Ron usually worked the graveyard shift, which suited his lifestyle. A few months back he’d moved out of his parents’ house into a studio apartment off Twenty-fourth Street and McDowell, just around the corner from the restaurant. In the evening he’d hang out with friends, maybe smoke a little weed, and practice the guitar. Then he’d work all night until 7 a.m., go home, crash until late afternoon, and do it all over again. His best friend Brian Cortaro had a bass guitar and they planned to start a band. Ron was thinking of asking his new girlfriend Kelly if she’d be interested in taking a stab at singing. He’d graduated from East High in ’82, two years back, and his twentieth birthday was coming up in a few days.
To celebrate, Kelly had taken him to see X, one of his favorite bands, over at the Silver Dollar Club. Billy Zoom was his guitar god. Ron thought he was the epitome of cool with his slicked-back hair and silver Gretsch, his fingers racing over the fret board while he just stood there with that insane smile. Yeah, Billy Zoom was bad-ass, and Ron’s copies of
He’d taken to calling Kelly his “devil doll” after one of his favorite X songs. She definitely had that Exene Cervenka look, like a lot of the girls in the punk scene—tousled Raggedy Ann hair, thrift store dresses, Dr. Martens. Occasionally she’d do the Dinah Cancer thing—leather pants, gauzy black tops, ghoul makeup. Kelly had the body to pull it off, but her stepmother didn’t get her fashion sense at all. “You’re such a pretty girl,” she’d say, “why do you try to hide it so much?”
To Ron she was beautiful, way out of his league. They’d met at a TSOL gig over at the Metro earlier in the year. That night he’d learned that she’d gone to Xavier High, and, although they were almost exactly the same age, Ron suspected that she was more experienced than he was. Several weeks later when they had sex in Ron’s twin bed, he’d lied when Kelly asked him if it had been his first time.
After the X show, they drove around downtown and killed the last few beers from the cooler in the backseat. Kelly always had booze around. Ron didn’t know much about her father, but he did notice that adults seemed to treat Kelly differently when they found out who her dad was. He’d met the old man only once, when Kelly had invited Ron over for a sit-down meal at the family spread in Paradise Valley. Hodge had seemed irritable and distracted, excusing himself from the dinner table several times to take phone calls. Kelly’s stepmother Charlotte was right out of central casting—late-thirties cokehead, former model and dancer, peroxide-blond hair, year-round tan. Bitch even drove a fire engine–red Camaro. Ron thought she looked like Morgan Fairchild, but not as hot. He’d made up his mind that the old guy was a dick, but Hodge obviously doted on his only daughter.
Ron asked Kelly to pull into a U-Totem on Seventh Street, just north of Roosevelt. Nobody in the car was of legal age but it was easy to buy beer in Phoenix if you knew the right places to go.
“Dude, think your uncle’s working?” Brian said from the backseat.
“I don’t know, man. Probably.” Ron’s uncle Cliff was one of those Vietnam vets who’d come back all messed up and just couldn’t get it together. Cliff cruised Central on his Electra Glide with a bunch of other bikers, got in fights a lot, had trouble holding a job. When Ron was a little boy, his father would go out looking for Cliff, who often disappeared for weeks at a time. Lately, though, he seemed to be doing a bit better.
They pulled into the parking lot and Ron saw Cliff’s long ponytail and beard. He turned around, gave Brian the thumbs-up, and stepped out of the car.
“Be right back. Need more smokes, Kelly?”
She nodded and blew Ron a kiss as he disappeared into the store.
“Damn, you got him whipped,” Brian said. “Dude’s like a puppy dog.”
“Would you stop it with that shit?” she said, laughing. Kelly put a Marlboro between her lips and crushed the empty pack. Brian leaned over the front seat with his Zippo. She cupped her hands around the flame and drew in a lungful of smoke. She let her fingers linger against his wrist for a few seconds longer than necessary.
“It’s the truth,” Brian said.
“Whatever.”
They sat silently in the car. Kelly smoked her cigarette.
“Seriously, man. When are we meeting that guy? I’m not feeling too good,” Brian said.
Kelly glanced back and noted the hunger in his eyes, the pale and sweaty sheen of his skin. She sighed and reached into the front of her T-shirt, producing a thin silver chain, from which hung a tiny glass vial. She tapped out a small amount of white powder into Brian’s palm. He scooped it up with his pinky’s extra-long fingernail, raised it to his right nostril, and inhaled sharply.
“I’m running out too. Don’t worry though, I talked with my guy earlier. We’re supposed to meet him at Party Gardens at 1:30. He says he’s got something special saved for me.”
“Cool,” Brian said.
“And if you’re a good boy, I may even let you have some of it,” Kelly added, looking over the seat at him, a glint in her eye.
After a few moments, Ron came walking out of the convenience store. He smiled as he opened the shotgun door and tossed a twelve-pack of Coors on the front seat. “Ask and ye shall receive,” he said. He pulled a hard pack of Marlboro reds out of his pocket and handed them over to his girlfriend. Kelly eased the Toyota back out onto Seventh and headed north. She hooked a right on McDowell and they were soon parked behind Brookshire’s.
The trio sat in the car drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The back door of the Lucky Cue pool hall hung open and they watched two teenaged kids pass a joint back and forth. Finally, Ron looked at his watch, swore under his breath, and groped around in the backseat for his crumpled server’s apron. He was late again. Ron kissed Kelly on the lips and staggered off toward the restaurant to begin his shift.
Conover pulled into the Erotica Hotel on Fifty-Second and Van Buren. The sign outside offered hourly rates and free XXX movies. The city tried to shut it down many times, but somehow the old flophouse had survived. The place got a lot of business from factory workers at the nearby Motorola plant, who used it for nooners and after- work trysts. The Erotica sat diagonally across from the Tovrea Castle and marked the eastern edge of the Van Buren strip. Conover, who’d been on the force since the late ’60s, knew every square inch of the area. The detective spotted the patrol car as he pulled into the small lot. He parked the Polara and was relieved to see that the officer was Luis Escalante.
“Hey, Gene. Still drivin’ that heap, I see.”
Escalante stood with arms crossed outside the open hotel room door. Yellow crime scene tape had been stretched across the doorway. Conover noticed that one of the cars out front, a metallic-blue Toyota Cressida, had also been covered with the tape.
“Can’t bring myself to get rid of her, Luis,” Conover said, stepping out into the late-morning sun’s glare. It was nearly October and still well into the nineties.
“On your salary? Shit, you need to get you a flashier ride, homes,” Escalante said. “Like our man Bob’s.”
“Yeah, right. Me and Steve McQueen.” One of the other detectives, Bob King, had a green ’68 Mustang Fastback, just like the one McQueen drove in
Conover and Escalante had come up through the academy and for years worked the streets of Phoenix together. When Conover got the big bump up to detective, first in robbery and then homicide, their friendship had cooled. Both men knew that Escalante would likely retire in his uniform, and it had caused tension between them for a long time, but things were okay now. It was just the way life had panned out. Conover still trusted him more than most high-ranking of-ficers he knew.
“You’re getting a little bit more snow on the roof, her-mano,” Conover said, walking up to his friend and shaking his hand.
“Shit, least I got some hair left, man,” Escalante said, completing their standard opening exchange. Conover ran a hand up to his rapidly receding hairline and grinned.
“I take it this is the Hodge girl’s vehicle,” he said, pointing at the blue Cressida.
“Registered in Daddy’s name, but yep, I’m guessing she’s the one who usually drove it. Take a look.”
Conover stepped up to the car window and peered inside. The backseat was littered with empty beer cans and cigarette packages. An assortment of cassette tapes lay scattered on the passenger seat and on the floor. A
