Deep Rough

by A. J. Stewart

  The gathering stood around looking at each other. The woman who had taken charge came over to Danielle and me.

  “Deputy Castle?” she asked Danielle.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Connie Persil, Florida Department of Health. Thanks for your call. And for keeping things in order.”

  “That’s my job. What’s the situation?”

  “Some kind of contamination. We’ll need to test everyone and the environment to be sure.”

  I asked, “Isn’t it odd that so many got sick at the same time but the rest of us didn’t?”

  “You are?”

  Danielle said, “Connie, this is Miami Jones.”

  Connie nodded. “Not that odd. I’d say some of the group were connected in some way, and the others were not.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “We send samples from the affected to the lab. And the folks who are not showing symptoms, we have a protocol to follow.”

  “Protocol?” I asked.

  “So people know what to look for in the coming days. And so we can keep track of everyone.”

  “What do you need from me?” asked Danielle.

  Connie looked toward the tent. “I need someone to be first in.”

  We wandered over to the tent, and a guy in a hazmat suit handed us paper face masks to put over our mouths. It felt like he was handing out aspirin to combat a bout of radiation poisoning.

  Danielle stopped by the nervous crowd.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing to be concerned about,” she said. “They simply want to check on us and let us know what to look for in the coming days, in the unlikely event any of us gets sick, too.”

  “Is this life-threatening?”

  Danielle looked at Connie Persil.

  “Sir, if it is what we believe it to be, then the most likely symptoms are diarrhea and nausea. Unless a patient has an underlying sickness, that is usually all. But this is why we want to give you a checkup and a fact sheet on what to look for. Then you should be able to go home.”

  Danielle nodded and I took the lead because someone had to. I stepped to the front of the tent where a captain from the Army National Guard unit stood waiting, mask in place.

  “Nice tent,” I said.

  “It’s a drash. It’s a marvel.”

  “What’s a drash?” I asked. “Sounds painful.”

  “Deployable rapid assembly shelter,” he replied. “Basically a pop-up tent. But better.”

  He held open the flap and gestured for me to step inside, so I did. He was right. It was better than any tent I’d ever camped in. For a start, the air-conditioning worked. Cool air was gushing in from the far end, making it much more comfortable inside than outside on the fairway. The tent had a floor made out of some kind of polyester or nylon. It was cavernous. I kept walking and Danielle dropped in beside. She was looking at the frame overhead. It looked like honeycomb. We moved deep inside the space to allow others to enter and to be closer to the cooler air. Ron and Cassandra followed us in. Ron’s silver mane had lost some of its usual bounce and his face was pink. Cassandra looked resplendent in an understated gown. She hadn’t broken a sweat.

  “My, what a novel venue for a wedding reception,” she said with a smile. I smiled back. I liked her. She was old-school Palm Beach, loaded to the gills, but she was a real keep calm and carry on sort of person.

  “I hope there’s an open bar,” Ron said with a wink. He was trying hard but he wasn’t quite as unflappable as his lady.

  Once the group had assembled inside the tent Connie spoke again. She stayed by the door and didn’t remove her mask.

  “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are more comfortable in here. We will keep you as short a time as possible. Our medics will give you an examination to check for possible symptoms. Then we will provide transport home.”

  “You’ll provide transport?” asked a guy in a charcoal suit.

  “Yes, sir. It is unlikely, but anyone who is infected may transmit contagions via surfaces in your vehicle. Until we know what we have it is better we take you home and you stay there.”

  “How long?”

  “Until we learn what this is. Our initial tests should come through tomorrow.”

  Another squat man who was sweating like a fountain said, “I’m not leaving my car here. It’s not secure.”

  A tall man stepped forward. He had thinning gray hair and a matching mustache. “Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Keith Hamilton. I am the president here at South Lakes Country Club. I assure you that I will personally arrange for twenty-four-hour security in the parking lot until this matter is resolved.”

  “You’ll look after our cars?” said the squat man. “Your damned club made everyone sick.”

  “Sir, there is no evidence that these people got ill at the club.” Hamilton looked at Connie Persil for support. She gave it.

  “Sir,” she said to the squat guy, “the fact that people got ill today doesn’t imply any link to this club. The incubation period could be days to weeks, depending on what they have contracted.”

  The squat man harrumphed and crossed his arms.

  A medical team came in, set up and proceeded to give everyone the once-over. It was like my annual physical, without the get intimate and cough routine. They gave us photocopies outlining potential symptoms that were general enough to encompass everything from a case of the sniffles to the bubonic plague.

  I took the lead again and then moved back to the rear of the shelter near the air-conditioner to wait. Danielle joined me and then Ron and Cassandra followed. Ron introduced me to Keith, the club president. Ron was a member of the West Palm club despite now living on the island at Cassandra’s ocean front apartment.

  “This is bad news, bad news indeed,” said Keith in a hushed voice.

  “They’ll sort it out,” said Ron.

  “But the timing couldn’t be worse. What with the tournament next week.”

  “Tournament?” I asked.

  Keith eyed me like a pirate looks on a landlubber. “The Aqueta Open. It’s a major PGA Tour event. And we are hosting it next week.”

  That explained all the hospitality tents around the place. “That is poor timing.”

  “Poor? It’s more than poor. It’s devastating. And downright suspicious.”

  “We’ll figure a way through,” said Ron.

  “I don’t know, Ron. This feels like the last straw. What with everything that’s been happening.”

  “Don’t worry, Keith. It’s a storm in a teacup.”

  Keith shook his head. He looked beaten.

  Once everyone had been checked, Connie Persil directed the group out to the parking lot where a bus waited. It was gray in color but the shape and size of a school bus, and wore the words Florida Department of Corrections on the side.

  “You are kidding, aren’t you?” said the squat guy from the tent.

  “No, sir,” said Connie. “It was the first available and we didn’t want you to wait any longer.”

  “I’ll charter a damned coach,” he said.

  “A company can’t legally charter to quarantined people.”

  “Quarantined?”

  Connie nodded. “Yes, sir. This will get you home ASAP.”

  I took the lead one more time. “Come on, let’s get home.” I stepped up onto the bus. It brought back memories. Of school, not prison. But the interior was essentially the same. The big difference was that in my childhood memories it was freezing cold Connecticut, but this was broiling hot Florida. And it was hot. The bus was a prison vehicle and it had no air-conditioning. Even for inmates that seemed cruel and unusual. I made for the back seats, where the bad boys sit, and tried to ignore the fraying tempers. Danielle joined me, as did Ron and Cassandra. Keith Hamilton sat down with a sullen flop. We tried opening the windows but got no dice. It felt like a slow cooker inside. Tempers were fraying and I tried to imagine how a bus ride like this adjusted the
attitude of men destined for time on the inside. It didn’t feel humane, even for criminals. For Palm Beach elite it was unbearable.

  Never had a department of corrections bus done such a tour of one of the wealthiest parts of the entire country. It was like an early release program for a Ponzi scheme. We wound past some of the finest homes and apartment complexes in Palm Beach. Those who disembarked would have been horribly embarrassed if the emotion hadn’t been sucked from them by a combination of the day’s events and being parcooked in the bus. We reached Cassandra and Ron’s apartment on Ocean Boulevard. Ron tapped Keith Hamilton on the shoulder.

  “Get some sleep,” said Ron. “I’ll call you.”

  “I’ll see you at the club tomorrow,” he said.

  Danielle said, “I’m not sure you should go out tomorrow, Keith.”

  “Sorry, deputy, but I have a tournament to run.” He turned back to the window and looked out toward the ocean, the cool water like a mirage from our hot seats.

  We ventured back onto the mainland and did a tour of the less salubrious part of the area, aka West Palm Beach. These were still gorgeous homes, but incomes were denoted in the hundreds of thousands rather than the millions or even billions on the island. Then the bus puttered north and then east and by the time we reached Singer Island the sun had checked out for the day. We passed all the nice rebuilt minimansions, and stopped outside of the seventies rancher that Danielle and I called home.

  We dragged ourselves off the bus and walked like zombies through the front door, over the shag carpet in the living room and out onto the back patio. There were two loungers waiting there, overlooking the evening lights reflecting off the Intracoastal Waterway. We each flopped down, exhausted, and sat in silence for a time.

  “Remind me never to get married on a golf course,” Danielle said.

  “Where would you like to get married?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Enquiring minds want to know.”

  “Do they? I’m not sure. What about you, where would you get married?”

  I closed my eyes. I felt a headache coming on despite not having had a single drop to drink. Maybe that was why.

  “I wouldn’t care where,” I said. “The only thing that matters is the who.”

  Danielle may have said something more, but I couldn’t say for sure, because I fell asleep before I could hear it.

  Chapter Three

  The phone woke me. Danielle and I had dragged ourselves to bed at some point, but I had woken during the night, thirsty and with a headache. I got some ibuprofen and water and sat on the sofa in the living room, which was where I was when the phone rang. I flopped my feet into the thick carpet and padded to the kitchen to answer the call.

  “Miami Jones.”

  “Miami, it’s Ron. I just got a call from Keith.”

  “Keith?”

  “Hamilton. The president of the country club.”

  “Right.”

  “He’s at the club.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you hit the beers last night?”

  “Huh? No, I’m still waking up.”

  “Well, you remember yesterday?”

  The images came cascading into my mind like an avalanche. It woke me up better than smelling salts.

  I said, “Why is he at the club? We were supposed to stay home in case we got sick.”

  “Do you feel sick?”

  “I feel fine.” The ibuprofen and the water had done their trick. A decent smoothie for breakfast and I’d practically be Jack LaLanne.

  “Me too. And Keith too, evidently. He’s at the club. He says it looks like a disaster movie.”

  “It can’t be any worse than yesterday.”

  “That’s certainly true. But he says the health department is on the warpath. He says they’re trying to shut down the tournament.”

  “After what I saw yesterday, that might not be the worst thing in the world.”

  “Keith’s convinced it’s sabotage. If the tournament were canceled because of the club, it would be the end of South Lakes. Keith has asked me to come and check it out.”

  “And you want some help?”

  “I need some help.”

  “I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  I took a sixty-second shower, tossed on a palm tree print shirt and a pair of cargo shorts and then went back to the kitchen for breakfast. The cooler weather of winter was giving way to spring warmth, but it was early for pineapple. Regardless, it was still good so I took the fruit from the fridge and sliced a chunk off and tossed it in the blender. I like to keep my pineapples intact in the fridge and just slice off a piece each time, rather than cut them up ahead of time. The spiky top takes up a lot of space in there, but I don’t have a family of eight. There’s still plenty of room for the beers.

  I tossed in some berries and oranges and a banana with a little water and ice and blended up breakfast. I took one to Danielle, who was in bed, and I told her about the call from Ron. She said she felt fine and we should check it out.

  * * *

  The early morning air was brisk, but we left the top down on the Porsche Boxster as we drove out to the South Lakes Country Club. The club sat west of Lake Worth, on a slice of land that had once been the back of beyond in Palm Beach but was now surrounded by suburbia. It was a large course, twenty-seven championship holes that could be configured in a variety of ways, but outside of tournament play was usually set up as an eighteen-hole par seventy-two and a shorter nine-hole executive course. The executive course was favored by older members who found a full round a physical challenge, and golfers braving the summer heat, for whom a full round could be a death sentence.

  I pulled the Boxster into the lot. A security guard asked what our purpose was and I told him we were there to see Keith Hamilton. I assumed Keith had been good to his word and put the guard there to protect all the fancy cars left behind after the previous day’s shenanigans. I parked the Boxster between a Mercedes S-class and a BMW M series. My Boxster looked the part in the lot, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone I had picked it up well-used with the insurance money from a previous vehicle damaged in the line of duty.

  The line of high-end vehicles was counterbalanced by the range of vans and trucks that had arrived courtesy of the Florida Department of Health. Danielle and I walked in the front entrance of the clubhouse, a low-slung building in the old Florida style. The front door was surrounded by royal palms and huge agave plants that looked like dinosaur fodder. The double doors were solid wood in a craftsman style, and I pushed them open and found a woman at the reception desk. She gave us a surprised look, perhaps because we weren’t wearing any hazmat stuff.

  “I’m sorry, the club is closed today for tournament preparation.” She offered me a Florida smile. It was part of her job to be courteous—this wasn’t a French restaurant after all—but a Florida smile is something more. It tells a story of someone, of winters in far-off places that now get visited only for Thanksgiving, and a story of taking a leap of faith into an unknown that turned out to be that person’s version of nirvana. It’s a smile you see a lot in South Florida. A simple facial expression that says I am here because I love it, and don’t you love it, too?

  I gave her the smile back. I don’t always use it, but it’s usually there, just below the surface. I came from far away Connecticut, and I lived the cold winters and leafless trees and the people making a sport of avoiding eye contact. I got lucky and got the chance to go to college in Miami. And afterwards when I played baseball in California, I thought I was on the road to some other kind of nirvana. Until circumstances tossed me on my head and I ended up back in Florida, playing for the Mets’ minor league team in Port St. Lucie, and I found out that my version of nirvana was here all along.

  “We’re here to see Mr. Hamilton,” I said. I’m not a surname kind of guy. My dad was Mr. Jones and I left all that behind in New England. But even in Florida, golf clubs like to hold onto those old traditions, so I went with t
he flow.

  The woman gave me a nod and another smile and directed us to a conference room. It was a small room, or more accurately it was a large room made small by the use of old concertina walls. There were five men in the room, all wearing frowns. I recognized Keith Hamilton. He was in a blazer and pressed trousers despite the predicted temperature expected to be close to ninety. It was going to be a scorcher. But Keith looked like a Boston banker on his day off. Perhaps he had been. He didn’t have the accent, but some folks escaped New England without sounding like the offspring of an Irish father and Australian mother.

  Ron sat next to Keith. He was in trousers and a button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled like he’d been burning the midnight oil. Ron nodded to me and offered two seats. They were in a rough circle with no table. It was like my vision of an AA meeting. Ron spoke as I sat down.

  “Gentlemen, this is Miami Jones, my boss, and Deputy Danielle Castle, of the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office.” I bristled at the boss thing. Our firm had been left to me after the passing of my mentor and friend, Lenny Cox. It was his firm. Then and now. But he had passed the reins to me rather than Ron for reasons that both he and Ron seemed to understand but flew right over my head. It was my signature on the checks by Ron’s preference. In every other way we were partners.

  Ron pointed at a guy who wore an open-necked Oxford shirt and suit pants. His suit jacket was over the back of his chair. He wore slicked-back black hair and a smirk. He looked like a mob lawyer.

  “This is Martin Costas. Martin is vice president of the club.” Martin nodded and offered his hand to Danielle first and then me. I couldn’t figure whether that was sexist or chivalrous. I really can’t keep up with that stuff.

  “This is Barry Yarmouth,” Ron said, gesturing to the next guy. He was younger than the rest, maybe my age. He wore expensive eyeglasses and a haircut like Beaver Cleaver. He looked like he might have been from Wisconsin. He had that kind of alabaster skin that looks like it will blister after five minutes of sun. I worry about people like that in Florida. I shook his hand and noted he was wearing a Tiger Woods polo shirt and Nike trousers. Perhaps he had arrived for a round, only to find the apocalypse.