Phoenix Noir

Now he remembers bringing Estelle here on their honeymoon, on the way to the Grand Canyon. That was just down the street at the old Sands. He remembers her perfume, the way her black hair touched her shoulders, how she took her slip off and hurried under the sheets. But she was game in bed, Estelle—bucked like a champion. That was a long time ago, he thinks, when a breeze would give you a hard-on, and now Estelle is gone and the Sands is a homeless shelter.

A homeless shelter.

He leans back in his chair, closes his eyes, and feels the sun on his face.

Her feet sweat in the tight shoes.

What’s bothering Evie more than anything right now. Her feet are swollen from the heat and the damn shoes are too tight anyway. Red Fms and skintight jeans that grab her harder than a fourteen-year-old boy in the back of a car. Sunlight glistens off the sequins on the body shirt that shows her stomach, not as tight as it used to be after two kids.

What she’s doing out on VB at noon, two kids, a pimp, and an ice jones to support, you put in the hours. Got popped by vice just two nights before too—her third bust so she’s headed for a stretch and needs to make some before she goes. They gonna take her kids too, ’less she can get her auntie to take ’em first. Except auntie ain’t gonna take no kids unless they come with a little cash attached. She got troubles of her own, her own rent to pay, and the liquor store don’t give the vodka away.

Evie keeps an eye out for the cops. They’re everywhere these days—“cleaning up Van Buren.” They already closed three of the motels where she took johns. The rest are closing on their own, anyway. Won’t be nothing left of VB soon, it’s just fading away.

Van Buren, Van Buren.

Used to be a girl could make a living here, you call it living. She looks down the street and sees the guy coming. Black ball cap, big old blue polo shirt hanging loose over new jeans. One more middle-aged white guy trying to hide his thinning hair and spare tire. She’s looking for a john to jack and he could be the one. Take him in the alley behind the dumpster and while he’s busy thinking about her mouth on his thing and all those sweet noises she’ll be making that wallet will pop out his back pocket like that button on the turkey when it’s ready at Thanksgiving. Even if he wakes up, what’s he going to do? She has a blade in her back pocket and can fillet him like a fish. Johns don’t go to the cops neither, because what they gonna say? Cops will put in about one second flat, worrying about that wallet. What you deserve, you go looking to nut on Van Buren. Take that back to New York. “You wanna date, honey?”

Man keeps walking, like he can’t see her, like she’s invisible. She walks alongside him.

“Honey, you wanna date?”

“Not today.”

“I’ll show you a good time.”

“I’m sure you would.”

“You can be sure.”

“Another time, baby. I’m busy.”

I ain’t your baby, baby. I ain’t nobody’s baby, baby baby baby. “What other time, baby? I’m out here all day.”

The man just keeps walking. Walking and sweating. Maybe she’ll see him on the way back from wherever he’s going, he’s so busy.

Her feet hurt.

Itching in the heat.

Jerry finds the Tahiti Inn.

Just in time too, because another two minutes he might have passed out. Last freaking job I take in the desert, he thinks, in the summer anyway. They want some guy taken off the roster in Phoenix in August, they can call somebody else.

The money is good, anyway. Do the job, hit the airport, fly back to Providence, and take Marcy on a little weekend to Block Island, like she’s been bugging him. Not much to ask, and she’s a good baby, Marcy, she don’t make too much trouble.

He walks past the big sign with the goofy tiki mask. The main office is shaped like a Tahitian hut, or what they think it looks like, anyway. Jerry doesn’t know—he’s never been to Tahiti or even Hawaii. Maybe he should spend a dollar and take Marcy to Hawaii, might not be a bad idea to get a little distance after this. Sit on the beach, watch the girls do the hula, maybe get Marcy fired up a little to lose those last five pounds.

Room 134.

They told him Rosavich is in 134.

Good. No stairs to go up or down.

He finds 134, pulls out the gun and holds it behind his back, then knocks on the door.

Abe dances with Estelle.

In his waking dream, the sun having lulled him into semisleep. In this dream that is not a dream, he’s in the old El Capri Ballroom, whirling her around, little dots of perspiration on her neck as she looks up at him and smiles. She wears a cornflower-blue dress and a string of pearls.