Murder in the Rough

by Otto Penzler

And talent. She had all of that, Lucy did.

  And her lists.

  Her lists. Better do something about those. She reached across the familiar darkness, found her vest and took out the small book. She had matches on her bedstand, to light the evergreen-scented candle. She lit it, and in the candlelight, found the pages and carefully ripped them out.

  One note said, RU-486. Ripped and burned.

  Another said, New job. Ripped and burned, the paper flaring in the near dark.

  A third one said, Frame Willie. Ripped and burned.

  She looked at the last note for a while, the only note not written with a golf pencil. It had been written the week before, in pale blue ink. Girlie ink, she thought now.

  It said, Marry Stevie?

  No fuckin’ way. Not at this stage of her career, she thought. A pro went it alone, until the money got big. Then she’d have her pick.

  Marry Stevie?

  A tear trickled down her cheek. Ripped and burned, the smoke smelling of damp pulp paper and evergreens.

  But it was gone in a moment, and everything was back on track.

  Lucy lay in the bed she’d made, and dreamed of lists.

  UNPLAYABLE LIES

  William G. Tapply

  Mr. Mazza met me at the practice tee around 12:30, where I had his clubs and a bag of range balls waiting for him.

  He held a folded-up bill between his fingers. “Big match today, kid,” he said. “You know what I mean?”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Important I beat this guy.” He tucked the bill into my shirt pocket. “Matter of respect.”

  He reached into his bag and took out his driver. I teed up a range ball for him.

  He looked at the clubhead. “You clean these?” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He squinted at the clubhead, then nodded. “Yeah. Course you do. You always clean the clubs. Good job.” He tapped my ass with the head of his driver. “Big match. Big fuckin’ match for us, understand?”

  I nodded. He was talking about my tip.

  Mr. Mazza then proceeded to pound out that entire bag of balls with his driver as fast as I could tee them up for him. He grunted and cursed and kept swinging harder and harder and hitting bigger and bigger hooks, and by the time he was done, he was drenched with sweat.

  If he’d asked me, I would’ve told him that if he wanted to win this big match, he should work his way up through his clubs on the practice tee. Start with a few wedges, little half-swings, just making clean contact, then a couple of short irons, move on up through the middle irons, long irons, fairway woods, getting loose, extending his swing, finding his groove, and end up smacking a few with his driver.

  I’d been carrying for Mr. Mazza for three years, and if he ever asked my advice, I could’ve taken six or eight strokes off his game, easy. Club selection, reading the grain on a green, deciding when to lay up and when to go for the pin. Stuff like that. Not to mention how to warm up before a match and how to change his grip to straighten out that hook. All he had to do was ask.

  But Mr. Mazza wasn’t the kind of guy who asked anybody for anything. He told people what he wanted, and he expected them to do it. And I’m not talking about just caddies.

  The first time I told my old man I’d carried for Mr. Mazza, he said, “Shit, son. Big Paulie Mazza? You gotta watch out for that guy.”

  “He’s got a wicked hook, I know that,” I said. “I spent half the day in the woods looking for his ball.”

  “That ain’t what I meant. Mazza’s a made man, a fuckin’ wiseguy.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me what he does for a living,” I said. “I just carry his golf bag.”

  “Don’t ever say nothing to him,” said my old man. “Just say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ to that guy. How much he give you?”

  “Twenty,” I lied.

  “Cheap bastard.” My old man held out his hand. “Let’s have it.”

  I gave twenty bucks to him and kept the other thirty for myself. Whatever Mr. Mazza was, he wasn’t a cheap bastard.

  Every time I got home from the club my old man had his hand out to me. A few months after that first time, he said to me, “This Mazza, he likes you, huh?”

  “I guess so. He always asks for me. I’m his regular caddie.”

  “I been thinking,” he said. “Maybe it ain’t such a bad thing, getting in good with him.”

  “I’m in pretty good with him.”

  “He ever talk about business?”

  “Not to me. To the guys he plays with sometimes.”

  “You should listen,” said my old man. “Maybe learn something.”

  “I listen.”

  “You do a good job carrying his bag,” said my old man, “maybe he’ll find something for you, get you started on a career. He’s got connections.”

  “I do a good job,” I said.

  “I got a better idea,” he said. “Why don’t you mention to him that your daddy’s between jobs right now? See what he says to that.”

  My old man had been between jobs for about ten years. “Sure, Pop. I’ll mention it to him.”

  “Tell him I do what I’m told, know how to keep my mouth shut. Anything he wants, I can do it. Anything at all. You tell him that.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said.

  I had no intention of mentioning my old man to Mr. Mazza.

  I wouldn’t’ve minded working for Mr. Mazza, though. I didn’t plan to shine golf shoes and carry bags and say “yes, sir” for the rest of my life.

  Mr. Mazza handed me his driver, and I gave him the clean towel I always carry in my hip pocket for him. Mr. Mazza sweats like a pig.

  He dried off his face and hands, then stuffed the towel up under his shirt and wiped his chest and his hairy belly. “Remember what I said,” he said. “Important match. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  When we got to the first tee, Skeeter Cronin was leaning on a golf bag talking with a fat, bald-headed old guy, must’ve been at least fifty.

  Skeeter was a couple years younger than me, a skinny redheaded kid with pink, peeling skin and freckles all over his face and yellow fuzz on his upper lip. I’d carried with Skeeter a few times. He always complained about his old man, who was in prison. I told him that was better than having an old man never went out of the house, with his hand out to you all the time.

  The fat guy wore sunglasses and had the stump of a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth. I’d seen him around the club a few times. His name was Vaccaro. He didn’t play much golf, but he liked to take blond women to the members’ dining room, have long boozy meals, watch the girls play tennis in their little short skirts or swim in the pool while he sat there drinking gin and tonics. Sometimes he ate with a bunch of other men, talking and laughing and flirting with the waitresses, and afterward playing gin rummy for half the night.

  Mr. Mazza went right up to him and hugged him and kissed both of his cheeks. “How you doin’, Mr. Vaccaro?” he said.

  Mr. Mazza didn’t call anybody “Mister” that I knew of.

  “Hey, Paulie,” said Mr. Vaccaro, calling Mr. Mazza by his first name, I noticed. “You been practicing on me?”

  “I whacked a few balls,” said Mr. Mazza. “Gotta be at my best, have a chance against you, huh?”

  “You can’t beat me,” said Mr. Vaccaro, “you got a serious problem. You wanna hit first?”

  “Maybe we should flip for it.”

  “You go ahead, Paulie. Show me the way.”

  I handed Mr. Mazza his driver and a new Titleist and a white tee. He teed up his ball, straightened up, squinted down the fairway, took a couple of practice swipes, then looked at Mr. Vaccaro. “One mulligan each side okay with you?” he said.

  “Mulligan?” Mr. Vaccaro laughed. “The fuck you talking about, a mulligan. We playing golf or tiddlywinks? Hit ’em where they lay, Paulie. Play by the fuckin’ rules. That’s what rules are for.”

  “Club rules allow preferred lies in the fairway
,” said Mr. Mazza.

  “Yeah, and they put out them red tees for the ladies, too. Don’t mean that’s where you hit from.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Vaccaro.” Mr. Mazza shrugged. “Strict rules of golf, then, huh?”

  “That’s it, Paulie. Strict rules. What good are rules, they ain’t strict? What’re you hitting?”

  Mr. Mazza looked at his ball. “Titleist 3.”

  Mr. Vaccaro held out his hand, and Skeeter gave him a ball. “Dunlop 4,” he said. “Buck a hole?”

  “Fine by me,” said Mr. Mazza.

  A buck meant a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars meant about as much to those guys as a dollar did to me.

  Mr. Mazza proceeded to hit his drive into the left rough about 250 yards out.

  “You’re a big hitter, Paulie,” said Mr. Vaccaro as he teed up his ball. “You got that hook, though. You gotta get that hook under control. No sense hitting big if you don’t have no control.”

  It was the first time I’d ever heard anybody dare to criticize Mr. Mazza’s swing. I expected him to whack Mr. Vaccaro in the face with his driver, but all he did was mumble, “Yeah, I know. You’re right. I’m working on it.”

  Mr. Vaccaro had a short little swing, all shoulders and arms, and I knew before I even watched the flight of his ball that he was a slicer. But he started it left, and it arced out there and plopped safely down in the middle of the fairway about 180 yards out.

  “Good hit, Mr. Vaccaro,” said Mr. Mazza, sucking up to him.

  “Play within yourself,” said Mr. Vaccaro. “Don’t try to do more than you can do, you know what I mean?”

  “I like to go for it,” said Mr. Mazza. “Challenge myself.”

  “That’s why you always end up in the rough, Paulie. Not smart. Not the way to win.”

  Skeeter and I set off ahead of the two men to try to find Mr. Mazza’s ball.

  “That guy scares the shit out of me,” said Skeeter after we’d put some distance between us and them.

  “Who?”

  “My guy. Mr. Vaccaro.”

  “He’s just a fat old shit with a slice.”

  “I don’t like the way he looks at me,” said Skeeter. “It’s like he knows what I’m thinking.”

  “So don’t think nothing,” I said. “Just call him ‘sir,’ stay out of his line of sight when he’s putting.”

  Skeeter found Mr. Mazza’s ball under a bush, then headed back to meet up with Mr. Vaccaro. After Skeeter was out of sight, I gave our ball a nudge with my toe, giving us a decent lie and a line at the green.

  When he got to me, Mr. Mazza looked at his ball, peered out to the fairway, then winked at me. “Looks like we got a lucky bounce, huh, kid?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Strict rules of golf,” he muttered. “Hit ’em where they lay. So says Mr. Anthony Vaccaro.”

  He took a 7-iron, choked down on it, and punched the ball nicely out onto the fairway, leaving himself a half-wedge to the pin. Meanwhile, Mr. Vaccaro had laid up his second shot about fifty yards from the green. They both chipped on and two-putted for bogeys.

  As we walked to the next tee, Mr. Mazza put his arm around Mr. Vaccaro’s shoulders and said, “No blood that time.”

  “There’s always blood, Paulie,” said Mr. Vaccaro. He glanced at me and smiled, and I wondered if he knew I’d given Mr. Mazza’s ball a kick. I didn’t see how.

  The second hole was a blind shot over a hill, so Skeeter and I went ahead to watch for where the balls came down. “Did you say anything to Mr. Vaccaro?” I asked Skeeter.

  “Like what?”

  “About Mr. Mazza’s lie back there in the rough.”

  “I just say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ to that guy.”

  “And he didn’t ask you about Mr. Mazza’s lie?”

  “Nope.”

  I didn’t know Skeeter well enough to tell if he was lying to me.

  The two men halved the first four holes, Mr. Mazza whaling out those long hooks into the rough, Mr. Vaccaro hitting his high little slices in the middle of the fairway. Whenever Mr. Vaccaro was out of sight, Mr. Mazza would roll his ball over with his club to make it sit up for him, and he’d mumble, “Club rules. Fuck him.”

  The fifth hole was a par 3 with water on the left, and naturally Mr. Mazza’s 6-iron hooked down in the middle of it. When Mr. Vaccaro dropped a soft 4-wood about twenty feet from the pin, Mr. Mazza said, “Go ahead, pick it up. Your hole.”

  “You shouldn’t give up so easy, Paulie,” said Mr. Vaccaro. “Hit another one. You might hole it out. Anything can happen.”

  “A hole in one for a par?” said Mr. Mazza. “Fuck that. I concede.”

  Mr. Mazza evened up their match with a long putt, and a couple holes later Mr. Vaccaro went one up again when Mr. Mazza took two to get out of a bunker. Otherwise they kept halving them. Whenever Mr. Mazza hacked his way to a 7, Mr. Vaccaro would manage to miss a short putt, and if Mr. Mazza sank a long putt for a par, Mr. Vaccaro’s chip shot would nestle up right beside the hole.

  So Mr. Vaccaro was one up when we got to the seventeenth tee. He teed up his ball, then said, “You better win this one, Paulie, or you’re dead.”

  “So let’s double the bet,” said Mr. Mazza. “Make it interesting.”

  “Good,” said Mr. Vaccaro. “Two bucks, then.”

  The seventeenth was a par-4 dogleg to the right with woods and out-of-bounds all the way down the left side and a big bunker at the corner about 180 yards out. With Mr. Mazza’s hook, it looked like a disaster waiting to happen.

  Mr. Vaccaro’s usual high slice landed in the middle of the fairway and started rolling toward the bunker. “That go in the sand?” he said to Skeeter.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, Paulie,” said Mr. Vaccaro to Mr. Mazza, “there you go. There’s your chance.”

  Mr. Mazza looked at me. “Whaddya think, kid?”

  “Sir?” It was the first time he’d ever asked me what I thought.

  “Should I hit the driver?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “You should hit your 4-iron. Put it in the fairway, you’ll have an easy seven to the green.”

  He patted my cheek. “Smart kid. Gimme the fuckin’ driver.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He took the driver and swung so hard he nearly fell down. His ball went way the hell out there over the bunker, and then the hook caught it and it curved into the woods, where it clattered and ricocheted around, bouncing off about five trees.

  “Fuck,” mumbled Mr. Mazza.

  “You shoulda listened to the kid,” said Mr. Vaccaro. “Go help ’em find their ball,” he said to Skeeter.

  Skeeter and I started down the fairway. When I glanced back, I saw that Mr. Mazza and Mr. Vaccaro were still back at the tee. Mr. Vaccaro was leaning his face close to Mr. Mazza’s, and he was jabbing his finger at Mr. Mazza’s chest. I could tell Mr. Mazza was mad by the way he kept clenching his fists, but Mr. Vaccaro seemed to be doing all the talking.

  “Your guy’s ball’s probably out-of-bounds,” said Skeeter as we approached the place where we’d seen it dive into the woods.

  “The way it bounced around,” I said, “it could be anywhere. Could’ve come down in the fairway, even.”

  We started looking. I decided to look along the edge of the fairway. If his ball wasn’t where he’d have a shot at the green, the match was over anyway.

  Skeeter headed into the woods, and as I wandered around the edge of the rough, I kept an eye on him. After a minute, I saw him stop and look down. I pretended not to be looking, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stoop down quickly, pick up a ball, glance at it, and drop it in his pocket. Then he pretended to continue looking.

  From where Skeeter found that ball, Mr. Mazza would’ve had an easy little pitch out into the fairway, and from there maybe a 9-iron to the green. With Mr. Vaccaro in that bunker, still short of the dogleg, we’d have a good chance to win the hole.

  But if we couldn’t find Mr. Mazza’s ball, it
’d be all over. And unless we looked in Skeeter’s pocket, we’d never find it.

  So I reached into my pocket, where I had some more new Titleist 3s, fished one out, and let it fall into the short rough right beside the fairway. Then I kept wandering around, pretending to look.

  After a few minutes, Mr. Mazza and Mr. Vaccaro came along. “Find it?” said Mr. Mazza.

  “Not yet, sir,” I said.

  Mr. Vaccaro glanced at his watch. “Lost ball, you got five minutes.”

  “Yeah,” mumbled Mr. Mazza. “Strict fuckin’ rules of golf.”

  Skeeter was still ramming around in the woods, pretending to look. Mr. Mazza and Mr. Vaccaro and I were standing right near where I’d dropped the ball. “Hey,” I said, pointing at it, pretending to see it for the first time. “What’s this?”

  Mr. Mazza bent down. “That’s mine. Must’ve got a good bounce off them trees.”

  “Come on outta there, kid,” said Mr. Vaccaro to Skeeter. “We got it.”

  The two of them went over to the bunker and stood there waiting for Mr. Mazza to hit. I saw Mr. Vaccaro touch Skeeter’s shoulder. Skeeter nodded and said something, and Mr. Vaccaro shrugged and glanced in our direction.

  “Pretty lucky,” said Mr. Mazza to me. “I guess I prob’ly shoulda hit that 4-iron like you said. But it worked out okay.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “We got lucky.”

  Mr. Mazza then hit his best shot of the day, a nice high, straight 6-iron that settled down on the front of the green and rolled up to about five feet from the hole.

  “Good shot, sir,” I said.

  “Keep an eye on that sonofabitch,” he growled at me. “See he don’t ground his club in the sand.”

  He didn’t, but it didn’t matter. It took him two shots to get out of the bunker, one more to lay up, and by the time he chipped onto the green, he was lying five to Mr. Mazza’s two.

  When Mr. Vaccaro got to the green, he went over and picked up both his own and Mr. Mazza’s balls. “Your hole, Paulie.” He turned to say something to Skeeter, and as he started to walk off the green, he tossed Mr. Mazza’s ball to him. “Match all even goin’ to the eighteenth. Whaddya say? Want to make it five bucks?”

  “Why the fuck not?” said Mr. Mazza.