Catch and Release Paperback

by Lawrence Block

  He owned three guns—a deer rifle, a .22-caliber target pistol, and a hefty .357-magnum revolver. Typically, he fired each gun for half an hour, pumping lead at (and, occasionally, into) a succession of paper targets. He could vary the distance of the targets, and naturally chose the greatest distance for the rifle, the least for the magnum. But he would sometimes bring the targets in closer, for the satisfaction of grouping his shots tighter, just as he would occasionally increase the distance, in order to give himself more of a challenge.

  Except for basic training, some fifty years ago, he’d never had a gun in his hand, let alone fired one. He’d always thought it was something he might enjoy, and in retirement he’d proved the suspicion true. He liked squeezing off shots with the rifle, liked the balance and precision of the target pistol, and even liked the nasty kick of the big revolver, and the sense of power that came with it. His eye was better some days than others, his hand steadier, but all in all it seemed to him that he was improving. Every Wednesday, on the long walk home, he felt he’d accomplished something. And, curiously, he felt empowered and invulnerable, as if he were actually carrying the magnum on his hip.

  Thursdays saw him returning to the gym, but he didn’t warm up on the elliptical trainer, nor did he put in an hour on the treadmill. That was Monday. Thursday was for weights.

  He did his circuit on the machines. Early on, he’d had a couple of sessions with a personal trainer, but only until he’d managed to establish a routine that he could perform without assistance. He kept a pocket notebook in his locker, jotting down the reps and poundages on each machine; when an exercise became too easy, he upped the weight accordingly. He was making slow but undeniable progress. He could see it in his notes, and, more graphically, he could see it in the mirror.

  His gym gear made it easy to see, too. The shorts and singlet that served so well on Mondays were not right for Thursdays, when he donned instead a pair of black Spandex bicycle shorts and a matching tank top. It made him look the part, but that was the least of it. The close fit seemed to help enlist his muscles to put maximum effort into each lift. His weightlifting gloves, padded slightly in the palms for cushioning, and with the fingers ending at the first knuckle joint for a good grip, kept him from getting blisters or calluses, as well as telling the world that he was serious enough about what he was doing to get the right gear for it.

  An hour with the weights left him with sore muscles, but ten minutes in the steam room and a cold shower set him right again, and he always felt good on the way home. And then, on Fridays, he got to play golf.

  And that was always a pleasure. Until Bellerman, that interfering son of a bitch, came along and ruined the whole thing for him.

  * * *

  The driving range was at Chelsea Piers, and it was a remarkable facility. Kramer had made arrangements to keep a set of clubs there, and he picked them up along with his usual bucket of balls and headed for the tee. When he got there he put on a pair of golf shoes, arguably an unnecessary refinement on the range’s mats, but he felt they grounded his stance. And, like the thin leather gloves he kept in the bag, they put him more in the mood, as did the billed Tam O’Shanter cap he’d put on his head before leaving the house.

  He teed up a ball, took his Big Bertha driver from the bag, settled himself, and took a swing. He met the ball solidly, but perhaps he’d dropped his shoulder, or perhaps he’d let his hands get out in front; in any event, he sliced the shot. It wasn’t awful, it had some distance on it and wouldn’t have wound up all that deep in the rough, but he could do better. And did so on the next shot, again meeting the ball solidly and sending it out there straight as a die.

  He hit a dozen balls with Big Bertha, then returned her to the bag and got out his spoon. He liked the 3-wood, liked the balance of it, and he had to remind himself to stop after a dozen balls or he might have run all the way through the bucket with that club. It was, he’d found, a very satisfying club to hit.

  Which was by no means the case with the 2-iron. It wasn’t quite as difficult as the longest iron in his bag—there was a joke he’d heard, the punchline of which explained that not even God could hit the 1-iron—but it was difficult enough, and today his dozen attempts with the club yielded his usual share of hooks and slices and topped rollers. But among them he hit the ball solidly twice, resulting in shots that leapt from the tee, scoring high for distance and accuracy.

  And therein lay the joy of the sport. One good shot invariably erased the memory of all the bad shots that preceded it, and even took the sting out of the bad shots yet to come.

  Today was an even-irons day, so in turn he hit the 4-iron, the 6-iron, and the 8-iron. When he’d finished with the niblick (he liked the old names, called the 2-wood a brassie and the 3-wood a spoon, called the 5-iron a mashie, the 8 a niblick) he had four balls left of the 75 he’d started with. That suggested that he’d miscounted, which was certainly possible, but it was just as likely that they’d given him 76 instead of 75, since they gave you what the bucket held instead of delegating some minion to count them. He hit the four balls with his wedge, not the most exciting club to hit off a practice tee, but you had to play the whole game, and the short game was vital. (He had a sand wedge in his bag, but until they added a sand pit to the tee, there was no way he could practice with it. So be it, he’d decided; life was compromise.)

  He left the tee and went to the putting green, where he put in his usual half-hour. His putter was an antique, an old wooden-shafted affair with some real collector value, his choice on even-iron Fridays. It seemed to him that his stroke was firmer and more accurate with the putter from his matched set, his odd-iron choice, but he just liked the feel of the old club, and something in him responded to the notion of using a putter that could have been used a century ago at St. Andrew’s. He didn’t think it had, but it could have been, and that seemed to mean something to him.

  His putting was erratic, it generally was, but he sank a couple of long ones, and ended the half-hour with a seven-footer that lipped the cup, poised on the brink, and at last had the decency to drop. Perfect! He went to the desk for his second bucket of balls, and returned to the tee and his Big Bertha.

  He’d worked his way down to the 6-iron when a voice said, “By God, you’re good. Kramer, I had no idea.”

  He turned and recognized Bellerman. A co-worker at Taggart & Leeds, until some competing firm had made him a better offer. But now, it turned out, Bellerman was retired himself, and improving the idle hour at the driving range.

  “And you’re serious,” Bellerman went on. “I’ve been watching you. Most guys come out here and all they do is practice with the driver. Which they then get to use one time only on the long holes and not at all on the par threes. But you work your way through the bag, don’t you?”

  Kramer found himself explaining about even- and odd-iron days.

  “Remarkable. And you hit your share of good shots, I have to say that. Get some good distance with the long clubs, too. What’s your handicap?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  Bellerman’s eyes widened. “Jesus, you’re a scratch golfer? Now I’m more impressed than ever.”

  “No,” Kramer said. “I’m sure I would have a handicap, but I don’t know what it would be. See, I don’t actually play.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t play?”

  “I just come here,” Kramer said. “Once a week.”

  “Even-numbered irons one week, odd ones the next.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Every Friday.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Bellerman said. “Right?”

  “No, I—”

  “You practice more diligently than anybody I’ve ever seen. You even hit the fucking 1-iron every other Friday, and that’s more than God does. You work on your short game, you use the wedge off the tee, and for what? So that you won’t lose your edge for the following Friday? Kramer, when was the last time you actually got out on a cou
rse and played a real round of golf?”

  “You have to understand my routine,” Kramer said. “Golf is just one of my interests. Mondays I go to the gym and put in an hour on the treadmill. Tuesdays I go to the batting cage and work my way up to fastballs. Wednesdays...” He made his way through his week, trying not to be thrown off stride by the expression of incredulity on Bellerman’s face.

  “That’s quite a system,” Bellerman said. “And it sounds fine for the first four days, but golf...Man, you’re practicing when you could be playing! Golf’s an amazing game, Kramer, and there’s more to it than swinging the club. You’re out in the fresh air—”

  “The air’s good here.”

  “—feeling the sun on your skin and the wind in your hair. You’re on a golf course, the kind of place that gives you an idea of what God would have done if he’d had the money. And every shot presents you with a different kind of challenge. You’re not just trying to hit the ball straight and far. You’re dealing with obstacles, you’re pitting your ability against a particular aspect of terrain and course conditions. I asked you something earlier, and you never answered. When’s the last time you played a round?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact—”

  “You never did, did you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Tomorrow morning,” Bellerman said. “You’ll be my guest, at my club on the Island. I’ve got tee time booked at 7:35. I’ll pick you up at 6, that’ll give us plenty of time.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’re retired, for Chrissake. And tomorrow’s Saturday, it won’t keep you from your weekday schedule. You really can’t? All right, then a week from tomorrow. Six o’clock sharp.”

  * * *

  He spent the week trying not to think about it, and then, when that didn’t work, trying to think of a way out. He didn’t hear from Bellerman, and found himself hoping the man would have forgotten the whole thing.

  His routine worked, and he saw no reason to depart from it. Maybe he wasn’t playing “real” golf, maybe he was missing something by not getting out on an actual golf course, but he got more than enough pleasure out of the game the way he played it. There were no water hazards, there were no balls lost in deep rough, and there was no score to keep. He got the exercise—he took more swings at the driving range than anyone would take in eighteen holes on a golf course—and he got the occasional satisfaction of a perfect shot, without the crushing dismay that could attend a horrible shot.

  Maybe Bellerman would realize that the last thing he wanted to do was waste a morning playing with Kramer.

  And yet, when he was back at the range that Friday, he felt vaguely sorry (if more than slightly relieved) that he hadn’t heard from the man. He knew how much he’d improved in recent months, hitting every club reasonably well (including, this particular day, the notorious 1-iron) and of course it would be different on a golf course, but how different could it be? You had the same clubs to swing, and you tried to make the ball go where you wanted it.

  And just suppose he turned out to be good at it. Suppose he was good enough to give Bellerman a game. Suppose, by God, he could beat the man?

  Sort of a shame he wasn’t going to get the chance...

  “Good shot,” said a familiar voice. “Hit a few like that tomorrow and you’ll do just fine. Don’t forget, I’m coming for you at six. So remember to take your clubs home when you’re done here today. And make sure you’ve got enough golf balls. Kramer? I’ll bet you don’t have any golf balls, do you? Ha! Well, buy a dozen. They’re accommodating at my club, but they won’t hand you a bucketful.”

  * * *

  On the way there, Bellerman told him he’d read about Japanese golfers who spent all their time on driving ranges and putting greens. “Practicing for a day that never comes,” he said. “It’s the cost of land there. It’s scarce, so there aren’t many golf courses, and club dues and greens fees are prohibitive unless you’re in top management. Actually, the driving range golfers do get to play when they’re on vacation. They’ll go to an all-inclusive resort in Hawaii or the Caribbean and manage to squeeze in thirty-six holes a day for a solid week, then go home and spend the rest of the year in a cage, hitting balls off a tee. Well, today’s your vacation, Kramer, and you don’t have to cross an ocean. All you have to do is tee up and hit the ball.”

  It was a nightmare.

  And it began on the very first tee. Bellerman teed off first, hitting a shot that wouldn’t get him in trouble, maybe a hundred fifty yards down the fairway with a little fade at the end that took some of the distance off it.

  Then it was Kramer’s turn, and he placed a brand-new Titlist on a brand-new yellow tee and drew his Big Bertha from his bag. He settled himself, rocking to get his cleated feet properly planted, and addressed the ball, telling himself not to kill it, just to meet it solidly. But he must have been too eager to see where the ball went, because he looked up prematurely, topping the ball. That happened occasionally at Chelsea Piers, and the result was generally a grounder. This time, however, he really topped the thing, and it caromed up into the air like a Baltimore chop in baseball, coming to earth perhaps a hundred feet away, right where a shortstop would have had an effortless time gathering it in.

  Bellerman didn’t laugh. And that was worse, somehow, than if he had.

  * * *

  By the third hole, he was just waiting for it to be over. He’d taken an eight on the first hole and a nine on the second, and at this rate he seemed likely to wind up with a score somewhere north of 150 for the eighteen holes Bellerman intended for them to play. That meant, he calculated, around 130 strokes to go, 130 more swings of one club or another. He could just go through it, a stroke at a time, and then it would be over, and he would never have to go through anything like this again.

  “Good shot!” Bellerman said, when Kramer’s fourth shot on Three, with his trusty niblick, actually hit the green and stayed there. “That’s the thing about this game, Kramer. I can four-putt a green, then shank my drive and put my second shot in a bunker, but one good shot and everything feels right. Isn’t it a good feeling?”

  It was, sort of, but he knew it wouldn’t last, and it had begun to fade by the time he reached the green, putter in hand. He was some thirty feet from the cup, and his first putt died halfway there, and he overcompensated with his second, and, well, never mind. He took a ten on the hole.

  “Still,” Bellerman said, as they approached the next tee, “that was a hell of an approach shot. That was a nine iron, right?”

  “An eight.”

  “Oh? I’d probably have used a nine. Still, it worked out for you, didn’t it?”

  * * *

  By the end of the seventh hole, he’d lost four of his new golf balls. Two were in the water hazard on Six, out of anybody’s reach, and one was in the woods on Five, where it would take sharper eyes than his or Bellerman’s to spot it. And another was somewhere in the rough on Seven; he saw it drop, saw it land, walked right to the goddamn thing, and couldn’t find it. It was as if the earth had swallowed it, and he only wished it would do the same for him.

  On the eighth hole, the head of his Big Bertha driver dug a trench in the earth behind the teed-up golf ball, and the ball itself tumbled off the tee and managed to roll three feet before coming to rest. “I don’t think we’ll count that one,” Bellerman was saying, but he stopped when Kramer lost it and, enraged, swung the club at a convenient tree. That was the end of the club, if not quite the end of the tree, and Kramer stood there looking at the ruined driver, embarrassed not only by what he’d done but by the unseemly feeling of satisfaction that stirred him.

  “Probably not a bad idea to use the 2-wood off the tee,” Bellerman said gently. “You gain in accuracy what you sacrifice in distance. Hey, you’re not doing so bad, Kramer. This is real-world golf. Nobody said it was going to be easy.”

  * * *

  Nor did it get easier. The good shots, fewer and further between as the day wore on, were n
o longer even momentarily satisfying; he was all too aware that they were just a brief interruption to the parade of bad shots. He used his brassie off the tee, and every time he drew it from the bag it was a silent rebuke for what he’d done to his driver. At least he didn’t get mad at his brassie. He hit the ball—never terribly well—and returned it to his bag, and went off to look for the ball, and, if he found it, hit it again with something else.

  On the sixteenth hole, a 140-yard par-three on which he’d miraculously hit the well-protected green with his tee shot, his putter betrayed him. He’d brought both putters, of course, had in fact brought every club he owned, and he was using the antique wooden-shafted club, the one that might have been used at St. Andrew’s.

  He stood over the ball. The cup was eight feet away, and if he could sink this putt he’d have a birdie. A birdie! He’d been writing down sevens and eights and nines, he’d carded a hideous 14 on one endless hole, but if he could actually sink this putt—

  It took him six putts to get the ball in the hole.

  He couldn’t believe what was happening. In his hands, the trusty putter turned into a length of rope, a strand of limp spaghetti, a snake. He poked the ball past the cup, wide of the cup, short of the cup, every damn where but into the cup. Bellerman tried to concede the fifth putt—“Close enough, man. Pick it up.”—but Kramer stubbornly putted again, and missed again, and something snapped.

  And not just within him. The graceful wooden shaft of the old putter snapped when he broke it over his knee.

  * * *

  The last two holes were relatively uneventful. None of his shots were good, but neither were they disastrous. He drove with his brassie, and each time kept the ball on the fairway. He took four putts on 17 and three on 18, using the putter that matched his other irons. He didn’t utter a word during the last two holes, just playing doggedly, and Bellerman didn’t say anything, either.