Megan Abbott - Phoenix Noir

“Yes, ma’am.” He stood by the side of her bed, hands clasped before him.

“I did it,” Justine Mumford said, looking beyond the walls, then back at Monk. “I came down to the studio to talk with Hayzell that day. The drugs, the sex, those things of course disappointed me. But I knew at the bicentennial celebration, where his father and I were to be honored, he was going to sing that song.”

Monk frowned. “‘Blazin’ on Broadway?’”

She closed her eyes. “Yes, the damned hit of his. Part of the lyrics talk about a certain woman the singer meets and falls for. He was referring to a real woman. Someone his father knew...”

“Someone he had an affair with?” Monk hedged.

“It had happened in the early ’60s,” Minnie Thaxton said hoarsely. “She was a member of the church and a young widow. Her son and Hayzell went to Sunday school together, and the son had spied the reverend tippin’ in one night.”

Loveless glared at her for being so coarse in front of the dying widow.

“I forgave him,” Justine Mumford said, “but Hayzell never did. As he grew up and they grew more apart about everything from baseball teams to the Vietnam War, he wrote that section of the song to get back at the man he considered to be a hypocrite.”

“Justine hushed the affair up around the church,” Loveless said. “The woman and boy left town.”

“But the band knew, cause Hayzell made a point of telling us,” Thaxton added. “It was a big joke to him.”

“So it was you two arguing in the backroom of the studio?” Monk asked the old woman.

She gave a brief nod. “The church was the landlord of that property. Gospel used to be recorded there. Imagine. I had a key and came in the back way to try and talk to him away from the others. As we argued, Burris heard us and rushed in, trying to get him to calm down. Hayzell was medicated, as was usual then, and pulled his gun on Burris. They fought and the gun dropped to the ground.

“I picked that pistol up,” the old woman proclaimed. “I suppose I thought to scare him.” Her eyes got wet. “But he taunted me, belittled his father and spat on all that we’d worked so hard for. He said he was going to enjoy singing that song to all those who’d be there for his father, and he threatened to tell everyone how he came to write it... How could my own son be so hateful?” Thaxton handed her tissue paper. She sighed and said, “Yes, I killed him, murdered the flesh of my flesh. I committed the greatest sin there is.” She turned her head away to the wall.

“We covered it up. We had no choice,” Minnie Thaxton explained. “It was one thing for one dope-fi end musician to shoot another. But the woman who was the symbol of Arizona civil rights? We just couldn’t give that kind of ammunition to the crackers.” She looked pleadingly at Monk. “We just couldn’t.”

Dr. Justine Mumford passed away peacefully two weeks later. Luminaries such as Jesse Jackson and former president Bill Clinton attended her august funeral. Several legal entanglements were hanging over Monk in Phoenix, but the prestigious law firm that represented Greater First Congregational was providing its services pro bono.

Ardmore Antony had a lot of unanswered questions, but the rights to his compilation were secured. The CD was eventually released, with extra tracks and updated liner notes, including recent remorseful quotes from Burris Parchman. The tragic story of Hayzell Mumford’s demise remained unaltered.

Nearly forty years after its original release, “Blazin’ on Broadway” by Hayzell and the Sugar Kings enjoyed a renewed run on the R&B charts.

Scottsdale

The thing about Bob,” she said, and her fingers snapped the ties on Julie’s cocktail apron, “he’s so American. He’s so American.”

Julie nodded. It was good to see Brenda again, and she liked looking at her. She had a Clairol-girl face and silver-blond hair washed twice a day, but things were happening behind those glinting blue eyes and you could feel her winking at you all the time.

Julie looked across the lounge at the man in the beige denim shirt and slacks sitting on one of the low chairs and it was Bob Crane, just like switching a television channel.

“Look at his face,” Brenda was saying, and she slid her fingers under the sash on Julie’s apron and pulled her close, so she could hear her. “It’s so blank. It’s like a billboard.”

Julie didn’t know what Brenda meant, but this was how she always talked. Brenda liked to dance and she made the scene in Phoenix at Bogart’s, B.B. Singer’s, Chez Nous, Ivan-hoe’s, where she’d introduced herself to Bob. She was always meeting people and she said it was her special energy. You could like it or not, but Julie liked it.

“So let’s make it happen,” she was saying and she took Julie’s arm and they walked toward Bob Crane, their heads nearly bobbing together, matching blond locks to their waists and smiles popping. Bob was watching them, watching them and smiling, and what man in the Registry lounge wasn’t?

“Who’s the tomato?” Bob said as he rose. He was handsome and, old as he was, almost as old as someone’s dad, he didn’t look like a dad. The way he turned toward her, so casual, so knowing, like he’d been waiting for her.

When he looked at her, something sharpened in his eyes, sharpened into a spark, and then his face lit, like a camera flashing, and there he was, Bob Crane. He was giving her Bob.

“This is Julie Sue, Bob,” Brenda was saying. “She’s got tits you’d serve soft at Dairy Queen.”

Bob looked down at Julie’s chest in a funny, sly way, and she felt like Fräulein Helga. “Well, nothing wrong about that,” he said. “So, Julie Sue,” and he bent forward just slightly so she would know she was the only one he wanted to talk to, “are you going to be my friend?”

“Yeah, Bob,” Julie replied, and she could feel a tickle in her knees. This would be something. “I’m going to be your friend.”

She told them she had to work until close and Bob said she could meet up with them later. They’d be at the Safari coffee shop and then back to Bob’s place. He wrote his address on a napkin and gave it to her.

Brenda leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, “Do you think he can handle us?” Bob was looking at them and he folded his arms across his chest, just like on the show. Just like Colonel Bob Hogan. “He does that on purpose,” Brenda added, “it’s a gas.”

“What a picture you two make,” Bob said, grinning. “My blond babies.”

And she and Brenda leaned into each other, necks bent, heads touching, smiling tangerine lipsticked smiles.

“Like Siamese blondes,” he said, and he made a sound like laughing.

Carl came by an hour before close, a little high. He was drinking a screwdriver at the bar.

“Baby,” Julie said, “I have to break our date. Brenda came by. I’m meeting her for breakfast.”

Carl gave her a long look. “Brenda’s back,” he said, smiling a little. “Hey, that’s your scene, babe.”

“I’ll see you later,” Julie said, and Carl’s face looked so shiny. His mustache was slightly wet. She remembered it was the suit he wore when they met about seven months ago, at the Bombay Club. He sold synthesizers and wore those woven sandals, huaraches.

She watched him stir his drink with his finger and flick it dry. “Go with God, Julie Sue,” he said. “That chick is bad news.”

He turned and faced the bar. They’d partied at Brenda’s once and Brenda had read the tarot and told Carl that he was letting his hang-ups hold him back and that secrets were being kept from him. Later she told this story of how Linda Kasabian, the Manson girl, was her old babysitter. She said Linda read her cards once and told her she would die young, stabbed against a white wall. Everyone at the party freaked out a little and Carl said she was bad news.