One for My Baby (Phoenix Noir Book 4) Read online

  One for My Baby

  Barry Graham

  Published by Cracked Sidewalk Press, 2014.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  ONE FOR MY BABY

  First edition. March 11, 2014.

  Copyright © 2014 Barry Graham.

  Written by Barry Graham.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  One for My Baby

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  REQUEST FROM THE AUTHOR

  About the Author

  for Steve and Angie—

  the Shadow and the Greek

  “Some guys need more’n they have, some guys have more’n they need. It’s just a matter of getting us together.”

  —George V. Higgins, The Digger’s Game

  ONE

  It was the second decade of the 21st Century, but you wouldn’t have known it by looking at Mark. His attire was pure Rat Pack—natty dark suit, striped tie, Fedora. The place was crowded, and people were getting intimate in booths or on the dance floor. Mark was sitting at the bar, alone. He was on his second glass of Jack Daniel’s. He kept looking at his watch, and the bartender kept looking at him sympathetically, guessing that his date had stood him up.

  After the latest glance at his watch, he asked for his tab, and finished his drink while the bartender brought it. He paid in cash, left a good tip and walked out of the place.

  His car wasn’t in the parking lot, but in a dark, quiet street nearby. He walked to it, and, even though it was late evening, it was still so warm that he had a sweat on when he reached the car. As he approached the car, a beige Honda Civic, he used a remote control to open the trunk. He took off his hat, coat, shirt and tie, under which he wore a black T-shirt. He tossed them in the trunk, then bent and untied his shoes, kicked them off, put them in the trunk and took out a pair of black sneakers. He closed the trunk, put on the sneakers, and got in the car.

  It took him about forty minutes to drive to North Scottsdale, going at slightly over the speed limit. When he arrived at the restaurant, he parked, checked his watch, put on a black ski mask and took a Glock from under the driver’s seat.

  The restaurant had closed for the evening, cleanup was done, and all the staff had left except for two managers. The manager was checking his text messages when he heard his assistant, Shane.

  “Alan. Hey, Alan...”

  “What?”

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  Alan turned around and saw Shane standing there with a guy in dark clothes and a mask who was holding a gun to the side of Shane’s head. Shane’s eyes were squeezed shut.

  Alan said, “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

  “No,” Mark said. “I’m not Jesus, I’m God. But you don’t have to get down on your knees. Your buddy here’s wrong—you don’t really have a problem, as long as you listen to me. Are you listening to me?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m listening.”

  “Very good. I’m not here to hurt anybody. I just want the money. But if anybody sets off an alarm and the cops come, I’ll kill you before they get me. Do you think I’m kidding?”

  “No.”

  “Very good. Get me the money right now. There should be about eight grand.” He extended the empty courier bag in his other hand.

  “We don’t have as much as that.”

  “Yes, you do. This is the night you move the week’s cash. Lie to me again and he’s dead.”

  Shane said, “Please, Alan. Please? I’m really scared.”

  Alan said, “How do you know tonight’s the—?”

  Mark shoved Shane to the floor, dropped the bag, and cut Alan off by slapping his face. “The money.”

  Outside, Mark walked to his car, pulling off the mask. He used his remote control to unlock the car doors and trunk.

  Inside, Alan and Shane stood in a locked storeroom. Alan’s mouth was bleeding.

  “I thought we were going to die,” Shane said. “I thought we were going to die.”

  Alan shook the locked door, then kicked it. It didn’t budge.

  “Christ, don’t!” Shane said. “He might come back.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Sitting in his car, Mark put on his shirt, tie, coat and Fedora. Then he started the engine. He drove back to downtown Phoenix at the same speed at which he had driven to Scottsdale. He passed a police car. As he drove, he listened to Dean Martin’s Greatest Hits.

  There wasn’t a lot of furniture in his apartment, just what he needed, which included a piano. His cat, Pangur Ban, was asleep on top of the piano, but he woke when he heard Mark’s key in the front door, meowed, jumped down and ran to greet him.

  Mark went straight to the bedroom, dropped his bag on the floor, threw off his hat and coat and kicked off his shoes. He lay on the bed. Pangur Ban stood on his chest and purred.

  “How’re you doing?” Mark said, rubbing him under the chin. Pangur Ban rubbed his nose against Mark’s. Mark closed his eyes, and was asleep in a couple minutes.

  Pangur Ban jumped off the bed and walked around, sniffing at the coat and hat on the floor. He went to the bag Mark had used, and climbed into it. It was full of banknotes. Pangur Ban played in the money until he, too, fell asleep.

  TWO

  The next morning, Mark woke, still in his clothes. He got up, started coffee brewing, fed Pangur Ban, then took a shower. He toweled himself dry, put on jeans and a shirt and sat in a chair and drank a cup of coffee as he looked at the Arizona Republic’s website to see if they’d posted any news of the robbery yet. There was a very short piece just saying that the restaurant was the latest victim in a series of such robberies, and that no one had been arrested.

  He put on sandals and a big Amish straw hat and walked a couple blocks to a bar/restaurant called The Duck and Swallow. He had just sat at a table when the joint’s owner, English Tony, came over.

  “Mark! It’s been a while, mate. Thought you’d abandoned us.”

  “No chance of that. Just been busy.”

  “Been playing some gigs?”

  “Yeah, a few.”

  “I’d like to have you play here some night.”

  “Sure. Just let me know when.”

  “It won’t be for a while. I couldn’t afford live music right now. Things have been slow—because of my accent, people are scared I might be serving British beef, and they think they’ll get Mad Cow Disease.”

  “That reminds me... These two cows are standing in a field, and one of them says to the other, ‘Do you ever worry about Mad Cow Disease?’ The other cow says, ‘Nah.’ The first cow says, ‘How come?’ and the other cow says, ‘Because I’m a tractor.’”

  Tony laughed. “What can I get you?”

  “Dr. Pepper, hot dog and fries.”

  “That’s your breakfast? My God—you can take the boy out of Apache Junction, but you’ll never take Apache Junction out of the boy.”

  “Oh, shut up about Apache Junction. I’m going over there tomorrow. My cousin’s getting married.”

  “Are you the band?”

  “No, but you know how it is—they’ll make me get up and do a song or two anyway.”

  “I’m sure. There’re three people who never get an unconditional invitation to a wedding—photographers, musicians and cooks.”

  Linda was sitting in the Fair Trade Cafe on Roosevelt and Central, by herself, drinking tea and reading a book. A hand fell on her
shoulder. She looked up. “Hey, Karen! What’s up?”

  “Getting paid, getting laid,” Karen said. “How about you?”

  “Neither.”

  “You finished school?”

  “Yeah, three months ago. Having a Ph.D. doesn’t make the temp agencies pay you any better.”

  “You’re temping? That sucks.”

  “Tell me about it. Well, it could be worse. I’m actually about to start a new job—”

  “Oh, cool.”

  “Waiting tables in a restaurant.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I guess I can’t ask the customers to call me Dr. Travers.”

  “My boyfriend’s brother is the only person I know that’s got job security these days.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “Works at a homeless shelter.”

  Purves wasn’t tied to the chair, but the big man named Fitzgerald, who worked for Casci, was holding him down so tightly he might as well have been.

  There was another chair, but Casci wasn’t sitting, maybe because the room was grungy and Casci’s clothes were so expensive. He stood beside the empty chair, looking at Purves.

  “I just opened a restaurant, did you know that?” Casci said.

  “No. I didn’t know that,” Purves said.

  “Yeah. What with the revitalization of downtown, I thought it would be a good business to get into. When you work all your life, you need something new and challenging to do in your retirement. Something that lets you draw upon all your years of hard work and experience—two things a worthless punk like you could never understand.”

  “Sergio... Mr. Casci...”

  “You can call me by my first name or my last name now, it doesn’t matter. I’m not your friend anymore, and I’m not your boss. You screwed both of those things when you thought you could take me for a fool.”

  “Please, listen...”

  “No, you listen. You might learn something. Now, like I was saying before you interrupted, I just opened a restaurant. It’s called Green Life, sort of a health food place. You see, I’ve been reading a lot about food lately. It’s very interesting, it really is. You know why some people think organic, free range meat tastes better? Huh? I’m talking to you, boy!”

  “No. No, I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. Some experts believe that the meat tastes better if the animal had a happy life and a quick and painless death. Amazing, huh? If the animal had a lot of pain and suffering, it actually makes the meat taste worse.”

  Purves saw where this was going, and he tried and failed to suppress a whimper.

  “So,” Casci said, “if a lot of pain before dying ruins the flavor of the meat, I hope nobody’s going to eat you...”

  “Mr. Casci, whatever you’re going to do, please, please don’t do it...”

  “Because your meat is not going to taste very nice at all.” Casci nodded to Fitzgerald, and took a few steps back so the blood wouldn’t get on his suit. He listened to Purves’ screams, but he didn’t really watch what was happening to him. He watched the concrete floor in front of Purves, watched how drops of blood became a puddle that spread so wide that he had to take a couple more steps back to keep it from reaching his shoes.

  After the nuptials, Mark was asked to propose a toast. “I’m hoping, as I’m sure we all are, that once Laura has the surgery that restores her eyesight, she’ll still stay with Paul out of pity... Okay, though, seriously... I’m glad these two wonderful people have found each other. Join me in a toast to their happiness. To Paul and Laura.”

  As he tried to sit down, Paul blocked his way. “Hey, not so fast,” Paul said, then took the microphone and addressed the guests. “Some of you don’t know this, but my evil cousin here is one hell of a singer. He actually does it as a job! Now, after picking on me, no way is he getting away without giving us a song on my wedding day. Come on, Marky—show them you ain’t as dumb as you look.”

  Mark jokingly feigned reluctance, but got onstage where the band had already set up. “Okay if I use this?” he said to the keyboard-player, who was sitting nearby, and the guy nodded. He sat down at the keyboard, adjusted the microphone, and began to sing:

  “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee...”

  As people laughed, he stopped and said, “Just kidding. Okay, this is for Paul and Laura.” The laughter faded away as he played and sang a heartfelt rendition of “Strangers in the Night.” When he finished and went to sit down, people kept shaking hands with him.

  Casci sat at the bar in Green Life. It was mid-evening. “Pretty good for just the third week, huh?” he said to Joel, the bartender.

  “Better than good, Mr. Casci. It’s great.”

  “Is that right? That’s good to know. If I’d known this business was so rewarding, I would have gone into it before I retired.” He noticed Joel looking past him, watching Linda, the new server, as she carried an order to a table. Casci didn’t have to look to know what had caught the young man’s attention. “She’s better than good too, huh?” Casci said, and they both laughed.

  As Mark drove back to Phoenix from Apache Junction, he listened to Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours. It was close to midnight, but he wasn’t tired, so he decided to go to the Bikini Lounge.

  It was the oldest continuously-running bar in Phoenix, a tiki-themed former dive on Grand Avenue that had been half-taken over by hipsters and students from the ASU downtown campus. If you went there at night you’d find the kind of young crowd you find in any bar where the DJs are good and the drinks are cheap, but if you went there in the morning you’d find people who had been drinking there for thirty years. Over the bar were plaques from the alternative weekly newspaper awarding it the title of Best Dive Bar, which it no longer was, and Best Pickup Bar, which, Mark could testify, it still was.

  Tonight DJentrification was on the tables, so the place was full. Mark couldn’t find a seat, so he got a vodka and tonic and stood at the bar as he drank it and listened to DJentrification mix beats with the sound of the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. He looked around for some strange, but didn’t see any. It was all couples or crews. A few people he knew waved to him, but none invited him to join them.

  He used his phone to send a text message to Suzanne: “Is Ryan working tonight?”

  Her reply came a few minutes later: “Yes.”

  He finished his drink and left, got in his car and drove East on Roosevelt. He took a detour down Fifth Street to see how busy The Lost Leaf was. It was packed, and a band was playing. It stayed open till two, so Suzanne’s husband, who worked there, wouldn’t be home for another couple hours at least.

  The house was on Weldon, just off Seventh Street. When Mark parked outside, he saw that the only light that was on was in the bedroom. The porch light was off. He texted: “I’m here.”

  She came to the door and opened it without turning any lights on. As Mark stepped inside, he saw the silhouette of her long, curly hair. As soon as she closed the door he pushed her against it and kissed her, taking her hair in his hands. They banged against the door, he pulling her hair and biting her lips. He pulled her head back and kissed the side of her neck. He wanted to bite her there, and he rubbed his teeth on her skin, and he knew she wanted him to bite but he couldn’t mark her. Instead he bit her earlobe so hard she cried out, and then they broke apart, looked at each other, and he followed her to the bedroom.

  There were baseball hats hanging on the bedposts, hats he knew belonged to her husband. He liked that. When they were naked and in bed and he slid into her, he pinched her nipples and said, “If he only knew you had a stranger in his bed with his bare cock in you...”

  The thought of it made her start to come. “You’re gonna fill me with come, and when he comes home I’m gonna fuck him and he won’t even know...” She came, and a few seconds later he gave her what she had just asked for.

  Green Life had closed an hour ago. Linda was sitting at the bar drinking the Bloody Mary that Joel had made for
her. The other servers had left, and it was just the two of them. She wondered if Joel was going to put the moves on her. He liked her, she could tell, but he wasn’t sure of himself with her. He was hot, and women in the bar were checking him out all evening, so maybe he didn’t know what to make of her because she didn’t squeak and giggle when he looked at her, or maybe because she had told him he was full of shit in response to a couple of his more ignorant political opinions. She didn’t really care what the reason for his hesitance was, but she figured she’d have to be the one to get things moving.

  “Got any plans for after this?” she said.

  “You mean for tonight, or my life?”

  “Tonight. The other is between you and your therapist.”

  “Uh, no. Wanna go someplace else? You live downtown, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Me too. Wanna go to The Lost Leaf or someplace?”

  “No,” she said.

  Ten minutes later she was stretched out on the couch in the waiting area, her panties on the floor, her skirt at her waist, Joel’s face in her cunt.

  Mark sat in his car until he saw Suzanne’s husband’s car pull into the the street and park in the driveway. He watched him get out of the car, walk to the front door, let himself in. Suzanne had said she wasn’t going to change the sheets before he got home. Mark could see that the light in the bedroom was still on. It stayed on, and Mark knew Suzanne was getting what she wanted. The knowledge made his cock so hard he was tempted to listen at the window and jerk off, but he fought the temptation and drove home.

  Linda and Joel stood by her car in the parking lot of Green Life, kissing. He wanted to go home with her, or for her to go home with him, but she’d told him neither was going to happen. He asked again, she said no again, and then she got in her car and left.

  THREE

  Another night at Green Life. The place had just closed, the door wasn’t locked yet, and the staff were still there, eight of them. Cleanup time, and Linda was trying her best to avoid interacting with Joel, whom she hadn’t slept with in almost a month and who was getting clingy and had started writing bad poems about her.