When It All Comes Down to Dust (Phoenix Noir Book 3) by Barry Graham Page B

water. “Is that Jules et Jim ?”
    “Yeah. You seen it?”
    “A few times. I love that movie.”
    “Fucking right,” Marky said. “Fucking Truffaut, man. It’s a goddamn crime that nobody around here watches these movies just ’cause they’re in French. Illiterate motherfuckers. It ain’t so hard to read the fucking subtitles.”
    “No shit. You like any other French stuff?”
    “Fuck, yeah. I love all those New Wave guys. Truffaut, Chabrol...”
    “I like both of them, but Godard is my guy...”
    “Jean-Luc is the fucking tits, man. Breathless ... I fucking cried.”
    “Yeah, that’s probably my favorite.” David gulped down the water.
    “Listen,” Marky said. “Want a beer?”
    ––––––––
    “S o we hung out, drank, watched a couple movies. He asked me what it was I wanted to write about him, and I told him I didn’t have anything I wanted to write about him, I just wanted to tell the story. So he said we could do an interview, just so long as I promised to quote him fully and accurately. That was how he said it – fully and accurately .”
    “Why were you in such a hurry to leave?”
    “Because I want to get the story out there fast. I can’t get it in the paper until next week, obviously, but my friend Bill has his radio show every week night. I called him and he’s gonna have me as his guest tonight. I can post a link to the show on the paper’s website. So I need to eat something and sober up...”
    ––––––––
    S he dropped him off at the radio station. She asked if he wanted her to pick him up after the show, but he said the host would give him a ride to his car. As she drove home, she turned on the radio and found the Bill Goldberg Show.
    “My guest tonight is Phoenix Weekly reporter David Regier, who today gained an exclusive interview with accused murderer Mark Moorhead. He’s here to tell us all about it...”
    ––––––––
    W hen she got home, she ran to her apartment as quickly as she could so she wouldn’t miss too much of the interview. She listened to it as she lay in bed, but not for long. She hadn’t realized how exhausted the stress of the day had left her, and she fell asleep with David’s voice in her ear. She woke a couple hours later to the jabbering of a sports commentator.
    She got up, turned off the radio and got back in bed. Then the phone rang.
    “Hey,” David said. “What are you doing?”
    “Laying in bed, thinking about you.”
    “That’s good to hear. Did you listen to the show?”
    “Not all of it. I fell asleep. Sorry.”
    “That’s okay.”
    “Mmm... I wish you were here right now.”
    “Me too.”
    “Tell me what you’d do if you were here with me.”
    “How about if I just come over there and show you?”
    “You don’t mind driving? It’s late.”
    “No, I’m not sleepy. I’m still amped up on adrenaline.”
    “Sounds good to me.”
    He arrived about fifteen minutes later, and joined her in bed. Afterwards, as they lay together, she said, “Will you be able to sleep?”
    “I hope so. I’m tired, but I still feel kind of hyper.”
    “That makes sense. You kicked ass today. You’ve got every right to feel stoked.”
    “I don’t feel stoked. I feel wired, but kind of depressed under the skin.”
    She touched his face. “Why?”
    “When I told Marky I was afraid of him, did you think I was just working him?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “I wasn’t. I was telling him the truth, and he knew it. He could feel how scared I was. If I’d lied, he’d have known it, and the medics would be stitching my face back together right now.”
    “That’s what’s depressing you?”
    “Kind of. I’ve just been in fight-or-flight mode all day, and it gets old. I don’t enjoy being afraid for my life, and I do it all the damn time.”
    “You don’t act like you’re scared.”
    “I’m the biggest coward on the planet – I’m just good at not showing it. The only difference between me and Ricky Ortega is