by Otto Penzler
But Mike shook his head. Bodyguards didn’t have time for thoughts of food. Instead, he concentrated on giving the other diners steely glances, which they, having drunk wine and port and whiskey, didn’t even notice. Me, I had the inkling Mike would be placing an order with room service before the night was out.
It had been Mike’s job also to book the accommodations, which was why I was sharing with Pete down the hall while the Boss and Mike had their own rooms next door to one another.
“Some mix-up in the reservations,” was Mike’s explanation, and now that the hotel was full, we couldn’t do much about it.
“Never mind, Mike,” I said, “at least the room for two saves the business some money, right?”
“Right,” he said, unsure how serious I was being.
The hotel was full not just because St. Andrews remained, as the book said, “the Mecca of golf,” but because it was graduation time at the university, and this, I guessed, was where the richer parents, people like the Boss himself, stayed while they were in town for the festivities, festivities which were due to begin the following morning with some service in the chapel.
The Boss fully intended to be present at this service, since his daughter would be in the choir. Even though it meant us rising at what our body clocks would tell us was something like three in the morning.
Yes, we were in St. Andrews because the Boss’s only child was graduating with honors or distinction or something in some subject or other.
“If only her mother could have been here,” the Boss said, enjoying a brandy after his coffee. Then he stared off into the distance, maybe thinking pleasant thoughts from the past, thoughts of the way his wife, Edie, had been… up until the time she’d run off with her tennis coach. We’d never been able to trace the pair of them, or the few hundred thou Edie had “misappropriated” from the business in the form of cash and jewelry.
“We get lucky, maybe she’ll turn up,” Mike said, patting his jacket. It was Hugo Boss, the styling described as “unstructured.” Fashion was definitely on Mike’s side, helping disguise the bulge of a shoulder holster.
“You not drinking, Micky?” the Boss asked. I shook my head. Before setting off from Boston, I’d read a magazine article about surviving long hauls. Lay off the booze and take some melatonin before bed. The magazine had been left behind by someone in the pool hall. It’s amazing the things I’ve learned down the years in places like that.
Next day Pete’s jaw dropped further when he saw the medieval chapel, probably the oldest thing he’d ever seen in his life. I thought he was going to break his neck, staring up at the ceiling and the stained-glass windows. He’d already been out exploring before breakfast and told me about it afterward in our room. I’d offered him the guidebook, but he’d shaken his head. Never a great reader.
The service wasn’t too long. A couple of hymns and two reverend gentlemen in charge. They both made speeches. You could tell the university professors: they were dressed in robes, and we all had to stand while they were led into the chapel. The rest of the congregation appeared to be students and parents. The choir was upstairs, positioned in front of the organ. Beautiful music; I couldn’t make out Wilma’s voice, but I could see her. She had a cape on, too; all the choristers did. She smiled down at her father, and he smiled back. There were actually tears in his eyes, and I handed him a fresh handkerchief. Mike didn’t notice: too busy eyeing the crowd.
Afterward, we waited outside for Wilma. The day was clouding over, growing cool. Wilma came around the side of the chapel and broke into a sprint, nearly pushing her father over as she hugged him.
“Dad, I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to the hotel last night.”
“Hey, you had to practice, I understand.” He pushed her back a little so that he could look at her. “And you were fantastic. I was so proud of you, Wilma.”
There was one of the other choristers standing just behind her. He turned his head to Mike and offered a smile. Mike scowled back, perhaps hoping to persuade him to be on his way. Wilma suddenly remembered he was there.
“Oh, Dad, I want you to meet a friend of mine. This is Freddy.”
Freddy had thick dark hair and a pale, round face; looked a bit like he’d walked out of a sixties movie set in swinging London. But then he opened his mouth.
“A real pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“Fellow American, eh?” the Boss said, shaking Freddy’s hand.
“Freddy’s graduating, too,” Wilma explained.
“Well, congratulations, son.”
Only now did Wilma seem to notice the rest of us. We got our pecks on the cheek and a few words. I’d wondered about Wilma and Mike once or twice, but she didn’t seem to treat him any different from me or Pete.
“We better go get changed,” Freddy told her. She looked down at her robe and smiled.
“See you for lunch, Dad,” she said, hugging the Boss again.
“Twelve-fifteen at the hotel,” her father reminded her. She nodded. Wilma’s graduation ceremony was midafternoon, followed by a garden party and something called Beating the Retreat. Next day there was a graduates’ luncheon, parents invited. We were booked on a flight out first thing the morning after that.
After Wilma and Freddy had gone, the Boss turned to us. “I don’t need you guys till later.” He looked at Mike. “And I certainly don’t want to be sharing a table and my daughter with you over lunch.”
Mike nodded. “We’ll take one of the other tables.”
But the Boss shook his head. “You’ll make yourselves scarce, understood?”
So that was us, dismissed. “I don’t like it,” Mike said as soon as he had me on my own. “It’s just the moment they’d choose for a hit.”
“Can we skip to the next track on the CD?” I asked.
“You mean you’re going to go along with this?” Mike’s eyes narrowed, as though he thought I might be cooking something up.
“Mike, we’ve flown halfway round the globe to be here. I’d like to see a bit of the place.”
“Sightseeing? What’s to see?”
“Open your eyes, Mike.”
“My eyes are open, friend. It’s you that’s walking around blind.”
I just shook my head. “I want something to tell the guys back home.”
“Such as?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know… Such as playing a round of golf at St. Andrews.” Until then, the thought hadn’t occurred to me, but Mike’s disbelieving laughter sealed it for me. And when I suggested it to Pete, he was more than agreeable. Which left Mike out in the cold.
“Well,” he said, “I wasn’t too comfortable about that Freddy guy. Think I might do some background…” Like he was still in the neighborhood and only had to tap a few skulls to get some answers.
Meantime, Pete and I took a stroll down to the golf course. The hotel had already explained that St. Andrews was a public course, and probably not expensive by American standards, but that its popularity was a problem. Too many people wanted to play, which translated as a raffle for the day’s start times. However, if we wanted to risk it… In any event, a few showers seemed to have kept some people away and there were a couple of cancellations. We managed a slot late afternoon, which gave us time to visit the pro shop.
Pete was disappointed to find that “pro” was short for “golf professional” and that all they were going to sell him there were clubs, shoes and stuff. His second disappointment came when he discovered there were no plus fours. I think the cold and the rain were getting to him, because by the time we’d rented our clubs and shoes, and bought a tartan cap apiece along with some balls and tees, he was in one of his fouler moods.
“Ever played this game?” I asked him as he hauled our clubs—one set between us—toward the first tee.
“Watched it on TV,” he replied.
“Then you’re practically an expert.”
Now, if you’ve ever been to a golf course, you’ll know that the pockets are a good distance
apart, and not with only flat green baize between them. The wind was whipping across us, and the little boxes on my scorecard didn’t make any sense. As the gulls screeched overhead, I remembered that there was some ornithological aspect to the game: birdies and eagles and stuff. I also knew that the wooden clubs were for the initial tee drive, and that a putter was what you used in miniature golf.
“You don’t know the game either, huh?” Pete said.
“Always meant to learn.”
“Well, I can’t think of a better time or place.”
“You okay, Big Pete? You seem a bit down.”
He seemed about to say something, then just shook his head and mumbled something about jet lag. We were at the first tee now. Some players just ahead of us were marching up the fairway.
“They got wheels with their golf bags,” Pete complained.
“Wheels were extra. You tote them the first nine, I’ll tote them back, okay?”
“You mean we’re playing sixteen holes?”
“Eighteen, Pete,” I corrected him.
“We’ll be here all day.”
“Fortunately that’s exactly how long we’ve got.”
He bent down and pushed his tee into the turf. “I wanted to see the harbor again.”
“Plenty of time for that,” I promised, following his example with the tee and the ball. Pete was selecting one of the two woods. “Don’t we wait for them to get out of range?” I asked, pointing to the golfers ahead of us. Pete shook his head and got ready to swing his club.
Now, some might put it down to beginner’s luck, but me, I think it was a force much darker. Because Pete whacked that ball and it sailed up into the sky, perfectly straight and long. Very long.
I traced its trajectory with my eyes and watched it bounce off the head of one of the other players. As the man dropped like a stone, I watched Pete raise a hand, cupping it to his mouth and hollering, “Fore!” Then he turned to me and smiled. “That’s what you do.”
The player was being helped to his feet by his two playing partners. I couldn’t make out their faces at this distance, but they were wearing loud sweaters. Also, they were looking at us. As I say, the pockets are pretty far apart, and we had to wait awhile for the men to reach us. The guy Pete had whacked, he’d had a lot of time to calm down during that walk. He didn’t calm down, though; he just looked angrier and angrier. Even the sight of Big Pete didn’t cause him to rethink any strategy he might have formed. There was a lump on the top of his head that looked like one of the gulls had laid an egg in the nest of his hair. He was swearing at us from about eighty yards out, his fellow players just a few steps behind.
“You stupid… I swear I’m gonna… of all the…” But then he stopped. And if we’d been walking, we’d probably have stopped, too.
Because we knew him, same as he knew us.
“How you doing, Blue?” I asked.
“Unbelievable,” Blue said with a scowl. I didn’t think he was answering my question.
They were Beating the Retreat when we caught up with the Boss. It was on the lawn in one of the college quadrangles and seemed to consist of some bagpipes and drums. Guests were huddled beneath umbrellas.
“Where the hell did you get those hats?” the Boss scowled.
“They were Mike’s idea,” I lied, seeing his displeasure. “He said we’d blend in more. Listen, Boss, we’ve got some bad news.”
“Bad news,” Pete agreed, drawing out the first word.
“What’s wrong?”
I led the Boss a bit farther away from the merry sound of cats being skinned alive. “Guess who we just bumped into on the golf course?”
“Tell me.”
So I told him. Blue had been about to enjoy a round with his colleagues Buck and Manolito. Turned out that their boss, Big John, was in town, too.
“That’s too big a coincidence,” the Boss said.
I had to agree with him; thing was, I didn’t know what else to say. But then Mike came up, looking feverish. “You’ll never guess. I could give you a thousand years, and you’d still never guess.”
It seemed that his inquiries had borne fruit.
“You’ve discovered that Freddy is Big John’s son?” I told him. He looked thunderstruck.
“Just as well you’re not the betting type, Mikey,” Pete told him with a grin.
Okay, I need to explain a couple of things here. One is that the mob no longer exists. It was destroyed in a series of high-profile court cases. Everyone saw it happen on TV, so it must be true. The cops and journalists turned their attentions to other criminal gangs. I say this to make you aware that when my boss and Big John met that evening, it was just two businessmen having a chat. Though Big John operated out of Miami, the two men (having so many interests in common, after all) knew one another, had met many times in the past.
This leads me to my second point, which is that while Big John and my boss know one another, this is not to say that they are exactly on friendly terms.
The meeting took place on neutral territory: a disused putting green down by the seashore. Pete knew the place, having passed it during one of his exploratory walks. There were the eight of us. Blue had his head bandaged. Mike asked which doctor he’d used, but didn’t get a reply. Our two employers walked toward one another and exchanged a brief hug.
“Funny we have to come all this way to meet again,” Big John said.
“Yeah, some coincidence,” my boss replied. “I didn’t know Freddy was here.”
“Likewise myself with Wilma.”
“What’s he studying?”
“Economics. And Wilma?”
“I don’t know what it is exactly,” the Boss conceded. “It’s got the words ‘Moral’ and ‘Philosophy’ in it.”
“So what’s she gonna do now? M.B.A.? Harvard?”
A shrug. “She says she wants to teach.”
“Teach?” Big John frowned. “Teach what?”
“Teach the thing she’s been taught.”
Big John smiled. “No disrespect to Wilma, but that sounds like some sweet scam.”
I could see the Boss bristle at this. “So Freddy’s going to Harvard?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Not according to what Wilma told me,” the Boss said.
Big John opened his arms. “That’s why we had to meet, sort things out.”
“Wilma tells me they’re in love. They’re already living together.” Another shrug. “The kids are happy, I say let them stay happy.”
Big John’s eyes grew colder. “And I say not.”
“I hope we’re not going to have a problem here,” my boss said quietly. I could see Blue and Mike sizing one another up. Same with Manolito and Pete. Buck… well, I’ve always sort of liked Buck, few times we’ve met. The pair of us were too busy listening to do any measuring. But it was Buck who made the outrageous suggestion.
“If you don’t mind me interrupting,” he began, “we’ve already got Blue here needing some sort of recompense, not so much for his injuries as for losing out on that round of golf.”
“What are you saying?” Big John asked.
“I’m saying it’s not unknown for either of you two gentlemen to enjoy a bet. We could incorporate that bet into a game of golf. That’s all.”
Big John looked at my boss. “How about it? I know you can play.”
“You against me?”
Big John shook his head. “All of us. Make it a bit more interesting.”
If the Boss had looked at me, he’d have seen me shaking my head. These guys lived the year round in Florida. Nothing for them to do all day but drive practice balls and Porsches. But my boss, he wasn’t looking at anyone but Big John. Then he thrust out his hand.
“You got yourself a bet,” he said.
Mike spent the rest of the night on the phone, asking his contacts back home about the handicap Big John and his men might be expected to play off. Mike and the Boss could play, but as for Pete and me… well, you saw us in act
ion, right? When Mike got off the phone, he had copious notes.
“Big John is a 7-, 8-handicapper, Blue’s a 5.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
Mike rolled his eyes. “Meaning they’ll expect to play only that many shots over par.”
“Each hole?” But Mike didn’t even grace that one with a response.
The Boss was thoughtful. “I’m a 4, you’re a… what, Mike? An 8?”
“A 7,” Mike stressed. He studied his notes again. “Manolito’s played before, but never really got into the game. But Buck can play. So they’ve got three players against our two.”
“Hey,” I interrupted, “you didn’t see Pete’s tee shot. We may have a natural here.”
“And how about you, Micky?” the Boss said. “You gonna let the team down or what? Get back to that practice room.”
The practice room was our hotel room. Both beds had been hauled out into the corridor, giving us space for a few swings. Some golf pro had been found, and money had changed hands. When I went back into the room, he was helping Pete with his grip. This had been going on for the best part of two hours. I shook my head and went back into the corridor. Wilma was standing there.
“This isn’t the way things work anymore,” she said, her eyes sad.
“Your father knows that, Wilma.”
“They can’t stop us from living together, loving one another, by playing a round of goddamned golf!”
“Your father knows that, too: didn’t he tell you as much?” I knew he had. I’d been there at the time. “But the thing is, it’s like a gauntlet was laid down, you know? Your father had to pick it up.”
“Not for me, he didn’t.”
“You’re right, he’s doing this for himself.” I put my hands out, palms upward. “But maybe for all of us, too.”
“It won’t change anything,” she said.
I nodded, telling her she was right. But I knew I was lying. If we lost tomorrow, Freddy would be spirited away somewhere, some university in the boondocks. He’d be where Wilma couldn’t find him. Watching the tears form in her eyes, I knew we had to win. I walked back into the practice room and picked up one of the books on golfing rules and etiquette.