A Season in Purgatory by Dominick Dunne

Author:Dominick Dunne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Reading list I, Fiction
ISBN: 9780307815125
Publisher: Random House LLC
Published: 1997-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

9

Harrison took a plane to Phoenix, where he transferred to a plane for Tucson. The heat was scorching and the sunlight blinding. At the Tucson airport, he rented a car to drive the sixty miles south to the town of Nogales on the border of Mexico. On the outskirts of Nogales, he stopped and took out the directions Maxine Lonergan had given him over the telephone. “I’m on the American side, remember,” she said. “Don’t cross the border. You get on the Patagonia Highway at the 7-Eleven store, just before you hit town. Stay on it for about six miles. You’ll come to a dirt road called Vista del Cielo. Hang a left there for a couple of miles. On the right-hand side you’ll see a mailbox with RFD and a picture of a red cow on it. Turn in there. That’s me.”

At the mailbox with the picture of the red cow he turned in, as directed. He had imagined a small adobe or a trailer home, but there was no house in sight. He drove on the dirt road for a couple of miles. At times his vision was impaired by the dust his car raised. On each side was barren desert land with an occasional cactus. He thought he had misunderstood her directions. Then he came to two stone pillars and a closed gate. On each side of the pillars there was a high brick wall that seemed to surround the area of the house beyond. Confused, he pulled up to the gate before he noticed a bell and a speaker on a freestanding post. He pushed the bell. He could see that a closed-circuit television camera directed at him was activated by the bell. A man’s voice said, “Si?”

“I think perhaps I’ve made a mistake,” said Harrison into the speaker. “I’m looking for a Mrs. Maxine Lonergan. I thought she said to turn in at the post box with the red cow, but perhaps I misunderstood her. I wonder if you could direct me.”

“Your name?”

“My name? Harrison Burns.”

The gates opened. Harrison drove in. Inside was a green lawn with gardens, and ahead, at the end of a gravel drive, was a long, low ranch house of handsome design and graceful lines with a red tile roof. He parked his rented car in the circular courtyard in front of the house. Almost immediately the door opened. A tall, thin handsome young man dressed in cowboy clothes and wearing a gun in a holster stepped outside.

“Mr. Harrison?” he said.

“Burns, it is. Harrison is the first name,” Harrison said.

“Right. Come in.”

Harrison walked past him. Inside, the house was air-conditioned cool. There was a big central hall. To the right, through a set of double doors, was a large living room. Beyond it, through another set of double doors, was a smaller room. From the hall Harrison could see a giant television screen. A sound system was playing the songs of Dom Belcanto, the late Las Vegas and Hollywood singer who was widely believed to have had gangland connections.

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