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It hurt to breathe.

I never thought much about how I’d go out. I wanted another turn at things. Another go-round to see if I could make things different.

Instead, I just had this picture of Valerie and the sad knowledge of just how stupid I’d been.

“Dude, they got a vending machine that sells pussy shots in the men’s room!”

I remember looking back over my shoulder at the guy bragging about his find in the john. That was my first sight of Cooper. Healthy, early thirties, a tad overweight, cheeks showing the first blush of hypertension. Wardrobe from Abercrombie & Fitch, with attitude from Scottsdale.

Valerie told me she’d be meeting him at the Bikini Lounge. Said I should come also and get a look at him before the job, you know, get a feel for the target. Her words: a feel for the target.

Well, I’d gotten my look. I wasn’t impressed.

“Two PBRs,” Cooper told Sally, pressing up to the bar next to me.

Sally eyed him with tired patience. “I’ll need to see some ID.”

I watched as Cooper dug out his wallet and slid an Arizona license and credit card across the rutted wood bar. Johnny Cash began singing on the juke. Always Johnny Cash. I liked Johnny Cash enough, but sometimes it would be nice to hear someone like Duane Eddy for a change.

“Cash only,” Sally said, setting the bottles down in front of him. “No cards.”

“No cards?” Cooper looked at her like she was crazy. “Shit, hold on a sec.” He went back over to the table where I knew Valerie was waiting for him.

Sally looked at me and rolled her eyes.

Cooper returned with his money and took the bottles of beer. He gave me a dose of stink-eye as he did.

I hate guys like him. Too many phony pricks like him all over Phoenix. And he had to come here, my turf, and turn Valerie’s head.

The Bikini Lounge had been on Grand since late 1947. It would have remained a forgotten dive until hipsters like Cooper discovered it. I liked it anyway. It was close to where I lived. Started coming here after the Emerald Lounge closed down. Either here or the Alaskan Bush Company, just a piece further down Grand.

Grand Avenue slashed diagonally through Phoenix’s grid-lined streets. Certain streets in the city are sunburnt. This stretch of Grand had gone on to skin cancer. But lately the neighborhood had seen something of a revival. Artists found the rents affordable and the setting appropriately retro-beat and moved in, luring adventurous suburbanites in with them, pushing the hustlers, vagrants, and addicts deeper into the shadows just off the main drag.

I’d been to most of the galleries: Red Door, Perihelion Arts, Art One. I didn’t know art from Shinola but I’d gotten used to the boho scene. I figured galleries were better than payday stores.

I once saw a hell of a good Rockabilly band from Tucson in one of the galleries. Can’t remember their name anymore. But that’s what I liked about Grand. It wasn’t lined with phony bullshit you’d find in Scottsdale. Now that was a city made for the Coopers of the world.

Phoenix had grown on me. I liked the cowboy skies as the sun exploded against the western clouds, the pomegranate sunsets. The dead streets at night downtown. The lingering mid-century postcard architecture, motel dives, and plazas. I wished the rest of the world would just leave Phoenix alone.

I lived on McDowell, near Seventh Avenue, in a bungalow apartment. I moved there after the Air Force. I’d been stationed at Luke and when my time was up I decided to stay.

Back when I moved into my apartment one of my favorite places was the Emerald Lounge on Seventh Avenue. I’d seen the Hypno-Twists play there a handful of times. Great place to see a band.

The Emerald Lounge was gone now.

Replaced by a Starbucks.

Nothing good ever stayed.

Then I met Valerie.

The earliest snapshots of Valerie are the ones from the Bush Company. The ones that kept me company on those long hot nights when I couldn’t sleep. I’d seen her dancing to “Thunder Kiss ’65” and I knew she’d be my favorite. I’d only stay there on the nights she worked. I’d sit patiently, nodding the other girls by, taking their dirty looks with them, until she’d finally come over to me. Skin like milk, hair black as coffee, and eyes to match.

“My name’s Karl,” I told her one night during a private dance.

“Valerie.”

“Okay if I ask where you’re from, Valerie?”

“Tucson.” Red lips against my throat. “What about you, Karl?”

“Right here.”

“No one is from here. So, where’re you from, really?” I noticed the accent then. Not Spanish like you’d expect in Phoenix. Something else, Eastern European, maybe.

“Okay,” I said. “Nowhere. Then here.”

But she wasn’t listening anymore, her back against my lap, sliding down between my legs.

I swallowed my beer and looked at my watch.

“Thinking of heading over to the Paper Heart later. They’re showing Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! tonight,” I said to Sally. “What about you?”

“Seen it.”

“Come on, Cooper,” I heard Valerie’s husky voice behind me. “We should get to the motel already.”