guard sat her facing the other way, their backs to each other. They wouldn’t have to look her in the face, or she them. They certainly didn’t have to talk.

  But then she spoke to them.

  Without looking their way, it was true. But there was no one else there. She wasn’t talking to the guard. Especially given that she started by saying, “Oh, boys, boys…you really think you got something done here.”

  Healy and March looked at each other. Didn’t look at her.

  Kuttner’s voice dripped with condescension. “Do you have a clue what just happened? This wasn’t some plan I had on my own. It was protocol. I followed protocol.”

  March started grunting something in German, or what had passed for German on Sid Caesar.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she said, turning to look at them.

  “I believe,” Healy said, “he’s making a connection between you and Adolf Hitler.” He smiled in her direction.

  She turned away again. Spoke to the wall across from her. “Read the fucking newspaper,” she said, slowly and with bitterness, like the world’s angriest history teacher. “What’s good for Detroit is good for America. The America I love owes its life to the big three.”

  “And who did your daughter owe her life to?” Healy said.

  “Detroit had her killed!” Kuttner said.

  March nodded. “I think you’re right about that. The whole city got together, took a vote. Big turnout.”

  “I wanted her safe!” Kuttner spat. “That’s why I hired you two.”

  Well, that hit home just a bit. Maybe it shouldn’t have, but it did.

  Healy cleared his throat. “Uh, you’re going to jail, Mrs. Kuttner. Not us.”

  “I might be going to jail,” she said, “but it won’t make a difference. You can’t take Detroit down. If I’m not there to take care of it, someone else will be.”

  “Okay,” March said, letting that sink in. “Well. We shall see.”

  46.

  March had a new Mercedes convertible, chocolate-brown with a smooth purring engine, so there was that, at least. You took your victories where you could find them.

  He drove past the Comedy Store, pulled in at a nearby cocktail lounge, past a bell-ringing Santa Claus and a loudspeaker pouring Kay Starr into the sunshine of an L.A. December: Old Mr. Kringle is soon gonna jingle the bells that’ll tingle all your troubles away…

  Yes, Halloween had come and gone in the middle of all that nonsense, Thanksgiving had flown by, and now here it was Christmas again, the season of joy, and if anyone was looking joyful it wasn’t the people sitting at this bar in the middle of the afternoon. March walked in, his attention on the cute bartender in the off-the-shoulder peasant blouse, then did a double take when he saw his daughter sitting on a stool near the door, waiting for him. “Jesus,” he said.

  “It’s just Coke,” Holly said, raising the glass in her hand. Yeah, just Coke if you didn’t count the rum-and. But fuck it. She was a teenager now, and more than that, she was the most responsible person he knew. Plus, it was Christmas.

  “Where is he?” March asked, and Holly pointed to a stool at the bar. A man sat bent over a fifth of something amber colored. March walked over, hung over his shoulder until Healy noticed him. It took a while.

  March couldn’t believe his eyes. Healy was drunk. Probably stinking drunk, but at least March didn’t have to endure that. Not to mention the smell of the half-smoked cigar clenched between Healy’s teeth.

  March sat down on the next stool over, raised an index finger. “Scotch,” he said, and gave the bartender a smile.

  Healy, slurring his words something awful, said, “You see the TV?”

  “Yeah,” March said. “I saw it.”

  The girl behind the bar brought him his drink.

  “They’re gonna let them off, the car companies. Scot-free,” Healy said.

  March lit a cigarette, took a long drag.

  Healy continued his lament. “ ‘Not enough evidence of collusion.’ They say.”

  “I heard.”

  “Sun went up, sun went down. Nothing changes. Just like you said.” Healy punctuated his words with jabs of the cigar.

  “Look,” March said. “They got away with it. Big surprise. You know? People are stupid.” He swallowed some more of his whiskey. “But they’re not that stupid. The point is, five years, tops, we’re all driving electric cars from Japan anyway. Mark my words.”

  Healy didn’t seem mollified. Jesus. This was as bad as March had ever seen him, and that included the day he’d broken March’s arm.

  “Look at this,” he said, “you ever see the bad breath tie?” He lifted his necktie so the tip was pointing straight up in his hand. He exhaled on the end. Nothing. Stuck it in front of Healy’s mouth. “Breathe on it.” Healy exhaled. The end of the tie wilted as March moved his thumb.

  Healy started laughing. God, that was stupid. But a classic’s a classic.

  “Works every time,” March said. “Kills Holly.”

  Healy’s laughter had petered out, but he gave March a little smile.

  “At least you’re drinking again,” March said.

  “Yeah. Feel great.”

  “What is that, Dewar’s?”

  “It ain’t Yoo-hoo.”

  March tossed back the rest of his drink, signaled for another. “You know, we did okay. Nobody got hurt—”

  “Well,” Healy muttered. “A few people got hurt.”

  “I’m saying I think they died quickly, though, so I don’t think that they got hurt.” March took something from his pocket. It was an ad torn from the Yellow Pages. He laid it on the bar in front of Healy. “Look at this,” he said. Healy bent close to look.

  The ad hadn’t changed much. It still said “Our trained investigators have specialized in CLOSING CASES since 1972” and “24-Hour Service” and “Licensed and Bonded.” But up at the top it now said THE NICE GUYS AGENCY, and instead of just one little drawing, of March’s face, there were two little drawings, one of each of them. Healy squinted.

  “I’m sorry you look Filipino,” March said.

  “I do. Or…Mexican.”

  “And hey,” March said, “we already got our first case. Old lady in Glendale.”

  “Mm-hm,” said Healy.

  “Thinks her husband is sleeping with Lynda Carter.”

  “Wonder Woman?”

  “…or Lynda Carter. That’s what we have to figure out.”

  “Right,” said Healy.

  “But he’s eighty-two, so it’s time sensitive.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “What do you say?”

  Before Healy could say anything, March jumped up, snatched the ad off the bar and started slapping it down in front of him. “Shit! Shit!” Then he pressed the ad down hard, his thumb grinding something underneath it.

  “What…?”

  March cleared his throat. “Bee.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The bartender came, and March gave her a wink as he took the scotch glass from her. Was there potential there? There was potential everywhere.

  He raised the glass in Healy’s direction. “To the birds?” he said.

  Healy raised his bottle. They clinked.

  “Hallelujah,” he said, and drank to his new career.