Sheer Heart Attack

“We did it all right. We did everything right.”

All by the book, so nobody’s even going to bust their balls for this, not even their client. It’s on to the next case ASAP, but that can’t even dim the edges of the hit Holland gets off getting the job done. Once you get a taste for it, like with the whole catalytic converter fiasco, you’ll never give it up. The fuck-ups and failures all have their own kind of texture, but Holland never gets done being surprised by the wins — when you spot the contraband or bust loose the kidnapped girl or when your hunch plays out in exactly the right way. It’s different every time.

“I can’t believe you trusted my instincts.”

“Well, you’ve got to trust your instincts.”

“Right, but you trusted my instincts. Jack, if I thought people trusted me easy I’d be a cop right now.”

“You think people trust cops? In LA?”

Damn, good point. Sometimes they get to make it — they get their man, serve their papers, bust the coke smuggling ring, catch the movie-star stalker with his arms so full of long-stemmed roses and newspaper cut-out notes he can’t run too fast and Healy can bring him down with a well-placed boot to the back of the knee.

Holland lights a cigarette, then offers it to Healy, who shakes his head. “You know I really like you, Jack. I like the way you think. I like your whole attitude.”

“You’re just saying that because I let you drive.”

Looking down over the Hollywood hills, all the rooftops, all these lucky sinners. Holland March has lived here all his life and he never gets sick of this view — gets sick of the smog, sure, but on days like this you can almost forget about all that.

Holland limps along, and Healy offers his arm to support him.

“All right, then. Let’s get cracking.”

Holland told him a joke one time — this guy dies, he sees Nixon, he goes straight to hell, but they let him pick which room in hell he wants to be in — and never mind, it’s a bad joke with a bad setup but the punchline goes, all right boys, break time’s over, now back on your heads. And that’s just the way it is on days like these. Break time’s over. Back on your heads.

*

By 6 PM, he’s not feeling so flush with optimism. Tailing a suspect is a whole lot of hurry-up-and-wait, especially if you’re waiting around on two people making a handoff and not trying to nail somebody the moment he sticks his head up. The pair of them could make a fortune serving people their papers if neither of them minded getting shot at very much. It’s all about endurance, which Jackson Healy has coming out his ears, and the ability to stay awake through bullshit conversation and black coffee until you’ve seen what you need to see.

They’ve been tailing this guy by car for hours now, and Holland relishes the switch to a stationary stakeout just because it means he gets to take a piss and call room service, maybe. This isn’t one of those hotels where nobody looks twice at the name you write down in the logbook — this place is nice, this place is choice.

The guy they’re tailing is some big name neither of them’s ever heard of before — movies, TV, you name it. He can afford a place like this, with a courtyard and Moroccan tile around the swimming pool, but even he can’t spin bullshit into cash. This guy wants his pet project to get made, some period-piece passion project with his own script and his own cast and his own vision, but there’s nobody so big in this town that he can fund that shit out of pocket. Not when he wants complete artistic control. One of his backers thinks the whole thing stinks, and over Aqua Velvas at the Moondust Lounge let Holland in on a little secret — she thinks the guy’s doing business with the Mob to bankroll some of his other on-set expenses

No such luck for March and Healy — they have to hustle to get paid and bill their expenses the old fashioned way. They get a nice big suite with blood-red walls and waxy potted plants and glossy arabesque tile behind the massive bed — all the trappings for really highbrow anonymous screwing. Holland half-expects the coin slot for Magic Fingers, and when Healy throws his jacket down the mattress springs don’t even creak.

“Wish we could afford this kind of place all the time.”

“The housekeeper’s a friend of mine. She says he’s been coming here to meet with some broad once or twice a week — her word, not mine. At first she figured, hey, an affair, but it figures there’s something more to it because he never leaves a tip—”

“So he’s a stingy piece of shit, and he’s in the Mob’s pocket. And don’t say broad.”

“He’s in Debbie Mass’ pocket.”

Debbie Mass, shady Beverly Hills amazon with big hair and an even bigger bank account. She’s got so many fingers in so many pies — it’s a whole lot of pies, is what Holland thinks, from cults to massage parlors to shady salad bars. It’s the cults they’re worried about these days. Catch their Hollywood bigwig meeting with the crown princess of crime, and maybe you’ve got a chance in court. What they need, and what their client wants, is pictures — the paper trail can come after.

Out the window there’s a clear line of sight on the opposite suite — their guy is unpacking his suitcase, maybe hanging up tomorrow’s suit jacket. He doesn’t look like a shady industry type — he looks like a Boy Scout, or an old-time print ad. But appearances can be deceiving. Healy tugs Holland’s sleeve — it doesn’t take a telescopic lens to see Mr. Boy Scout is packing heat. He withdraws a .45 from under a stack of neatly folded underpants.

“Oh shit,” Holland whispers.

He can practically hear Healy raising his eyebrows from somewhere right behind him. “Travel insurance.”

“Thank Christ we didn’t get that suite next door. I think I left my .22 in the glove compartment.”

If this guy gets into a shootout and hot lead starts spraying everywhere, the Nice Guys agency is calling it a fucking night.

*

By midnight, Holland is really not feeling optimistic. He’s feeling borderline delirious, after their early start had them traipsing all over Hollywood before coffee, and even Healy must be feeling punchy. There’s a weird smell, and a cold spot in the middle of the floor, and a creepy rattle comes out of the pipes whenever you flush the toilet even though all the fixtures are brand-new burnished chrome and look like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Which raises the question: “You think this place might be haunted?”

“Oh, I know it. It’s been an industry hangout since the silent movie days. People die here, it’s crazy.” Holland crushes a paper cup and recrosses his legs.

In their sights and under surveillance is a middle-aged man drinking his third cup of mediocre coffee and doing a crossword puzzle. Which is infinitely preferable to a middle-aged man doing a couple lines of blow and getting so paranoid he yanks the blinds shut and sticks the mattress up against the door, but isn’t exactly scintillating stuff, and the close proximity to Healy and his big arms in plainclothes is getting distracting.

Jackson Healy’s got his shoes kicked off by the door, sleeves cuffed up like a vacationer and sunglasses tucked into his pocket to make him look like a faded film noir tough — some kind of latter-day hardboiled detective, when really it’s hard to find a guy in the business less hardboiled than Jackson Healy. Don’t let the broken arm or the brass knuckles fool you — brass knuckles in the hip pocket of his jacket, just in case some punk tries to kick their door down or something — this is the guy who makes sure Holly gets to school on time. One time a client was so grateful to be reunited with her old roommate from the war she sent them flowers, and it was Healy who remembered to stick an aspirin in the vase. He’s stuck an aspirin in Holland’s mouth more than once after a really bad bender. He’s a good guy, basically, a messy guy but fundamentally good — and he’s close. Elbow to elbow close, with an arm carelessly flung over Holland’s shoulders — or closer than that.

But never mind that. This guy, the milquetoast bigwig in the crosshairs of Holland’s special-order camera, is their doer, and what they need — what they’re getting tonight one way or another — is proof he’s meeting Deborah Kay Mass. Nothing personal — Deborah’s got a small army of pool boys who, hell, might make a guest appearance tonight just to up the signal-to-noise ratio — just business.

Holland balancing a legal pad full of scrawled notes, a pocketful of caffeine pills, Healy with binoculars, Holland manning the camera. Just shooting the shit — talking about Holly, about the guy they’re tailing, about Debbie Mass and killer bees and that Jane Fonda movie with the newlyweds. There’s plenty to talk about.

*

Around 2 AM, Holland’s about ready to throw the towel in. He stubs out another cigarette on the windowsill and rubs his eyes with the back of one wrist.

“This is bullshit. She’s not coming.”

Nobody — no call girls, no co-conspirators, not even a maid showing up with fresh towels. Their target must be the world’s most boring man.

“The walls are closing in on me. I feel like I’m in a womb.”

Holland fumbles for a matchbook and scans the room behind them for what they haven’t seen all night — some guy with a gun kicking down the door, or hell, a chick, it’s 1978 and time to get with the times. “It’s all the potted plants. They take up too much space, things look smaller and darker. They should put in a mirror on that wall behind the bed, it’ll open things up.”

Healy tosses him a lighter. It hits him in the chest.

“How’d you figure that?”

Tell the truth and shame the devil, or whatever. “Balled a guy who did interior design.”

(He was a good guy too. Real sweetheart. Big, beefy, played tennis. But that is not an aspect of his partner’s life that Jackson Healy needs to know about—)

“Huh.” Healy leans back against the bed, looking thoughtful.

Holland feels the blood shrink away from his face a little bit. He doesn’t like that look on Healy’s face. It’s consideration, like maybe he’s considering whether this makes Holland March a big homo, like he’s reconsidering everything he’s learned about Holland March in the past year in the light of the bombshell that’s just tumbled from his lips.

That late-night feeling will get you every time — every car ride becomes a neon-lit confessional. Every pool-side crash turns into personal sharing hour. Every hotel room becomes a shrine to bad-idea disclosures. Holland picks his words pretty carefully, watching Healy’s furrowed brow for anything more negative than mild confusion. “Does it bother you, knowing I’ve balled with guys?”

“Not if it doesn’t bother you that I haven’t.”

“No shit. I always had you pegged as an aficionado of the female form, myself.”

You know the type — old-fashioned, too strait-laced to let it all hang out in the City of Angels, but still a red-blooded meat-eater. The muscles, the leather jacket, the shotgun. The five o’clock shadow thing. He’s working on a decent coating of stubble right now, like heavy-duty sandpaper, and under the circumstances Holland tries not to think about how it would feel. Healy comes across like Rick from Casablanca, except his ex-wife was Ilsa, and that means Holland is Sam, or that Louis guy. He always figured that guy was AC/DC.

“I didn’t say that. I said I haven’t.”

No hard feelings. Maybe Jackson Healy isn’t a red-blooded man’s man — or he is, but he’s a man’s man. He’s downright butch.

He’s tripping over his own tongue, tripping over his words, tripping over the way Healy’s looking at him right now. “Before, I mean. I gave that up when I got married. She knew, I mean, it just never came up. Jesus Christ, I mean, I still dig guys, I just—”

“I know what you mean, March.”

“Well, would you like to?”

Jackson leans over and kisses him in front of the window, like it’s no big deal — except somehow it is a very big deal, the warm brush of lips that smells like cold black coffee and bay rum, and Holland almost drops his camera in the hurry to set it aside, to lean into Healy the way Healy is leaning into him, mouth-first.

Jackson reaches out and tugs the curtains closed with one pass of his big arm. Holland breaks the kiss for just long enough to glance over. The suite door’s open — the lights are on — the blinds are shuttering closed and Healy’s big hand wraps around to cinch him in closer.

“We’re going to lose him.”

“Fuck it, I’ll tail him tomorrow.” Healy’s sandpaper stubble is hot against his mouth. Ten hours stuffed into the front seat of a car weighing heavy on him, and Holland just wants to do something — to do something crazy, sure.

The immediate area around where they’ve parked themselves is littered with Tab cans and room service napkins — when Healy lets him drop back against the mattress, a crushed tin can goes flying into the air and Holland laughs like a lunatic. Healy has him on the ropes after that.

*

Some time later they’re drowsing off in each other’s arms with their feet on the headboard and their heads hanging off the foot of the mattress — Healy’s heavy arm slung over Holland’s chest like a hairy electric blanket, Holland’s mustache tickling every time he takes a breath.

After a significant amount of time has passed after that, a single beam of light pries through the curtains like a fucking laser and hits Holland March straight in the eyes.

Their legs are still twined together in a festival of postcoital stickiness and the bulk of Jackson Healy’s mass is still comfortingly adjacent, which makes the involuntary jerk of wakefulness more painful than strictly necessary. Holland blinks and winces.

“Jack?”

“You know, I love it when you call me Jack.” The knuckles of Healy’s hand brush the place on Holland’s back where his undershirt’s yanked up, four points of luxurious warmth against the shallow place of his spine.

Holland’s voice comes out strangled. “Jack, I think we’re in trouble—”

Healy springs out of bed bare-assed in a tumble of hairy legs, and ploughs through the pile of stakeout detritus looking for something. Holland’s too busy looking for his boxer shorts or his little chrome-plated .22, whichever one shows up first.

“Get the camera, it’s still got half a roll left—” Healy squints through binoculars through the parted curtains. On his knees on the tacky carpet, it’s sort of picturesque. “I don’t see him.”

“What?”

“I don’t see him. No suitcase.”

“He’s gone? Fuck!”