“Hey, Hacker,” she said cheerfully, sitting back from her drudge work with a sigh. “How’d the search go last night?”
“Illuminating and eye-opening,” I said with a straight face. She laughed out loud.
“Do you know what Big Wyn’s schedule is today?”
“I think she had an early time today,” Honie said, reaching for the pairing sheets. “Yeah, they went off an hour ago, so she should be finished right after lunch. Whaddya need?”
“I want you to tell her I need an interview with her ASAP,” I said. “Private and one-on-one. And give her this.” I handed her the sealed envelope.
“What is it?” Honie asked.
“Incentive,” I said mysteriously.
I had some time to kill, so I went out on the course to watch some golf. I caught up with Betsy King’s threesome on the front nine. Watching her play a few shots, I could see why she had been leading the money list for several years. Smooth, steady, her swing was classically correct, but looked a bit mechanical to me. She was all business out there. She pulls her visor down low over her eyes and you can feel her concentration. All her movements are deliberate, calm and unemotional. It’s like watching a golfing machine at work: bloodless, cold and terribly efficient. She made a birdie at eight to pull within one of the lead.
I wandered on through the gallery. Cutting back over to the back nine holes, I happened upon Patty Sheehan’s group. Looking at the sign carried by a young volunteer, I saw that Patty wasn’t having the best of weekends. She had fallen to one under, eight shots behind. But watching her demeanor, you couldn’t tell. Sheehan plays a game diametrically opposed to Betsy King’s. She wears her heart on her sleeve for all to see. King walks slowly and deliberately from shot to shot, her eyes straight ahead, saying nothing. Patty practically dances down a fairway. I watched her hit a pulled drive that flew straight but down the left side, ending up in the rough, and for the first forty steps after it, she pulled her visor off and slapped her thigh with it, as if in self-punishment. But then she grinned to herself, popped the visor back on, looked over at the fans along the ropes, waved to a friend, slapped her caddie on the back and strode whistling in search of her ball. I followed.
The ball was lying up in the grass, which was lucky, but the fairway bent around to the left and three tall palms blocked her view of the green. She stood behind her ball for a moment, studying the options. Her caddie whispered the yardage and she nodded and pulled a club. While she was waiting for one of her playing partners to go first, she glanced over at the gallery ropes and saw me standing there.
“Watch this Hacker,” she said with a grin. “Piece of cake!”
She took a couple practice swings, then stepped up to the ball. She had taken a long iron – it looked like a three – which was a dangerous club to play in the thick rough. But she made a typical Sheehan pass at the ball – smooth, rhythmic—and caught the ball cleanly.
It shot off down the right center of the fairway, low and hot, and began to curve sharply left, bending perfectly around the trees and the corner. Straining, I saw the ball land about thirty yards short of the green and start running with its hook overspin. It punched through the collar of bermuda around the green and then I lost sight of it. But the gallery around the green began to murmur and then roar as the ball trickled down the green, closer and closer to the hole.
Patty couldn’t see where the ball finished, either, but from the cheers echoing down the fairway we could both tell that her miracle shot had finished close to the hole. She looked over at me with a huge ear-to-ear grin creasing her well-tanned face and I gave her a thumbs up. She threw her hands up in the air and waggled her legs in an excellent imitation of an NFL wide receiver doing a touchdown dance. The fans around me laughed and cheered.
Back in the pressroom an hour or so later, I got word that Big Wyn would give me half an hour at four. The message was relayed to me by Karla, the Tour’s PR honcho and Honie’s boss. I had not seen Honie since she left the pressroom with my message. Karla sought me out after lunch. She wore a conservative gray business suit with a colorful print scarf on the shoulder and a diamond-encrusted pin in the shape of a flagstick.
“May I ask the purpose of your interview with Mrs. Stilwell?” she asked, somewhat coldly.
“You certainly may,” I said gallantly, “But I won’t tell you. It’s between Wyn and me.”
She didn’t like that, of course, but I really didn’t care. I put my face back into the newspaper I had been reading and propped my feet up on the desk.
That’s probably why she gave me the cold shoulder treatment a couple of hours later when she came to escort me up to Big Wyn’s suite. I was going to ask her if she liked being a high-paid escort, but she might have taken the question the wrong way. She was stonily silent, so I settled for whistling tunelessly as the private elevator whisked us upstairs.
When the door opened, I told Karla that I could find my way, and she stayed in the elevator as the doors closed with a whisper. I walked past the smoky mirrors, down the curving hall and out to the dramatic balcony overlooking the living room and the panoramic views of the golf course beyond. Down below, Big Wyn was sitting quietly by herself on the plush white leather sofa. She was looking at a scrap of paper that I recognized as the note I had sent earlier with Honie. I walked down the curving staircase and sat down in a chair next to the sofa.
She didn’t look at me right away, so I had a moment to study her. Big Wyn looked tired. She had, of course, just finished her round for the day, but this was more than that. Her eyes were wrinkled at the corners and her face looked etched with fatigue. Her shoulders seemed to slope downwards sharply. This was not the confident, triumphant Wynnona Stilwell, conqueror of the fairways. This was a tired, aging and somewhat apprehensive old woman.
“So who’s this Cindy D’Angelo?” she rasped at me finally. “Somebody I’m supposed to know?”
I looked at her. “That’s good, Wyn,” I said. “Denial. But it won’t work. I’ve talked to the girl. I’ve got the story on how you blackmailed Benton. It’s a good one, too.”
“C’mon, Hacker,” she laughed mirthlessly, shaking her head. “Who’s gonna believe some cockamamie story from a nude dancer…a hooker, probably?” She looked at me. “It’ll go down as the rambling of some cheap little bimbo trying to score some big bucks from the Tour. Who’s gonna compare her to what I’ve …”
She broke off suddenly and looked down at her hands. Then she got up and shuffled over to the big, floor-to-ceiling windows which overlooked the golf courses and crowds of spectators milling around. She stared out at this tableau, which she had helped create, and the late afternoon sun turned her silver-streaked hair a subtle hue of gold.
“You don’t get it, do you Hacker?” she said softly. “I have worked my entire life for the girls on this Tour. I’ve worked like hell to get the money up so we can make a living. I’ve traveled the country back and forth twenty times finding places where we can play. I’ve worn out shoes tromping around New York, trying to get the networks to pay us some attention. I have kissed so much ass…”
She broke off, staring. I kept silent.
“You don’t know the fights I had to go through,” she continued. “In public, when the cameras are on and the reporters are there, they all say we’re great athletes, fine people, the world’s best female golfers. But in the back room, when the dollars are on the table, we’re bitches and dykes and cunts…you name it, I’ve been called it. Every goddam name in the book, they’ve called me.”
She ran a hand through her hair.
“Until I came along, these girls played for peanuts. For nuthin’! And they did it gladly, too, because they loved the game. When I came along, I said to hell with that! If we’re gonna put on tournaments and entertain the folks, we’re gonna get paid a fair dollar to do so. And it has been a fight, every step of the way. The PGA Tour…they throw money at those sons-a-bitches. But I had to fight for every
dollar, for every perk, for every last thing we’ve got on this Tour.”
“I do know, Wyn,” I said. “I know it’s been tough and I know you’ve done a hell of a job. But you’ve become part of the problem, not the solution. And you haven’t always played fair.”
“Fair!” She wheeled to face me, her eyes afire. “Fair? You think it’s fair when the chairman of a major New York bank says he’ll sponsor a tournament if I give him a blowjob? You think it’s fair when one of my girls wins six tournaments in a row and Wheaties won’t put her on the box? You think it’s fair that our tournaments cost as much as the men’s events, and we play for one-third the money? Fair? Don’t talk to me about fair, Hacker. There’s nothing that’s fair in this life. Fair is what you make for yourself.”
“Ah,” I said. “The old ‘ends justify the means’ argument.”
“You are goddam right,” Big Wyn snarled, her face reddening. “I learned pretty damn quick that in this life you got two choices. You either get the other guy or he gets you. There’s no in-between. I made up my mind early on that I was going to be doing the getting. Nobody was gonna get the better of Wynnona Haybrook in this life. Nobody.”
I studied her for a moment. That defiant chin was jutting out, those fierce eyes sparkling. Big Wyn had put the chip squarely on her shoulder and was daring someone to knock it off.
There was a germ of truth in Wyn’s impassioned claim. Women do have it tough, and women golfers trying to earn a living at their game were at a disadvantage. It wasn’t fair, Big Wyn was right, but it was the way things were. Big Wyn certainly deserved credit for her efforts to try and make the playing field better, if not entirely level, for herself and the other players on the LPGA Tour.
But she had pushed the boundary. She had, in effect, made up the rules as she went along. She had kicked her ball out of the bunker, conceded herself long putts, not counted all the strokes. And not even the “not fair” excuse could justify that. She had not merely cheated, she had broken a trust. Whether for good or ill, the rules exist for a reason, and they cannot be ignored at will. At least, not without some consequence. In Big Wyn’s case, there would be no one who would sign her scorecard.
“Wyn,” I said. “I’ve gotta run this.” I pulled out a copy of my story, unfolded it and handed it to her. “I understand what you’re saying, but it’s my job to run this piece. I’ll include any comment you’d care to make.”
Silently, she took the paper and read the story. She stopped only once, about halfway through, to look at me with her sad, weary eyes. When she had finished, she handed me back the paper and stared out the window into the afternoon.
“Comment?” I asked.
She mumbled something.
“Sorry?” I said.
“Mumbo jumbo,” she said. “Bunch a damn mumbo jumbo.”
“That your comment?”
She waved her hand in dismissal. “Get back to you,” she said. “Gotta think.”
“Okay,” I said. “But I’m sending this up to Boston in an hour. They’ll want some reaction from you.”
She waved me away again and I left her standing at the window, looking out at the wreckage of her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I went back to the pressroom. The day’s scores were being posted on the main scoreboard. Sybil had done one better, firing a nifty 68, putting her two shots out of the lead. I figured I’d call her for a congratulatory drink after I had filed the story.
I had missed her after-the-round interview session. Professional golf is probably the only sport in which the reporters covering the event can sit there and have the players brought in to them for interviews. Players who have shot particularly good rounds, and, of course, the leaders, come down from the locker room, sit on a raised dais holding a microphone and talk about their round. They usually start with a hole-by-hole, shot-by-shot description of birdies and bogies, and then we get to ask questions.
“So, how do you feel about tomorrow’s round?”
“Well, I’m gonna try to stay in the moment, play one shot at a time.”
Zzzzzz.
One of these days, before I retire, just for the hell of it, I’m gonna ask someone a doozy, such as “In Tolstoy’s War and Peace, do you think Natasha represents the essential Russian mind?” Just to see what happens.
The room slowly emptied as the other reporters finished filing their stories. Barley Raney was reading a USA Today in one corner, while a half-dozen volunteer ladies in matching pink golf polo shirts bustled about, closing up shop for the day.
“Has anyone seen Honie Carlton?” I asked the ladies, who were setting out the final round’s pairing sheets.
“Somebody said she’s already left. Went up to Sarasota to get ready for next week,” one of the volunteers told me.
I thought about that and frowned. She hadn’t mentioned any plans to head out of town early. And she hadn’t said good-bye, which was not like her at all. I was trying to decide if my feelings were hurt when the phone rang. The volunteer lady answered it and waved it at me.
“Hacker? Karla Donnelly, Tour PR,” said the well-modulated voice. “Mrs. Stilwell has some responses to the allegations in your story and wants to give them to you.”
“Fine,” I said, getting out a sheet of paper. “Shoot.”
“No,” the voice said. “She wants to see you again in her suite. Right away.”
“Aw, hell, can’t you just read it to me?” I whined. “Save me the trip?”
“Ten minutes, Mister Hacker,” and she rang off.
I groaned and swore silently to myself. If she was surrounded by her courtesans, the Queen would have regained her power and I would be in for some high-powered browbeating. Part of me, perversely, looked forward to the challenge. The other part of me wished suddenly for a direct flight to the Antarctic. I drained my beer, made an excellent, over-the-head hook shot into the wastebasket and headed for the door.
“Night, Hacker,” Barley called out as I left. His head was still buried in the newspaper.
“Go home, Barley,” I told him. “It’s quittin’ time.”
“Yeah, right,” he said.
The sun was fading fast in the western sky as I headed back towards the lobby. The last few streaks of orange and pink fought a losing battle against the deep blue tones that were fading quickly into black. I stopped for a moment and watched the darkening gloom as it swept over the golf courses. The gushing fountain in the lake beside the eighteenth green made a comforting sound, like the wind whistling through a mountain pass, as the rest of the world seemed to hush suddenly from the bustle and busyness of the day. The insects fell silent and the twinkling lights of the surrounding city began to blink on. The air was still and quiet and bathed by the night air. It had that soft quality that the zillions of tourists dream about when they think about Florida. It was soft and redolent and peaceful and moist and sensual. It made me think about Sybil Montgomery. It made me feel alive, as night approached.
I breathed in that cool, delicious air and used it to refuel my resolve for what I was sure was going to be an acrimonious meeting with Big Wyn. I doubted I would be encountering the tired and worn-out Wyn in this meeting. It would, more likely, be the dragon lady.
Whoever got me was good, very good. I had not been paying much attention to things around me as I stood out on that terrace, enjoying the night air. But I never heard a thing. There was, suddenly, a burst of pain at the base of my skull, an explosion of bright and multi-colored light, and the sensation of falling and falling, end over end, into a deep black eternity.
It took me a while to convince myself that I had returned from that eternity, because when I came to I was still in a black and lightless void. It was the dull throbbing in my head that told me I was, indeed and unfortunately, alive. My hands were tightly bound behind my back and my shoulders began to chime in with the message that they, too, hurt like hell. I would have groaned aloud, but a gag had been pulled ti
ghtly across my mouth and tied behind my aching head.
It was dark, but I could sense I was lying in a smallish room. It was hot and airless. It was too dark to see anything identifiable. I seemed to be half-lying in a propped-up position on a hard daybed of some kind, my back wedged uncomfortably against a wall. The wall felt cool and smooth, and when I reached out with my bound hands as far as I could to touch it, it felt smoothly metallic in texture, like a kitchen countertop. I strained in the dark to listen, trying to ignore the constant drumbeats of my throbbing head. I could hear nothing except a constant rhythmic buzz of insects. “Wherever I am, there’s an outside nearby,” I thought, and immediately credited myself with an amazing intuitive deduction. I tried struggling up into a sitting position and learned my legs had been hogtied at the ankles, too.
A wave of panic burst over me. Hands and feet tied, bound and gagged, dropped into an airless dark cell. “Okay, Commandant, I’ll spill! Let me the hell out of here and I’ll tell you anything you want to know! To hell with name, rank and serial number…just get me the hell out of here!” Hot tears of frustration and fear sprang up, and a rush of fear-based adrenaline caused me to sweat profusely, drops rolling down my back. The noise of my panicked gasps of air through my noise reverberated in the close little room.
Slowly, I got myself back under control. “Easy, Hacker,” I cautioned myself. “You are not dead and if they wanted you dead, you would be alligator dinner by now. So relax, chill out, wait for the next act in this play. All you’ve got left is your brain, so use it.”
I don’t know how long intermission lasted. I may have dozed off. I may have sunk back into unconsciousness. I tried to let my mind wander to pleasant things. I thought about my beach cottage up on the North Shore, but that made me think of that scary next-door neighbor, and panic welled up in me again.
At some point, I finally heard a soft whisper close at hand. Then a door opened beside me, spilling harsh light into my small room. Almost at once, I realized why the wall behind me was smooth and metallic. I was in a motor home, the back bedroom compartment. In front of me was a bed, the twin of the one I was lying on, extending almost the entire width of the trailer. There was a small window to the right, tightly sealed with both blinds and curtains.
Death from the Ladies Tee Page 18