Tracy found the summer heat unbearable after only two blocks. She stopped in the shade of an abandoned office building dropping her bag beside her. She dug a wad of tissue from her handbag and
wiped her face, neck and wrists, traffic edging its way along the street beside her. She never before had seen so many pickup trucks. She continued towards the city's center, steering a path clear of the panhandlers, Jesus freaks, winos and street hustlers.
Patriot Park greeted her at midtown. The land for the park had been reclaimed by razing one bar which catered to Indian drunks, several pawnshops and two dilapidated movie theaters. One, the Fox, had played the original "King Kong" for twenty-six months. When it closed the final time, it was showing Return of the Kung Fu Warriors.
The new park with its diminutive trees was out of place to the old timers. Sterile and soulless, they said. The newly seeded grass had nearly perished that first year because the city left the sprinklers on all night to keep the drunks out. Tracy stared at the park a moment, wondering why with this heat it did not possess a single shade tree.
Tired, she leaned against a wall, slid down the gritty stucco of an abandoned Woolco and sat on the dirty sidewalk in despair. This was too much. It was impossible. Nothing like she had imagined.
Forgetting her bag momentarily, she stepped into the blazing sun and pushed a dime into the open public phone. Nothing. Reading the instructions she learned a call was twenty cents. She dialed and counted eight rings before her mother's familiar voice came on the line and accepted charges.
"Hello, Mom?"
"Yes." The voice was not friendly.
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"How are you?"
"Fine. What do you care?"
"Oh Mom, no. Let's not start that. Please? I just want to... I don't know." Silence. "Mom?"
"I'm still here."
"Don't you want to know about me?"
"Tracy, you're a big girl. These last months you've made that clear enough. You wanted to be on your own. Well, now you are." Silence. At last her mother took the initiative. "Are you alright? Where are you?" She sounded exasperated rather than interested.
"I'm O.K., Mom. I'm ... well, I'm out of town." The sun was unbearable now, striking her directly on the back. Sweat streamed down her brow, salt stinging her eyes. "Mom, look, I can't talk now. I'm O.K. I'll call again."
She hung up without waiting for a reply. Her resolve to reconsider this decision had fled with the first unfriendly words from her mother's lips. She would not return. She was not wanted and had no home.
Tracy returned to the shaded wall. Her bag was gone.
~
Bud turned the corner and squinted against the harsh sunlight. Ahead was the bus station. He glanced quickly at his watch and decided he had time. Business was slow this time of year.
He was getting old, too old for the kind of life he preferred. The hippie days were gone but what he had now wasn't bad. They had been the flower children so he had decided when the good years ended, why not sell flowers? Bud had wanted only a living that would allow him to continue essentially as before with some of the extras.
He moved from San Francisco to Phoenix for no particular reason and had rented a wooden framed farm house on the outskirts of the city, bordered on three sides by vast expanses of cotton and alfalfa. Driving the streets of Phoenix that first fall day he had picked up a fifteen year old runaway from Akron.
The teenage girl, named Jennifer, had bought his tentative opening pitch, all about peace and love. With practiced ease Bud had moved on to the joys of the communal life and of getting high and she had gone for it too. She had been better in bed than he had expected of one so young and eager to please him in a puppy dog way. Bud had resolved to keep her around. She thought him to be twenty-five, an age he surmised she would accept.
He wanted her around for a while but he did not want to support her. Bordering the southernmost main thoroughfare in Phoenix, Baseline, were clustered Japanese gardens, selling wholesale lots of flowers to downtown flower shops. Bud had taken Jennifer with him, bought five dollars’ worth of carnations and set the young girl on the street to sell them with the promise that he would return at dusk.
When he did she had sold out and netted thirty-two dollars. He had been so excited it had taken considerable effort to maintain his composure and facade. Jennifer had asked for nothing, just her keep and to share his bed. He added two other transients that week, both of whom stayed at the Ranch as it soon came to be called. Jennifer had not liked it but she had stayed on.
Over the years he had worked his system into a smoothly running operation that, unfortunately, was not quite lucrative enough for his wants. He never passed up an attractive female hitchhiker, recruiting his flower girls from the hordes of runaways who paused in Phoenix on their way to the mecca – Los Angeles. The most eager to please and attractive stayed with him. The others crashed with new friends in the city.
Each morning Bud picked up the girls, bought the flowers at the Japanese gardens and made his drops at the most lucrative street corners. The flower girls were encouraged to dress skimpily, smile a lot and be friendly. They had not all been as eager to please as Jennifer so they were paid one half of what they collected with the unsold flowers coming out of the girl's cut.
He netted about fifteen dollars a girl per day, six days a week. He kept his bed stocked with fresh teenagers, discouraging anyone from staying too long. Jennifer had moved on as all of them eventually did.
Bud liked his life and had fought hard to preserve it. First had come the imitators. He had undercut them, draining all of his cash reserve but clearing the corners of his competitors at last. No sooner had he recovered than the city ran him off the streets.
It had taken every dollar he could manage to hire a lawyer who persuaded the city council to reconsider. The council had passed an ordinance whereby his girls would be restricted to twenty-three corners but only if he had the written permission of the commercial business on each corner. Secretly he had been thrilled at the outcome. He did not believe he could survive another usurper and the city's plan effectively presented him with a monopoly.
He had sent his sexiest girls to the owner of every filling station at each of the twenty-three designated sites. He now held twenty-three consent forms. Only his girls could use those corners and the city cited anyone attempting to sell elsewhere.
Bud loved it.
At least once each week he drove by the city bus station. Some of his best vendors had come from there. New girls in the city with no money and nowhere to go.
He saw her move from the phone into the shade and felt a hot surge of desire at the sight of her. He watched her sit on the sidewalk and bury her face into her hands obviously upset over something. Bud smiled to himself as he parked the van and approached her.
~
The two of them drove on his errands that June afternoon while Bud felt the girl out and Tracy, cautiously, assessed this sudden change in her circumstances. He bought her lunch and appeared friendly enough. Late in the afternoon they began picking up the flower girls and running them home. The ones who stayed at the Ranch were last.
Tracy squinted into the setting sun as the van moved westward across the agricultural expanse. Bud pulled onto a dirt road and a short distance further stopped before an old wooden framed house. Near it stood an abandoned red brick cotton mill, in back a decrepit chicken coop.
Bud's seven flower girls entered the house seemingly friendly and open with one another. No one appeared to have known him long but Tracy saw no reason for apprehension. There was nothing threatening here.
Night descended on the group, crickets and night birds calling across the dark fields, the sounds of traffic rumbling in the distance. Within, rock music throbbed, grass readily available and amid the
sounds and smells of her new life, Tracy slept.
~
Morning pickups began at six-thirty. Bud had told Tracy to come along and she
assented with a shrug of her shoulders. First stop had been the Japanese gardens where the bright flowers were sorted by variety and color upon a weathered, slate-plank, open air table. Bud supervised the stacking of the merchandise in the rear of the van and then paid the elderly Asian couple in cash with crisp, practiced jerks from a thick wad of green bills.
The girls jockeyed with Bud for favorable locations as he briskly threaded his way through the morning traffic north down Central Avenue to the more prosperous commuter section of the city. By nine all of the major, highly profitable street locations were covered and Bud began his rounds to pick up his remaining flower girls.
Tracy eyed her companions, those who did not live at the Ranch, with interest. They were a wide assortment of young females, some very attractive, none unpleasant looking. Bud had given Tracy a halter top and tight fitting white shorts to wear earlier that morning commenting as he did that she would find them more "comfortable" in Arizona. Tracy had accepted his gesture as one of goodwill at the time but seeing how alike all of the girls were attired, she wondered if there was more to his actions than mere friendliness.
By eleven-thirty Bud was pleased to have all of his corners covered. Sales had been brisk lately and he anticipated good sales this day.
Tracy is alright, he thought, looking sideways at her. Young and sweet. "So, how do you like Phoenix, Tracy?"
The girl replied in a small voice, "Oh, it's nice. Hot though."
"Yeah," Bud chuckled, "it's hot this time of year but if you hang around long enough it gets real nice. Not like back East." Tracy nodded, wanting to speak but painfully unsure of herself. Bud glanced at her thoughtfully. "You might really like it. You could help out to earn your keep."
Tracy found her voice. "I'd like that," she replied. She would to. She thought selling flowers would be fun and a nice way to pass the time. Besides, all the other girls were doing it.
"Wanna sell a few today?" he suggested casually. In back were undistributed flowers.
"Yeah," she said.
Bud pulled over to an abandoned service station. No owner around to complain, he thought. "I'll set you up here 'til this afternoon, O.K.?"
"Sure, that's fine."
There was no need to review the instructions because she had heard his persistent reminders at
various stops. He left her with eighteen bundles of flowers. She had no money. Bud had not thought to
ask and she had been unwilling to say anything. Nevertheless she looked forward to the afternoon.
Bud drove off with a casual hand gesture. It's not one of my corners, he thought, but who’s to complain?
~
At noon the first customer wheeled his silent automobile off the busy street, pulling in behind Tracy who turned and smiled brightly. "Hi, want some flowers, mister?"
"Sure, what you got?" The car idled, window only partially lowered, air conditioner full blast against the already hot day.
"Roses and carnations. They're real fresh.”
The driver looked over the selection. "I'll take those,” he said, pointing to three red roses. "How much?"
"Five dollars."
"Jesus, for flowers?" He hesitated. "Ah, what the hell. She's worth it. Here."
Tracy took the money, presented the flowers.
"You look like you’re worth it too,” he said putting the car in gear.
"Thanks," Tracy replied, bolder than she felt just then. The car pulled to curb when the driver shouted something back to Tracy who had already turned away. Hearing him call, she ran up to the car.
"What's that?" she shouted, hoping he wanted more flowers.
"I said, nice tits." The power window shut off his laughter as the car lurched into the traffic.
What a creep, she thought, returning to the corner.
Bud arrived at six, picking Tracy up as the sun neared the horizon. Sales had been better than even his optimistic expectations and with considerable pleasure he looked forward to the evening. Tracy was new. Bud liked new girls.
~
“Try this, baby, it's sweet, man, mellow, real mellow." Bud inhaled deeply before passing the roach to Tracy beside him. Dreamily she took the clip between weak, shaky fingers and fighting back her desire to gag, breathed deeply of the sweet cigarette.
"Dynamite, baby, its real dynamite."
Bud, accustomed to the weed's effects, watched Tracy through eye lids closed to a narrow slit. Tracy had toked before but never much and never a Sherman, never before Angel Dust.
Bud knew the grass was good, the P.C.P. laced in it even better. Better even than acid, he thought, faking another pull before turning the powerfully cigarette back to Tracy.
The others were down for the night. Bud had left the door open when he first brought Tracy into his room but after the first joint, he shut it.
Tracy floated lifelessly as his eager hands stripped her clothing. She felt nothing, apart, euphoric, content, as he laid his naked body atop her and only a slight, barely perceived pain as he entered her in three swift, forceful strokes.
A virgin! Shit! A virgin! he exclaimed triumphantly to himself as he felt the first hard resistance yield shortly to tight dampness. A virgin! Shit! he thought as he drove himself out of control into her limp body.
CHAPTER THREE
It was the bright light of the rising sun which roused him rather than the clock radio. Robert Killian stretched across the sheets and then abruptly forced himself from the bed, heading directly for the kitchenette where he ran cold water over his head and poured orange juice. He did not like hot drinks and he especially did not like coffee, so the juice had become his habitual morning drink.
He walked across the small living room to the glass wall facing south over the desert city, squat buildings seeking to be seen amid the ample vegetation. Before him stretched Phoenix, the Valley of
the Sun, an oasis in an antagonistic, unforgiving desert.
Killian sipped juice and took in the rectangular buildings protruding at city's center. It was a city grown rich upon vast fertile desert farms, smokeless electronic industries and winter tourism. A city with a well-deserved reputation for easily bribed public officials, a casual, complacent daily newspaper and right-to-work laws which encouraged the ready exploitation of a cheap Mexican labor pool. It was also Killian's home town.
A city which grew by sixty thousand each year, a hoard almost entirely composed of whites fleeing the increasingly black cities of the northeast and seeking a new life in the sun, free of snow and cold, in search of the promised casual and outdoor life style. A resident could spend a lifetime and meet no more than a handful of native born.
Killian lived in one of only three high rise apartments in all of Phoenix, a city generally known for spacious houses on roomy lots. Nobody, he thought, lives in a high rise so why do I? He slid the door open and stepped out onto the balcony, careful not to approach the rail too closely. The sudden view straight down to the pool always gave him a sharp unpleasant sensation.
It was, he remarked to himself, another beautiful day in Arizona. The smog had not begun to rise and except for some desert dust the air was clean and invigorating. All too soon it would be filled with the fumes of commuters but for now it remained as virgin as the air in any city ever was.
Returning to the kitchenette, he placed a battered aluminum pot on the electric burner and set the temperature on high while he went to the bathroom to shower. The water was boiling when he finished and, gently, he lowered two eggs into the water. Killian collected the paper from the hallway and sat down to finish his juice as he waited for the eggs to soft boil. Long ago he had given up reading a section in depth except sports following which he quickly glanced at article headings throughout the remainder of the paper searching for cases he was working on, would work on or had worked on. It was a rare week that past when he failed to see something in which he had not taken part.
He dressed casually that day in slacks and a light, short sleeved cotton shirt open at the co
llar purchased from one of the better men's stores. He filled his pockets from the dresser top where he had placed the items the night before. Money clip with forty-three dollars, all change raked into a shoe box located in the top drawer, fresh handkerchief, keys, badge case in left hip pocket and a .38 Smith and Wesson, Airweight snub nose into a bank cash carrier.
The carrier was inconspicuous, handy. Few detectives wore coats in Phoenix except during the brief winter months. There was accordingly no place of concealment anywhere in usual attire. He had once worn an ankle holster but gave it up as too hot in the summer. Modern clothing just did not offer any place to hide a gun and so the bank bag was a handy substitute and served nearly as well.
The Flower Girl Page 2