The Nice Guys

by Charles Ardai

  March sat back up again, somewhat unsteadily. “I think you’re on to something. Can we talk about it tomorrow? …afternoon?”

  Healy threw up his hands. This guy. “Yeah. We can do that.”

  “Thanks.”

  March took another long drink, and Healy started walking away, back toward the house.

  “Hey…” March said, with a grin. “Aren’t you that diner guy…?”

  Healy gave him his meanest look, up from under lowered brows. Normally it might’ve scared March, but he was drunk as fuck and nothing on God’s green earth would’ve scared him right now. Besides, Healy didn’t look that scary once you got to know him. He practically looked cuddly, for chrissakes. That curl of hair hanging down over his forehead like a little boy, that hangdog expression when he didn’t want to talk about something.

  “Come on,” Healy begged him, “come on come on come on come on come on. I gotta know.”

  “I don’t want to get into it.”

  “You’ve gotta get into it. You’re the diner guy.” He smiled, shrugged. Like it was the law and he was just following orders. He remembered the moves from his days on the beat.

  Healy sighed a deep sigh, one that seemed to come from somewhere around the middle of his chest. “All right.”

  “Yes!” March got himself comfortable on his diving-board perch, lay back with his legs hanging off the end, let his eyes drift shut and just listened to Healy’s voice. The man had one hell of a voice. Rough and low but somehow reassuring. He could have had a side job narrating nature documentaries.

  “All right,” Healy began. “About a year ago, I was at a diner in Hollywood. A Denny’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “This asshole with a shotgun started threatening people,” Healy went on.

  “I love it,” Healy mumbled. “It’s the best story I’ve ever heard.”

  “So I did something about it,” Healy said. “I acted. I didn’t plan to, I didn’t, you know… I just did it.”

  Healy was standing comfortably on the deck of an empty swimming pool, a cool breeze teasing his cheeks and ruffling his hair, but he was also remembering what it had felt like to be seated at that counter, to hear the blast and the shells ringing as they were ejected onto the floor. The people screaming. Dishes breaking.

  The smell of gunpowder in the air.

  “I took that guy out,” he said. “I didn’t even get paid for it. I ended up with a bullet in the bicep and five hundred dollars of hospital bills. It was stupid, really.”

  It was a smell that stayed with you, gunpowder. He was smelling it for days, even after he got back from the hospital. His fish had been so fucking hungry when they finally saw him again, they ate half a can of fish food in one meal. He’d fed it to them with fingers that stank of sulfur and gunsmoke.

  His fish. His poor goddamn fish.

  “When I think about it,” Healy said, and he paused a little to think about it now, “it was the best day of my life.”

  He looked over at the diving board. March was sprawled out on it, softly snoring.

  “Just for a moment,” Healy said quietly, “I felt useful.”

  He left March where he was. Yeah, maybe the little prick would roll over in the night and break his neck, but somehow he’d gotten through life so far with nothing worse than a broken arm to show for it, so Healy was prepared to believe March would make it through one more night. Some guys just had a guardian angel watching over them. Whether they deserved it or not.

  He headed inside. On his way to the front door, he noticed that Holly’s bedroom door was open. The bedclothes were shoved back, the bed empty.

  * * *

  Driving back toward home, Healy saw a small figure sitting Indian-fashion on the ground of the vacant lot down the block. She had a flashlight in her lap, pointed at the pages of a book.

  He stopped the car, got out.

  “ ‘Had Mademoiselle Blanche been in England before? What part of France did she come from? Mademoiselle Blanche replied politely but with reserve—’ ” Holly looked up. Healy’s shadow had fallen over the page.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” She stared at him. “You’ve got your foot in the toilet,” she said.

  “I have?” He lifted his leg, shook the imaginary water off his cuff.

  Holly sighed. “Now you’re getting the carpet all wet.”

  “Was this your room?” Healy asked.

  “No,” she said. “It was mom and dad’s.”

  Healy looked off toward the horizon, which wasn’t visible yet. The dawn was some way off. “Your dad tells me you’re rebuilding.”

  “Does it look rebuilt to you?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Dad barely ever comes here,” she said. “Feels guilty, I guess.”

  “Because…?”

  She looked up. “Hm? Oh. The fire.” She shook her head ruefully but her voice stayed matter-of-fact. “Mom kept complaining about a leak in the furnace, but dad, you know, he’s got his nose thing, so…he couldn’t smell the gas.”

  Healy looked off. He didn’t have anything much to say to that.

  “Anyways,” Holly said. “I…I should probably get back to my book.”

  “All right.” Healy started off toward his car.

  Holly called out to him before he’d gotten too far. “Mr. Healy…?”

  Healy stopped, turned back.

  “Are you a bad person?”

  Healy didn’t say anything, just stood there in the dark.

  “What did you do to that man tonight? Did you kill him?”

  It was so comfortable to stand in the dark, to talk without anyone being able to see your face or look you in the eye. “Of course not,” Healy said.

  “That’s good,” Holly said. “I knew you couldn’t do something like that.”

  Healy thought of a million things he might say to her. Grow up, kid or Don’t you understand, he was dying anyway or That man needed to be gone, the world was a better place the instant he stopped breathing—any of that, or, if you wanted to go the other way, maybe something like No of course not, honey, I’m not a killer, I hurt people sometimes, like I hurt your dad, but I don’t kill them, honest injun. Scout’s honor.

  But he didn’t say any of these things. “Don’t stay up too late, all right?”

  He saw her nod, her chin dipping into and out of the flashlight beam.

  Good enough.

  He picked his way back to his car.

  29.

  The next day found Healy sitting on the front stoop at March’s place, a couple of takeout containers in a plastic bag beside him. Even though it was afternoon, like they’d agreed, he’d picked up breakfast stuff from an all-day diner, figuring March would’ve slept late, and maybe Holly, too—she’d had a tough night of her own. But when he’d knocked, he’d found no one home. So he’d sat and waited. The pancakes and eggs had gone cold, but then the orange juice had gotten warm, so how’s that inertia for you?

  March’s car eventually pulled in, the front tires bumping up over the curb. Healy watched Holly shut off the ignition and clamber out of the driver’s seat, quietly fuming. Her dad, in the passenger seat, had been keeping time to the music blasting out of the radio with one hand, pounding out the beat on the door frame, and he stopped only reluctantly when the sound cut off. He saw Healy sitting there and muttered, “Shit,” remembering. He got out, a suit bag slung over one shoulder, cigarette between his lips, big, fake smile plastered on his face. Healy got the sense it wasn’t the only thing that had gotten plastered this afternoon.

  He stood, held up the takeout. “Didn’t know what time you’d get here. Some of it’s probably still good.”

  “Sorry,” March said, stifling a belch with his fist, “we were at the bank. Getting your money.” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “There it is. Half. Minus a few hundred, you know, for the…that car that we crashed? I thought you’d want to chip in for that.”

  He was wincing a
little, like maybe he thought Healy might explode over that “we,” but Healy just shrugged it off. “Sure.”

  March handed over the envelope on the way to the door, Holly a few steps ahead of him. He held up the suit bag, unzipped it far enough to show off a lapel. “What do you think?” It looked bright even through Healy’s shades.

  “It’s purple,” Healy said.

  “It’s maroon,” March said. He zipped it up again. “Saw it in the window of this store, had to try it on. Sorry we were late.”

  “It’s okay.”

  But Holly had had enough. “The store took ten minutes. We stopped at a bar. That’s why we’re late.”

  She pushed past Healy and stormed into the house.

  Healy followed, set his Styrofoam containers on the counter. March came last, shutting the door behind him. The tension was so thick you could’ve cut it with a knife, though probably not one of the plastic ones they’d given him with the pancakes.

  “So,” he said, “want to talk about the case?” He took the by now well-worn cow-shaped slip of paper from his pocket, held it up.

  28-10 Burbank Apt

  West, Flt D, 10:30pm

  “Burbank Airport?” he said. “Western Airlines? I’m thinking she’s trying to skip town. How do you want to do this?”

  “Well,” March said, on his way from the kitchen to the living room with a glass in one fist, ice cubes tinkling in a whiskey bath, “I say we wait a couple of days, call Kuttner, and see if we can squeeze a second installment out of her.”

  Healy was nonplussed. “Second installment…?”

  It was Holly who answered. She knew the drill. “You don’t want to call too soon. Got to act like you’re on to something, like you’ve been working hard…then, day three, ask for more money.” She plopped down on one of the stools by the kitchen counter and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Healy looked from daughter to father.

  “Well, she’s putting a negative spin on it,” March said, “but yeah, that’s the idea.”

  “Kuttner paid us,” Healy said. “She paid me, to do a job. All right? I’m not going to lie to her.”

  “And I respect that,” March said, taking a swallow. “So I’ll lie to her.”

  “Hey,” Healy said, angry now, “forget Kuttner, I shelled out four hundred bucks for a detective, someone who finds clues—”

  “I found Sid Shattuck’s corpse, didn’t I?”

  “Found it? You fell on it! You fall down a manhole, you don’t say, look, I found the sewer.”

  March shrugged. Tomato, to-mah-to. “I guess I don’t understand why we’re not celebrating,” he said, heading back to the refrigerator. Needed more ice. “I mean, we just got paid, we’re all having a drink in the afternoon…” He looked at Healy, at Holly, and they stared back. “What?”

  Healy just said, “Forget about it.” He headed for the door.

  “Aw, would you just, would you hold on for a goddamn second?” He tossed back the rest of his whiskey, swung the freezer open for more ice. Pinned to the freezer door with a magnet was his ad from the Yellow Pages, a line drawing of his face looking young, handsome, and not at all drunk, next to the words LICENSED AND BONDED. “THE HOLLAND MARCH AGENCY,” the ad said. “Our trained investigators have specialized in CLOSING CASES since 1972.”

  Holly shook her head, a look of profound disappointment on her face. “You’re the world’s worst detective,” she said.

  March didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m the worst?”

  “Yes.”

  “The world’s worst?”

  “Didn’t you hear me the first time?”

  “Got a cool ad, though.” He dropped ice into his drink, plunk, plunk, plunk. “So.”

  But Holly wasn’t letting him weasel out with a joke this time. “Why do you have to be such a fuck-up? Huh? You go around and…and you drink, and you lie and stuff, and people hate you!”

  “Sweetheart, don’t say ‘and stuff,’ just say—”

  “I hate you!”

  “That works,” March said.

  Healy headed for the door again. “I’ll find the girl myself.”

  “You’re going to find her yourself,” March muttered. “Okay.” He called out to Healy’s departing back, “Well, say hi to her when you do.”

  “I will.”

  “ ’Course you’re not going to find her at the airport,” he said, “seeing as how it’s not a flight.”

  Healy was out of March’s line of sight already, and March turned to Holly. “Did he stop?”

  She nodded sullenly.

  “Your note,” March called out. “Look at it. It’s not a flight.”

  Healy looked at it. 28-10 Burbank Apt West, Flt D, 10:30pm.

  March got to his feet. He wasn’t staggering now, he wasn’t slurring. He was quoting the note from memory, was what he was doing. “Twenty-eight ten, Burbank A-P-T, ten-thirty. Well, every airport has an overflight curfew from ten to six, Burbank included. So no ten-thirty flights. And that top number? It’s today’s date, but reversed, like the European way, twenty-eight ten instead of ten twenty-eight. Which makes sense when you look at ‘F-L-T’ and you think, that’s not flight, it’s probably flat, like apartment.”

  Healy just stood there, thunderstruck. Where the hell had all that come from?

  Holly looked pretty damn shocked as well. Who’d replaced her father with an actual detective?

  “And Burbank A-P-T?” Healy said.

  “West,” March said. “Burbank A-P-T West—the Burbank Apartments West, it’s a dump, down by the— Fuck it, I’ll show you.” He set his glass down on the edge of the sink, walked past Healy to where his daughter was sitting. “If Amelia’s going to be there at ten-thirty, we’ll want to get there twenty minutes earlier so we can stake out the lobby. If I remember correctly, there’s both front and rear entrances at the old Burbank West, so it’s good there’s two of us. I’ll take the front, since there’s at least a chance she doesn’t know what I look like, and you—you can stay in the car, and keep your head down, for Christ’s sake.” Finally, to Holly: “You’re going to Janet’s, but for real, this time.”

  “Jessica’s,” Holly said.

  “Jessica’s.”

  Normally she’d have argued. But right now she just nodded. Was that a hint of a smile on her face? Was that pride in her eyes?

  Fuck-up, huh? March looked over to where Healy was standing, looking equally impressed. Who’s the fuck-up now?

  30.

  Healy stepped on the brakes and the car slewed to a stop across the street from a vacant lot only slightly more developed than the one March’s daughter liked to read in. There was a bulldozer in one corner and some stacks of lumber in another. Some grass on the ground.

  No apartments, west, east, or otherwise.

  Healy looked over at March in the passenger seat.

  An old geezer was passing the site, walking a hairy poodle on a leash. “Excuse me,” Healy called out, and the guy stopped. “We’re looking for the Burbank Apartments.”

  “Oh, they’re gone,” the guy said. “Tore them babies down going on about two years now.” He kept on walking, dragging the dog behind.

  Healy turned to March.

  March didn’t blink. He pointed in the direction of northern Burbank. “To the airport, then?”

  31.

  Healy was driving as fast as his car would go. They’d been twenty minutes early to the vacant lot, but it would take a miracle for them to get to the airport less than ten minutes late.

  “Well, they used to have an overflight curfew,” March was saying.

  “All right,” Healy said. “It’s all right. It’s okay.”

  “They did.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And they still should. If they changed, then they should. They should change it back.”

  Traffic was light, thankfully. Healy wished March’s chatter was too. But it wasn’t. He tried to block it out, and was halfway successful. Every
few seconds, some sentence or phrase would break through and land annoyingly in his ears, making him grip the steering wheel tighter and grind his teeth.

  He was trying to put his finger on just what it was he found so annoying about Holland March. It wasn’t that he was a bad detective—who was Healy to complain about that? He was hardly Sherlock fucking Holmes himself. And it wasn’t the man’s lack of ethics. Well, partly. But it’s not like Healy was Benedict fucking Spinoza. (And yes, he’d read Spinoza, thank you very much. Part of the curriculum down on the farm, they’d fed them Spinoza and Augustine and Thomas Aquinas along with all those goddamned avocados, and though he’d sooner cut his own balls off with a fingernail clipper than slog through Aquinas again, he’d always kind of thought of Spinoza as something of a kindred spirit deep down. Put a set of brass knucks in that guy’s hands, he’d have known how to take care of business.)

  So, no, it wasn’t any of that, and it wasn’t even the motor-mouthed gibbering that just never fucking stopped, unless the guy drank himself into a stupor. Though right at this moment, a stupor might have been welcome. No, what it was was, the man didn’t have any idea how good he had it. Yeah, sure, he’d lost his wife and his house in a terrible accident, okay. Healy gave him that. But man, he had this great daughter, he had a job where he could set his own rules and answer to nobody and maybe do some good in the world, he was young and healthy, if you didn’t look too close at what had to be a liver on the edge of collapse, and he lived within spitting distance of the Pacific Ocean, where on a good day you could dip your toes in the same water that washes up on the beaches of Hawaii. He wasn’t a fucking accountant in Boise, or a salesman wearing out his tires up and down the northeast, never seeing another soul who was glad to see him coming. He wasn’t that poor bastard whose job it was to mop Gilbert Dufresne’s blood up off the highway at midnight. And, not to put too fine a point on it, he wasn’t a knee-breaker living in one room over a comedy club, either, though it was a very nice room and Healy was glad to have it. No, March was sitting pretty, or could’ve been, but instead he seemed always on the verge of chewing his leg off to escape some trap, like running his mouth was the only thing keeping him from breaking into a run the old-fashioned way. What it came down to was, the man constantly seemed scared. And why? What was he so scared of? Having to face himself in the goddamn mirror?