by Jack Bunker
“Anyway, he was a mess and there was beer spilled everywhere, cans in the basket, and just nasty from the toilet, you know? I hosed the whole thing off. It was disgusting.”
“You mentioned his wife. Did she say anything?”
“She seemed pretty upset,” said Bailey.
“Yeah?”
“I think she’d come directly from the spa. She was big. Like, almost like a dude. Kind of a pretty face, though.”
“You think she was a tranny?” asked Wallace.
“I didn’t say that,” said Bailey.
“But were you thinking that?” said Wallace.
“No, dickhead, I wasn’t thinking that. She was just a big lady, that’s all I’m saying.”
“But you have seen chicks like that that turned out to be dudes, right?”
“Well, yeah, like on TV. I never tried to pick one up in Hollywood or anything.”
“So you can’t really be sure,” said the kid.
“What are you talking about? You think somebody’s gonna shell out the kind of bucks it costs to play here and bring some tranny hooker to pretend he’s his wife?”
Anna looked at Hector and rolled her eyes.
“Guys,” said Hector, “I really appreciate it. You’ve been very helpful.” Hector turned to Anna. “Can we go talk to housekeeping, please?”
Anna led him to housekeeping, where the manager determined that Beatriz had been responsible for the McMahons’ casita. Rather than send for her, Hector said they could go talk to her where she was.
The girl was pushing her cart along the breezeway. She jumped when Hector and Anna approached her from behind. Anna said Hector had a few questions to ask her.
Hector held a little notebook but didn’t open it. “The housekeeping manager said you cleaned casita twenty-one a few weeks ago.”
“Jess.”
“Do you remember hearing about someone getting hurt on the golf course?”
“Jess.”
“Do you remember those people?”
“Jess.”
The girl’s eyes kept shifting between Hector and Anna.
“Yo no soy policia,” Hector said. “Soy un abogado del hotel. No se preocupa, okay?”
“Okay,” said Beatriz. She blinked three times and cracked a tiny smile.
“Now, the people that stayed in the casita,” said Hector, “was there anything unusual?”
“No.” Beatriz waited a beat. “The minibar, I think.”
“The minibar?”
“I think they drink a lot from the minibar. Also, they don’t…”
“Don’t?”
Beatriz blushed and looked down at her shoes. “La cama.” She looked up at Hector.
“The bed?”
“Limpia,”” Beatriz said. Clean.
“Gracias,”” said Hector.
“De nada,” the girl said, and resumed pushing her trolley down the breezeway.
THIRTY-THREE
J.T. had never gotten altogether comfortable with where Buddy fit into the big picture, and he wanted to get his version before somebody like Aza dug him up. As J.T. suspected, he found Buddy in the greenskeeper’s shed, pumping up tires on the carts with a compressor that looked to be mounted onto a moving dolly.
“Buddy, how we doing, my man?” asked J.T.
“Okay.”
“I told Tommy I needed to ask you some questions about Mack’s case. How ’bout we step into the 19th Hole and get a Coke or something?”
Buddy nodded and pulled the plug on the compressor, leaving the contraption in the middle of the floor next to the cart. He followed J.T. across the flagstones set in the painted-bark ground cover and through the parking lot and into the clubhouse.
J.T. asked Wanda for a Coke for Buddy and an Arnold Palmer for himself, and the two sat down at the corner table where they’d first met earlier in the summer.
“So listen,” J.T. said, sipping his drink and looking up at the TV, “when you were out at Fuente Dorado, did you give anyone your name? Hotel? Golf course? Anyone?”
Buddy was also watching the TV. “Naw, man. Nobody talked to me I can remember. Wanda, that’s it.”
On TV the guy with the huge head was arguing with the guy who was smiling. A ticker scrolled beneath the split screen.
“Okay, good. So nobody saw you there that could point to you as a witness.”
“Well, the dudes from the pro shop saw me. I didn’t say nothing, I don’t think. No, wait.” Buddy turned from the TV and looked at J.T. “You ever heard of…what’d that guy call it…IBS?”
“IBS? Like, irritable bowel syndrome?”
“Yeah, that’s it. It’s a real thing?”
“Yeah, it’s a real thing. What’s that got to do with Mack?”
“Nothing. The assistant pro said something when we pulled up at the clubhouse. He asked me if Mack had it.”
“Why?”
“Why? ’Cause the motherfucker was covered in shit from head to toe, that’s why.”
“Right. So what else did you talk to them about?”
“That’s it. Wanda came out just as Mack went in to hose off. I gave her the money like you said and I got out of there.”
J.T. looked up when a couple of retired players came in. Jesus, these guys had to be here every single day. “Okay, I think we’re going to be good, then. I was afraid somebody there was going to track you down and talk to you about what happened out on the course.”
Buddy continued to stare at the TV across the room.
J.T. waited for Buddy to volunteer some information, but Buddy was too caught up following the Fox News ticker. “So what did happen out on the course?”
“Tractor hit the toilet.”
“Yeah, I know. How did it happen? I mean, nobody else was around, were they?”
Buddy sipped his Coke. “Nope.” He craned his neck toward the TV and squinted.
“So the thing just started rolling by itself and happened to hit the toilet just as Mack went inside.”
“Pretty much.”
The door to the 19th Hole swooshed open. Sunlight and heat poured into the room. Tommy’s hand went up to shield his eyes as he looked around the room. “Buddy!” he shouted. “C’mon, let’s go! Those assholes ran over a sprinkler again. PVC’s all fucked up on eight. We gotta git.”
Buddy stood up slowly and slurped the last drops of his Coke through his straw. “Thanks for the Coke, man.”
“Yeah, sure.” J.T. held Buddy’s wrist and leaned toward him. “Buddy, anybody does come looking for you to ask you questions about the tractor and Mack, you give me a holler, you hear?”
“Yeah, man. I hear you. I gots to go.”
As he sat in front of his terminal, Al debated whether he should reach out to Hector Aza to check on the status of his investigation. He didn’t want to appear too curious. On the other hand, the company was paying Aza, so by extension, Al had a right to know what was going on. Al figured he’d give Aza another day or two to get back to him, otherwise, he’d call on his own.
What Al really wanted to do was go out to the range and hit some balls. J.T. told Al that being anywhere near the course now was a bad idea. While the scam was being set up, Al hadn’t even wanted to play; now that he couldn’t, his desire to go hit balls was beginning to consume him.
But then there was the flabby specter of Frankie Fresh. A sweaty film spilled over Al whenever he thought about bumping into Frankie. Every time he handed over another $300, it gnawed at Al’s insides. He couldn’t understand how J.T. could be so cool about it. What if this thing went to trial? What if it dragged out for two years like most of these cases? Two years’ worth of vigorish on thirty grand at a point a week…Thirty-one grand! And that’s assuming J.T. doesn’t do any more freelance borrowing.
An e-mail from Marino Vargas popped up on the screen. The subject line said “FWD: Re: ROGER ELLIS.” Just as Al was about to open the e-mail, Ellis himself walked past Al’s cubicle carrying a cardboard box and followed by the bu
ilding’s uniformed security. Al’s eyes darted back to his screen and he opened the message from HR to GSAC’s Inland Empire senior staff, explaining that Roger Ellis would no longer be with the company.
Al pushed away from his desk and, as casually as he could, walked over to Vargas’s desk via the kitchen.
“What the hell happened?” asked Al.
“You remember that hack job where somebody breached the database? It was Ellis.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“He cop to it?”
“You kidding? Fucking guy acted like he was totally surprised. Nobody bought it, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just too suspicious. The IT dorks tracked it down to a computer on this floor. Everybody on the floor has been here for years. Ellis was the only new hire. He was only probationary anyway at this point. That’s why they were able to get rid of him and he couldn’t say shit about it.”
“Why do they think he did it?” Al bit the inside of his lip. He knew he shouldn’t have gone any deeper. The last thing he needed was to trigger his own manager’s suspicion about Al’s interest. Fortunately, Vargas seemed oblivious.
“Who the fuck knows?” Vargas said. “Maybe he was a mole from GEICO or something. Maybe he was trying to get into a more valuable database and just didn’t know what he was looking for. Anyway, he’s gone. Just as well. I never really trusted that guy, you know?”
“Yeah. I barely talked to him myself.”
Al had caught a break. Ellis was fired. Good luck getting another job in the industry with that reference. Ouch. Al felt kind of bad for the guy. Then he realized just how close he’d come to getting caught himself. He wondered if he should take that as a sign. A sign to get the hell out of GSAC.
With a hard copy of the McMahon file on the front seat of his Crown Victoria, Hector thought he might drive past the Mira Vista Golf Club on his way back to Riverside from Palm Desert. The file said McMahon worked at the club. Maybe his golfing partner, the guy who was five over after thirteen holes at Fuente Dorado’s Tesoro course, worked at Mira Vista too.
Hector pulled the Crown Vic into the lot and entered the pro shop. A sign above the window behind the counter said STEVE ESTEP, PGA PROFESSIONAL. A guy with a name tag that said “Steve” and “Head Pro” was restocking a golf balls display.
“Can I help you?” asked Estep.
“I hope so. My name’s Hector Aza. I’m a lawyer for GSAC. Do you know Mack McMahon?”
“Sure. He works in the greenskeeper’s shed, but he’s not working now though, I don’t think.”
“Oh, that’s okay. Actually, for ethical reasons, I can’t speak with Mr. McMahon without his attorney present.” Hector hefted a Scotty Cameron putter from a display case and looked at the price on the sticker. “I understand when he was injured, that he was playing golf with a friend of his at El Fuente Dorado. Black guy from Moreno Valley?”
“Oh, that’d be Buddy, I’m sure.”
“Buddy?”
“Yeah. He works with Mack in the shed over there,” Estep said, pointing to a warehouse-like building with a green metal gambrel roof.
Hector walked over to the building. A radio was playing inside, but Hector couldn’t see anyone. There were carts lined up against two of the walls, all but two of them plugged into battery chargers. In the far corner, a canvas tarp covered some kind of go-cart with knobby tires. Hector walked toward what looked to be an office, but in spite of music blaring from a radio, he found no one inside the shed.
Hector looked at his watch. No wonder his stomach was growling. He walked back over to the pro shop, where Estep told him he could get a hamburger at the 19th Hole. A table next to the smoked-glass window gave him the closest thing to a view of the greenskeeper’s shed he was able to find. After a quick rundown of the menu, he told the beautiful waitress towering over the table that he’d have the Reuben with fries. The waitress smiled and blew away a curl that had dangled into her eyes.
She gave him another friendly smile when she returned a minute later with an iced tea.
“You know, I’d heard of this place, but I’d never made it out here,” said Hector. “You been working here long?”
“A couple of years now, yeah.”
“You know anything about the course? Is it any good?”
“I guess so. I’m not a golfer. I do know that it was originally supposed to be a championship-level course. They were going to wrap a resort around it. Try to siphon off some of the Palm Springs traffic.”
Hector laughed. The idea of a resort on this bristly bole snatch of unincorporated Riverside County competing with La Quinta and Rancho Mirage was as ludicrous as the name of the club itself. The only vista to be seen was that of the rocks the color of almond shells surging vertically from the edges of the fairways. Still, Hector could imagine that the terrain alone might make for some challenging golf. With the surrounding land relatively useless, he could see where somebody looking to throw up some spec houses around a golf course during the boom might have seen this as a diamond in the rough. No doubt whoever was behind the idea vastly overpaid for the land and improvements.
Hector sipped his tea, mesmerized by the girl’s dimples. “I’ll have to come out and play a round sometime.”
“You should,” said the waitress with a wink.
Hector sat alone in the middle of the room, facing the TV. The sound was turned down, which was fine with him. A sweaty guy walked in and headed straight for the locker room, removing his hat and wiping his forehead with the back of his wrist. The waitress came back and asked if Hector needed anything.
“So you’ve worked out here a long time,” said Hector, “do you know a guy named Buddy that works with the greenskeeper?”
“Yeah, sure. He was just here about thirty minutes ago, why?”
“Not a big deal, I just wanted to talk to him. You know his friend Mack that works with him?”
Wanda raised an eyebrow. “What did you say your name was again?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I did. Hector Aza. I’m a lawyer for Golden State. I’m actually working on a matter involving Mr. McMahon’s injury. I just had a couple questions for Buddy.” Hector looked up at the waitress, who was no longer smiling. “I guess I didn’t get your name, either.”
Wanda pursed her lips quickly. “It’s Wanda.”
Hector cocked his head. “Wanda? Like—”
“Yeah. Like Wanda McMahon.” Wanda exaggerated a grimace and raised her eyebrows. “The wife.”
“Oh my gosh. I had no idea. Listen, I’m really sorry, but under the circumstances, I’m afraid I can’t talk to you. Ethical reasons, you understand.”
“Sure, I understand. Adverse party, right?”
“Exactly. Anyway, sorry to bother you. I’ll find Buddy on my own. I’ll give J.T. Edwards a call and explain that I bumped into you by accident.”
“It’s okay. Not a problem.”
Hector left fifteen dollars on the table and walked back toward the greenskeeper’s shed. He called J.T. Edwards’s office, and the receptionist put Hector through.
J.T. answered his phone with the confident bonhomie of a lawyer in control of his case. “Ah, hello, counselor,” J.T. said. “How goes the fight in the GSAC trenches?”
“It’s going okay. The reason I’m calling is that I just unwittingly ran into your client and I wanted to let you know right away. We didn’t discuss the case, but—”
“You unwittingly ran into my client? What, are you shitting me? How do you unwittingly run into an injured guy at his home?” Hector heard J.T. gasping on the other end of the line. “I’m gonna have your ass in front of the bar before you can say carnitas, amigo.”
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“You’re goddamn right there’s been a misunderstanding. You misunderstand the ethical rules about talking to an adverse party represented by counsel. You won’t be able to get a job picking lettuce when I’m t
hrough with you.”
“Are you finished?”
“Not even.”
“Before you exhaust your vault of Mexican insults, you might let me explain. I didn’t talk to Mr. McMahon. It was his wife, Wanda, that I ran into. She served me lunch at Mira Vista Golf Club. I had no idea who she was. She didn’t identify herself until after I’d said I was working for GSAC on this matter.”
“This is bullshit.”
“I don’t want to tell you how to run your practice, but if you don’t believe me, I’d suggest you call her yourself. In any event, the meeting was entirely accidental. No particulars of the case were discussed. There was no ethical breach whatever. If, after you speak to Mrs. McMahon, you still feel like reporting my completely innocuous conversation to the ethics committee, well, that’s your prerogative. I’m sure you have the number.”
Hector hung up.
THIRTY-FOUR
J.T. couldn’t breathe. He loosened his tie. He felt like his neck was going to explode. What the fuck was Aza doing at Mira Vista?
J.T. called Wanda, who confirmed Aza’s version of events.
“What were you doing even speaking to that clown?”
“What are you talking about? He was just a guy ordering a sandwich. I didn’t know he was a lawyer for GSAC. It’s not like either of us said anything about the case anyway.”
“Well, what the fuck was he doing there, then?”
“I think he was looking for Buddy.”
“Buddy!”
“He asked if I knew him. That’s how it came up that he worked for GSAC. Said he had some questions to ask him.”
“Are you shitting me?” J.T. wanted to throw something through his floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window. “Wanda, you see Buddy, you tell him to give me a call right away, okay?”
“Fine. I got a customer. I gotta go.”
Wanda’s insouciance did little for J.T.’s anxiety about Hector Aza.
Al.
Al would be able to find out what Aza was looking for and what he knew already. J.T. called him, but there was no answer. J.T. was torn between staying in the office or going back out to Mira Vista. Maybe he should call Mack. No, no sense getting him riled up. J.T. took a couple of deep breaths. His pulse slowed. What was the big deal, anyway? Even if Aza talked to Buddy, what could Buddy tell him? He could talk to Al and Mack later. What was he worried about? I’m J.T. fucking Edwards. Everything’s under control here.