Deadeye of the Desert

Frank saw absolutely nothing. Not a goddamn thing for the eye to see for at least a hundred miles in each direction. North, East- nothing but hot sand and tumbleweeds. The air conditioning of the black Mercedes he was sitting in was a luxury he would soon regret he hadn't cherished more. The four hour journey through unpaved, dirt roads had finally halted as the Mercedes stopped its journey through the desert. The awkward tension between Frank and the two gigantic suited men in front of his seat had been growing since Barstow, however now the awkwardness turned to pitifulness towards Frank.

"This is it." The driver said from beyond a glass divider up front of the car.

"Alright Frank, you heard what the boss said, nine months- then we can move you to our people in Mexico." The suited man on the left told Frank.

"Jesus it really takes you guys nine months to get everything situated?! If I knew the job would have taken this long I would have stayed unemployed."

"Nine Months Frank, no less." Said the right hand man.

Frank slowly reached his arm out for the door handle when he was stopped by lefty.

"I know you got a pretty empty head, but I know for a fact you heard the rules of this place Frank, you don't fuck around here, give me your gun."

Frank gave him a rebellious stare into his eyes, but then calculated the weight difference between him and the two large suited men, and decided to donate. As soon as his head poked out of the door, the sun's boiling projectiles hit him in waves of unbearable heat.

He saw only white at first, but after a few seconds of hard squinting and face wrinkling, he began to make out the large decrepit barn structure standing tall a few yards from him. The barn had a combination of old chipped red paint and dying yellowish wood that gave off an “Old Must” smell. Frank listened behind him at the Mercedes taking off in the direction they came, and without time to feel any glimmer of loneliness, he saw another face standing outside the barn doors. The man smoked a cigarette at the door and stared at Frank. He was dressed comfortably for Nevada, black jeans and a wife beater. Without giving a hello or hoping for one back, Frank Caruso walked slowly up to the barn door occupied by the man.

"Women huh?" The man said.

Without knowing what he meant, Frank tried to ignore and open the door but was caught off guard by the sight of a .357 magnum pistol handle poking out from the man’s waistline.

Frank opened up the door and made his way inside whilst also keeping an eye on the armed man and his weird comments. When he shut the door behind him, Frank was surprised to turn his head towards the rest of the people occupying the barn to see that they were all staring at him, all except one. A woman knelt on the floor of the barn, with her head down between her extended, trembling arms . Everyone seemed to be looking at Frank, but had their mind on what was happening to the woman. Out of nowhere she suddenly leaped at Frank, lunging her small hands right at Frank's throat. Looking up, the woman seemed to realize Frank was not the man she was after. She let go of Frank, and yelled out towards the man smoking outside.

"Cataudella if you ever do some shit like that again I will make sure you meet your fucking end!" The woman exclaimed as she slammed the barn door to the outside and angrily marched up a set of stairs stationed across the barn.

The rest of the men in the barn stared at each other and shared an awkward silence, with Frank being more confused than sympathetic towards anything that could have happened.

"Well that is one way to make an impression." The man sitting at the bar said. He quickly got up and walked over to where Frank was, leaving another man behind the bar, who wore a vest and remained cleaning a shot glass with a towel.

“You must be Frank Caruso... they phoned us today that you would be settling in tonight." The man looked oddly familiar to Frank, but he didn’t make it known.

"Yeah, they just dropped me off. What was that all about?" Frank asked

"Well, it appears Ms. Delilah is in a rather disheveled state of mind, not really a big surprise. The name's Wilson Cooke."

"Wilson Cooke… The singer?" Frank appeared to be surprised when he was able to put the familiar face to a familiar name.

"The one and only."

"Your... Wilson Cooke? Like, sell out the "New Frontier", Wilson Cooke?"

"Not only the New frontier Frank, any casino venue on the strip you can think of, I've done and murdered."

"What the hell are you doing in this place?” Frank questioned

"He's asking himself the same question." The man behind the bar with the shot glass said.

"Pay no attention to him," Wilson interrupted. "He's isn’t doing this place any good anyway... caretaker my ass, doesn’t do a goddamn thing.” Wilson grabbed a bottle from the bar counter and brought it over to a green armchair.

"So what was that all about with the girl, what is she so mad for?

"Oh what, Mary? Well, it's kind of a long story. Cataudella out there might tell it with some pride, but I think he’s a pretty big asshole. He loses his bet- a large hand of three card poker to the lovely Mary Delilah and well, when she got cocky, she also got a fistful of humble pie right in the jaw. "

"Jesus, guy seems like some fucking Samaritan huh?"

"Some people might call it a good thing. I know that the boss that runs The Riviera would really be looking to sick the dogs on her. She stole something like $23,000 from his casino, I guess she was working against the guy the whole time- something about her boyfriend being a boss for a rival gang or something, I didn't really pay attention."

The man outside barged in and marched over to Cooke.

"Cooke, what did I tell you about telling stories? I hear you snitch again and you're getting the right hook, and trust me, I'm serving them ice cold today." He said as he walked up to Cooke and grabbed the bottle of scotch from him, taking it over to the other side of the barn.

"Jesus Mike its called a fucking introduction, maybe you should worry more about those than flashing that gun at everyone you see!” Cooke told the man. Mike gave Wilson a displeased look but remained pouring his scotch.

"Well by now, I’m guessing you have met our sheriff, Cataudella, but around here we just call him the old drunk uncle." Wilson explained.

"Fuck you talking about over there Cooke?!" Michael Cataudella disapprovingly yelled across the room.

"Go drink your scotch you drunk fool, maybe that revolver you got on you will end up in your own mouth, hopefully."

"Get the fuck out of here Cooke, you singing snowflake, your so interested in our new guest, yet your too scared to even talk him why your here in the first place."

"Scared? Listen Mike, your mothers naked body, that makes me scared. You think I'm scared of the truth?" Wilson started to yell at Cataudella, and then turned his frustration to Frank. "I killed my fucking wife Frank alright?! Is that a good amount of truth for everyone to handle?! Jesus, you act like it's my fault! She said she was going to take it all! The house, dog, my records! That’s my fucking stuff, I busted ass for it, it belongs to me! It's not her fucking business touching my god damn money!"

Cataudella could only respond by laughing hysterically at the deprived and cracked Cook.

"Your a fucking freak, no wonder your music is so shit," He told Cooke.

"Well, since you're all about spreading the good and honest word, why don't you tell our guest Frank over here why we are so lucky to be in your presence?"

“Here's the thing, Cooke, I have no shame in what I did. You deserve to be locked up in a fucking psych ward, babbling gibberish words just like in your songs. I, on the other hand, if anything helped the city by ridding that motherfucker DiCicco from the world. He was a fucking menace to society, serves him right I got to put a bullet in his head right in the club he helped build, the fucker deserved it."

"Well if everyone is on the same page about things, then why do you gotta lay low here Mike? Huh? Seems like everyone across the nation thinks you are just as much of a monster as DiCicco was, I mean you killed him in the middle of my show and everything!" Cooke argued.

"I couldn't bother hearing you any longer. I had to cut the show early, it was a matter of public safety.”

"Seems like bullshit to me. No matter if you accept it or not, we're all here because we did some pretty messed up shit, and now we are paying for it," Cooke looked at Frank once more. "So that just leaves you Frank, what are you here for?" Cooke asked bluntly.

"It's a long boring story, I won't get into it." Frank explained.

"On the contrary,” Cooke continued, "The man on the phone told us you had to stay here for nine months, that's longer than any of us have to spend time here."

"What's your point?" Frank asked

"The point is we want to know what you fucking did. Now I don't know how they do it in Los Angeles or wherever the fuck your from, but in this place, questions need answers if we are gonna be sleeping under the same roof.” Cataudella remarked.

"Tough fucking luck Cataudella, what are you gonna do, shoot me with your big gun?" Frank said sarcastically.

Cataudella looked at Frank as a king would look at his Jester when a bad joke was told. Cataudella then proceeded to remove his .357 from his waistline.

“Maybe that's not a bad idea.” Cataudella said.

"Mike put the goddamn thing away." The bartender said.

"Shut the fuck up Harry, go back to cleaning the goddamn glasses. We were all very adamant to tell our special guest what we did to end up here, and he wants to let it go unnoticed without doing the same. What the fuck did you do?"

Frank remained staring at Cataudella with the revolver drawn.

"Jesus and your calling me a fucking nut." Cooke said to Cataudella.

"I'm giving you three seconds fuckface.”

Silence.

“One... Two… Thre-" Cataudella started.

"Alright asshole, you really want to know?” Frank asked.

Cataudella nodded.

“I killed a politician, and got sent here."

"A politician? Who?" Cataudella asked.

"...Robert Kennedy."

"Bullshit, that Palestinian guy got that fucker, I saw it on the news."

"Maybe you're watching the wrong station, friend."

"Your a fucking liar.” Cataudella said as he clicked the hammer of the revolver back and pointed it directly at Frank's head. Frank knew this would be his last time at the barn and he had only been there for seven minutes. Cataudella pointed and then, in an instance, was stopped in his tracks by a billow of bullets eating his body up and down. Cataudella dropped his gun and felt the new holes that his body had just been riddled with. When everyone looked across the room, there stood Mary Delilah, posted up next to the stairs, pointing her automatic 9 MM, still with smoke flaring out. Cataudella kept his jaw dropped, until his mouth became full of blood and he collapsed to the floor.