A stone of dread began to grow in my stomach.
There was nothing for me to do but settle back in my seat and get my pulse under control. I hoisted my coat collar around my neck and forced my eyes closed. Incredibly, I must have fallen asleep, because I practically had a heart attack when someone’s hand clamped over my shoulder. If I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt, I’d have hit the call button with my eye. It was just an unsteady guy on his way to the toilet.
When we landed, Coach Handy didn’t look my way as she left her seat. I lingered, wanting her to get far ahead of me, wanting not to bump into her as I made my way to the parking shuttle.
The last few passengers filed past my row up the aisle. One man, in jeans and a tattered sweatshirt, caught my attention.
No. Lord, no.
I carefully watched for his profile as he exited into the Jetway.
It was Dengel.
He must not have seen me, must not have recognized me as I’d boarded, had he even been looking. That was part of the purpose of my nun ruse. Somebody would say, “Oh, yeah, that woman—she was wearing a funny scarf and a really ugly sweater.” Not: “Oh, yeah—she was about five foot ten with a mole on her right cheek.”
_____
I picked up the car and drove to Mission Hills like a maniac, blasting through the night, thinking. My main goal was to get Genie through the weekend without anything dreadful happening. Figuring out what the hell was going on would have to wait.
It was the desert again, Southern California; it was hot. I’d stripped off my coat and sweater as I hustled to the car, breathing in that LAX jet-fuel air.
It was about three in the morning when I let myself into the house at Mission Hills with the key Genie had given me. I thought I’d slip quietly into bed beside her. I listened for Todd, expecting him to come bumping right over to me, as was his custom. Then I went looking for him, first stepping out of my shoes. I heard nothing.
Todd wasn’t in the den, he wasn’t anywhere. I went to the bedroom door, beneath which a seam of light showed, and listened. I realized that if I opened the door now, I’d scare the bejesus out of both of them.
Softly, I said, “Genie, it’s Lillian.” I opened the door. She was sitting on the bed in her kimono, hugging her knees, her inhaler in her hand, Todd at her side. He jumped off the bed and came to me, enthusiastically sniffing. I squatted to pet him. Looking up, I saw that Genie’s eyes were big.
“Why are you up so late?” I asked.
“Hold me.”
I obliged gladly. As I breathed deep from the back of her neck, a tremor ran through her. Somehow she felt more angular to me. I brushed her hair out of her eyes and inspected her face. What did I see? Fear? Confusion? There was a depth in her eyes, a depth that seemed to just keep going. I looked for the bottom and didn’t find it.
She murmured, “I need you so much.”
“Has something happened? Tell me.”
“I’m one shot out of the lead. And I’m scared.”
I waited, holding her head against my heart, stroking her hair. Needless to say, I was scared, too, but wasn’t about to reveal it.
“Genie, dear—”
“He wants to destroy me.”
I held her tighter and tried to get her to talk more, but she wouldn’t. So I played my mandolin and eased all three of us to sleep until we had to face a new day.
24
I felt I was occupying some kind of netherworld, a separate reality of my own making. Genie and I, awake at dawn, didn’t talk much at breakfast. I told her I’d spent some quality time with Truby. She knew I was lying, I think, but didn’t care. The tournament was her focus, and it was going to stay that way.
So there was this huge unspoken thing in the air between us, and I felt both of us fighting the tension it created. Finally, after I cleared the table—she’d hardly eaten—I took her into my arms and said, “You know, I’m trying to help you.”
She nodded into my breasts, but she didn’t appear comforted. A miserable groan rattled up from her throat. After a minute she whispered, “I want you with me today.”
“You’ll have me. It’s just that right now...”
She looked up. “Right now what?”
“Well, I’m going out for just a while.”
“No.” Her eyes hardened.
“You’re not teeing off until, what, ten o’clock?”
“That’s right, and you’re not going anywhere until we leave. We’re holing up here until the car comes, and you’re riding in with me.”
“But Genie—”
“No!” The tiny shards of emerald in her eyes caught me and held me in a rush of fury. “You don’t understand!” she cried. “None of it is important! Nothing counts! Nothing counts except—”
“Except that trophy.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes! I will not be forgotten! Genie Maychild will not be forgotten! No one but me knows that my career is just beginning. Lillian, I’ve found a way to focus that I never had before. I’m going to win this one, you know? And the next and the next. I think you do know it. I know it.”
“Tell me about your focus.”
“Not yet.” She riffled her hand through her perfect sun-kissed hair.
“Well, I don’t doubt you in the slightest.”
“You don’t doubt me?”
“No,” I assured her.
“You believe in me all the way?”
“Yes. Yes, I certainly do, my darling, my most darlingest. I’ve never known anyone even remotely like you. I’ve never known anyone as strong as you. As intense as you. I’m trying not to totally give in to your spell—have you felt it?”
“Yes. Oh, Lillian, give in! Surrender to me. Surrender your whole self to me. You won’t be sorry. You said you believe in me?”
“Yes. Oh, God, let me kiss you.”
“You’ll stay—mmph—with me now? Mmph. Mwa.”
“Mmp. Yes. All right.”
“Nothing can touch me now.”
Smooching sounds filled the kitchen, and Todd hopped around to where he could get a good look at what was going on. It wasn’t that he was a voyeur, just curious.
I watched Genie come out of her upset. I watched her smile, her lips with their little downturned corners so easy and her body so alive, so alert.
I’d thought I’d be able to temporarily neutralize the threat of Dengel, perhaps by getting to Coco Nash and asking her to keep her security people, or whatever they were, on Genie for the duration, buying me some time until the tournament was over. Now, I’d just have to shadow her all around the course and hope for the best.
Dengel, I figured, would approach her at some point, either at the course in public, or at the house for a little private pow-wow. He needed not just an opportunity to frighten her; he needed an opportunity to coerce her. He needed time, and if he was serious about wanting her to agree to get injected with his sperm, he’d have to make nice with her. In whatever horrible way.
I kept expecting Coach Handy to call or show up, but she didn’t. Genie and I cuddled on the couch with Todd until the courtesy car pulled up out front.
The driver was a hardy lass named Stacy, who looked as though she might teach a little gym herself. She wore a bright red golf cap and a hulking brace on one knee.
“Very glad to help out,” she said briskly, when Genie thanked her. “You’re my last pickup. I’m looking forward to watching you play today. I’ve got my vantage points all picked out.”
I asked, “Even on that bad leg? What happened?”
“Oh, it’s way better, I can walk okay. I slid into second and tore my ACL.”
“Oh, no,” Genie said, “my nightmare.”
“As soon as you’re through,” said Stacy, “I’ll be ready to take you back.”
_____
Peaches was on the spot with Genie’s bag when she came out of the locker room looking like a million bucks. I’d never known anyone who could wear clothes like Genie did. She’d chosen a silky, featherweight
shirt in a clear fawn shade, and a pair of gorgeous pale-blue shorts. Her hair caught the sun like gold, and she’d put on some pink lip gloss. Everything looked just right, down to her broken-in but polished saddle shoes.
Peaches Oshinsky didn’t appear too shabby himself. He was the kind of guy who could look good in a greasy undershirt, but he had on a neat polo shirt and shorts beneath his spanking white official caddie jumpsuit. His eyes were bright, and his teeth shone out from his beautiful flawless face.
“I bet your wife’s missing you,” I said.
He just smiled as he fastened the front of his suit.
I looked down at my own frayed golf shirt, rumpled shorts, and black sneakers, and decided I ought to get at least a minimum-wage job.
I trailed along to the practice range and stood quietly, watching not Genie and Peaches, but the other people nearby, like Secret Service guys do. Dewey O’Connor wasn’t around. Genie said she’d sent him home; he’d helped her enough, she felt.
Truby found us and stood behind the ropes. I went over to her. She began, “Thank God you didn’t get yourself—”
“Truby, I need your help today. I need you to hang around Genie’s group with me. I’m looking for a guy in the crowd, and if I see him, I want you to help me watch him. I’ll give you a sign if I see him.”
She gave me a long hard look. “All right. Lillian, why are you talking to me instead of a cop?”
“It’s not that serious.”
“Oh. Really.” She folded her arms. “You went to Chicago?”
“Yeah.” I tried to make it sound casual. “Don’t worry.”
“And?”
“I gotta go. Oh. Have you—?”
“Not.” She blew out a breath, shook her head, then laughed softly. “You need my help today. Fine. But I still need your help. Okay, so the world’s hanging in the balance or something, for this golfer of yours.”
“She’s Genie Maychild.”
“I know. But what do I do if my best prospect for sex only wants to cuddle?”
“Oh, Jesus, Trube, I can hardly think. Hey, cuddling’s great. I just spent a nice morning doing it.”
“But that’s not all you’ve been doing.”
“No.”
“I thought if I cuddled her enough, she’d make love with me. You know, eventually.” Truby’s brow lifted and her expression softened. “So I cuddled her. I mean, like, I cuddled my ass off, I cuddled her until the embroidery wore off her pajamas—”
“Her pajamas?n
“I know.”
“Oh, hon.”
“They have cats on them,” she said helplessly.
“Hell,” I said. “Well, you’ve got one more night.”
“Tonight’s the night, baby.”
“I gotta go. See you on the first tee.”
“Lillian.”
“What?”
“Please don’t do anything stupid. Please.”
If it wasn’t for the hell I was trying to deal with, I’d be having a great time. The sun was shining, the mood was festive—everybody’s but the golfers’, of course; they had their game faces on. The TV towers made everything feel important and exciting. Well, it was important and exciting. I kept checking my watch; Genie’s tee time was nine-fifty; we had about fifteen minutes.
Looking around, I saw the spectacle in all its glorious bits and pieces. The former champion Judy Rankin, now an announcer for television, walked briskly toward the clubhouse. A course marshal held up his sunburned arms on the first tee, signaling for quiet as Maria DiCenzo, the outstanding amateur from Italy, smacked her drive. A chubby, happy fan with a curly perm stood transfixed at the sight of Coco Nash applying Chap Stick. The fairways looked as though you could sew a prom dress from them.
I realized Coco was teeing off in the group immediately ahead of Genie’s. In that case, her security people wouldn’t be far off.
On the men’s tour, they go off in pairs. The women, in order to accommodate TV schedules built around other events, must play in threesomes, to compress the air time they take up.
Genie’s partners in this round were Janet Anson and Sally Trent; they were a shot behind Genie, who in turn, was a shot out of the three-way lead held by the veterans Lois Underwood, Rosa Garcia, and Valerie Klamm.
Peaches and Genie went over to the on-deck area. He helped her double-check her equipment, as they did before every round. He counted her clubs, touching each one, counting softly, “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. One dozen balls with your mark.” Genie’s mark was a cluster of three penciled dots above the logo; Peaches marked a fresh dozen every night for her. “New pack of tees, sunscreen tube half full, Band-Aids—”
“Did you get that glue stuff off, that residue off the grip of my five-iron?”
“Yeah, Mike helped me, over in the equipment trailer—he had this stuff that took it right off. Where’s your inhaler? Remember, you threw away the old one?”
“Oh!” She looked up. She slapped her pockets, then panicked. “I didn’t have it in the locker room. It must have fallen out of my spare socks in the car. Lillian, remember, I had my clean socks and my inhaler?”
“I’ll go find it,” I said quickly. I looked around and luckily spotted the red cap of our driver.
“Hey, Stacy! We left something in the car. Is it locked? Give me the keys, okay? I gotta run and get it.”
She tossed them, saying, “It’s in the members’ lot, left side as you come around to it.”
But Peaches picked the keys out of the air in front of my cupped hand. “I’ll go with you,” he said with a challenging grin. “I bet I can get back faster.”
“Four minutes!” Genie called apprehensively.
Peaches and I took off, leaping over shrubs and dodging around spectators. I kept up with him; my juices were flowing. It felt good to run and jump, felt good to burn off some energy.
“Which one is it?” he said, when we came to the lot.
“Blue Volvo,” I panted, “I think it’s that one over there, see, way at the end.”
He turned on his real speed and was at the car before I’d even started down that row. I saw him get the passenger’s door open, then bend down into the car.
_____
Somehow, right then, I became aware of everything, everything in the world.
The sky was the prettiest, widest sky, and the ancient rocks of the mountains that ringed the valley were seamed with black: riven, mysterious. I was aware of the husky little buzz of a hummingbird overhead and of the quiet hubbub of people going in and out of the swanky clubhouse. I was aware of the bigness of the earth and the smallness of this instant, aware of the desires that had brought me here, aware of the flimsiness of life and of the treachery that lies in wait beneath cleanliness and order and safety.
The explosion was not a large one. It tore the air—yes, with a bang!—and it lifted the car slightly before it bounced down on its tires, yes, and it shot smoke and fragments outward. Yes. But there was no fireball, no echoing blast, no destruction save for part of the Volvo, and the windows in the neighboring cars, and Peaches Oshinsky, who, by the time I reached him, had opened his mouth and begun to scream.
25
Not that he could have known what hit him. He had been turned into something raw and terrible. He had been thrown out of the car, and was lying on his back on the asphalt between the Volvo and the next car.
I knew help was already coming; there’s always an ambulance on hand at big events like this.
I edged between the cars and crouched over him. Dear God—oh, my dear God. The flesh of his face had been blasted apart, outward and away. His eye sockets were pools of blood, filling and running over, and he had no nose. His mouth was open in agony, his jaw badly askew, and the screams he was screaming made me wish we were both dead. His hair was bloody, and his chest was bloody, and he began to thrash.
“Peaches,” I said, low, “it’s Lillian. Lie still. Lie still.”
He screamed once more, then made a gurglin
g sound; lying on his back as he was, he was beginning to drown in his own blood. “Peaches, I’m turning your head so you won’t choke.” Christ, I hope his spine’s not broken.
The air around us was still blue from the blast. Burnt gunpowder smell filled my nose.
“We need help here!” I hollered. I heard footsteps rushing toward us.
Peaches extended his hand toward the sound of my voice, and I took it with both of mine. He gurgled again, loudly. His hand convulsed, and I tried to hold it tighter, but it squirted out of my hands like a fish. I saw then that it was as mangled and bloody as his face. The force of my grip had caused one of his fingers to come all the way off; it dropped from my knee to the ground and then rolled a little way under the Volvo. I reached across his chest and retrieved it. His other hand, I then noticed, was missing completely.
I was gripped by the shoulders and pulled away: the paramedics. I handed the finger to one of them.
Someone took my arm, saying, “Lillian, Lillian,” and led me, stumbling, to a patch of grass. A ring of people had formed around the scene.
_____
It was only an hour later that the decision was made to go on with the day’s round. The police had gathered; some of them stood looking at the Volvo, waiting for lab people to come along with experts on arson and explosives. Another medical team was summoned to check me over because I had so much blood on me, I suppose. All of it was Peaches’s, though.
Barely alive, he was rushed off.
The cops had sealed the gates for the time being and were asking everybody questions, starting with me. It took me a while to pull myself together. Truby was at my side, keeping calm, and so was Genie. I wanted a chance to wash up. There was a little flurry of confusion as more cops arrived; Genie took the opportunity to hustle me into the locker room. We were alone.
It was very clear to me what had just happened. It was as plain as anything.
Peaches hadn’t seen the inhaler on the seat, so he’d bent to look on the floor, placing one hand on the mat in the footwell. Beneath the mat was where the explosive had been placed, with some kind of pressure trigger. The violence was intended for Genie, of course. It was intended for her lower body, and it was intended to maim her, not kill her.
The Lillian Byrd Crime Series Page 37