Purgatory Gardens

by Peter Lefcourt

  “Can you trust your . . . guy to do the job correctly?”

  “He’s a professional.”

  “From the cement business?”

  “Didier, don’t go there, okay? I’ll stay out of your past, you stay out of mine.”

  “Entendu.”

  Tino from Tarzana picked up on the ninth ring.

  “Hola.”

  “Tino. It’s Gus Malvolio.”

  “Who?”

  “I talked to you a couple of days ago about a job. In Palm Springs.”

  “I don’t do the desert.”

  “We talked about that. It’s a seven-thousand-dollar job.”

  There was a long silence on the other end. Sammy wondered if the man had hung up.

  “Seven large?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll have to pack a bag.”

  “Of course. Sure. Listen, it’s probably going to be soon.”

  “I could work you in tomorrow.”

  “No, not that soon. Hopefully a couple of days. And here’s the other thing. It’s probably going to be early in the morning.”

  “I don’t like working before noon.”

  “Tino, this is going to be a two-hour window. Starting around six a.m.”

  “You want me in the fucking desert at six in the morning?”

  “You can come down the night before.”

  “You paying for a hotel?”

  “Sure.”

  “Get me a room at Bally’s.”

  “That’s Vegas, Tino. We’ll put you in the Morongo.”

  “Okay. Make sure there’s a minibar in the room. And a wide-screen.”

  After he hung up with Tino, Sammy struggled to compose a note that would get a quick reply. This deal needed to happen fast, before Diddly Shit backed out. The man was very shaky.

  He settled on: DEAR WALT AND BIFF, I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU A.S.A.P. GOLF THIS WEEK? NEW BUSINESS. SD. Handwritten, in stenciled letters. In case the cops found the note and tried to trace it.

  On the way back from mailing the note, Sammy stopped at a drive-thru McDonald’s and threw the pen he had used for the note in the trash bin. Then he went to the driving range and pounded the shit out of a hundred balls.

  It took only two days to get a response, but they were very long days. Sammy stayed out of sight, calling Didier to keep him warm. When he told Marcy that he wasn’t feeling well, she wanted to come by with chicken soup, but he told her that it was his stomach, and he couldn’t eat anything.

  “Can’t keep anything down,” he lied.

  “You sure there’s nothing I can do?”

  “No, thanks. I just need a couple of days of rest.”

  He spent the days lying around in his bathrobe, watching daytime soaps and dozing on the couch, eating soup and chips. Acme’s response came early on the 29th, in a FedEx envelope. A guy in shorts delivered it with a smile and a Merry Christmas. Sammy took a fin out of his pocket to tip him, but he said that it was against company rules to accept it. What was this fucking world coming to?

  As usual, Acme didn’t waste words: 12/31, 6:45 A.M., TAHQUITZ CREEK.

  Sammy shredded the message and the envelope manually, using a serrated kitchen knife. It took him almost an hour.

  First he would call the Morongo, book a room, then call Tino, then call Diddly Shit, then go to the bank for cash.

  The Morongo was booked solid for New Year’s weekend. After another half-dozen calls, he managed to find a room at the Ramada that had a thirty-six-inch flat screen, but no minibar. It would have to do. It was a little after ten when he dialed Tino from Tarzana.

  This time it was twelve rings. “Hola,” Tino said, sounding like he had been yanked from a sound sleep.

  “It’s Gus Malvolio.”

  “Who?”

  “From Palm Springs.”

  Eventually Sammy managed to get Tino to recall their previous conversation and to communicate the narrow window of opportunity he would have to work with. Sammy told him that there was a room booked in the name of Tino Mercado at the Ramada, and that Sammy would meet him there at nine that evening with the money and the location of the job.

  “It got a minibar and a fifty-two-inch?”

  “Tino, it’s a holiday weekend. It was the best I could do on short notice.”

  “Make sure it’s not near the ice machine.”

  Then he called Didier and told him they were a go for December 31st at 6:45 a.m.

  “Ah yes, that is their preferred time, is it not?”

  “It’s apparently their only time.”

  “Is your . . . man arranged for?”

  “He’s coming down tonight. We’re putting him in the Ramada. Two hundred and forty-nine bucks. You’re in for half of it.”

  “What about golf clubs for me, Samee?”

  “You won’t need them. You’re going to caddie for me.”

  Sammy took the Porsche to the car wash, then stopped by the drive-in window of the bank with a two-thousand-dollar withdrawal slip. He handed it to the teller with his driver’s license and waited for what seemed a very long time, watching the woman pecking away at the computer keyboard, then calling over a supervisor to check the screen.

  The supervisor said through the microphone, “I would suggest you make a deposit soon.”

  “And why is that?”

  “After this withdrawal, you will have fourteen dollars and seventy-one cents in the account.”

  “Thank you,” Sammy said, with as much dignity as he could muster.

  “How would you like the cash, sir?”

  Sammy took it in hundreds and pulled out of the drive-thru lane. As he drove home, he began to figure out how much cash he could raise on his credit cards before they ran dry. He would have to do some serious kiting or hit up Marshall Dillon for a raise. But first he had to stay alive. Then he’d worry about how to feed himself.

  Diddly Shit came by at four with his money. Sammy counted it in front of him.

  “You do not trust me?”

  “As far as I can throw you.”

  “Vas te faire foutre, espèce de macareau,” Didier said with a smile.

  “Va fongool,” Sammy smiled back.

  Marcy was right. It looked like this really was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  “What are we going to tell them?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  “If I am part of this deal, I would like to know.”

  “What difference does it make? You barely speak English.”

  “I am paying for half of this, Samee.”

  “I’m planning on kind of playing it by ear.”

  “Why don’t you just have your man set a bomb in their car? And we can avoid the golf.”

  “I want them to know it was us.”

  “If they are dead, what difference does it make?”

  “As they’re blown through the roof of their car, I want them to realize who did this to them. So they can remember us in hell.”

  “If you tell them it’s us, then why will they start their car?”

  “Jesus, Didier, leave it alone. Don’t worry. This is going to work. If it doesn’t, we’re dead anyway. So what the fuck difference does it make?”

  Sammy tried, unsuccessfully, to take a nap, before having two bags of Doritos and a glass of Chianti for dinner. At nine o’clock sharp, he walked into the lobby of the Ramada on Frank Sinatra Drive. Tino Mercado had not checked in yet.

  Sammy sat at the bar, nursing a Dos Equis, wondering if Tino was going to show and thinking about what he was going to do if he didn’t. Finally, at a quarter after ten, a short, wiry Latino carrying a metal suitcase and wearing shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops approached the desk.

  Sammy waited for him to get his room key, then followed him to the elevator. The doors shut, and Sammy said, “Tino?”

  The man blinked at him a couple of times and handed him the suitcase, as if he were a bellhop. It was heavy.

  “You’re over an hour late.”

>   “Fuckin’ traffic on the San Berdo.”

  That was the extent of the conversation until they were safely inside room 725, with the door closed. Tino looked around unhappily.

  “This the best you could do?”

  “I told you, it was last-minute.”

  “Got the money?”

  Sammy took the envelope out, but didn’t give it to him. “Listen, Tino, this has got to go off right. You can’t be late tomorrow morning. You understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You need to be ready, downstairs, at six a.m. sharp. It’s fifteen minutes to the golf course. You’ll follow me in your car. You’ll park next to me in the lot and I’ll point out their car when it arrives. Then the next time you see me is when I show up in LA with the rest of the money.”

  “What happens if the cops get you?”

  “If you do your job right, they won’t.”

  “I been doin’ this for years, man. Phil never had no problem with me.”

  Sammy held his eyes for a moment, as if cementing some sort of oath, then handed him the envelope full of cash. Tino peeked inside but didn’t count it.

  He nodded and said, “Okay, now get outta here. I got to change my bag.”

  Sammy got maybe an hour’s sleep, in spite of the ten-milligram Ambien. He had set two alarm clocks and laid out his clothes. His clubs and shoes were already in the trunk of the Porsche, along with six sleeves of Pro V1s. When the second alarm went off, he emerged from a nightmare about being trapped in the sauna with Chris and Edie. He felt as if his brain were wrapped in gauze.

  The first thing he did was call Didier. The African growled into the phone, “I am awake, Samee.”

  “Thirty minutes. And don’t wear any of that African shit. It’s a golf course.”

  Then he took a ten-minute shower, thinking about the first hole at Tahquitz Creek—a long par four with a couple of gaping bunkers flanking the green. He did his best to visualize a straight shot into the fairway, but all he could see was the thick copses of ice plants on either side.

  He made himself a double espresso. Lying on the couch were a pair of beige polyester slacks, with forgiving room in the crotch, a Greg Norman orange pastel shirt, and a down vest. He would look good at least when he hit the ball into the ice plants.

  Walking past Marcy’s doorway on the way to get Didier, Sammy imagined her curled up in bed with Klaus. She didn’t have a clue. Someday, he hoped she would understand the trouble he had gone to on her behalf.

  He knocked softly on Didier’s door, waited, then knocked again. On the third knock, the African came to the door in a Nike Banlon golf shirt and a pair of brown and white FootJoys.

  “You’re not going to need the golf shoes for caddying.”

  “They are the only appropriate shoes I have.”

  That was the extent of their conversation until they were heading south along 111. There was just a smear of gray light coming over the rim of the mountains. Sammy had the top up and the headlights on.

  “This is a very crazy thing we are doing, Samee.”

  Sammy just nodded. It was amazing what men did for pussy.

  The Porsche pulled up in front of the Ramada, and, miraculously, Tino was waiting for them, sitting in a parked two-tone Chevy with spinners on the hubcaps and a vomiting llama decal. A seventy-five-year-old gangbanger.

  “This is your man?” Didier asked, his eyebrows erect.

  Instead of answering, Sammy got out of the car and walked over to the Chevy. “You ready?”

  Tino tapped the metal suitcase on the passenger seat beside him and said, “Let’s roll.”

  Sammy drove slowly, keeping the Chevy in his rearview mirror. Fortunately, the traffic was light, because Tino drove like a serious senior citizen. Sammy never got the Porsche out of third.

  “This man is older than we are,” Didier said, after a while.

  “So?”

  “Does he know what he is doing?”

  “Why shouldn’t he?”

  “Have you employed him before?”

  “I didn’t need this kind of service in the cement business.”

  “I thought we were going to be honest with each other, Samee.”

  “Why start now?”

  “Why not?”

  “Look, Deedeeyay, this is not the time for a heart-to-heart. We’re both full of shit. I know it, and you know it. Let’s leave it at that for the moment, okay?”

  “You are a very cynical man.”

  “For chrissakes, I’m trying to keep us alive. If that’s cynicism, I plead guilty. Now, listen, here’s what’s going to happen. We drop Tino in the lot, point out their car to him. We check in at the pro shop, using our real names. That’s going to be our alibi. They’ll meet us at the first tee. When they see the two of us together, they’ll know something’s up. I will suggest that you ride with Biff, the younger one. I’ll get into the cart with Walt. Hopefully they’ll dispense with the strip search in the men’s room. I’ll tell Walt that we’re calling off the hits. And we’ll go from there.”

  “What do I say to Beef?”

  “Anything. Talk about Africa, art, wine, I don’t give a shit. Just don’t talk about the hits. If he asks you, just say that I am discussing it with his father.”

  “If he says yes, do we then just shake hands and go home?”

  “No. I want to play at least three holes, give my guy enough time to wire the car. He says he only needs seven minutes, but I want to give him an hour, in case he runs into problems.”

  “Merde . . .” Didier sighed.

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It’s French for sheet. You say it when you want good luck.”

  “Jesus Christ . . .”

  He pulled the car into the Tahquitz Creek lot, the Chevy right behind him. The Acme Exterminating and Patio Decks van with the PATSNUFF plates was not there. Sammy’s watch said six-twenty-five.

  “They are not here?”

  Sammy shook his head.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’m thinking.”

  He thought. He didn’t want Walt and Biff to see the two of them together in the parked car. They could very easily turn around and leave.

  “Okay,” he turned to Didier, “Go up to range as if you’re going to warm up before teeing off.”

  “I have no clubs.”

  “Take mine out of the trunk. It’s open.”

  “But, as you know, I cannot hit the ball very well.”

  “Nobody’s going to give a shit. Go, quick. Before they show. I don’t want them to see us together. Yet.”

  Didier got out of the Porsche, opened the trunk, took out the clubs. Slinging them over his shoulder, he walked with his ambling gait toward the pro shop, looking more like the arms dealer he was than a professional caddie. As soon as he was out of view, Sammy got out of the Porsche and into the Chevy. The car smelled like a bodega.

  “What’s the story?” Tino asked.

  “They’re not here yet.”

  “Maybe they don’t show?”

  “They’ll show.”

  “I keep the front money if they don’t show.”

  “Yeah, yeah . . . sure . . .”

  The next five minutes were among the longest of his life. He tried not to think about the fact that he was sitting in a Chevy with bad springs, reeking of salsa and beer, beside a Mexican hit man with a colostomy bag at a golf course at six thirty-five in the morning on New Year’s Eve Day, waiting for a van to show up so he could point out where to put an ignition bomb. He couldn’t begin to count the number of things that could go wrong.

  “Someone coming,” Tino said, moments later, and Sammy opened his eyes and saw the Acme van pull in and park on the other side of the lot.

  “That’s them. Okay, tell me when they’re gone.”

  With some difficulty, Sammy scrunched down on the seat.

  “You want to hit cockroach guys?”

  “Long story,” Sammy m
anaged.

  Two more minutes went by as Tino described how he was going to get in the car, defuse the alarm, and wire the ignition, then reset the alarm so they wouldn’t suspect anything.

  “A hundred percent professional job, man.”

  When Tino told him they were gone, Sammy said, “Don’t fuck up.” Then he got out of the car and walked to the pro shop without looking back. Walt and Biff were waiting for him in their white-and-beige designer clothes and Titleist golf bags with the perfectly aligned club covers. Walt’s in blue; Biff’s in brown.

  “Morning,” Walt said, in his breezy tone. “We were getting a little concerned that we weren’t going to make our tee time.”

  “Traffic,” Sammy said, unconvincingly.

  “Where’re your clubs?”

  “My caddie’s got them, at the range.”

  “Are you paying for all three rounds, sir?” the pro shop guy asked.

  “He sure is,” Walt said, with a chuckle. “It’s the least he could do with the amount of business we throw his way.”

  Sammy slapped down his VISA card, praying that the computer wouldn’t spit it back up. If he wasn’t over his credit limit, he was close. He waited for the reassuring sound of the printer printing out his receipt before he breathed easily.

  “Since when are you using a caddie?” Biff piped up.

  “Back’s acting up.”

  He glanced at the receipt before signing it. $550. Jesus. Besides the greens fees and the carts, they had added a caddie fee. Fuck it. At this point, it was just numbers in a checkbook.

  As they walked out to get their carts, Sammy could just make out Didier on the driving range, about two hundred yards away, flailing away with a driver. Walt and Biff didn’t recognize him, apparently, because Walt said, “They’re letting anyone play on this course these days. Twenty years ago, there were no blacks allowed. Or Jews, for that matter.”

  “Guy looks like he could use some lessons,” Biff said.

  “That’s my caddie,” Sammy said.

  “I hope he reads greens better than he hits balls.”

  “I’ll meet you on the tee,” Sammy said, and drove the cart down the path toward the range. The moment of truth was about to arrive. He was both dreading it and anticipating it. It would all be out in the open, cards on the table. He would say what he had to say, and while he was saying it, Tino would be wiring their car. God willing. Another hour, and Acme Exterminating and Patio Decks would be out of his life forever.