Straight Pool

by JJ Partridge

  Jimmy’s Billiard Club is ‘members only’ so it was legal to smoke, notwithstanding Providence’s ‘no smoking in public places’ ordinance and despite the disapproval of Young Jimmy Hannigan, the proprietor, after his wife’s bout with breast cancer led him to give up thirty years of Marlboro Lights. All of the ashtrays, except for one kept under the bar, had disappeared. Despite my own objections to smoking, I reached down and slid it toward him.

  A pack of Salems and a lighter came from underneath Tramonti’s jacket to the bar. He lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply leaving me to thoughts of Dani Fessenden, née Tramonti, the youngest by eight years of the four Tramonti children, the surprise bambina for whom her mother had made repeated novenas to St. Anthony of Padua. Maybe because the Tramontis treated me like another son, I didn’t much notice the string bean kid sister while I finished college and law school, did my stint in the Marines, and suffered through two years in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and a short lived marriage. Coming back to Providence and finding her grown up, vivacious, and drop-dead gorgeous, with long legs, a sexy body, and a cloud of curly black hair that fell to her shoulders, it was something out of Sabrina. Too bad for me, because by then, she had eyes only for Charlie Fessenden. With his sun-bleached hair, clear blue eyes, bold chin, red Mustang convertible, and dazzling tennis form, Charlie reeked of style, money, and pedigree. For Dani, fresh out of Salve Regina University and ready for love and marriage, it was a summer crush that ripened into Rhode Island’s biggest wedding the following June. I attended The Dunes Club bash, more than a little jealous, wondering what I had missed, and not for the first time, what she saw in her empty-headed dink.

  “Yesterday morning, early, he phones me at the Department. ‘A bit of bother,’ he says. A ‘bother’ means he’s got himself in trouble! He’s in town, at the Club’s lawyer’s office, needs to see me. So I agree and he’s off the call before I can tell him to meet me someplace else and five minutes later, he sashays into the Public Safety Building in a blazer with a floppy silk handkerchief in the jacket’s pocket. The eyes gotta be rollin’ at the front desk when he asks for me! He gets an escort upstairs by telling everybody he’s my brother-in-law, jabbering, asking what’s it like to work for me. O’Neill, one of McCarthy’s guys, brought him up, could barely contain himself, the way I hear it. You know the way Charlie talks, that nasal, whiny, Waspy voice….” Tramonti took an angry suck at his cigarette, looked up to the slow turning ceiling fan over the bar, and let the smoke exit his nostrils.

  I let the ‘Waspy’ pass. Nothing personal, and I knew it. Always have. Tony Tramonti is my closest friend so some things go unchallenged. Education at Moses Brown Academy, Harvard College, and Harvard Law School, years as the in-house lawyer for his family’s international construction management company, and his nascent political career hadn’t softened his edge when it comes to Rhode Island’s class consciousness. Besides, Charlie Fessenden, priggish, elitist, with a business IQ matching his shoe size, would give any lineage a bad name.

  “ ‘Fra-n-k-l-y,’ ” Tramonti stretched out the word to imitate Charlie’s lock-jawed intonation, “he says, he needs my help. The first thing I think of is that somehow he was involved with the storage of the fireworks. But he says no.” Tramonti flicked an ash into the tray in disgust. “You understand I’ve been hearing about this goddamn club for years! You would think they need another golf course down there like they need another middle name. Anyway, Charlie got hired early on as their real estate broker, then as Club Secretary, because he’s supposed to know his way around Westerly and he lives there year round.” Again, a deep inhalation of nicotine and fifty other bad-for-you chemical combinations. “And he looks and sounds right. Right?”

  Did he expect at least a nod? I knew what ‘right’ was since I own some of that ‘right’ as a fiftyish, white, Anglo-Saxon heritage, male with a voice vaguely East Coast that doesn’t throw away vowels.

  “The Club’s almost four years in the making! Disney built Disney World in less time! Two hundred fifty members, at a hundred and fifty a pop initiation fee, fifteen more a year in dues, ready to party …, and there goes the clubhouse!”

  I said, “You know, Nick joined early on….” My brother is the family’s golfer.

  “Yeah, too bad. Charlie told me. But your brother collects golf courses, doesn’t he?”

  True, Winged Foot, Augusta National, Congressional, Ballybunion….

  “The Club Secretary is a part time coordinator for all the committees that keep members involved and happy, a part time administrator until they get things up and running and hire professional management. Charlie tells me nearly all of the Club’s financial records were destroyed in the fire. Even with backup records at the accountants, to put together a real set of books for the insurance claim, they need the few that were salvaged by the State Police. This is where I come in. Could I get copies from the State Police?”

  Charlie, or the Club’s lawyer, was right to think that Police Commissioner Tony Tramonti could get copies of whatever the State Police had recovered. It was just a small favor, in a state where favors and connections are synonymous with governance.

  “I told him I’d call somebody. Then, he complains about a rumor….”

  “Rumor?”

  “… that he cut a side deal when the Club was pulling together the real estate. Before anyone thought of a golf course, Charlie gave an option on a few acres north of his home to the seller …,” his voice caught in a smoker’s cough, “… that became part of what the Club bought. Supposedly, Charlie got something more than he was entitled to from the seller when the option was exercised and the entire parcel was bought by the Club.”

  “Did he?” Charlie’s response would be that he was ‘appalled’ at the suggestion, so loudly defensive as to give rise to a suspicion of the opposite conclusion. And, suspicion comes easily to the Tramonti brothers, Aldo, the oldest, who runs the family’s business, Fausto, the middle brother, a bluff lawyer-politician with little patience for his ne’er-do-well brother-in-law, and, of course, Tony who despised Charlie Fessenden for the pain he had caused Dani.

  “If he did, he loses his real estate broker’s license and maybe it’s fraud.” In the hedge fund fiasco, Charlie’s vehement denial of any knowledge of certain currency transactions turned out to be less than truthful. “I called the Colonel’s adjutant at the State Police. No problem with copies of the records. They always grab records in an arson case. He said that they had identified the body as a guy from Westerly by the name of Oliver Randall who used to work at the Club. I spoke the name aloud and thought Charlie was going to have a conniption! The Staties think Randall sets the fire, it spreads too quickly, and he gets caught …, except for one problem. His skull was cracked. From before or during? They dunno.” He shook his head vigorously, stubbed out his cigarette, and put the package and lighter away.

  “After I hung up, I asked about Randall. Charlie had recovered by then and said he’d known Randall for years, that Randall lived close by the Club, and the Club had hired him at Charlie’s suggestion as a general handyman-watchman. Now, get this,” he added rolling his eyes, “Charlie had him axed a week before the fire for showing up drunk.”

  O-h-h, that wasn’t going to go down well with the Club’s members.

  “The Club’s Board of Governors has scheduled a membership meeting. With your brother a member, that gave me an idea.”

  Too obviously, his ‘idea’ had something to do with my brother being a partner at the Brown Brothers investment firm, an international financier, and our family’s Forbes 400 face, a name having resonance with a club membership from Manhattan, Philadelphia, and Palm Beach.

  “The members may have more money than God but now they gotta be wondering what happened to their dough, what’s left, and can the place be rebuilt without digging into their pockets. They’ll pepper Charlie with questions. He’ll act like he knows everything when he doesn’t, then like a deer in the headlights if it get
s personal or complex. His only hope to survive is that you can shape him up….

  “ ‘You?’ ”

  “… for the meeting, and …,”—this came out a little more slowly—“… if you go with him. As Nick’s proxy, I mean. Having Nick Temple’s brother walk in there—”

  “Wait a second. You want me to be a …, a shill?”

  He realized belatedly that he had worked something out in his mind but had not set me up for the ask. “Not a shill, more like a …,” he struggled for the word, “… a mentor. Algy, you prep him, maybe even serve up a couple of easy questions that he can answer, and he might get through. Meanwhile, the auditors get the numbers together and Fausto and I kill the rumor. If we can.” An emphatic ‘no’ was forming in my throat when he added, “It’s for Dani. She couldn’t take another disgrace. After Newport, she was with the shrinks for years. She’s got her legs back under her now, but ….”

  Low blow. I tested Tramonti’s face for sincerity and it was there; it told me that he realized he was reaching for a touchstone beyond friendship. I guess you can do that, even to a best friend, if you’ve always been a big brother to your much loved baby sister.

  I finished my espresso and turned to the sink to wash out my cup and tap the coffee grounds from the brewing pot into the trash container under the bar. I took my time and waited for more from Tramonti. Because, there would be. After a few moments, he cleared his throat. “I hired a freelance investigator to keep us in the loop. Was in the State Police for years. Benno Bacigalupi. A little different but competent, with loads of contacts. The Westerly cops and the State Police will cooperate with Benno.”

  With my back to him, Tramonti couldn’t see my reaction to that familiar, comical name. Benno Bacigalupi and I had crossed paths once before and Tramonti, despite being my best friend, didn’t know. Benno Bacigalupi was more than ‘a little different.’

  “When’s the membership meeting?” I asked.

  “Next Sunday morning. We have a week—.”

  “This is Commencement Week…!”

  “Yeah,” he replied sheepishly, “I know.”

  “… and I’ve got Sonny to deal with!” Carter University and its nemesis, Providence’s Mayor Angelo ‘Sonny’ Russo, were in a highly public battle over a police incursion at the Arts Quad dormitory complex, a foray that our mendacious mayor had purposefully turned into a full blown ‘town and gown’ media brouhaha.

  Ugh!

  I put my hands on the edge of the bar and stretched back, taking time to get my bearings. The Tramonti brothers are all about family pride and loyalty and both had been sorely tried by Charlie Fessenden. They could accept, barely, a dumb brother-in-law so long as he was their sister’s choice and he stayed out of the limelight, but not a sticky-fingered brother-in-law of a rising politician promoting a reform agenda. Because of our relationship, the brothers would expect that I should, if I could, try to ameliorate a family embarrassment. Dani’s well-being was at issue as well; she is so … nice, and had put up with so much already….

  “Okay,” I said, my voice showing all the reluctance I could muster, “when and where do we interview Charlie?”

  Tramonti’s troubled face opened for the first time. He actually let his lips work into a slight smile. “Tomorrow afternoon ….”

  “What…!”

  “… in Westerly with Benno and a local lawyer, Tom Flanaghan. Good guy, knows everyone in town, can help with the prep and keep an eye on Charlie.”

  The truth was, I had no excuse; until late Sunday afternoon, my time was my own. Over this morning’s espresso, a moody Nadie Winokur abruptly announced that she would be cooped up today and tomorrow in Ralston Hall, the Department of Psychology’s building off Brook Street, with student grades and an overdue book review for a psychology journal. To add to my disappointment, tonight being the last Saturday night before Commencement, when counseling needs would inevitably rise, she was the volunteer ‘on duty’ psychologist at the Women’s Center. Thanks for the notice I had thought, and so long until Sunday!

  I shook my head. “What time?”

  His fist pounded the bar in satisfaction. “Great!” he bellowed and stood to leave. “I’ll pick you up at noon. You’ll be back by four-thirty at the latest. Promise!” He zipped up his jacket and took car keys from its pocket. “Don’t expect much from Charlie, by the way. Can’t imagine that the ‘boys’ would really go after him. It’s all a ‘cock up,’ he says.” His eyes closed to a squint. “Can you imagine that, a ‘cock up?’ ”

  After he left, I went back to pool drills and was absolutely lousy, distracted by the thought that Charlie Fessenden was already dead meat. For the members of the Club’s Board of Governors, individuals with status in their insular, image conscious, summer community, the cachet of Board membership would have soured with the first snicker by a second guesser. Their collective reflex would be finger pointing, especially when they learned they had been put in harm’s way by one of their own. Charlie’s limited business acuity, gossip about a kick-back during the land acquisition, and his involvement in the hiring and firing of the suspected arsonist, would set him up neatly as the fall guy.

  Charlie Fessenden wouldn’t know what hit him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sunday morning, a cold front moved in, bringing fog to upper Narragansett Bay. Sluggishness, induced by an evening without Nadie and an empty bed, made it easy to forgo Nordic Track exercise and pool drills. Instead, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, my hands clasped under my head, uneasy, peevish in my solitude, imagining her in her spartan second floor office, at the computer, pounding out her book review or finishing grades, not giving me a second thought. Lately, and too often, there were these times, usually after a spate of very good days, when she was like a tennis player that took a mighty swing to keep what we had in play, and then went to the sidelines.

  My ruminations stopped when the newspapers thunked against the front door. I went downstairs, made a double espresso that energized me to get through the Sunday Journal and the ‘Week in Review’ of the New York Times, then I showered, shaved, donned casual clothes, and started the Times crossword. At noon, I waited in the central hall, watching drops of rain collect and spill down the windows by the front door until Tramonti’s GMC Envoy pulled to the curb. I put on a windbreaker and an old brown fedora that is my favorite hat, locked up, and got inside the SUV that smelled of a full ashtray, only to be ambushed by the slobbering muzzle of Oboe, Tramonti’s chocolate Labrador Retriever. Tramonti gruffly ordered Oboe to retreat from my ear, explaining that Sunday was his ‘Oboe day.’ I adjusted my fedora, and we were on our way.

  Route 95 was a glistening wet as we drove south in the comfortable silence of old friends. The SUV’s wipers and defrost didn’t quite mute the hiss of highway water meeting tires. Shortly after the Route 4 split, Tramonti reached into the console between our seats. “Club propaganda,” he said. “Charlie gave it to me last year.”

  The brochure was glossy and thick, its cover a full color depiction of a shingle style clubhouse with a fieldstone chimney, green framed dormers jutting out of the roofline, large windows with red sashes, a second floor wrap-around porch, and an elaborate pillared entrance I took off my glasses and opened to thick, creamy pages separated by opaque sheets that gave the brochure heft and formality. Eventually, I got to text.

  ‘Welcome,’ it read, ‘to Haversham Golf Club. Haversham Golf Club combines a great golf experience for all levels of players with the ambience of facilities that will set a new standard for New England golf clubs. Enjoy the company of your friends on the clubhouse’s classic wraparound porch overlooking a spectacular golf course, acres of unspoiled landscape, and Block Island Sound. Indulge yourself with gracious dining and other amenities you would expect at only the finest private clubs. No detail of design or functionality has been missed.’

  I turned a page. ‘Your course will test every golfer’s skill with both links-type play on the Scottish Nine as well as traditional
northeast golf on the treelined fairways and challenging greens of the South County Nine. With multiple tees on each hole, two practice ranges, superb putting and chipping facilities, and an experienced PGA staff at your service, you’ll enjoy your golf more at Haversham Golf Club.’

  Next was a rendering of what looked like an upscale spa but was labeled ‘Locker Room’ and the following page was an illustration of the ‘Players Grille Room,’ richly paneled with a bar where all offerings would be from the top shelf, card tables, and a billiard table. The text continued, ‘The most demanding of tastes will be satisfied at Haversham Golf Club.’

  I flipped through more pages depicting a spacious dining room and assurances as to the Club’s commitment to gastronomic pleasures; biographies of the Club’s world renown course designer, the clubhouse architect, and professional golf staff; and a self-congratulatory piece as to the Club’s commitment to environmental sensitivity. The last few pages consisted of schematics of the course layout, a mark-up of a score card, a puff piece on historic Westerly—founded 1669, once named Haversham, thirty square miles of shoreline beauty—and location maps demonstrating travel ease by air, rail, and car from Washington, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston to a golf course only ‘ten minutes from Westerly’s airport and Amtrak station.’ Tucked into the brochure’s back cover was a membership application asking for two pages of personal information, required references, and a request for a fifty thousand dollar deposit upon submission to the Membership Committee.

  A rather impressive piece, I remarked—I almost said pretentious—as I returned the brochure to the console. But, not the kind of club my brother, a dedicated scratch golfer, would join for its local amenities. He said as much yesterday when I telephoned him at his Manhattan apartment and explained my request to act as his proxy at the membership meeting. All he seemed to care about was whether the course itself, which he said had received initial rave reviews in golf magazines, would be open for play during his sporadic visits to Rhode Island.