“My wife had good reason to leave,” I said, thinking: Why lie?
But Rhonda just turned away. With a soft, miserable laugh, she said, “Like that’s all it takes.”
I lingered awhile, waiting her out, but she said nothing more, just leaning down now and then to console the dog.
With profound thanks to Detective Jay Pirouznia, Tempe PD (Retired).
WHITEOUT ON VAN BUREN
BY DON WINSLOW
Van Buren Strip
What it is is it’s hot.
Beads of sweat pop onto Jerry’s forehead the second he steps out the door of his motel room. Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200, Go Directly to Jail, my man. Like there is no transition period between the air-conditioned chill of the room and the outside world of Phoenix—it’s just like wham, the heat hits you like a punch in the chest.
Last night the noisy old air conditioner in the cheap motel had forced him to choose between not sleeping because of the banging of the machinery and not sleeping because of the stifling heat. He’d chosen not sleeping because of the noise.
August in Phoenix, Jerry decides as he walks out onto Van Buren, is a bitch.
Who comes to Phoenix in August?
Well, me, he thinks.
And Benny Rosavich.
And what’s Rosavich doing here in the summer, anyway? God knows the slick prick has money, he could be anywhere, why did he have to pick the freaking desert? Aren’t Russians supposed to like snow, and sleighs and ice hockey and shit like that? Go after an Israeli, you expect to find him in the desert, not a Russian.
Maybe he’s a Russian Jew.
Jerry forgot to ask.
Like it matters.
This stretch of Van Buren is empty at noon. A ghost town. Nobody is out there who doesn’t have to be. One or two meth whores with shriveled chins like crones on the slow stroll, trying to stay on the shady side of the street. Ain’t no shady side at noon, ladies, Jerry thinks. The sun is straight above and burning down on our heads like the glare of an angry God. Burn right through you.
The pro he picked up last night wasn’t bad. Skinny with no tits, but the price was right for a half-and-half. Guys who’d been down here before had told him Van Buren was thick with working girls, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one in the ass, but there hadn’t been so many. She was all right, though, she did the dirty deed. Strictly speaking, it was against established procedure, picking up a girl, especially a pro, but he has a hard time sleeping the night before a piece of work and it helps to get the snake charmed.
He walks down the street toward the motel they told him Rosavich is at. He’s at a motel on Van Buren, you can’t miss it. Hate to tell you, boys, but there ain’t nothing but motels on Van Buren, a lot of them closed and boarded up, though. This was supposed to be a happening place back in the day, but that must have been a lot of days ago. He’s been on the street, what, two minutes, and the back of his one-size-too-large baby-blue polo shirt is already soaked. Nice. He takes off his ball cap and wipes his brow with the back of it. A Yankees cap, because it’s distinctive, people remember it. Let them go chasing around New Yaaawk for him. He’ll toss it in the nearest dumpster on his way out. He has uncles would beat him half to death they saw him with a Yankees cap on, but this is a do-what-you-gotta-do-to-get-by world.
Long freaking walk to the Tahiti Inn. The freaking Tahiti Inn. Tahiti?! Ain’t that like an island with swaying palm trees and cool ocean breezes? Brown-skinned women with small firm breasts and coconut drinks in their hands? What is it, like a joke or something?
He guesses he could have taken a cab but that just leaves one more witness. Cops always talk to cabbies and he already had one who brought him in from the airport. Better than renting a car, though, that just leaves a paper trail and more people who’ve seen you. So better to walk, even in this heat.
Couldn’t have done this in the wintertime, right? When the snow is blowing sideways into your eyes, your toes feel like they’re going to snap off, and a flight to fun in the sun is just what the doctor ordered? Sit out by the pool with a piña colada in your mitt and pity the poor bastards scraping frost off their windshields back home? Noooo, you have to come in freaking August.
They say it’s a dry heat, but so is an oven. He reaches around and feels the handle of the pistol tucked into the back of his jeans. It’s still there, nice and snug. Last night he’d stopped by the pawn shop they’d told him to go to, and the counter guy slipped him the gun, no problem. A nice clean work piece that won’t hold a print.
He walks for another minute and then stops in his tracks.
Jerry feels dizzy for a second. The sun is so bright and hot it drains the color out of the world. Like the whole world goes white.
A whiteout, he thinks.
Abe likes the sun.
He goes out onto the little balcony—just big enough for a lawn chair—at the motel where he has a permanent room on the second floor. He’s bare-chested with faded lemon-yellow Bermuda shorts, white socks, and sandals. He likes to feel the sun on his chest. The docs have lectured him about skin cancer but for crying out loud he’s eighty-three years old and the prostate is going to kill him before the cancer will.
Old men get cold, and the sun feels good.
Abe feels like he’s always cold these days, what with his bum circulation. His feet are always chilled, and his chest is like an old icebox. Death itself. He sits down with his grapefruit juice and vodka and looks out at the street. Nothing much to look at now, but it was something back then. It’s still beautiful in the movie that rolls through his head in bright old Technicolor.
Back then, when you drove into Phoenix from the east, this was the main street, the highway, and the motor hotels lined it on both sides. Beautiful places too. He remembers the names—the Rose Bowl, the Winter Garden, the H&R, Camp Joy. Pretty places with free ice water and swimming pools. One of them—which one was it? he asks himself, cursing his memory—had a big-screen outdoor movie you could sit and watch at night. Those soft desert winter nights.
They were good times. Him and a few of the boys would come to relax, get away from it all, and you could do that in those days because Phoenix was an open city, no funny business allowed, no blood spilled. It was good to come down from Detroit, especially when they were fighting it out back then, the Jews and the guineas. Good to come down and soak up some sun, have a few drinks, a few laughs, eat Mexican food you couldn’t get back then in Detroit. Get laid.
The women in those days, Abe thinks as he watches the two sad whores across the street. Secretaries, receptionists, and nurses would come down on the train from Detroit, Chicago, Omaha, and they were here to let their hair down and have a good time too. You’d loosen them up with a few drinks and take them to eat at Bill Johnson’s Big Apple where there was a chance at seeing a movie star or two who would maybe recognize you from Las Vegas and come over and say hello and that would cinch the deal with the girl, all right. You could bring her back to your room at the Deserama and in the morning lie in bed and watch her roll her stockings back up her long legs and you’d say, “See you, kid,” and there would be no complications.
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.