by Tod Goldberg
Lemonhead said, “I still get a commission?”
“You’ll need to take that upstairs.”
Lemonhead looked disappointed. He actually looked like he wanted to fuck somebody up, more specifically, so Peaches reached into his bag of money, peeled off a couple bills. “Here,” he said. “My treat.”
Bruno said, “He’d like it painted blue.”
“Actually,” Peaches said, “I changed my mind.” He opened the door of the Eldorado and sat down. “I’m gonna wait right here in the front seat while you get the paperwork together. And then I’m gonna drive out the door.”
Bruno put up his hands. “Whatever, kid. Lemonhead, you’ll take care of this.” Bruno put his hand out to Peaches. “Shake my hand,” he said, and Peaches did. “You’re in over your head. When you decide to come back, be ready. Until then, keep your shit tight. Don’t speak on the Rain Man. Keep Ronnie Cupertine’s name out of your mouth, too. We have an understanding?” Peaches said they did. “Okay,” he said. He looked Peaches over one more time. “Junior Pocotillo. Forgot about that motherfucker. But you look just like him. It’s actually nice to see his face. Like finding an old picture underneath the sofa.” He buttoned up his coat, turned the collar up, and walked out of the showroom, into the cold of the day, disappearing among the crowd of shoppers.
“Another $500,” Lemonhead said, once Paul Bruno was gone, “I’ll go out and get you a decent suit to wear while you’re driving the car around. Look the part.”
“How about this,” Peaches said, taking out another couple bills and putting them in Lemonhead’s hand, “tell your sister-in-law MaryAnn I’m gonna take her up on that green bean casserole one day.” Lemonhead looked confused. “She’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Peaches Pocotillo sat there in his Eldorado for another hour, his eyes fixed on those double doors, waiting, hoping, that Ronald Cupertine would walk out, holding his tommy gun, with the Rain Man beside him. That never did happen. He’d wait forever, if he had to, to get those motherfuckers back for thinking, even for one second, that they got one over on Peaches Pocotillo.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply indebted, as ever, to the steady hand (and midnight sanity checks) of my editor Dan Smetanka. He has given me such tremendous latitude with all the books we’ve done together. His work on these stories made each better than I could have imagined, and I’m eager to get to work on our next project. And then the one after that, too. And of course I couldn’t ask for a better team than the one behind me at Counterpoint Press, starting at the top with publisher Andy Hunter, Megan Fishmann, Rachel Fershleiser, Alyson Forbes, Nicole Caputo, Wah-Ming Chang, and the whole squad in California and New York. Thank you for taking such good care of my books. And to Barrett Briske for catching all of my mistakes.
I’ve been lucky to have Jennie Dunham representing my books for twenty-one years. I am so thankful for her hard work on my behalf, day in and day out. And, too, I’ve been lucky to have Judi Farkas representing my books to the people who make glittering pictures for just as long, which is part of why this book exists at all. I am grateful to the belief and support in my work that Angela Bromstad, David Semel, Eric Overmyer, and Amazon Studios have given me while I’ve written these stories. Profound gratitude, as well, to Michael Besman, for his hard work in service of the very dangerous people depicted here.
I could not have written a single word here without the support of my extraordinarily talented siblings, writers and artists each: my brother, Lee Goldberg, and my sisters Karen Dinino and Linda Woods. We each achieved our dreams, and that we get to live them in real time, together, is an incredible gift. I am also deeply appreciative of my dear friends Rider Strong, Julia Pistell, and Maggie Downs, who each spend way too many hours with me in their earbuds, and my friends and colleagues who work with me in the Low-Residency MFA program at the University of California, Riverside, all of whom are always invited to Club 3012: Agam Patel, Mark Haskell Smith, Rob Roberge, Elizabeth Crane, David Ulin, Joshua Malkin, John Schimmel, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Anthony McCann, Mary Otis, Matthew Zapruder, Deanne Stillman, Emily Rapp Black, Mary Yukari Waters, Mickey Birnbaum, and Stephen Graham Jones.
Several of these stories have appeared, often under different titles, and each in significantly different form, in a previous publication: “The Royal Californian” in Palm Springs Noir (Akashic); “Palm Springs,” “Professor Rainmaker,” and “The Salt” in Other Resort Cities (Other Voices Books); “Goon Number Four” in The Darkling Halls of Ivy (Subterranean Press); “The Last Good Man” in The Usual Santas (Soho Press); “Pilgrims” in The Rattling Wall; “Gangway” in Kelp Journal. These stories have benefited from the careful work of the editors and readers who first published them, so I want to thank Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Rob Bowman, and Eduardo Santiago; Stacy Bierlein and Gina Frangello; Lawrence Block; Juliet Grames; Michelle Franke; and David Olsen, Oliver Brennan, and Chih Wang for their hard work over all these bad words.
This project wouldn’t exist without these good people and organizations, along with their moral, immoral, and tangible support and inspiration during the time I wrote these stories: Rabbi Malcolm Cohen and Stephanie Helms of Temple Sinai Las Vegas; Brad Meltzer; Tamara Hedges; Milagros Pena; Kristy Cade; Ross Angelella; Alex Espinoza; Susan Straight; Tom Filer; Lee Lofland and the Writers’ Police Academy; the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame; the University of California, Riverside; Justin Alvarez and Lit Hub Radio; Barbara VanDenburgh and USA Today; Steve Kelly and KCOD; and all of my excellent students, who inspire me to be better, every day.
Finally, I finished this book during the middle of a vast global pandemic, quarantined at home with my beautiful wife, Wendy Duren. We spent weeks at a time without seeing another soul in person. I don’t know what the world will look like when you get to read this book. But I know this: I have never felt alone a day in my life with Wendy beside me.
© LINDA WOODS
TOD GOLDBERG IS the author of more than a dozen books, including Gangsterland, a finalist for the Hammett Prize; Gangster Nation; The House of Secrets, coauthored with Brad Meltzer; and Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He lives in Indio, California, where he directs the low-residency MFA in creative writing and writing for the performing arts at the University of California, Riverside. Find out more at todgoldberg.com.
THE LOW DESERT
Copyright © 2021 by Tod Goldberg
First hardcover edition: 2021
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events is unintended and entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Goldberg, Tod, author.
Title: The low desert : gangster stories / Tod Goldberg.
Description: First hardcover edition. | Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020021014 | ISBN 9781640093362 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781640093379 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3557.O35836 A6 2021 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021014
Jacket design by Brian Lemus
Book design by Wah-Ming Chang
COUNTERPOINT
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318
Berkeley, CA 94710
www.counterpointpress.com
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