How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy? (Phoenix Noir Book 1)

by Graham, Barry

  “I reacted. It was panic.”

  I pulled the car into our complex and parked it. We got out. I looked at Janine. She seemed perfectly composed, if a little subdued. “Are you okay? I thought you’d be more shaken up.”

  She nodded, then shook her head. “I think maybe I’m in shock. I can’t believe what I did.”

  I put an arm around her and held her to me as I unlocked the door to our apartment.

  “Are you okay about it?” she asked me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’re not bothered, are you? It didn’t put you off me, seeing me do that?”

  “Shit, no. Of course I’m surprised, but it doesn’t bother me. Actually, I’m kind of impressed.”

  “I’m not. I’m ashamed.”

  “I don’t see what’s to be ashamed of.”

  “That’s the thing we’re never going to agree on,” she said.

  Inside the apartment, I lit a couple of candles. Janine sat on the couch. I filled a basin with warm water and lavender oil. She took off her shoes and socks. I set the basin on the floor in front of the couch, then took each of her feet and placed them in the water. I slipped my hands into the water and, softly, stroked her feet clean, stroked the rage and tension out of them.

  A woman had done that for me after the first time I deliberately killed a person. As I massaged Janine’s feet I recalled the look on the kid’s face, his chest and throat exploding as I shot him again and again. When he finally lay at my feet, blood and piss running out of him, I was almost overwhelmed by how little I felt. So this is what it’s like, I thought to myself.

  I toweled her feet dry. Then we went to bed. “Do you think the cops’ll find me?” she asked.

  “If they try hard enough, probably. But I don’t think they’ll bother. I don’t expect they’ll mount a citywide manhunt because some idiot got his face sliced. Don’t worry about it.” I turned off the light.

  I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to sleep, but she dropped off in a matter of minutes. I lay with her and held her from behind. I listened to the clunking drone of the air-conditioning. It was eighty degrees outside. I thought about the things that would happen outside my locked door that night, things I would read about in the paper or watch on the next day’s news. Tim. Janine. Mara. A young man cut up in a diner. Finally I slept.

  FOUR

  Tim was cremated and then nothing happened. No announcement was made by the cops about the progress of the investigation. I shouldn’t have been surprised—those responsible for the deployment of police resources were probably glad to see Tim silenced. I’d half-expected the County Sheriff to show up at the funeral service to gloat.

  I wanted to do an article on Tim’s death and the cops’ lack of interest, but there was no one I could do it for. The Phoenix Weekly wasn’t coming out anymore, and the Arizona Republic had its own guys working on it.

  “You’re letting your heart rule your head,” Janine told me. “Spike says there’s no way the cops can find the killer. Is writing an article going to change that? Will it catch the killer and bring Tim back to life?”

  “There might be no chance of catching the hit man. But they could investigate Fallowell and try to prove that he ordered it.”

  “How? Do you think he kept a record of it? Maybe has a list of contract killers in his personnel files? Is there a temp agency for assassins?” Seeing my expression, she stopped. “I’m sorry, babe. I’m not trying to be mean to you. But somebody has to tell you. Let it go. There’s nothing you can do.”

  Fallowell didn’t even deny it.

  It took me a day or so to find out where his office was. None of the workers at his day care centers were prepared to tell me. I finally found that he had a suite in an office building in the business district downtown.

  I drove there in the middle of the afternoon. I parked my car amongst the nice new ones and got out. The icy blast of the air-conditioning hit me as soon as I entered the building. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and for a second I considered going back to my car to get my emergency sweater from the trunk.

  Instead I got in the elevator and rode it to the fifth floor. I got out and walked around until I saw a plaque engraved ANTHONY FALLOWELL ENTERPRISES LTD. I went through the door into a reception area. There was a desk with a teenage girl sitting behind it. She gave me an uneasy look. I was probably the first guy without a suit she had seen all day.

  “Hello. Can I help you?”

  “Hope so. I’d like to talk to Tony Fallowell.”

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “No.”

  “He might be busy.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She thinned her lips and looked at me as she picked up the phone. “There’s a gentleman here to see you,” she told her boss. “Sorry, what’s your name?” she asked me.

  “Saunders.”

  “Mr Saunders. And what’s it in connection with?”

  I smiled at her. “A man he had murdered.”

  Fallowell was in his fifties. He had the combination of bad teeth and bad haircut that serves as the badge that announces “LOWLIFE WITH MONEY.” He sat at his desk and didn’t speak as I walked into his office.

  “Want to talk about murder?” I asked him.

  “You obviously want to,” he said. “What’s your problem?”

  “How come you don’t think I’m a crank? I told your receptionist you’d had somebody murdered. I thought you’d tell her to call the cops or security and have me thrown out. But you didn’t. You told her to send me on in. How come?”

  If he was fazed at all, he wasn’t showing it. “What do you want?”

  “I’m accusing you of murder, you piece of shit.”

  “I heard you. So what?”

  “So do you deny it?”

  “I’m not denying anything. I don’t have to answer to any fucking trash who walks in off the street. Now you’d better tell me what you want, or go and insult somebody else. I’ve got work to do.”

  “Fuck you. You killed Tim Wolvern.”

  He didn’t answer. Just sat there.

  “You did it, didn’t you?”

  Still no answer. Then he tapped his wristwatch. “I think you’d better be going.”

  “Suck my asshole. I’ll go when I’m finished talking to you.”

  “You’re talking at me.”

  He must have pressed some kind of alarm button, because the door opened behind me and a voice said, “What’s up?”

  The guy had the kind of build you see on security guards at big rock concerts. He was so heavy he looked fat, though he wasn’t. He was a huge ball of muscle with arms and legs and a head sticking out incongruously.

  I looked back at Fallowell. “Tony, Tony. Your boyfriend doesn’t have to be upset. I don’t see you that way.”

  “I’ve been listening to this kind of crap since this guy got here,” Fallowell told his flunky. “Escort him outside, and if he gives you any mouth, you can teach him some manners.”

  The guy pointed to the door. “Let’s go,” he told me.

  “I’m going,” I said. “But why don’t you teach me some manners first?”

  He looked at Fallowell, who nodded and said, “If that’s what he wants...”

  The guy came at me without even bothering to protect himself. I slipped the punch he swung at me, and smashed the heel of my right hand into his face, screaming, “Kihap!”. His expression didn’t change, but he took a step back and raised his fists in a boxing stance. Blood ran down his chin from his mangled lips. He came after me again, but wary now. I threw a crescent kick at his ribs, and it landed full force. But I think it hurt my leg more than his ribs. He gasped, but he didn’t fold. I staggered a little, thrown off balance by the force of impact, and he grabbed me and took me down. As we fell, he got in a punch to my face that would probably have broken my jaw if the direction of the fall hadn’t been taking me away from it. As it was, I nearly blacked out.

  He had me on my b
ack, his hands around my throat. I reached up and got my hands around his throat, squeezed as hard as I could. But he squeezed harder, and what little breath I could draw came in whistling shrieks. The guy was saying something, but it was drowned out by the pounding of the blood in my head. Then I saw Fallowell tap him on the shoulder, and the hands were taken from my throat.

  “You were liable to kill him,” I heard Fallowell say as the air rushed into my lungs. “Be careful.”

  “Sure,” the guy said, standing up. Then he kicked me in the side, nailing one of my kidneys with the toe of his shoe. I screamed, but, as I did, I rolled over and went into a spin, swinging a leg into the backs of the guy’s knees, kicking his legs from under him. As he fell, I got up and stumbled toward the door. Fallowell was standing near it, and from the look on his face I could tell that his man was right behind me. I half turned, saw him, and snapped a side kick at his knee. It doesn’t matter how big you are—everybody’s kneecaps are the same. And my kick shattered his. As he fell, I cut off his scream with a knife-hand strike to the side of his neck. As he flopped on his back, I brought an ax-kick down on his stomach. Vomit shot out of his mouth in a geyser that reached two or three feet high. When it stopped, I went down on top of him, grabbed his hair, and pounded his head into the floor a few times. I wanted to keep on going until his brains leaked out of his ears. But the sound of him choking on his puke got through to me, and I forced myself to stop. I rolled him onto his side, and the puke spilled out of his mouth and onto the floor, steam rising from it in the air-conditioned chill.

  I stood up.

  I walked toward Fallowell. “Want some too?” I asked.

  “You’re a fucking psycho. I don’t know what you’ve got against me. I don’t know anything about what you said.”

  “Whatever.” I spat a mouthful of blood in his face. “If you call the cops, you’d better hope they figure out who I am and find me before I come back here and tear your fucking throat out.” He didn’t say anything. “Tell your boyfriend thanks for the lesson in manners.”

  As I walked through the reception area, I gave his receptionist a bloody smile and a wink. Then I got in the elevator. When it reached the ground floor and the doors opened, I fell into a hapkido stance, thinking he might have somebody waiting for me. But nobody even looked at me as I walked hurriedly out of the building, then ran to my car in the heat.

  I started the car, hauled ass out of the lot, and drove a few blocks up Central Avenue. Then I pulled into another lot and parked. I checked out my face in the rearview. My lower lip was split, and could have used some stitches. My upper lip was swollen so big I looked clownish. My throat was red and black. There was no other visible damage, but I was worried about the ache in my kidneys.

  I drove home. When I walked into the apartment, Janine was sitting on the couch, readying Vanity Fair or something. She started to say hi, then looked at me. “What the fuck, Andy—”

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” I said. “I’m okay. But I want to take a bath and relax, okay?”

  She just stared at me, shaking her head.

  I went into the bathroom and shut the door. As the bath filled with water, I sat down on the toilet and pissed. When I’d finished, I stood up and looked at the toilet bowl. There was some blood, which was what I’d been afraid of. I gently touched my abdomen with my fingers, then pressed harder. It didn’t feel too bad.

  I flushed the toilet, then got in the bath. I lay there and breathed slowly, imagining that I was breathing out all the pain and garbage in a black cloud that floated away on the steam from the water. While I was doing that, the door opened and Janine came in.

  “What happened?”

  “Just let me have this bath, then I’ll tell you.”

  “You got in a fight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You went after Fallowell, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You asshole. What did you do to him?”

  “I didn’t do anything to him. One of his heavies messed with me.”

  “He did that to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Christ. And what happened?”

  “I messed with him.”

  “You are such a fucking idiot.”

  “Janine, I’m hurting. Okay? Beat up on me later.”

  “Where did it get you? Have you found anything out? Has Tim come back to life?”

  “No, but I feel better.” Seeing her about to explode, I added, “And I think I might find something out. I definitely put a scare into Fallowell. He’s a small-time thug. He’s not used to being stood up to. You should have seen his face when his boy couldn’t kick my ass. If I lean on him enough, I’ve got a feeling he might cave in.”

  She was quiet for a moment, just reached out and touched my face. Then she said, “You think he did it?”

  “Honestly, I know he did. I can’t prove it. But I could smell it on him. And he’s so stupid and arrogant, I know I’ll find a way to prove it. He’s not smart enough to cover his ass properly.”

  Janine opened the medicine cabinet and got out some ibuprofen. “I’ll go get you some seltzer,” she said. She left and then came back with a glass of it. I washed the pills down with it. “You want anything else?” she asked me. I shook my head. “Okay,” she said. “I need some down time after this crap. So I’m going to go hike up Camelback Mountain, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I stayed in the bath until the water was lukewarm. I got out, dried off, and put on a robe. I was in the kitchen, preparing to bake a rainbow trout, when the phone rang. It was Janine.

  “How’re you feeling?” she said.

  “A lot better. Where are you?”

  “At the dollar theater. I feel like seeing a movie.”

  “What movie?”

  “Sleepless in Seattle.”

  “Yuk.”

  “So you don’t want to come with?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I know. But I thought I’d give you the chance.” She laughed. “So I’ll be home later. Want me to stop at the store and get you anything?”

  “Not that I can think of. Have fun.”

  “I will.”

  When I hung up the phone, I put the fish in the oven. Then I went into the bedroom and sat on the cushion in front of my altar. I lit a candle and some incense, and sat quietly for about twenty minutes. By that time, the fish was ready. I sat in the living room and ate it with garlic butter and vegetables as I read a magazine.

  I put the dishes in the sink, thought about washing them, and decided to leave them until the morning. I brushed my teeth and pissed. There was no blood this time. I went to bed. I lay in the dark, waiting to fall asleep, feeling the aches in my body. My teeth felt loose, though I knew they weren’t. I could feel how fragile my body was. It really wasn’t anything at all, just a few organs and calcium and mush. It wouldn’t be long until my teeth and bones dissolved, until I dissolved.

  Janine came home late and got in bed with me. She tried to cuddle me, but I was too sore. So she just held my hand as I went back to sleep.

  FIVE

  The next morning, I was supposed to be doing some maintenance work on a house in Moon Valley. But when I woke up, my body was so useless that I felt like I was about seventy. I limped to the living room, called the homeowner and said I’d have to postpone it. Then I went back to bed.

  I didn’t sleep any more. I just stayed in bed and took it easy. Janine brought me the paper and a pot of coffee. While I read, she fried some bacon and scrambled some eggs for me. “How do you feel?” she asked as I ate.

  “Okay,” I said. “Sore as hell, but I could feel a lot worse. I think I’ll be back on my feet tomorrow, if I get plenty of rest today.” I stretched, and winced. “I’m too old for this kind of thing.”

  “Yeah. You are.”

  At around noon, she went out to the store. When she came back, she watched TV in the living room while I stayed in bed. From the bedroom, I could hear
the voices on the TV, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Janine came into the bedroom. “Okay,” she said. “Your problem’s solved.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not going to believe this...”

  “Tell me and let’s see.”

  “You know the karma you believe in? Well, it must be for real. It was just on the news. Tony Fallowell has been killed.”

  “You’re kidding. Like, an accident?”

  “No. Like murder. Someone shot him at his house.”

  “Jesus. When?”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t catch that part. But it doesn’t matter. It’s over now. You can let it drop.”

  She couldn’t tell me the details, but Spike could. He called me in the middle of the afternoon. Janine answered the phone and told him I was too sore to get out of bed. He told her I’d better get out of bed anyway. I did, though it hurt.

  “Hey, Spike. What’s up?”

  “Fallowell’s dead.”

  “Yeah, we saw it on the news. It’s cool.”

  “It’s not cool at all. You’ll be the prime suspect.”

  “How come?”

  “Because you went to his office yesterday and beat up one of his employees.”

  “It was self-defense. Besides, how do you know it was me?”

  “Please don’t insult my intelligence, Andy. Who else would show up there, accuse him of murder, and have the skill to do that to his goon?”

  “Do the cops know it was me?”

  “I don’t think so. Fortunately for you, his receptionist forgot your name. But I think they’ll find their way to you eventually, if they look hard enough. And the girl’s memory might improve.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Did you do it?” Spike asked me.

  “Do what? You mean, did I kill him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course not. Why would you even ask that?”

  “I’m not the only one who’s going to ask it. The man you assaulted is still in the hospital. You have experience of killing. And you seem to have gone off at the deep end over this.”

  “Do you think I did it?”

  “No. I just had to ask.”