When It All Comes Down to Dust (Phoenix Noir Book 3) (4 page)

Three days after she left Chattanooga, she rolled into Northern Arizona. In Flagstaff, she got on Highway 17 and headed South. When she pulled onto Camelback Road in Central Phoenix, it was rush hour, and the city seemed to roar and rear up like a huge brown animal. The windows of the truck were down, but that didn’t stop her from screaming and whooping at the top of her lungs.

She went to the Denny’s on Camelback and Seventh Street, drank a root beer float, and wondered what to do now, who to call, which friend she should ask if she could stay with until she found an apartment and a job. She knew it would be a hassle doing all that, but she wasn’t worried, just as long as she was back in Phoenix.

And it had been all right. She’d found an apartment, a cheap one, quickly. And then, before her money ran out, she’d gotten hired by the Federal Public Defender’s Office. The money wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible, and she was soon able to move to Tempe, to an apartment complex near Mill Avenue. The day she moved into that first apartment, she had to make a phone call, and her phone hadn’t been connected yet. She went out to look for a public phone, and when she saw two older women walking on the street, she asked them if they could tell her where the nearest one was. “Is it a local call,
mija
?” one of them said. Laura told her it was. “Then you can use my phone.”

Some people would kill you and some people would help you, for no reason at all.

It was the same city she’d left, but it wasn’t the same life she’d returned to. She realized how randomly a person’s life becomes the way it is, the scenes they become part of when they move to a new city, or move back after being away. The life she lived after moving back to Phoenix was created by the chance decision to apply for the job at capital habeas, which led to her hanging out in blues clubs because some of her colleagues were devoted to the music, which in turn brought her a community and a routine and a way of experiencing the city that bore little resemblance to the life she’d had as a cop.

Now, as she sat in another Denny’s, not much different than the one she’d gone to the day she’d arrived back in town, she knew she wasn’t going to leave Phoenix again. For all that was wrong with the place – and it had more wrong with it than any other American city she could think of – it was hers.

She paid her bill and left the Denny’s. As she stepped out of the air-conditioned cocoon, the hot air of the night fell on her like a net, like a trap, but a trap she wanted to be in.

––––––––

I
n the morning she called a bunch of temp agencies. A couple of them gave her appointments for later that day. She hoped they weren’t staffed by people who read the weekly paper.

At the first one, they interviewed her and gave her a typing test, which she passed easily enough, but she could tell she wasn’t going to hear from them. When she filled out the forms they gave her, she found a part that asked her to list any special skills. She barely resisted the temptation to write,
“proficient with most handguns and several other weapons, skilled at interrogation, can fight like a pissed-off alley cat.”
Judging by the lack of enthusiasm the staff showed her, she might as well have done it.

The other place seemed more promising at first. The person she talked to seemed intrigued by her background. Again there was a typing test, and also spelling and filing tests, all of which were easy for her. Then they gave her a basic math test. Math had been her weakest subject in school, and in the years since then she’d never attempted the simplest arithmetic without using a calculator. When she took the test, the problems made so little sense to her that she had to guess at the answers. Her guesswork was good enough that they told her she’d only failed by a small margin, so they let her try those problems again.

She guessed again, and still failed. The interviewer smiled sympathetically. “I’m sorry, but if you fail the math test, you have to wait thirty days to take it again. If you like, we can keep your information on file, and you can try again next month...”

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks.” She didn’t even know what she felt, anger, humiliation or something else. She tried to laugh it off. “That’s assuming I can count up to thirty.”

The interviewer smiled again. “I’m sorry. It’s not my rule.”

“Thanks.” Laura walked out of there feeling like the biggest loser ever born.

––––––––

S
he went to a restaurant, ate, and forced herself to look through the job ads in the newspaper. She knew she had to keep herself in motion or she was going to sink into depression. She couldn’t pass a damn test to get a temp agency to take her on – what the hell was she going to be good for?
Come on, Ponto, think positive. Not everybody knows you’re retarded. You can probably bullshit somebody into hiring you before they notice that you drool and count with your fingers.

She circled some ads, called the numbers on her cell phone. All but one said the positions were filled. The other told her to come for an interview.

It was a small firm of accountants. They needed someone to type, file, answer the phone. She was interviewed by the two owners. The woman didn’t seem to feel one way or the other about her, and she could tell that the man was attracted to her but would never have the balls to put the moves on her if she worked for him. She gave them the best line of bullshit she could muster, lying by leaving things out, and they told her they’d be in touch one way or the other. They both gave her their business cards, which she took to be positive sign.

When she got home, her suit was almost dripping with sweat. She stripped naked and wiped herself down with a towel, then sat at her computer and wrote an email to the people who’d just interviewed her.

Dear Todd and Linda,

It was good to meet with you both today. I think it would be fun to work for you, and I hope to get the chance. In any case, thanks for taking the time to meet with me.

Best regards,

Laura Ponto

She read it over. Amazing how sincere you can be when your rent depends on it. She hit
send
.

She debated what to do about dinner. She was craving sushi, and she knew why. She never had strong preferences about food or entertainment unless she was broke or worried about being broke. When she had money, she was rarely extravagant. But if she was strapped for cash she always had a compulsion to eat at the most expensive joints, splurge on clothes, whatever. There had been times when she’d given in to it and had wound up living on baked beans for days, while enviously eyeing Tubby Franklin’s cat food.

Not this time, she told herself. You’re going to be smart. You haven’t done that in a while. Until you know you’re gonna earn some cake, you’re gonna stay home and cook.

She managed the cooking part, anyway. She put together a stir-fry, and ate it at the kitchen table while she read the paper. When she turned to the music section, she saw that R.L. Burnside was playing at the Rhythm Room that night.

Burnside was an old bluesman from the North Mississippi hill country who was finally becoming known, touring with the Beastie Boys as well as doing smaller shows of his own. He came through Phoenix every once in a while, but Laura had never made it to any of his shows. Broke or not, she decided she wasn’t going to miss him this time.

She got to the Rhythm Room just before ten, and it was so busy it took her a while to find a parking space. When she got inside, the crowd was wall to wall and shoulder to shoulder. Burnside wasn’t onstage yet, but Laura recognized the guy who was —T-Model Ford. She didn’t know he was touring with Burnside, so this seemed like a bonus. Life suddenly seemed a little better.

She waited in line at the bar and got a beer, then stood near the dance floor and listened to T-Model. She loved the Rhythm Room. It was just a small, dark, faded-looking club with a few tables, a dance floor and some seats at the bar, but it was part of the city’s musical folklore. It was one of those places in central Phoenix that was beyond any demographic, any class or race or generation. Lawyers danced with taco vendors, drug dealers drank with computer geeks, retired carpenters talked with former dot-com millionaires.

And Pat was there.

She saw him on the dance floor in front of the stage, dancing with a
chola
ten years younger than him. The cheap suit he wore on the job had been replaced with a Diamondbacks T-shirt that showed the Route 66 tattoo on his arm. Laura laughed, and, as she did, Pat looked her way and saw her. He said something to his dance partner, and headed towards Laura.

She’d wondered if seeing him would be awkward, but it wasn’t. He said, “Hey” and she hugged him and the events of the past few days didn’t seem real.

“I didn’t know you were gonna be here,” he said.

“I just saw in the paper that Burnside was playing. I’d heard a couple weeks ago, but I spaced it.”

“I’m half in the bag.”

“What else is new? You got a ride home?”

“Uh... I might have. I just met her.”

“Slut.”

“I am not a slut.”

“I know, it’s just a malicious rumor spread by all the women you’ve slept with. You better get back to her.”

“Is everything okay with you?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“How’s the job hunt?”

“I’m looking. I’ll get something.”

“Okay. See you in a bit.”

He went back to the dance floor. She stood at its edge and listened to the rest of T-Model’s set. When he’d finished, she went to get another drink, and found herself standing at the bar next to David Regier.

“Hey,” he said, smiling at her. “How are you?”

“Fuck off.”

“Okay. I’m sorry if my article upset you. I was just doing my job.”

“Fuck off.”

He nodded, turned away from her and got himself a drink. Then he walked away and she lost sight of him in the crowd. When she got her beer and tried to pay for it, the bartender shook her head. “The guy who was in front of you already got it.”

If Regier was still nearby she’d have refused it, but there was no point in making a gesture he wasn’t going to see. She nodded to the bartender, took the beer then went and staked out a spot near the stage.

R.L. Burnside shuffled into view, wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, suspenders and a baseball cap, his black skin seeming tinged with gray, his face looking battered and ancient, his long, thick fingers curled around a tall glass with a straw. Laura knew from articles she’d read that the glass contained a Bloody Mary, which Burnside sometimes drank instead of Jack Daniel’s when he felt that he needed to eat some vegetables. The crowd went into near-hysteria, roaring and punching the air, before he’d played a note or said a word. He stood there, grinning – showing more gums than teeth – and gazing through eyes so heavy-lidded they looked almost Asian. In his seventies, he looked older and younger at the same time. He sat down on a chair and picked up his guitar as the two guys who played with him took their places behind him.

Burnside played two sets of his furious, grinding blues. In between songs, he’d say,
“Well, well, well...”
and then tell a joke or go into another song. Laura had never seen as laid-back a performer get a crowd so worked up; she half-expected a mosh pit to get going. There was a surreal moment when a crowd of big-haired Scottsdale women walked in, reeking of ignorance and money. One of them approached the stage, asked Burnside to play “Happy Birthday” for one of her group, and tried to tip him. Burnside just sat there and stared at her, and she suddenly seemed to realize where she was. She took off with her friends a few minutes later, and Burnside took a break.

Laura found Pat standing in line at the bar. “Can you fucking
believe
that?” he said. “Treating R.L. fucking Burnside like a busker or something?”

“Oh, I could believe it,” Laura said. “I grew up in this town, remember?”

“That’s your problem. Want a beer?”

“Yeah, I guess I can drive on one more.”

He got a beer for her and another Jack Daniel’s for himself. “You gonna be able to get yourself home?” she said.

“No.” He winked. “But I won’t have to.”

“Ah...”

“Yep.”

“It’s gonna fall off someday.”

“How about you? Get any offers tonight?”

“Some looks, but no offers. That’s fine with me. I just want to listen to Burnside and then go home.”

“You sure you’re okay?

“Fine.”

“And you’re not mad at me about what happened?”

“Oh, shut up. You’re right, it’s all about you. Me assaulting people didn’t even come into it.”

“Okay. So I’m forgiven?”

“No. There was nothing to forgive you for.”

Pat’s girl appeared at his side, giving Laura the death ray glare. Pat introduced them, and then Laura excused herself. She went outside for a few minutes to get a break from the smokiness of the club. It was close to midnight, and she considered heading home. But then she heard Burnside start to play again, scratching the air with the romance of desolation, and her mood changed. She went back inside, listened until he finished, and wound up buying a hat with the words
BURNSIDE STYLE
emblazoned on the front. She was wearing it when she walked to her car and found David Regier waiting for her.

He was standing near the driver’s door, and he started to walk towards her when he saw her coming. “Cool hat,” he said.

“You’re really pushing it now, you know that?”

“Hey, I was just hoping to talk to you.”

“What part of ‘fuck off’ do you not understand?”

“I understand it. I just keep hoping you’ll change your mind.”

“Why would I? Look, you wrote your goddamn article. Go mess with somebody else’s life now.”

“Would it make any difference if I promised never to write about you again?”

She looked at him. “If you’re not going to write about me, why would you want to talk to me?”

“I don’t know. Well, I do know. Because I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“About you.”

She burst out laughing. He smiled at her.

“Get out of my damn way,” she said. She walked past him and began to unlock her car door.