Phoenix Noir

BY MEGAN ABBOTT

Scottsdale

The thing about Bob,” she said, and her fingers snapped the ties on Julie’s cocktail apron, “he’s so American. He’s so American.”

Julie nodded. It was good to see Brenda again, and she liked looking at her. She had a Clairol-girl face and silver-blond hair washed twice a day, but things were happening behind those glinting blue eyes and you could feel her winking at you all the time.

Julie looked across the lounge at the man in the beige denim shirt and slacks sitting on one of the low chairs and it was Bob Crane, just like switching a television channel.

“Look at his face,” Brenda was saying, and she slid her fingers under the sash on Julie’s apron and pulled her close, so she could hear her. “It’s so blank. It’s like a billboard.”

Julie didn’t know what Brenda meant, but this was how she always talked. Brenda liked to dance and she made the scene in Phoenix at Bogart’s, B.B. Singer’s, Chez Nous, Ivan-hoe’s, where she’d introduced herself to Bob. She was always meeting people and she said it was her special energy. You could like it or not, but Julie liked it.

“So let’s make it happen,” she was saying and she took Julie’s arm and they walked toward Bob Crane, their heads nearly bobbing together, matching blond locks to their waists and smiles popping. Bob was watching them, watching them and smiling, and what man in the Registry lounge wasn’t?

“Who’s the tomato?” Bob said as he rose. He was handsome and, old as he was, almost as old as someone’s dad, he didn’t look like a dad. The way he turned toward her, so casual, so knowing, like he’d been waiting for her.

When he looked at her, something sharpened in his eyes, sharpened into a spark, and then his face lit, like a camera flashing, and there he was, Bob Crane. He was giving her Bob.

“This is Julie Sue, Bob,” Brenda was saying. “She’s got tits you’d serve soft at Dairy Queen.”

Bob looked down at Julie’s chest in a funny, sly way, and she felt like Fräulein Helga. “Well, nothing wrong about that,” he said. “So, Julie Sue,” and he bent forward just slightly so she would know she was the only one he wanted to talk to, “are you going to be my friend?”

“Yeah, Bob,” Julie replied, and she could feel a tickle in her knees. This would be something. “I’m going to be your friend.”

She told them she had to work until close and Bob said she could meet up with them later. They’d be at the Safari coffee shop and then back to Bob’s place. He wrote his address on a napkin and gave it to her.

Brenda leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, “Do you think he can handle us?” Bob was looking at them and he folded his arms across his chest, just like on the show. Just like Colonel Bob Hogan. “He does that on purpose,” Brenda added, “it’s a gas.”

“What a picture you two make,” Bob said, grinning. “My blond babies.”

And she and Brenda leaned into each other, necks bent, heads touching, smiling tangerine lipsticked smiles.

“Like Siamese blondes,” he said, and he made a sound like laughing.

Carl came by an hour before close, a little high. He was drinking a screwdriver at the bar.

“Baby,” Julie said, “I have to break our date. Brenda came by. I’m meeting her for breakfast.”

Carl gave her a long look. “Brenda’s back,” he said, smiling a little. “Hey, that’s your scene, babe.”

“I’ll see you later,” Julie said, and Carl’s face looked so shiny. His mustache was slightly wet. She remembered it was the suit he wore when they met about seven months ago, at the Bombay Club. He sold synthesizers and wore those woven sandals, huaraches.

She watched him stir his drink with his finger and flick it dry. “Go with God, Julie Sue,” he said. “That chick is bad news.”

He turned and faced the bar. They’d partied at Brenda’s once and Brenda had read the tarot and told Carl that he was letting his hang-ups hold him back and that secrets were being kept from him. Later she told this story of how Linda Kasabian, the Manson girl, was her old babysitter. She said Linda read her cards once and told her she would die young, stabbed against a white wall. Everyone at the party freaked out a little and Carl said she was bad news.

“I like Brenda and I haven’t seen her in a while,” Julie said. Brenda was so much fun. And there was Bob Crane.

“Keep your head,” Carl advised, looking in the mirror above the bar. “You know what I’m saying.”

The Safari was one of her favorite places. Once she saw Angie Dickinson walk through the lobby in a white bikini. But the coffee shop was quiet that night and she didn’t see Brenda and Bob. “They were here, but they left,” the waitress said. “He’ll probably be back later.”

Julie looked at the napkin for Bob’s address, then decided to drive over to the Winfield Apartments.