“Are you sure you don’t want our help?” he said, his voice low and calm. “Rico is a dangerous man. Lethal. I wouldn’t want him coming after me. Again. Tell us what you know. We can put a stop to this. You can get protection if you cooperate with us.”
Grosvenor looked up at Kitchen, and for a brief moment, I saw fear. Part of him wanted desperately to ask for help, to spill the beans, to put an end to the entire thing. But the larger part of him was Charles Grosvenor, chairman of Augusta National, billionaire, man of power and distinction, who could get anyone from the President on down to return his calls. That Grosvenor was a man who commanded, and was not frightened of anyone or anything. That scared look I saw was there for just an instant, and then it disappeared.
He waved his hand. “No,” he said weakly, resigned. “There is nothing I need help with.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Travis Kitchen dropped me off at the Olde Magnolia. I asked him for a copy of the picture of Enrico de la Paz, and he gave me his. He eased himself behind the wheel, moving carefully.
“Well,” I said. “I guess that’s that.”
“For you, anyway,” he said. “I still have to try and catch the bad guy. You get to go back to being a sports writer.”
“Will you call the Judge kid’s mother and tell her what you know?” I asked. “I promised I’d try to get them some information.”
“I’ll take care of it myself,” he said. “Soon as I get home, take an Extra-Strength Tylenol and lie on my stomach.”
“Good luck on catching Rico,” I said. “Be careful out there.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks for your help. You coulda been a good detective.”
“Nah,” I said. “I’m not good at rules and regulations.”
He drove off, and I went inside to find Mary Jane. She was glad to see me alive and in one piece, and ecstatic to hear my part of the case was over. I felt a little disappointed, a little relieved, and more than a little interested in finding out what had actually happened with John Judge, with Enrico and the National, with the death of Christian Geer, and what might happen next. Mary Jane looked at my face and understood.
“You did the best you could,” she said. “And you found out a lot of stuff. But you’re a golf writer, and a damn good one, and you should be proud of that.”
“I know,” I said, “And I am. I just want to see how this thing works itself out. Are the feds or even Travis Kitchen going to be able to pin anything on Charlie Grosvenor? It doesn’t look like it. Are they going to find Rico and take him down? Nobody has been able to yet. Who killed John Judge and why? And, most important…”
I paused. She waited. “I wonder who’s going to win the Masters next week?”
She laughed.
The next day, Sunday, was a busy one, so I didn’t have much time to fret or think about the case. I got up early, letting Mary Jane sleep in, and drove over to the National to pick up my credentials. Most of the media crowd would be arriving either later that afternoon or Monday, but I knew that Brett’s staff would be on hand. On the way into the media center, I passed Pee Wee at his post at the door. He made no sign of recognition, but just stared at me with his little beady eyes.
I got my badge, tossed out most of the volumes of background material that had been prepared, and looked around the room. For years, the media had made do with a recycled Quonset hut left over from WWII days. Inside the old corrugated metal arch, the National had set up a few rows of tables and chairs, and the telephone company had run some wires in. There had been a big, hand-written scoreboard and some TVs stationed around the room. But the floor had been dirt that got pretty sloppy when it rained and the roof leaked, and the space wasn’t heated, so in those years when the Georgia spring turned nippy, we froze to death. But we all felt a little nostalgic when they finally tore the thing down.
The new media center the club built for us was a fabulous facility, but not one that anyone would write poetry about. The press room had three tiers in a semi-circle, providing faultless sight lines to a big central scoreboard. There were large-screen plasma televisions everywhere. There was an almost equally large interview theater, spotless restrooms, and even our own canteen. All the comforts of home, and none of the warm feeling.
There weren’t many people around. The notice board informed me that Tiger Woods was out on the course, getting in some practice; and that Phil Mickelson and Davis Love III were scheduled to go out later in the morning. But I didn’t feel like chasing any of them around the hilly course today.
I went back to the inn and had a leisurely breakfast with Mary Jane. Afterwards, I called over to the Motel 6 and spoke to Billy Moore, the manager, whom I’d become friendly with after attending the tournament for the last umpteen years in a row. I told him he could release the fabulous Hacker suite, also known as Room 234, to someone else, as I had scored more comfortable accommodations in town. He was glad to hear it—he not only got to keep the Boston Journal’s $1500, which had been prepaid months in advance, but now he could now rent the room again to someone else for just as much. Most of the motels located at the intersection of Washington Road and the interstate already had “No Vacancy” signs out for the only time all year. Billy told me he’d have no trouble selling the room. I said I’d try and find time to come over and say hello before I left town.
Mary Jane and I then packed up and drove over to Conn’s house. He lived a few miles north of downtown, in the Stevens Creek neighborhood along the Savannah River, not far from the West Lake Country Club. His house was built on a bluff across the road from the river, surrounded by trees. It was quiet and private and peaceful. There was a deck that wrapped around the house, overlooking the river in the near distance. The sun was shining warmly. There were comfortable lounges on the deck, and Conn had a cooler filled with beer next to his fancy barbecue grill. There was a copy of the Sunday New York Times on the table.
“So what do you want to do the rest of the day?” he asked. “Go play some golf?”
I looked at him and the deck and the stuffed lounge chairs and the beer. “I think I’d like to do nothing,” I said. I grabbed a piece of the paper and a cold beer and parked myself in the sun. Mary Jane and Conn started an intense but jovial conversation about something, but it wasn’t long before my eyes were closed and the afternoon gone.
Mary Jane wanted to do some more shopping the next day, so I had her drop me off at the golf course around noon. “Taa-taa, dahling,” she said as she drove away, the color high in her cheeks.
Just for fun, I kept my media badge hidden as I approached the media center. Sure enough, Pee Wee, standing guard at his post outside the door, put a big beefy hand on my chest when I tried to walk in. I smiled brightly, showed him the badge and wished him to have a wonderful day. He blinked, grunted and turned to the guy behind me.
The press center was about half full, but no one was doing any work. Part of the routine at the Masters is catching up with old friends. There are probably less than twenty writers who attend every major tournament—the British and American Opens, the PGA and the Masters. Like me, they represent the biggest daily newspapers, along with the golf and sports magazines. Typically, the rest of the media horde comes from the area where the tournament is being held.
But the Masters is different, and not just because it’s played in the same place every year. Just as in the early days Augusta National begged people to buy tickets, the club had to do some fast tap dancing to get media coverage. On the advice of the famous sportswriter Grantland Rice, one of the founding members of the club, the tournament had been scheduled in late spring in order to make it easy for the big-city writers who had been in Florida for baseball’s spring training to stop off in Augusta on their way north with the ball clubs. In those early years, I’m sure the club offered to put some of the writers up in hotel rooms if they agreed to cover the tournament.
Maybe it was all they could get, but the Masters also invited sports wr
iters from the second and third tier of newspapers to attend. Thus, the tournament has long been personally reported by writers for the Fayetteville Observer, the Kankakee Daily Journal and the Allentown Morning Call, among about three dozen other tiny hometown newspapers. And those papers continue to send their writers and sports editors down to Augusta every year, mainly because they can. The main qualification for media accreditation at the tradition-bound Masters has always been “were you here last year?” If yes, you’re in. If no, you have to jump through myriad hoops before getting turned down. Once those small-town guys got in, they made sure they stayed in by showing up every year.
Of course, the club’s power in granting media credentials effectively gives Augusta National a high degree of control over the writers. Those who act up, misbehave or write something to offend are quickly removed from the approved list, never to get back to Augusta again. That’s a powerful incentive, whether you earn your living writing golf daily, like me, or attend the one tournament a year as part of a springtime Southern jaunt, like most of the guys from the tiny papers.
Those who are approved, on the other hand, are treated like kings. The media center is nice, the food and drink are plentiful, they bring us the players for interviews, and then proffer printed transcripts a few minutes later, and they’re just as nice as pecan pie. Up to a point, anyway. For years, the New York Times golf beat writer was the erudite and distinguished Lincoln Werden. He probably covered forty or more Masters in his long career. But time passed, as it does, and he finally retired. The next spring, he wrote Augusta National asking if he could get a media credential to come back and see his old friends from over the decades—the players, the members and the press alike.
“No,” the club answered. “Working media only.” Of course, the piece he had written in 1973, criticizing Augusta National for not inviting the black golfer Lee Elder to play even though he had met all the qualifications for other players, might have had something to do with their attitude. But that’s always been the essence of Augusta—their way or the highway.
I spent—or wasted—a good hour catching up with guys I hadn’t seen in a year. We swapped lies, exchanged gossip and debated who, if anyone, might present a challenge to Tiger this week. I set up shop at the cubicle assigned to the Boston Journal, touched base with the desk back in Boston, and planned my coverage for the next few days.
The first piece I wanted to do was a profile on Bobby McCallen, the Rhode Island kid who had finished second in last summer’s U.S. Amateur and was therefore invited to play in the Masters. Augusta National also invites the British Amateur winner and the U.S. Mid-Am champ. It’s supposed to be a homage to Bob Jones’ long career as an amateur. But that conveniently ignores the fact that the Masters used to invite the four quarterfinalists from the Amateur. They apparently decided that a smaller homage was good enough.
I had pre-arranged a time to meet with McCallen, and when I wandered over to the clubhouse, they told me he would be coming off the course shortly after an early morning practice round. He showed up about thirty minutes later, and he told me that he was going right back out again as soon as he could. I laughed and told him not to leave his game out there before the tournament started, reminding him of one of the British amateur champs who can come over a few years ago and played something like fifteen practice rounds before going out in the tournament and shooting 80-84.
“Where are you staying?” I asked him.
“They got us up in the Crow’s Nest,” he said. “It’s pretty cool up there. Want to see it?”
I accepted his invitation because I had never been up there. The steep-pitched roof of the Augusta clubhouse, topped with a cupola, creates a dormer space on the third floor, under the roof. Up there, there are a few small bedrooms and a bath that create an intimate little dorm that can sleep four. During the Masters, they reserve that space for the amateur competitors, if they want it.
I followed Bobby up the stairs to the second floor. Just past the entrance to the Champion’s locker room, a steep and narrow wooden stair led up to the garret. The space was square, small and the bedrooms were hidden behind partitions. And there weren’t many windows, but light flooded in from the windows in the square cupola that opened up in the center of the ceiling, supported by strong beams. Bobby stepped into his room to get something, and saw me looking up at the cupola when he came back. He chuckled.
“You get the best views of the place from up there,” he said, nodding upwards.
“How do you know?” I smiled.
Bobby got a conspiratorial look in his eyes and quietly shut the door to the stairway.
“C’mere,” he said. “I’ll give you a boost. If you pull yourself up to that beam, you can get a foothold on that one.” He was pointing. “Then you can stand there and look out. Unbelievable!”
He bent over and laced his hands together. I shrugged. Why not? It’s a sight that not many have the chance to see. I stuck my foot in his hands and he hoisted me upward. It was easy to place my feet where he told me, and my head reached about halfway up the window facing the golf course. It was pretty amazing. I could see all the way down to Rae’s Creek, and even beyond to the fairways of the adjacent Augusta Country Club. Down below, there were excellent sight lines for the first tee, the ninth green, the eighteenth green and the tenth tee, all in a row across the top of the hill.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah,” Bobby said below me. “OK, try to land soft when you come down. If they hear a thump, they’ll come up here and throw me out of here!”
I grabbed a beam and swung down slowly.
“That’d be a great place to watch the last round of the tournament,” I said.
“Unless I’m playing in it,” Bobby said with the unabashed ambition and bravado of youth. I liked that attitude. If you can’t feel like a world-beater when you’re barely twenty, when can you?
We went back downstairs and strolled over to the putting green. Bobby and I talked for about thirty minutes, and with plenty of good quotes, I went back to the press center and wrote the piece for the next day’s paper.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tuesday was routine for a major. The practice range, putting green and the golf course were busy all day with pros getting their game faces on. I stayed pretty close to the media center, conserving my energy for the weekend. Augusta National is one of the hilliest courses the pros play all year, and one can get tired pretty quick tromping around watching golf.
Every few hours, they’d parade in somebody for an interview. Colin Montgomerie, the senior statesman of Europe, still hoping he could win his first major title. Ernie Els, the genial South African, who may be too nice to be a worldbeater. Vijay Singh, who they probably had to drag kicking and screaming off the range for the interview. He was his usual untalkative self.
I listened with only half an ear as they answered our questions. In one way or another, they all bravely professed to be striking the ball well. Their conditioning programs and the way they had prepared for the Masters had gone well. They were ready, confident, hopeful. None of them said what they were really thinking—that maybe Tiger could come down with food poisoning, roll his car into a ditch or slip in the bathroom. Otherwise, they knew, and we knew, they were probably in for a long week of disappointment. Again.
After filing my piece in the early afternoon, I scrammed. Mary Jane and I went for a walk on a bike path that ran along the riverfront. It was a pretty spring afternoon. We held hands. The sun was golden. Birds were singing. We went back to Conn’s house and insisted on taking him out to dinner.
“OK,” he said. “I know a place. Bit of a drive, but different.”
He wasn’t kidding. It took a good 45 minutes to get there. We headed back west toward Atlanta on I-20, then turned off at Highway 78 and drove north through rolling Georgia farm country for a half hour. Finally, we reached the town of Washington.
It was like driving backward in time. As we near
ed the center of town, where five or six roads converged, elegant antebellum mansions began cropping up on either side of the road. Many had huge white, two-story fluted columns, brick stairs, heavy wrought-iron ornamentation, and gigantic old magnolias and live oaks.
“Welcome,” Conn said, “To the Old South.”
Mary Jane was agog. Most of the yards had hedgerows of azaleas ablaze in pinks, reds and whites, with the elegant sweeping arms of the dogwoods painting daubs of white against the green background. Children played innocently on the streets, chased by barking dogs, their bikes scattered across the broad green lawns.
“Ah do declare,” Mary Jane drawled in her best Scarlett imitation. “We must be goin’ to Miss Pitty Pat’s for supper, Mister Wilkes.”
Conn and I laughed. He pulled us into the central square, dominated by a large stone courthouse on one side, and a turreted, imposingly Gothic three-story building opposite.
“That’s the Fitzpatrick Hotel,” Conn said. “They got a new woman chef down from Atlanta last year, and I heard she’s good.”
We parked and went inside, where all was deep wood panelling, beveled glass mirrors, and rococo chandeliers. A matronly woman bade us welcome and asked us to come in and sit a spell. Mary Jane was delighted. I wanted to ask if the woman still owned slaves, but decided to go with the flow of the evening instead.
We enjoyed cocktails in the Victorian lounge, and then were shown into the elegant dining room, where the white-linen tablecloths, candles and dark wood paneling evoked the lazy, carefree days before the cannons boomed at Fort Sumter, before Atlanta was burned to the ground, before the Southern way of life was irrevocably changed.
“So,” Conn said after we had ordered, “What’s new at the National this year?”
“The usual tweaking,” I said. “Tees moved back, mature trees planted to look like they’ve been there forever, another half-inch in the rough. Anything they can do to maintain relevance, they’ll do it.”
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