Free How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy? by Barry Graham

still used a spike. The typewriter and the spike sat on his desk along with two mugs—one for coffee and the other for whiskey.
    I met him during my time at the Phoenix Weekly . It was at a press club awards dinner. I was there to pick up an award, and Spike was guest of honor. What a come-down for him—from Pulitzers and National Book Awards to regional affairs hardly better than high school prize—givings.
    But if he was bitter he didn’t show it. After I’d gotten onstage and accepted my award and gotten back offstage, Spike came to the table where I was sitting with Tim and Janine. He politely introduced himself, told Tim that he really liked the magazine, and told me that he especially liked my stuff. “There are things that need to be said in Phoenix,” he said as he shook my hand. “I’m glad someone’s saying them.”
    He gave me his card and told me to call him sometime. I did, and we met and had dinner or coffee pretty regularly. Sometimes he’d insist that we meet in a bar. I don’t drink alcohol, so on those occasions I’d sip soda and listen to him as he got drunk. I think he became quite fond of me, but mainly he liked getting to hang out with a young guy who admired him enough to tolerate his bullshit and humor his delusions.
    “Spike? It’s Andy Saunders.”
    “Hello, Andy.” After nearly fifty years in the US, his English accent still made him sound like he was just off the boat. “I’m very sorry about Tim.”
    “Me too. That’s why I’m calling you. How much do you know about it?”
    “Probably more than you.” He didn’t sound like he’d been drinking. I knew he had—he always did—but he didn’t sound like he was drunk. “What do you know?”
    “Almost nothing. Just that he was shot. And of course the cops won’t tell me anything.”
    “Mmm. They said plenty to me, though. I’m not working on the story, but of course I wanted to know. So I spoke to our heroic law enforcers.”
    “Who did it?”
    “They don’t know. And they don’t expect to find out. Apparently it was a professional job. A contract killing.”
    “No shit?”
    “None whatsoever.  And I agree with the cops—they’ll never find the killer.”
    “How come?”
    “Because he most likely drove up from LA or Nogales, did the job and left. How are they going to investigate? He’d have been long gone by the time Tim’s body was found.”
    “Who found it?”
    “Dumb Jerry Voach.” Jerry was mentally handicapped, and was the magazine’s gopher. “He says he saw Tim’s car outside the house, so he was sure he hadn’t gone anywhere. He looked in the window and saw him lying on the floor. Thought he was sick, so he dialed 911.”
    “Did the cops suspect Jerry?”
    “No. They took him in for questioning, but they let him go.”
    “Who do you think wanted Tim dead?”
    He laughed. “A lot of people. Probably the same number who’d like to see you dead. It goes with the territory when you publish the real news. The question is—of those who wanted Tim dead, which would have the wherewithal to have it done?”
    “Okay, how about that, then? Talk to me, Spike. I’m still in shock about this. I’m not really thinking. Is there stuff I should see that I’m not seeing?”
    “Well, there seems to be some disagreement regarding the most likely candidate. The kids at the Republic seem to think Governor Symington is the boy.”
    “But you don’t?”
    “I think the idea is ludicrous. Symington hires lawyers, not hit men. Besides, if he wanted to kill all the people who write bothersome things about him, he’d have to hire a platoon and get them to have at it full-time.”
    I laughed, for the first time in hours. “True.”
    “Personally, I think it has to be Fallowell.”
    That was so obvious it hadn’t occurred to me. Tony Fallowell owned a chain of day-care centers for children. kids in his care were treated so badly that he could have been considered the Joe Arpaio of the kindergarten