a look at this, Fairbanks,” my father called, pointing to something on the ground. Since the bushes would screen the two men, I followed them.
Fairbanks bent close to the tee and my gentle father raised his driver. If I hadn’t been there to grab the shaft, it would have embedded itself in the right temporal lobe of the man below us. Three attempts at cold-blooded murder in one game. Nightmare golf.
“No, Dad!” I cried. Startled, Fairbanks straightened up.
“Sorry. He was about to use the wrong club,” I said. I didn’t care if he believed me or not.
“Leave the guy alone,” I told Dad when we were out of earshot.
“But he’s getting to you, son,” my father objected. “Besides, he’s humiliating poor Freddie, and he’s causing his wife to behave rather badly. I set up today’s game to give myself another chance at forgiving him for all the times he cheated me in business when we were younger. But I realize I hate him now as much as ever.”
He put his old grey head to one side and studied me. “You realize we’ll never have another peaceful game to ourselves as long as Fairbanks can come around and horn in. And this is the only course we can afford.”
“So you decided to do something about it,” I finished up. “Better to kill him off than behave rudely. Well, take a number.” I shouldered my driver as though it was a loaded gun and we moved towards the others. All that time in prison thinking about golf had not prepared me for the vindictiveness that seemed to have taken over the game while I was inside. Certainly neither Freddie nor Cecily had abandoned their plans. They were waiting like outplacement agents to downsize our foursome by one. And now my watchfulness had to include Dad, previously a complete stranger to violence.
Suppose one of them succeeded in polishing off Fairbanks before we finished? If either Freddie or Cecily knew my background they might contrive to pin the crime on me. On the other hand, I didn’t dare go somewhere else to establish an alibi for fear my father might kill Fairbanks in the meantime. The thought of him going to prison wasn’t something I could handle.
No, I had no choice but to stay and guard this man I despised as much as they did, even though they’d all known him much longer. Just four more holes, I told myself. If only he could keep that big mouth shut, I might have a chance. At the fifth hole his monologue had been replaced by jottings in a notebook.
“Those women aren’t replacing their divots,” he observed, kicking aside a piece of uprooted turf. “Nobody raked the sand trap on that last shot. And look. Litter.” He gave the word a sepulchral sound, pointing a bony finger at an empty beer can, conceivably from one of the carts. I noticed he didn’t pick it up.
“Management co-operates no better than the police,” he complained on the sixth hole. “You’ll see. This report of mine will go unenforced, despite documentation. I’m expecting each of you to sign as witnesses.” Freddie rolled his eyes in a long-suffering gesture towards me. I gritted my teeth and stared straight ahead.
The women zigzagged on the seventh as if by design, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. “How’d you ever let that big ol’ stud muffin get away, Cecily?” one of the women shrieked across to the other just as Fairbanks swung on the eighth tee. “Lookit the buns on that guy,” her friend hooted back. Fairbanks’s shot soared straight up and down again. travelling only a few yards. There was derisive laughter from the carts.
“Would you ladies like to play through?” my father asked in a voice that said he had had enough.
The way to number nine was steep. The usually slow-moving combination of my father and Freddie surged ahead in the wake of the carts, while Fairbanks beat about in the bushes for what was presumably a lost ball. I had been falling back to shepherd the trio while watching for warning signs.
“Anger muddies the water. Calmness makes it clear.” I repeated quickly to myself, but maxims weren’t working any more. I stared at the smug set of Fairbanks’ shoulders as he mooched up the hill. Behind my eyes the crimson haze deepened to purple. Then a wave of adrenaline so strong I could not restrain it washed over me. Like a tornado going after a trailer park I stormed up the hill.
The ninth hole was crater-shaped, surrounded by bushes and cut off from the clubhouse by a grove of cedars. On its rim, scant inches from the cliff, Fairbanks was arrogantly tempting fate. He had set his bag down to tie his shoe. Nearby were Freddie, Cecily and my father, each a check on the other.
Without slackening my pace or caring if anyone saw, I scooped the bag up in a single motion.
“Nooooo!” Fairbanks straightened up and lunged for me.
Unflinching, I dashed the whole works, tacky mottos, snotty towel and all, over the cliff. Then I stepped aside as his beefy body grabbed for mine.
It was a ballet moment, worthy of a full orchestra and the best work of the kettledrums. In slow motion, I saw Fairbanks sail right past me and over the rocky edge of the cliff.
A sound that must’ve been crushed bone and human flesh splattering against ancient granite came back to us. Then there was a profound silence. “Geez,” someone said behind me.
“Where are the other women?” I asked when my throat stopped choking up. Both carts were parked a short distance away.
“Peeing in the bushes. I suppose we’d better round them up and go report this,” Cecily added, turning to my father. “Is there any chance my husband might’ve survived the fall?”
“None,” he said, “Not going over head first like that. I’m sorry to say he’s probably broken his neck.”
“Odd sort of accident,” Freddie said as we headed towards the clubhouse. “Knocking his clubs over the edge, then tripping and falling when he tried to retrieve them.”
“I threw the bag over,” I corrected him. Was the man blind?
“Don’t be a martyr,” Cecily said sharply. “My arrogant husband thought he was the god of golf. So he sets his bag down anywhere he wants. Which turns out to be the edge of the cliff. When it topples over, he topples over after it.” She gave me a beseeching look. “If I hadn’t had too much to drink, maybe I could’ve done something.” She spread her hands in an appealing gesture.
“I was fiddling with my clubs,” my father said. “I’m afraid I missed the whole thing, but I’ll back you two up,” he told Freddie and Cecily as though I was the invisible man. “I think you two must have it right.”
“As long as we’re clear on what happened,” Freddie said to Cecily. “Do you know if he changed his will?”
“He was seeing his lawyer about it this afternoon,” Cecily said. “Cutting me out and probably you as well.”
I felt numb. Throwing the bag over hadn’t been my imagination. I could still feel its old leather fastenings slipping through my fingers. However, since the sworn testimony of the other six players failed to mention me, there seemed no point in volunteering the information. The cops, who had been treated to many lectures by Fairbanks on the proper performance of their duties, weren’t disposed to much investigation.
The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of accidental death, recommending tighter controls on alcohol on the fairways and that a guardrail be installed in the proper place.
“Thanks
