Phoenix Nightlife
by Jason Duke

1.

Harsh white supercharged two-fifty watt bulbs magnified to the power of ten. I was two hours and twenty-three minutes into a Chernobyl coke binge, and bright lights were the first thing I noticed in the men’s bathroom at the Stardust Lounge. The cock tease who ditched me for the prick she was blowing – that was the thing I noticed second.

I edged closer to the last stall on the end, my reflection snaking in and out of the black toilet stalls on one side and the mirrors on the other. Techno pulsed through the club, muffled by the bathroom walls. I saw their feet under the stall door. A loud thud shook the stall and he told her to stop fucking around.

The Techno stopped. She knelt between his legs and unfastened his belt and zipper. His clothes rustled together; his pants slid to the floor. The music started again, playing "Burning Down The House" by the Talking Heads. I snuck back to the bathroom door, looking over my shoulder at the stall.

After everything that happened tonight, meeting her was still worth it. Maybe if I had a second chance, she’d be in my life, and things would go back to the way they were when Sara was around. Maybe if I had a second chance, that would be me in the stall getting my dick sucked.

But I realize now there are no second chances.

Only first ones.

February 19, 2004: 7:50pm: Earlier that night

My nights started with the digital alarm clock.

It went off next to my bed, reviving me from the limbo between nights. I smashed the clock with my fist. The alarm fizzled and I flicked on a lamp, bathing my studio in dim light – a typical junkies pad.

I sat up; kicked off the bed sheet draped over me. I rolled off my mattress, sat Indian-style on the floor, rubbing my face in my hands. The only other furniture in the place was a cheap ten-dollar phone, twenty-dollar answering machine, and fifty dollars worth of coke in a Marie Calendar’s pie pan laid out on carpet riddled with cigarette burns. A job application for Audio Express set next to the pan.

I was the perfect poster boy for drug abuse: twenty-nine; starved on a cocaine diet; pale white skin, brighter than those bathroom lights; bleached white hair like a wannabe Eminem. Picture this: everything freezes, the way it does in the Roadrunner cartoons. The Roadrunner music plays and beneath me, the supertitle appears: Rob White - Cocaine Junkie.

My life wasn’t always an anti-drug commercial.

A long time ago, in a high far, far away, I had a decent job installing car stereos at Best Buy and a girlfriend, Sara, who showed up at the end of every shift, threw her arms around me, and jumped into my arms.

For me, it started small, but it always does. For me, it wasn’t just the coke or the women – it was an addiction to the night life.

Problem is, the shit gets old after a while, and you wish you could just get things back to the way they were.

The phone rang and I answered.

"Yo, speak."

"Rob, it’s Carl. You still in bed?"

Freeze frame. Supertitle: “Carl” Trinh Van Quang - Functional Cocaine Junkie.

Carl called every night like clockwork thirty minutes before he finished his shift selling women’s shoes at Dillard’s.

"Yeah," I said hoarsely. "My shit’s all fucked up."

"We still clubbing tonight, right? Stardust Lounge?" He had a slight Vietnamese accent. He straightened his tie, kissing at his thin face in the wall mirror behind the service counter.

"C’mon, bro!" he whined when I didn’t answer. "You’re not pussying out on me?"

Before Carl, clubbing was a part-time gig. I worked the usual nine-to-five grind, then scored coke Friday nights from my old college dealer, Malcolm, the only black man I knew who still styled his hair in jheri curls. The routine went like this: score an eightball from Malcolm, spend the weekend clubbing with Sara, back to work on Monday, start the routine over again Friday night. I met Carl a year ago through a friend of a friend. I started hooking him up on the side. The kid always had a roll of money on him. He supplied the cash and I supplied the coke. It worked out good that way.

"Bro, you still there?"

"Yeah, I’m here."

“So we clubbing?”

I thought about it. I wanted to tell him that I wanted to go legit – that my life had turned to shit and I had sunk to the bottom with nowhere to go but up.

"C’mon bro,” Carl whined again. “I’ll swing by in an hour."

Each new night waking up to that alarm clock, I knew I could sink a little further.

“What’s the deal with that girl, Cynthia?” I asked.

“Why, you like her? She looks just like Sara, huh?”

Sara left me a few months after I met Carl. She caught me for the last time having lap dances at a strip club in west Phoenix called the Stardust Lounge. She slapped me hard across the face. I was so coked up, I didn’t give a shit. That was a year ago.

“She’s a little tripped out, but I’m telling you, bro, she’s a hardcore nympho."

With Sara gone, the nights blurred into each other. Clubbing was a nightly ritual. Selling coke to Carl and his friends was a full-time job.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said. “Is she gonna be there tonight?”

“No, but a phone call from your main bro and a quick stop by her pad. Just say the word.”

I tried to get back with Sara. I needed her to keep me on the level, but I was so far gone, she wouldn’t give me a second chance.

"Alright. Swing by and pick me up when you get off work."

I thought maybe tonight I could change that. I looked at the job application. I wadded it into a ball. I situated the pie pan in my lap, rolled a dollar bill into a tooter, and stared at the coke. I wanted to get clean and go legit. I shoved the tooter up my nose and snorted the coke; tilted my head back and snorted some more, making sure it was all up there. It was getting clean that was the hard part.

8:54pm

Carl drove a 2001 Ford Explorer. He only bought American cars. If it wasn’t American, it made him feel less red-blooded. Too bad everything American was outsourced and built somewhere else. I didn’t have the heart to tell him if he wanted American, he had to settle for Japanese.

He was singing "I love the nightlife, I got to boogie on the disco ‘round" when I answered my door. He tried for baritone, but the whine in his voice sounded like the Quizno’s Spongmonkeys. He wore his outdated black Armani and reeked of Dior Fahrenheit 32. I had on my usual wife beater and Levis jeans. I snorted and rubbed my nose, a renewed man.

"You save any for me?" he said.

I tossed him what was left of the coke in a square cellophane gram baggy. Ten minutes later he was still throwing a shit fit.

"I can’t believe this is all you saved me." He steered and snorted at the same time. The Explorer swerved in and out of lanes. "You’re fucked up, bro."

"Pay attention to the fucking road!" I said.

"I’m paying attention!" he looked to me, swerving back into the lane.

"I told you already, I'll call Malcolm," I shot back. "I would've done it already if you hadn't forgot your cell phone."

"What?"

"Nothing," I said. I spotted some payphones at an Arco AM/PM gas station. "There, pull in up there."

He pulled into the gas station, up to a pump. He slammed the brakes. The Explorer jolted to a dead stop. I looked at him, shaking my head.

"Where the hell did you learn to drive?"

He tossed the baggy on the dash. "I'm gonna get some gas."

He speed-walked to the AM/PM mini-mart.

“I should’ve never let him talk me into going out tonight,” I shook my head some more.

A patrol car pulled into the station and parked in front of the store. Carl was second in line, jittery and sweaty, his heart racing. His eyes were wide as eightballs. The cop was young and clean-cut – the hero type that would write you up for a cracked taillight. The cop entered the mini-mart. He grabbed a bottle of Dasani water from the cooler and stood in line.

"Sir!"

The costumer in front of Carl had finished paying. The fat bull-dyke at the register stood there waiting, her tits squeezed through her folded arms. Carl stumbled forward. He took his wallet out of his back pocket.

"I need twenty on…" he squinted to read the pump number.

She sighed. "What pump number is it?"

"Uh…"

"What car is it?" she sighed again.

"The Explorer," he pointed.

She stabbed at the register keys, ringing up twenty dollars.

"Twenty dollars, guy."

Carl fumbled open his wallet. Some change clattered to the floor and danced around. He swooped down, snatching at the coins before they had a chance to settle.

"Hey, take it easy." The cop bent down to help and their eyes met. "You okay there, buddy?"

"Yeah, no problem, bro, I mean officer," Carl scooped up the rest of the change. He gave the cashier the money and speed-walked out of the mini-mart to the Explorer. The cop chatted with the cashier, glancing back and forth between her and us.

"You talk to Malcolm?" Carl said. He popped the gas tank.

"No, he wasn't answering his cell, so I left a message we’d be by in a while," I said.

Carl unscrewed the gas cap. He set the cap on the rear bumper and pumped the gas. I could hear him shaking.

"You okay?” I said as he got back in the Explorer. “What happened in there?"

"Nothing, bro," he smiled nervously. I stared him down, but he wouldn't look at me.

“Nothing happened in there?” I said.

When you’re high on coke, all kinds of paranoid thoughts go through your mind.

Carl didn’t answer and started the car. He yielded at the exit, waiting for the traffic, when the patrol car appeared in the rearview mirror and pulled up behind us. The lights flashed. The siren chirped as swirls of red and blue twirled through the Explorer.

The cop got out of the patrol car. He walked up to Carl's side and tapped on the window with his mag-light. Carl rolled down the window.

"Something wrong bro, I mean officer?" Carl said.

"Yeah," the cop shined the light into the Explorer. "You forgot to put your gas cap back on.” He shined the light at the gas cap on the rear bumper. “It's a good thing I noticed it or you would've drove off and lost it."

Carl stared at the cop.

"Sir?" the cop finally said.

I jabbed Carl in the side with my elbow.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, thank you officer," Carl got out and screwed the cap back on. "I would've had to buy a new one."

"Don't mention it," the cop followed behind Carl back to the driver side. The cop inspected over the Explorer with the mag-light. Carl jumped into his seat and slammed the door. "You guys stay safe tonight. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

We gave the cop a stupid grin.

"What's that?" The cop shined the light on the dash. His eyes narrowed on the baggy and he grabbed hold of the door with his free hand. "Turn off the engine and step out of the vehicle, now!"

Carl slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The Explorer fishtailed, pitching into the street. The cop clung to the door, dragged along for the ride.

I thought back to the night Sara broke up with me. How Carl had let it slip we were at the club. Or the time he almost got me and Malcolm killed outside the club during a drug deal gone bad.

Carl yanked the steering wheel hard right. The cop flew into the street and traffic swerved around him. A speeding Honda Civic Hatchback skidded up to him, swerved and jumped the curb, crashing into a gas pump.

I looked through the back window. The cop staggered to his feet and unholstered his Beretta. Time slowed in stills. The cop emptied the clip at the Explorer.

I pictured the bullets hurtle toward me: three in the tail end, one through the back window, lodged into Carl’s seat. One bullet inched past my eyes and stopped in front of my nose, hovering there, hot and angry. I reached out and took hold of it, singeing my fingers. I repositioned the bullet in the air so that it lined up with the back of my head.

I looked to Carl. “There, are you fucking happy now?”

The back window shattered for real.

A bullet ricocheted through the Explorer. Carl yanked the steering wheel another hard right and the Explorer skidded around a street corner on two wheels. I ducked down behind my seat; felt my neck and shoulder burn where the bullet landed. The glowing slug fell down the front of my tank top, rolled across my stomach, and out into the palm of my hand.

“Shit!” I threw the bullet on the floor. I blew on my hand.

“What’s wrong, bro?”

Carl had no fucking clue.

9:17pm

“Where’s my money, Stevie? It’s been a week. I let you slide because your father was a close friend of Poppa, but even Poppa has to eat.”

Big Poppa sat at the end of a long metal table. He looked up from the brown American Belting Leather Attache briefcase in front of him. The top of his bald head gleamed in the harsh white light of the lamps hanging from the warehouse rafters overhead. His face folded back into a grin like a bulldog’s. He waited for an answer from the Iranian, Stevie, who was wedged between seven Hoods layered in gold jewelry. Stevie and the Hoods stood at the other end of the table from Poppa.

Freeze frame. Supertitle: Big Poppa - Supplier and Pimp.

“Poppa, I’m gonna get your money…” Stevie fidgeted. “Business has been slow at the liquor store and I just need a little more time.”

Stevie was about to learn the hard way that when it came to owing Poppa money, his patience wore thin. It was the same lesson me and Malcolm had learned when we lost a kilo of Poppa’s coke in the botched drug deal. I knew this because I learned about a lot of things in retrospect.

“You hearing this?” Poppa said.

The Hoods chuckled. Stevie nervously looked between them. Uh-huh, yep, the Hoods nodded and agreed.

“Shit, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to play Poppa for some charity. But this ain’t the Salvation Army, is it? This ain’t the fuckin’ Red Cross, is it?”

The details I didn’t learn, like any good storyteller, I just filled in the gaps.

“Poppa, I swear, I’ll have your money by tomorrow, even if it means selling the store back to you.”

“Tomorrow?” Poppa jumped up. His black leather trenchcoat wrapped loosely around his husky body. “You were supposed to have my money a week ago, but you a day late and a dollar short! Get him out of here!”

Poppa waved Stevie off. The Hoods grabbed hold of him.

“Tonight! I can get it tonight!”

Poppa motioned the Hoods to stop.

“Okay, you got til tonight. Don’t make me come lookin’ for you.”

The Hoods walked Stevie out of the warehouse, past a U-Haul filled with boxes. Poppa looked back to the briefcase.

“Now, where was I?”

He snapped open the locks and lifted the top. An orange glow washed over his face.

“Malcolm!” Poppa looked up from the briefcase.

Malcolm dropped the box he carried from the U-Haul.

Freeze frame. Supertitle: Malcolm Jones - Small-time Dealer.

How Malcolm got involved with Poppa was a mystery of the ages. Why was even more perplexing. Like the hookers Poppa pimped out on Van Buren Street, Malcolm was a whore, only he didn’t suck dick.

“Get your ass over here greasy jheri-curl mother fucker!”

Not that I knew of, at least.

Malcolm hurried over to the table. Three of the Hoods returned through the side door, walking up behind him. His cell phone rang in his pocket.

“Who’s calling you?” Poppa growled. “That better not be that freeloading cracker, Rob!”

“Oh, nah,” Malcolm checked the phone. He slipped it back in his pocket right away. His eyes lolled around the room.

Poppa blamed me for losing the coke. Malcolm knew if he told Poppa the truth, it would be his ass on the line next.

“It’s just some girl I was supposed to get with tonight.” Malcolm said.

“Uh-huh,” Poppa motioned with his finger for Malcolm to come closer. “C’mere.”

Malcolm leaned in closer. Poppa reached into the briefcase. He produced a clear Perspex snuff bullet dispenser filled with orange powder.

“I have some new product I want you to sell,” Poppa said. He rolled the bullet around in his fingers. “Mexicans told me their Columbian connections got a new way of processing coke that turns it orange like this.”

Poppa looked at the bullet. He rolled it around in his fingers some more.

“Shit’s supposed to give you a high that’s ten times better.” He looked back to Malcolm. “Ain’t no other coke in the world finer than this.”

Poppa took a square hand-held mirror from the briefcase. He set it on the table; snapped the briefcase shut.

“The U-Haul is full of these at one hundred bills a pop.” He unscrewed the top of the bullet. “Problem is, the shit ain’t been fully tested yet.”

He tapped all the orange powder onto the mirror and pushed it toward Malcolm.

“You gonna be my guinea pig, Malcolm.”

The Hoods snickered. One of them reached over Malcolm’s shoulder with a twenty-dollar bill rolled into a tooter.

Malcolm took the tooter. “All of it?”

“All of it,” Poppa said.

Malcolm hesitated. Poppa yanked an S&W .357 magnum from his trenchcoat and slammed it down on the table.

“Do it! I’m not gonna ask twice.”

Malcolm sucked up the powder in one giant snort. He squeezed his eyes shut and threw his head back, pinching the ridge of his nose with his fingers. He started shaking, rubbing his nose, nearly rubbing it off. He wobbled on his legs trying to keep himself up, but they gave out under him. The Hoods roared in laughter.

“Well help him up!” Poppa shouted.

The Hoods steadied Malcolm onto his feet. They slapped him in the face, trying to snap him out of it. They let go of him and he fell back to the floor.

“Don’t die on me.” Poppa helped Malcolm up. “C’mon, get up. You’re okay.”

Poppa patted Malcolm on the shoulder. Malcolm feigned a smile.

“My nigga! How you feel?” Poppa said.

“Yeah, shit’s good.” Malcolm massaged his face. “Shit’s real good. I can’t feel my face. It’s completely numb.”

“You can’t feel your face?”

Malcolm shook his head no. Poppa looked to one of the Hoods.

“Hit this nigga.”

“Hit him?”

“Yeah, I said hit him mother fucker!”

The Hood shot a jab into Malcolm’s face and his head snapped back like a bobble-head.

“Harder,” Poppa said.

The Hood twisted sideways, rolling his right shoulder back at the same time. He spun back around with a right cross so fast that if you blinked you would miss it. There was a crack through the air like a wet packing sound. Malcolm hit the floor hard. He started to pick himself up and Poppa signaled to the Hoods. They rushed in and Malcolm covered up, squirming around as they laid into him with kicks and punches. Poppa waved the Hoods off and Malcolm rolled over on his back, exhausted and out of breath.

Poppa stared down at him.

“You feel that now?”

9:47pm

“So how much do you want?”

Carl pulled up to a house held together by peeling stucco and barred windows. He slammed the brakes. The Explorer jolted to a dead stop. I looked at him, shaking my head.

“You really need to learn how to drive,” I said.

“We’re good friends, right?” he smiled.

“Just tell me how much you want, Carl.”

“Yeah, we’re good friends,” he smiled again. He took out a thick money roll of solid hundreds and twenties from his pocket.

“Shit, Carl. Where’d you get all the cash?”

Most nights, Carl’s money roll was a wad of one-dollar bills for the strippers at Stardust Lounge, wrapped in a hundred dollars worth of twenties.

“Family back in Vietnam,” he said.

Nights like tonight made me wonder what kind of business his family was into. Carl peeled off five one-hundred dollar bills.

“This enough?” he said.

One night, Carl got really wasted and told me his father had been a colonel or general in the Vietcong. When he realized what he had said, he got tightlipped, even after I hassled him about it all night.

“Yeah, this should get us through the night,” I said.

I took the money. I hurried up the cracked sidewalk to the metal security door – the only part of the house, except the bars on the windows, that was maintained. I banged on the door. Malcolm answered a few seconds later. He had a couple good bruises on his face and I paused in mid step to stare.

“Jesus,” I said. “What the hell happened to you?”

9:51pm

A block up the street, turned out the Phoenix Anti-Gang and Narcotics taskforce had staked out Malcolm’s house. He got careless with the amount of traffic passing through.

“A Ford Explorer pulled up to the house. You want us to move in or hold our positions?” a voice sputtered from the CB radio of an unmarked police cruiser. The cruiser was parked up the street, tucked between two cars.

The cops caught wind of Malcolm’s operation and set up surveillance.

"Detective Howenzer?"

A husky cop behind the wheel picked up the radio receiver. He waited on an answer from the pasty-faced Latino with salt and pepper hair sitting in the passenger seat.

Freeze frame. Supertitle: Detective Francisco Howenzer - Phoenix Anti-Gang and Narcotics Task Force.

"Detective, the team needs an answer."

Howenzer ignored the cop. He watched the Explorer through a set of night vision binoculars.

At 3-5 ounces of coke, between 10-20 customers a day, times 7 days a week, plus the fact he was black, Malcolm was looking at twenty-to-life of hard time.

"Tell them to hold their positions and wait for my signal to move in on the house," Howenzer said.

Tonight, the cops decided to collect.

9:55pm

I followed Malcolm inside to his bedroom. He admired himself in a mirror hung crooked on the wall next to a Dr. Dre Chronic 2000 poster. He held a half-empty bottle of Jheri Redding Natural Protein conditioner in his hand that he sprayed on his hair. I flopped down on his king-sized waterbed. Fubu and Phat Farm designer clothes were scattered everywhere, some of them draped over a weight lifting bench. He emptied the bottle and set it on a dresser cluttered with empty and full bottles.

"Damn, Malcolm. Is that a black thing?" I said.

"Rob, your skinny, bony cracker-jack ass wish you could have hair as fine as mine," he patted at his hair.

“So you gonna tell me what happened?” I gestured to his face.

Like Poppa, Malcolm blamed me for the botched drug deal three months ago. Malcolm had arranged to sell a kilo of coke to a Gangster Disciple out of Chicago. I was on Corona number fourteen for the night and went inside the Stardust to take a piss.

“Just paying for other people’s mistakes,” he muttered.

Carl was out of coke and he wanted to score more coke from Malcolm, but I told him to wait for the deal to finish. He shadowed me out back, and the Disciple pulled a gun. To make matters worse, Carl threw a shit fit about his coke. The Disciple pistol whipped Carl in the head. Then he tossed Carl a gram’s worth sealed in a square cellophane baggy for his troubles.

“Paying for other peoples mistakes? You’re still blaming me for that?” I said.

Malcolm told me what went down at the warehouse. He rummaged through the bottles on top of the dresser.

“Nah, it’s cool, man. I’m over that shit.” Malcolm picked out a full bottle from the mix and sprayed his hair. “Actually, tonight opened my eyes. That’s why my black ass is getting back into college… after I finish paying off Poppa,” he muttered again.

“Man, college was the biggest waste of time. Getting a degree won’t make a damn bit of difference because the only jobs out there are the same ones you’d get without that piece of paper. That’s why I said fuck it and left after I got my A.A.”

“You really believe that?”

“I didn’t use to,” I said, “But now? Still, it’s better than this bullshit we’re into here.”

“I hear that,” Malcolm nodded. “So how much do you need?”

“Five.”

“Five? Damn, Carl’s family must’ve hooked him up.”

Malcolm opened the top dresser drawer and an orange glow lit up his face. He took out a bullet filled with the orange powder, rolling the bullet around in his fingers.

"Poppa’s pushing new product," he smiled.

"How much?" I squished into his waterbed.

"Shit ain’t cheap. A hundred."

"A hundred? Man, Poppa’s crazy if he thinks he’s gonna get a Benjamin for some radio-active, Chernobyl coke."

"Hey man, shit’s good," Malcolm said. "Test it if you don’t believe me."

I loaded a hit into the bullet and snorted it. The burn shot through my nose, into my face. I thought maybe it shot through my brain and out the back of my head. I was beamed up to cloud nine. The acrid taste slid down the back of my throat. I swallowed until I couldn’t feel myself swallow anymore. I threw him the money. He shoved it in his pocket and sprayed more conditioner on his hair.

"You need to cut down on that shit," I batted at the spray, getting up to leave.

"You pussy mother fucker. Nah, you’re a pussy that can’t get no pussy."

"Me and Carl are going clubbing. You wanna come?"

“Nah, it’s cool,” he patted his hair some more. “I gotta clean up my house anyway."

10:06pm

The cops waited to make their move after I left. Howenzer still had the night vision binoculars glued to his face. He watched me get into the Explorer as the voice sputtered over the radio again.

“The Explorer’s on the move. Do we have a green light?”

“Tell them to put a tail on the Explorer,” Howenzer said. The husky cop relayed the order over the radio. Howenzer watched the Explorer drive off into the night. He waited for the Explorer to turn the corner at the end of the street. “Okay, go, go!”

Malcolm was emptying his trash in the alley behind his house when the raid went down. He ducked into the shadows of the dumpster.

Six cops in full body armor, armed with Colt AR-15 M4 assault rifles, filed out of the back of a beat-up white van parked across the street. The back doors of the van flew open and the cops scrambled out, like a modern day Trojan horse.

Four cops bolted out of unmarked cars. Two of the cops carried a battering ram with a yellow smiley face painted across the front of it. The other two cops ran to the side of the house and smashed between the bars on the windows with the butt of their shotguns, tossing in tear gas grenades.

A cop in body armor carted a Miller Spectrum plasma cutter plugged to a large nitrogen canister up to the front door. He ignited the plasma cutter; lowered a welding mask over his face. He cut through the hinges on the metal security door with two steady, quick motions. The rest of the taskforce took up positions behind parked cars along the street in front of the house. The metal security door fell forward, clanging against the spider-webbed concrete porch.

The two cops holding the battering ram rushed at the wood door behind the metal security door. A loud crack thundered over the street and the door frame splintered. The cops drew back the battering ram, heaving it forward for a second strike. There was another, louder crack and the door buckled inward and crashed to the floor.

The cops in body armor charged inside first, shouted all clear a minute later, then were followed in by the rest of the taskforce.

Malcolm hopped the wall to his neighbor’s yard and took off running.

“We missed him,” the husky cop said from the bedroom doorway. He walked into the bedroom where Howenzer was busy searching around.

“What do you mean, we missed him?” Howenzer said. He kicked at some of the clothes scattered across the floor. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know…”

“You checked the entire perimeter?” Howenzer cut the cop off.

“Yes sir.”

Howenzer moved the bottles of conditioner around. He opened the top dresser drawer, taking one of the bullets filled with the Chernobyl coke. “What do we have here?” He showed it to the cop. “You ever seen anything like this?”

“No, never,” the cop shook his head.

“Looks like we have something new on our hands,” Howenzer scooped up a handful of bullets. He dumped them back inside the drawer. “Okay, so after a week of surveillance, what do we know about this guy?”

“Not much. We know his name is Jim Hardy, probably an alias,” the cop said.

“No kidding.”

“The house is a rental, paid for through an account registered under the same name. We ran his photo through the FBI database but got nothing. We’ve busted some of his clientele and got them to turn informant, but they don’t know anything about him either.”

“This guy’s good. Good enough to keep a clean record all this time, probably by selling to a close-knit group of select clientele. Yeah, we’ve got a real pro on our hands here.”

The cop looked doubtful. “So why all of a sudden does he start selling to every crack head that comes in off the street?”

Howenzer examined one of the bullets closer. He stared at the orange powder, mesmerized by the color.

“That’s the million dollar question.”

BIO: Jason Duke is a Sergeant in the U.S. Army and served 15 months in Iraq as part of OIF 07-09. He was borderline before going to Iraq, but now he's totally fucked in the head. He mostly misses killing shit and blowing shit up. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Thuglit, Plots With Guns, Spinetingler Magazine, Pulp Pusher, Flash Fiction Offensive, Darkest Before the Dawn, A Twist of Noir, 3AM Magazine, Suspect Thoughts, Shred of Evidence, Outsider Ink, The Hiss Quarterly, Dungeon Magazine, The Murder Hole, A Cruel World.

“Phoenix Nightlife” is a serialized novella, beginning with this, part one. It originally started out as a 4,000 word story that was published in Plots With Guns and later republished in Suspect Thoughts about nine years ago. The story was available online for about a year, then removed from their archives. Only the title and the plot of the story are still roughly the same. Jason has worked on Phoenix Nightlife off and on since it was first published in its original form. It’s taken him nine years to rewrite the story into a novella, but he says fuck it, better late than never. You can also listen to him read each installment over on Crimewav.com. Jason can be reached at dm_jasonduke@hotmail.com and on Facebook.