intervened.
His nephew Freddie was up next. Fairbanks advised him to maintain a proper set-up this time and watch that back swing. “Fools never learn.” Fairbanks shook his head as Freddie dribbled off into the rough. Freddie’s face reddened. I knew that expression. I’d seen it on the faces of men just before they knifed somebody in the shower room.
“And so I was forced to resign my membership,” Fairbanks droned on, as though we cared. He stepped up to the tee like Mussolini surveying Italy, then made an abysmal shot, just like all the rotten shots I’d seen him produce since the first hole. And he was smiling and nodding as though this was another brilliant ploy in his grand scheme. Or maybe he was just delusional when it came to his own game.
I looked over at Freddie. He was rubbing his fingers over a ball he had taken from his pocket, the way you do with a gun before a knockover. Thanks to prison, I’ve upgraded my pickpocket skills considerably, which meant I was able to relieve him of the ball for a closer look. What he’d built was as pretty a little death trap as I was likely to see outside prison. Freddie had taken the ball apart and packed the inside with an explosive. Probably had a detonator in the other pocket. One swipe with a club and whammo! If Freddie was the amateur he appeared to be, it would open up a crater the size of an underground parking garage.
I followed him. “Drop something, buddy?” I flipped the loaded ball back his way and a look of horror crossed his face when he slapped his pocket and discovered it missing. “Don’t even think of taking your uncle out while I’m around,” I said.
“He deserves it,” Freddie said stubbornly, his face flushing. “He’s humiliated me for the last time. Today he gets it.”
“Wrong, Freddie. Some OTHER day he gets it. When I’m gone.” I gave him my toughest prison face, the one that made the range boss decide to loan me his TV for the length of my stay behind bars. If anything were to explode in a foursome I was in, the cops would stop investigating when they came to me, what with my record of blowing holes in any bank vault I’d ever encountered. “Now get rid of that stuff,” I told him.
Leaving Freddie shaking in his spikes, I hiked over to the sand trap, pointedly ignoring Fairbanks’ analysis of my stance and shoulders. After three tries with a wedge, my hook shot shanked out of the sand and hit a tree. My game had died and gone to hell.
Meanwhile, Fairbanks babbled on. “I know my former club was devastated to lose a member of my capacity in the field of golf. How often had I instructed some foursome on the art of the proper swing! I gave generously of my time on the putting green to all who ventured forth, nor did I spare analysis when spotting an errant slicer. My departure has cost them dearly, I dare say. Who now beside the pro is there to selflessly aid the individual members by pointing out the flaws in their games?”
They probably held a great big celebration, I thought, as we reached the fourth hole. Fairbanks’ tinny little voice reverberated like a cheap radio in my ears. “They implored me to stay, of course. ‘Oh, no, Fairbanks, we cannot lose you.’ But I remained adamant. ‘Allowing women equal rights and privileges with male members has ruined this club,’ I said, ‘and will no doubt herald the demise of any other where the issue of women’s equality is raised.’”
There was a honking noise behind us. Two carts had come even with us, and the women were gesturing to play through. “Honk, honk.” One of the women passengers wielded a bicycle horn in one hand and a beer in the other.
Fairbanks acted as though he had heard nothing. He stepped to the tee and began to position a scruffy old ball.
“Move it, Mac!” The women were growing restless. They leaned back in their parked carts, feet hanging out as they opened more beer and lamented the lack of proper protocol in our group. “Holdin’ up the game,” one of the women complained. “It sez right here on the scorecard: ‘Faster golfers’, that’s us, ‘may play through.’” I shrugged. Freddie was still sulking, and my father was trying to make up his mind to speak to them.
The ladies were a mixed quartet. The first and noisiest cart held two florid-faced plump women who obviously hadn’t been treated to a rear view of themselves in stretch pants. The other held a slim blonde and a tiny brunette, the kind of women you’d throw your coat across a puddle for.
Fairbanks postured on the tee as though he were under camera scrutiny at the Masters. He hit. I didn’t bother following the track of his ball. Another birdie, ho, hum. He was the only one paying attention to the score anyway. Then he crossed in front of the carts as though they didn’t exist and bent to stow his driver.
“C’mon ladies. No sense letting this particular jerk hold us up,” the brunette said. She revved her little cart engine like a dragster and took aim at Fairbanks. “Go get ’em, Cecily,” one of the women yelled as they bounded forward.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Fairbanks dropped his bag and hopped around, cradling his left foot in both hands. “Did you see that? She ran over my foot! Deliberately took aim and ran over…”
“Why would she do that, Fairbanks?” my father said.
“Cecily, the brunette in the second cart, is in the process of divorcing me. She has an acrimonious nature. And did I mention extravagant? Probably playing with brand-new balls.” He gestured towards the women. “Cecily knew Freddie and I were playing today. Perhaps she even managed to discover our tee-off time?” He turned to his nephew.
While he read the kid out, I moved ahead and approached Cecily, who was finishing her drive.
When I got her alone, I said, “That’s the last run I want you to make at the guy. I imagine your plan is to get him jumping when he sees the cart coming till you see your chance to run him off one of the cliffs.”
“Was I that obvious?” Cecily said, clenching her lovely fists. “The man’s a monster, and this divorce is a nightmare. Besides, accidents happen all the time on golf courses.”
“Things like heart attacks or heat strokes or getting beaned with a ball happen,” I agreed. “Not murder. A golf cart’s not heavy enough to kill him. I don’t want anything to happen to the guy while I’m playing with him, okay?”
She put her head down and fluttered her eyelashes, but in the end she agreed with me. I wandered back to the others. Fairbanks was too caught up in lecturing my father on the length of his swing to notice where I’d been, but Freddie gave me a look that said he’d play it my way.
“Your game needs a lot of work,” Fairbanks said to Dad. “Under my tutelage you stand a chance of improvement. I think the best thing would be to make ours a permanent foursome, at great cost to myself, I don’t mind telling you. Perhaps I might even be persuaded to spare a little attention to your son’s game as well.” He looked over at me.
The red haze behind my eyes turned crimson. My fingers yearned for his throat. Dad shook his gracious old head, but Fairbanks chose to interpret his refusal as undue modesty. “You’re probably thinking you’re not good enough to play with me,” he said. “Which is undoubtedly true, but I have to work with what I can get.” He laughed immoderately.
“Don’t worry, son,” my father muttered to me as we followed Fairbanks to the next hole, a tricky shot over water, “I’ll take care of it.” That probably meant he’d write a gentle note that Fairbanks could claim had been lost in the mail. What can I say? We were Canadians. Polite unto death. On an American course, someone would surely have shot Fairbanks by now.
We watched the occupants of the carts tee off,
