by James Dargan
“I was just asking,” Purcell answered. He then dashed ahead, not too far, but far enough away not to hear their mocking guffaws.
“What about this place?” Purcell asked the girls after they had been walking for fifteen minutes along the Albuquerque stretch.
“The fucking 1706 Saloon!” Dolores, who had been living in Albuquerque for a couple of years now and knew the 1706 well - even garnering a few regular clients from the joint – said.
“It looks okay.”
“You wanna go in, Dolores?” Adele said to her friend.
“Why-in-the-hell not.”
The three went into the 1706 Saloon, so named after the year Albuquerque had been founded by Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, a Spaniard.
The joint was jam-packed full of punters and hookers. Ray Charles' What I say was blaring from the speakers.
“So, you gonna buy us a drink or what?” Dolores asked.
Purcell squeezed himself through the crowd to the bar, bought three drinks and joined the girls at a table they had procured off three naive college-aged men.
“I gotcha Martinis, girls,” Purcell said, placing them on the table with his bottle of beer.
“I don't drink Martinis,” Adele replied with an indignant pout.
“And you?” the car salesman asked. “Is a Martini okay for you?”
Dolores nodded in the affirmative, but Purcell still had to go to the bar again for Adele's drink, this time a Mojito.
Once back from the bar with Pocahontas's correct drink, Purcell got the conversation going about the upcoming presidential election. Kennedy versus Nixon. Blue against red. Irish Catholic versus Californian Quaker. Purcell knew who he wanted to become the 35th President of his country.
“Kennedy, of course,” Dolores stated in a tone like she knew what she was talking about.
The New Mexico native without a pocket to piss in, and whose parents left her as a ten-year-old to live with her grandparents, had the weighty heartache of abandonment to contend with. She was looking for something else, a way to escape the treachery of her existence – which included not having to sleep with sorry losers from out of town to pay the rent on her dingy apartment.
“And tell me why?” Purcell asked.
“Maybe he'll actually do something for people like me.”
Purcell sniggered then.
“What's so funny?” Adele asked defensively.
“That Democrat aiyn't worth shit.”
“You're a fucking asshole,” Dolores said, walking off.
“What's wrong with her?”
“Whatcha think, mister?” Adele answered. “She downed her drink. “Any chance of another one?”
Purcell went to the bar again, returning with two of each drink on a tray, and a beer for himself.
“I got you two... Where's the other one?”
“She's gotta name,” Adele answered.
“I've forgotten it.”
“Dolores.”
“And yourself?”
“Adele.”
He placed the tray down on the table and looked around: Dolores was with a cowboy in a Stetson.
“You know that creep?” Purcell asked Adele.
“No, should I?”
“So, Adele, know where we can get some dope?”
“Yeah, sure I do.”
“You willing to get me some if I give you the money?”
“Yeah.”
Dolores returned. She whispered something in Adele's ear.
“You want some dope?” Dolores said.
“Yeah.”
“Give us a hundred.”
Purcell wasn't as street wise as the girls, but he wasn't an idiot, either:
“Dope doesn't cost that much.”
“That's not just for the drugs, fucking us both is included in the price, too.”
Purcell smiled at that: he was flush with cash and feeling generous anyway: he opened his wallet and pulled out two new, crispy $50 bills and handed them to Dolores. She disappeared again, taking her two drinks with her.
“Where’s she going?” he asked Adele.
“To get the drugs.”
“I know that, but where's she going to get ‘em?”
“I dunno,” Adele said as she took out her cigarettes. Of the two, Purcell found Adele the sexiest. Her ethnicity was the gamechanger. He ogled her as he took a swig of his Rolling Rock.
“Whatcha looking at, mister?”
“You.”
“Well don't.”
Adele didn't usually take a disliking to clients for no reason, but she did to 'Giles Calthorpe'.
“What have I done?”
“Nothing.” She had to be careful. He had money. Not like the chancer from Lubbock the night before, who she had ended up blowing for five measly bucks. “So, Giles, while we're waiting for Dolores to return, maybe you can tell me something about your life?”
Sensitive subject.
Purcell knew he could lie: make it all up as he saw fit, swindle the whore with his story of heroics in the War or success in business in the Big Apple – but how far would that get him?
“There's not much to say, really.”
“C'mon, a handsome man like you with money to burn, there's always a story?”
“I'm afraid with me there aiyn’t.”
Adele had to rethink her opinion. Maybe he wasn't such a jerk after all, but a man sexually depraved with a kind soul.
“Are you married? Have you got kids?”
“Next question... What about you, Adele?”
“There's nothing to say, either.”
“I mean, what's it like to be a native Indian in America these days?”
“Horrible,” she answered as she lit a cigarette.
“But tell me-” Purcell asked as a cowboy brushed past him, knocking his bottle of beer out of his hand. “Excuse me!” he said to the man who didn't even notice the trouble he had caused.
Purcell had seen Gary Cooper and John Wayne in action too many times. Better to say nothing and live another day.
“Prick,” Adele hissed.
After wiping his trousers of beer spillage, Purcell got back to work on Adele:
“Please, baby, tell me something about yourself?”
“You can see me, can't you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you know who I am.”
“But I wanna know something about your family history?”
“I don't give clients that kinda information.”
“Come on, don't be like that?”
Purcell pressed her, but Adele wouldn't give in.
“Where have you been?” Adele then said as Dolores reappeared.
“So, mister, do you wanna go back to your hotel room and do this shit?” Dolores asked, tapping her handbag.
“Yeah, let's go!”
They finished their drinks and left the 1706 Saloon. Twenty minutes later they were smoking dope on the bed and drinking bourbon from the bottle. Purcell was in his jocks and socks. The girls in bras and panties.
“Pass it here,” Adele said to Purcell, referring to the joint. He gave it to her. “This is how you're supposed to smoke it.” Adele put the joint to her lips and took one almighty drag. She then blew the smoke in his face. “Like that.”
“You ready for some fun?” Dolores then said, realizing she had another appointment in two hours with a regular, a rich Albuquerque businessman.
“Yeah, let's do this,” Purcell answered enthusiastically. He took off his jocks and socks.
“Lie down,” Dolores ordered him with a smile.
THE WORST HANGOVER IN THE WORLD
Purcell landed at Tucson International Airport on the following morning aboard a Cessna 172, a flight he chartered himself.
“Thanks for the ride,” Purcell said to his pilot, Bo Rivers, a friend of a friend.
Purcell got into the terminal. He was boasting a hangover after the night of vice and carnality with Dolores and Adele.
Suddenly he felt somebo
dy grab his arm from behind. He looked around: it was Frank Dimissio, the guy he recognized from the boneyard at the Davis–Monthan Air Force Base, with another guy who he didn't know, Peter Silvestri. Once he saw Dimissio, Purcell knew he was in big trouble.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” Purcell asked.
“Come with us,” Dimissio said as he pushed the barrel of his Colt M1911 pistol into Purcell's back slightly.
The two wise guys led him out of the terminal to a waiting car. In the driving seat was Andy Mazzia, another Dimissio soldier who had just arrived in Tucson himself. Once they were outside the Tucson city limits, Dimissio put a blindfold on Purcell.
The car salesman tried to reason with Dimissio. He asked him questions, but Dimissio wouldn't say a word. Purcell, between Dimissio and Silvestri in the back, almost in tears because he thought they were taking him on the last ride of his life before they killed him.
Shit, fuck, it must be the cars I sold ‘em... It has to be, it can only be that! Purcell said to himself. Wait till I see that motherfucker Clearwater.
They were driving to see Quatrocchi out near Tanque Verde at a secret location.
The car came to a standstill. Dimissio took the blindfold off his captive.
“Where have you taken me?” Purcell then asked.
In front of him, up a hill in this barren, sandy landscape of tumbleweeds, the barbary fig, Senita and organ Pipe cacti, stood an old shack - the kind of place that would have looked right at home on a John Forde Western movie. A black Chevy Bel Air was parked up. Purcell knew he was doomed one way or another.
“Get up there,” Silvestri said to him.
They climbed the steep incline until they reached the top. On the veranda, Quatrocchi was sitting with another of his men, Carmine 'The Shark' Danello, who got his name after he reportedly had a close encounter with a Great White Shark while on vacation in Atlantic City as a boy.
“Welcome, Bernard,” Quatrocchi said as he stood up. “How are you?”
“Fine, Mr Quatrocchi,” Purcell answered.
“Please, join me inside.”
The shack was sparse: on one side, to the left, a cabinet, some broken plates and other kitchen utensils. Against the back wall, an old, rusty bed frame – probably sixty years old – stood. To Purcell's right, a table, and around it, four chairs, as equally old. Quatrocchi sat down and asked Purcell to join him.
Dimissio wanted the mess sorted out here and now or he could find himself on the end of a stray bullet. The Brooklyn streets were brutally unforgiving and had their own rules. Parrino wasn't going to wait forever for satisfaction.
“I'm really scared, Mr Quatrocchi,” Purcell stated meekly as he placed his ass on the chair.
“Shut the fuck up... Now, this deal-a we had going with the Buicks. Something happened, capiche?”
“Some-thing wrong. Bu-icks. Shut-the-fuck... up...”
“Get a grip, asshole,” Quatrocchi said.
Dimissio, Silvestri, Danello and Mazzia sniggered at Purcell's show of cowardice.
“I'm sorry, I will,” Purcell replied.
“Now, you gotta lot to tell me, and I wanna know the truth-a.”
“It's a long story, Mr Quatrocchi.”
“I have all the time-a in the world-a, Mr Purcell.” Purcell told Quatrocchi everything. Most of the blame, Purcell said, was Clearwater's – and he would have been right to a point, but the mob boss didn't believe Purcell an iota: “So, this Clearwater... You say he's a director of the plant in Dallas?” Quatrocchi added.
“Arlington, actually.”
“And he's a friend?”
“Yeah, we went to school together.”
“Some-a fucking friend-a who puts-ya in this kinda shit-a.” Quatrocchi then said something in Sicilian to his guys, but directly addressed to Danello. “You know what to do, Shark, so do it.”
Quatrocchi and the rest left the shack, leaving Danello alone with Purcell. The car salesman was shitting bricks. Danello then took his weapon out, a Bowie knife.
“What are you doing?” Purcell asked as Danello approached him, the knife pointing towards its victim.
“What I've been ordered to do...”
“Do you-a see what I'm capable of doing, do you-a, Mr Purcell?” Quatrocchi said, vis-à-vis again with the car salesman after Danello had threatened him.
“Yes, yes, yes, Mr Quatrocchi, of course I do.”
Purcell knew he had a very close call with death. But, he was still alive, and wanted to remain that way for the foreseeable future.
“And you're gonna do as I say-a?”
“Yes, Mr Quatrocchi, whatever you say.”
The deal was simple. Very much so. Even a retard could understand the rudiments of it: get Clearwater to meet him. Quatrocchi realized getting 'to know' a director of a General Motors car plant in Texas carried weight and would bring his organization business. Fuck Parrino and his beef with Dimissio.
The stage was set. Purcell knew if he didn't get Clearwater to Tucson by the following weekend, Quatrocchi's people were hell bent on raping and then killing his wife with savage impunity.
BABIES
“I've got to see you,” Purcell said to Clearwater down his end of the telephone line.
“If it's about the cars, I'm not interested. Anything bad, it's your problem now.”
Purcell thought carefully before he said the next words:
“There's no problem, I just wanna buy more from you.”
“There were only 202.”
“They don't have to be faulty ones... I'm flush after selling ‘em all... I'm still after a good deal, though.”
“How many you after?”
“Forty.”
“We've got to meet then,” Clearwater said after a pause.
Clearwater was a greedy piece of shit. He didn't realize Purcell was walking him into a Mob trap.
“Can you make it to Tucson for tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
Purcell put the receiver down and walked out of the phone booth on Stone Avenue, sweating and with laboured breathing – he had betrayed his high school pal, even though he knew Clearwater had done the same to him. No, he hadn't, Purcell then thought as he slammed the door to the phone booth, I did it all myself, selling to the Mob. Quatrocchi had told him not to call from his own home for reasons of security. The operation was simple enough: to meet Clearwater at a diner called Big Boy Bob's in Rio Rico, some ten miles from Nogales, near the Mexican border, to talk business, where they would be 'visited' by Quatrocchi and his crew.
*****
When Purcell got home from the office that night, his wife, Martha, had cooked him up something special – his favourite: roasted duck with mashed potato infused with garlic and cheese. She was happy. He had bought her a new kitchen and a car and had promised to take her on a trip to Hawaii.
“Hi, honey,” Martha Purcell said as her husband of fifteen years walked into the kitchen. “I've made you something special tonight.”
“Smells like duck.” He put his briefcase down and went to the sink. “And mashed potato.”
“It is.”
After washing his hands, Purcell sat down at the table. A second later he was up again.
“So how was your day?” he asked, taking an unopened bottle of Beefeater gin out of the kitchen cupboard.
“You're drinking before dinner?”
“I need to.”
“Why, what happened?”
“Nothing.”
Martha Purcell had known something was up the minute her husband walked through the door and didn't give her a kiss on the cheek.
“Don't lie to me – I thought business was good?”
Business was good for the Tucson car salesman before the 'shack incident'. Not anymore. Now he had to dance to Quatrocchi’s tune or face the music.
“Business is good, dear... I'm just in a bad mood.”
“I don't believe you...”
Purcell drank a quarter of the bottle before he and his w
ife sat down to eat. By that time, one could say he was more than a little drunk.
If she knew the trouble he was in, that would be it. There would be no forgiveness. He would be on his own.
After the duck, Martha Purcell brought out the dessert – homemade vanilla ice cream, another of her husband's favourites.
Martha Purcell wanted kids more than anything else in the world, especially now that her husband was earning like a man should. Doctors had told her to keep trying. And they had. But something was wrong.
“Did you see Phillipa today?” Purcell then asked as he was licking his spoon dry.
“Yeah.”
“And how is she?”
Martha Purcell didn't like this small talk. She wanted the big talk, serious about their future.
“I've got something to tell you, honey,” Martha Purcell answered, her voice full of gravity.
“What is it?”
“I want to see that doctor in Las Vegas.”
“We talked about this before, didn't we?”
“But we've got the money now – why not?” Purcell got up from the table, picked his drink up and went into the living room. His wife followed him. “Don't walk away when I'm talking to you.”
“I don't wanna talk about it. I've had a stressful day... Maybe tomorrow.” Purcell plonked himself down on the couch.
“I want a baby, Bernard Purcell.”
Martha Purcell was talking about the fertility doctor, Jacob Green, who owned a fertility clinic in Las Vegas. She had heard about Green off a friend's cousin who had used him and became pregnant after treatment. The clinic, however, was expensive, and the Purcells had never been able to afford it until now.
BIG BOY BOB'S
Clearwater found nothing suspicious in driving a hire car to a quiet diner off Highway 82 just outside Rio Rico to meet Purcell. He understood in some ways: what they were doing was illegal. Get caught and they would find themselves in jail. But Clearwater had the keys to his kingdom and didn't intend to get caught.
Phillip Randall pulled his car up in the parking lot. He was hungry, as he had been driving an hour from the town of Tombstone along Highway 82, where he had spent the day as a tourist. Being retired afforded him that. Not that he liked it much, but it was something to do, nonetheless.