Phoenix Noir

by Patrick Millikin

  “You think I’m going to just sit here and let someone rob me? You think I’m stupid or something?”

  “Cooper, put the gun away. You’re not going to use it.” Valerie reached out, as if to calm him. “You said yourself the jewels were insured. Put the gun away.”

  “Forget it. I’m not a fucking chump! And I’m not letting no cheap whore and her goon-boy rip me off!”

  Cooper pointed the gun at her.

  I jumped him then, hitting him just as the gun went off. The gun sounded simultaneously with the shattering of the lamp. The room went dark. My ears rang from the shot.

  I held onto Cooper’s wrist, twisting it, punching him with my free arm as we rolled off the side of the bed. Cooper landed beneath me, the bag spilling beside us.

  Cooper yelled then, unintelligible words in the darkness between the bed and the wall where we struggled. I grabbed a loose pillow and crammed it against his face, stifling the noise and trying to keep the gun away. Valerie pounced on us, pulling at the gun in Cooper’s fist. It happened before I knew it. Cooper’s muffled screaming ended the instant she fired the gun into the pillow. Cooper’s body collapsed beneath me. My vision tunneled. The small room filled with the smell of shit, gun powder, and burnt pillow foam.

  The light from above the sink came on. Valerie stood above us, the gun in her hand.

  I saw a cut across her right cheekbone. A thin line of blood trickled from it, leaving a teardrop’s path.

  That’s the one I told you about before. The last one of her.

  “Karl.” I could barely hear over the dull ringing from the gun. “Karl, we have to get our asses out of here, now!”

  The phone started to ring.

  “Don’t answer it,” she said.

  Valerie above me. Yeah, that shiny streak of blood on her cheek. I could crawl to her to lick it off …

  I scrambled away from Cooper’s body.

  She kicked his legs to the side and searched his pockets, pulling out a set of keys and his wallet. She ripped the wallet open and pulled out the cash, stuffing it into her jeans. She threw the wallet back against his chest.

  The ringing stopped.

  The pillow remained over Cooper’s face.

  A dark stain spread on the cheap carpet beneath him.

  She went to her knees and grabbed the bag. She threw the gun into it along with the items that had spilled from it in the struggle.

  “Karl, we gotta go now!” she said, getting to her feet.

  Valerie pulled at me.

  “You’re hurt,” I said.

  “I’ll live.” She shoved me toward the door. “Move!”

  Her fingers fumbled with the chain, finally pulling it off. She pulled the Do Not Disturb tag off the inside knob and looped it over the outside knob. I slammed the door shut behind us and pushed against it once. The day’s heat still soaked into it, warm against my back.

  “Worst thing, I figured, is maybe we’d have to smack him around a little, you know. That’s it.”

  Her in the car next to me. The light at Fifteenth Avenue and Grand had turned red. Through the windows of the boxing club, I could still see the kids working out in the ring.

  “Stupid fucker. Why’d he have to bring a gun?”

  “All the jewels are in the bag?” I asked.

  “What do you think?”

  She ran her fingers down my shoulder. I reached a hand up toward her face to touch her, stroke her hair.

  She leaned back and lit a cigarette, using the dash lighter.

  “You got another one of those?”

  She pulled another butt from the pack and handed it to me. I used hers to light it.

  I sucked in deeply and exhaled. It’d been a long time since I’d smoked. I’d forgotten how good it felt.

  “No one saw you? The desk clerk, anyone like that?” I asked her.

  “No one. He got the room. I waited in the car.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “I’m sure. No one saw me. I stayed in the car.”

  “Okay then,” I said at last. “Where do we go now?”

  I tried not to think about what she’d done to Cooper back at the hotel. She’d pulled me into this mess and I didn’t know how to get out. I felt no closer to her for it. She sat there smoking, thinking about what, I had no idea. About me? About where we’d go next? I was half tempted to just drive her to the bus depot and leave her there.

  Be done with it.

  No tail was worth it.

  Then she put her hand on my leg.

  I could smell her body, closer to mine now.

  “Your place?” she asked.

  I drove, imagining how she’d look in my bed. It had been too long since I’d had a woman in my bed. Okay, she’d just killed a guy and didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about it, but Cooper had it coming to him. He should have stayed in Scottsdale, with his television dad, rich girlfriends, and phony so-called business associates.

  She had no choice.

  I told myself this as I imagined the feel of her dark body beneath mine, the coffee hair spilling across my chest.

  We stopped for a bottle on the way.

  Vodka.

  That’s what she wanted.

  She took the vodka from me as soon as I got back into the car.

  “You sure you don’t want to wait until we get to my place?”

  She took a pull from the bottle, sighed, and leaned her head back on the seat. “I need this now.”

  “I’ve got clean glasses at home.”

  “Here.” She handed me the bottle. I put it to my lips and drank. It burned. I didn’t like vodka, but I wanted to make her happy. And I had done everything she asked me to do. What difference did it make what kind of bottle we should get?

  I sat down behind the wheel and passed the bottle back to her. She put the cap back on it and set it down on the floor between her feet.

  The vodka didn’t make much of a dent against the jangling of my nerves. It would take more than a few shots for that.

  My hand shook as I turned the key in the ignition.

  She put her hand over mine. “You’ll be fine now, Karl. It’s over.”

  “I didn’t think anyone was supposed to get killed, that’s all.”

  “No one did.”

  “How much you think we got? In the bag, I mean.”

  “We count it at your place. We count it, then we go to bed. It will be good for both of us, Karl. I promise. Soon, you’ll not worry anymore about Cooper. Valerie will worry for both of us.”

  “No,” I said. I reached for her and pulled her next to me.

  “We’re in it together, Valerie. I said I’d do this with you.” But I didn’t really mean it anymore.

  I kissed her. I closed my eyes and kissed her in the darkness of the car, tasting the vodka and cigarettes. I tried to put it out of my mind but I could only see her now above Cooper, the gun in her hand, the look of triumph in her eyes.

  We parted.

  I started the Impala and backed out onto Grand.

  Once we got back to my place we would split the goods. I would let her stay the night, if that’s what she wanted, but after that I was gone. I needed to get a story. If anyone connected me to her I’d just tell them she was a pickup and that’s all. I didn’t know shit about Cooper, the money, any of it. It was better that way. I’d let her go. I would miss her, a lot, but I didn’t have any choice.

  I had driven about half a mile when she told me to pull over, that she was going to be sick.

  I steered the car off Grand, beneath the eastbound lanes of I-10. She lurched out of the car and stumbled to one of the pillars that held the freeway above us. I could see her hunched over in the shadows of the overpass, shoulders hitching.

  I waited.

  The bag was on the floor of the passenger seat next to the bottle.

  The jewels were all there in it.

  All I had to do was shut the door and drive. Get on I-10 and drive west and don’t stop until I
hit the Pacific.

  She’d have to go back to the stripper pole and escort jobs. Too bad about that, but I didn’t ask to be part of a murder.

  Her door remained open, leaving the interior light on. I reached over to pull the door shut when I heard her cry out. I wasn’t sure. The cars were so loud above us. I called out to her.

  No answer.

  I got out of the car and went around to her side. Her door was still open. Before shutting it, I looked down at the bag.

  I had to see them. Seeing them all there would make it easier leaving her.

  I leaned down and reached for the bag. That’s the moment I felt the punch of the bullet hit me from behind. Right under my rib cage. It knocked me down against the seat of the car. I could smell her there on the vinyl, and the hot odor of the dirt and tires beneath me.

  I slid down from the seat and onto the hard, dry ground.

  I could see her above me, gun in her hand, pointing it at me. I tried reaching up to the door handle. Then something slammed into my chest and this time I heard the pop of the gun against the rushing of cars above us.

  I couldn’t breathe. My mouth worked but nothing came.

  She leaned over me.

  She kissed me then. The last one.

  You ever think about the last kiss you’ll get? Who will give it to you? If perhaps it’s someone like Valerie out there waiting to do it?

  Maybe there are worse things than that.

  “I’m sorry, Karl. You don’t have to worry now.”

  I tried to speak, spitting blood at her instead.

  The train’s whistle brought me back.

  Valerie was gone.

  So was the Impala.

  I could see the ribbon of the overpass above me. It seemed so high. I’d never noticed that before. How high above Grand the interstate was. I couldn’t hear the cars on it anymore. They had all gone away.

  Everyone had gone away.

  I’d reviewed the pictures of Valerie enough. I was tired of it all. There was just the last one of her left anyway.

  I could see the moon between the lanes above me. Just a fingernail, really, that was all.

  Paint it red and claw my fucking heart out.

  The train off Grand cried out again. Maybe it was heading west. It didn’t matter. I would be riding that whistle into the black, bringing that last picture of Valerie along with me.

  BLAZIN’ ON BROADWAY

  BY GARY PHILLIPS

  South Phoenix

  Somebody Told Me” by the Killers pumped from the overhead speakers as Ivan Monk entered the busy fitness club. The facility took up the fourth floor of a new high-rise offering a pool, sauna, and a large expanse of machines and free weights.

  Passing by the spin class, he heard the instructor joke into her hands-free set, “My friend told me, looking at the mess of clothes on my bed, ‘Girl, you need to get you some new gear.’” The woman, a bronze-hued Latina in a form-fitting outfit, laughed gleefully. She would have been at home on the cover of Maxim. “And I realize that light blue sports bras against dark skin can be distracting, but I can get them three for a good price at Big 5. I guess I kind of had it hanging out in some of my outfits, but you know, really, I hadn’t noticed.” She chuckled again.

  Monk noticed. Every man in the class and a couple of the women noticed too. He regretted he couldn’t linger and hear more about her choice of workout clothes. He asked a trainer, “Excuse me, where can I find Nazeen Loveless?” The guy pointed a veined finger at a door, and continued his count as a sweating hausfrau completed a series of crunches.

  Monk went to the door and knocked lightly. Built into the nearby wall was an aquaterrarium—half gravel and the other side a miniature pond. Various plants he didn’t recognize pop-ulated the tank, as did several reptiles. A dark green toad sat on a rock, croaking and glaring at him between blinks. Monk glared back.

  “Come in,” a throaty voice announced.

  He entered and shook the proffered hand. From his research Monk knew that Nazeen Loveless was past fifty, but she was still a striking woman with a toned body encased in a silk shirt tucked into a mid-length skirt with a slit. A heavy silver bracelet slid up and down her right wrist.

  “So, old Ardmore sent you out here,” she said affectionately. She sat back down and he took a seat opposite. Behind her a window overlooked the morphing landscape of Phoenix’s south side.

  “He’s putting out this compilation CD package, as he told you, and asked me to run down some leads to make sure everything was cool rights-wise.”

  The handsome woman tilted her head, her chandelier earrings tinkling. “And you’re Ardmore’s coproducer?”

  “I’ve got a private ticket,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  Monk explained he made his living as a PI. “Ardmore asked me to do his legwork because we’ve known each other awhile and—”

  “Antony never did like lawyers,” she finished.

  He nodded agreement and removed a PDA from the inner pocket of his sport coat. It was hot as a mother outside but he’d put the jacket on in the comfort of the air-conditioned building to look professional.

  “There’s a couple of people Ardmore hoped you could help me locate.”

  “It’s been a long time,” Loveless said.

  “I know,” he said sympathetically. “When I was a teenager, I remember KDAY playing the hell out of ‘Blazin’ on Broadway.’ I still have the LP it was on, Double-Barreled Funk.”

  “You weren’t into disco then?”

  “I got into my share of clubs with my fake ID, sitting around playing Pong and backgammon,” he admitted, “learning the Hustle and trying not to sweat all over some girl. But I have to credit my sister Odessa with being the keeper of the flame when it came to R&B and Soul. She predicted disco would die, though not the numbers like what Hayzell and the Sugar Kings performed.”

  Loveless seemed distracted for a moment, then asked, “Who are the ones you’re trying to find?”

  He consulted his handheld’s screen. He’d initially argued strenuously with his old lady about how his steno pad was trustworthy, how words on paper had proven satisfactory for hundreds of years. But she’d prevailed.

  “Believe me, you’ll get hooked,” Superior Court Judge Jill Kodama had said. Damned if he now didn’t find his Crack-Berry indispensable.

  “How about Minnie Thaxton?” Monk asked. “Also, what about Burris Parchman?” He looked up expectantly.

  “When Ardmore called last week I figured Minnie’d be one of the people you’d want to talk to. In fact, her set’s closing tonight at the Raven’s Mill. I can call over there to let her know you’ll be coming.”

  “Thanks.” He noted this using his stylus. “And Parch-man?”

  She folded her arms, shaking her head, a morose cast to her features. “You know he was a slave to that ’caine.”

  “Ardmore understood he’d been clean and sober,” Monk suggested.

  “Last I knew, and this was maybe ’97 or ’98, he was back in Baltimore living in a shelter. But,” and she held her hands apart, “that’s the last I heard.”

  Parchman had been a session man, keyboardist and organist on several later Hayzell and the Sugar Kings numbers. It was believed that Parchman had come up with an instrumental called “Do Your Thing” on one of the tracks. There had been several conflicting publishing credits for the tune and Monk hoped to settle the matter. But Parchman was most known as the man who’d killed Hayzell Mumford, the Sugar Kings’ lead singer.

  “Well, I’ll talk with Minnie and see how that goes.”

  “She’s going to like you,” Loveless observed. “She must be pushing back seventy, hard, but she appreciates her some younger sturdy mens, as she would say.”

  “I ain’t that young no more,” Monk averred.

  Her eyes brightened. “You’re upright and got those shoulders. That’s good enough.”

  They both chuckled and he asked, “Is there anyone else around from then who
I should talk to? I believe Hayzell’s mother is alive.”

  She bristled. “You said you only wanted the ones who wrote some of the numbers.”

  Monk hunched a shoulder. “I like to be thorough.”

  “You’re nosy,” she declared.

  He grinned, hoping to defuse the tension. “That too.”

  “What is it that you’re really after?” she hissed, an edge in her voice. “About how Hayzell was killed over drugs?”

  Monk was going to offer a denial but she leaned forward, her hands splayed on her desktop. “I know goddamn well that he was, now don’t I? I’ve had plenty of offers to tell my story, from Rolling Stone to a couple of white boys over at ASU doing a book on the Phoenix rhythm-and-blues scene. I haven’t said anything to them about then, and won’t to you either … Look, I need to get back to work.”

  Monk rose and put out his hand. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  She pretended to be reading some paperwork and mumbled, “Uh-huh,” and didn’t proffer her hand again.

  At the Raven’s Mill that night, Minerva “Minnie” Thaxton tore up a rendition of T-Bone Walker’s “Cold, Cold Feeling.” The club had been closed for years but several enterprising types, including a skateboarding champion turned brand name, had cleared up the title, then refurbished and reopened the place. There was money to be made on the nostalgia angle, and there were the loft dwellers trickling into the south side who knew all about the blues from public television.

  The audience was more white and young than black and old, but the applause was genuine and the vibe mellow. She finished her first set with one of her own numbers, “The Heat of My Heart,” which showcased her searing riffs on guitar. Monk was allowed backstage as had been arranged, and after announcing himself, he entered Minnie Thaxton’s dressing room.

  “Sheeeittt,” the big woman said, sipping more of the Stoli-over-ice Monk had been advised to bring. After introductions, she’d asked him to pour one for her and one for himself from the short dog he’d brought along. “That chick always did have her ways. Even back then when Nazeen and Hayzell were going around together, she was whispering in his ear about how he should go solo and whatnot.”