He laughed aloud, a deep belly laugh that rang out over the fairways, echoed off the hills and faded into the piney woods.
“Yessir,” he said, “I remember when the moonshiners would bring in their wooden barrels of hootch for the New Year’s party. They came up through those same woods—“ he motioned towards the 18th tee and the deep woods that lay behind it. “—Couple of good ole boys in coveralls, toting shotguns, their hound dogs runnin’ around. I do believe they made a pretty good whiskey, because the New Year’s Eve bash here was always a memorable event. Memorable.”
He looked out again and sighed a little. Remembering the past. The cold December night. The glittering party inside. The orchestra. The beautiful people from Aiken and Manhattan and Chicago and Philly. Dancing into the wee hours, sipping some fine local hootch made in the deep dark woods beyond the golf course. Dancing and drinking and trying hard to forget the market crash and the soup lines and the clouds of war rising over Europe and Asia. It must have been easy to forget all that standing out here on the porch, the cold New Year’s air washing away all the troubles and concerns of the day. It was easy, too easy, to look out upon that same scene today and forget that just a few hours ago, someone had fired a high-powered and silenced rifle at someone else, just missing. Easy to forget those “zip” sounds that had carried such malice at the time. I would have sighed, too, except my mouth was full of barbecue beef, sweet potato pie, cole slaw and honeyed grits.
Skipper sat there lost in his own thoughts while I finished my plate of food. He was nice enough not to comment upon my manner of shoveling it in as fast as possible. I’m sure he had been hungry before. Somehow, a cold can of beer materialized at my elbow. I didn’t see him put it there, and nobody else had come out on the porch, so I figured the Gods had answered one of my unheard prayers and caused it to materialize at my side. I popped the top and took a swallow. Nectar.
“So, I said finally, belching softly to myself contentedly, “Never had a shooting before at the Palmetto?”
He chuckled softly, hooking his thumbs under the belt than ran across his broad, rounded stomach. “Nossir,” he said, shaking his head. “Had quite a few fist fights over the years. Battles of one sort or another. Accusations of cheating on the course, or with one another’s wife. But I can’t say we’ve ever had a shooting. Man was lucky he moved at the right time.”
“He has good instincts,” I said. “But I guess a cop with his experience would have.”
“Reckon that feller needs to look over some of his old cases, figger out which bad ole boy mighta just got outta jail,” Skipper said, pushing his wire-rim glasses back up his nose. “This day and age, it’s pretty doggone easy to get your hands on a rifle with a good scope, even someone who’s just outta the slammer.”
“Might not have been an old case,” I said. “He was working on a new one when he quit the force—that body they found over at the National.”
“Ahh,” Skipper said, rocking back and forth. “Do tell? My, my. The chickens coming home to roost.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“Hell young feller,” Skipper said, “There’s been a whole lotta water flowing under the bridge of the Augusta National over the years. Ever-body thinks that place was just born up all nice and pretty. They come up here once a year when the flowers are nice and the sun is warm and they watch them a golf tunnyment—and it’s always sumpthin’ to see, grant you that—but nobody knows nuthin’ ‘bout the history of that place. When you got a lotta cash in the till, it’s easy to forget the days when you didn’t.”
“Well,” I said. “I know they built that course during the Depression. But Cliff Roberts raised the cash, didn’t he?”
“He tole people he had the cash,” Skipper said, leaning forward and tapping me on the knee for emphasis. “He wasn’t about to admit that he couldn’t. His job was finance. He worked on Wall Street with all them big-money boys. But a lotta them boys lived and played over here. They knew what was goin’ on. I remember them talkin’ about the National all up until the War started.”
He paused and laughed a bit to himself. “Why, I remember one feller here used to say that Adolph Hitler was the best damn thing that ever happened to Clifford Roberts,” Skipper said, amusement in his voice. “When the war started, he had an excuse the shut the damn place down, and five years to raise more cash. If there hadn’t a been a war, I expect they would have had to close the joint down, tunnyment and all.”
“It was that bad?” I said, amazed.
“Oh, hell, yeah,” Skipper said. “Most of the help was paid in chickens and pigs and bags of corn and rice. Heck, the prize money was crap, even in those days. Roberts had to go hat in hand to one of his Wall Street buddies and promise never to charge him dues in perpetuity if he’d cover the prize money for a few years. Only reason the fellows used to come play in the damn thing was because Bob Jones asked ‘em to. Everbody loved Bob. That’s why they came over here to Palmetto the week before—try and win a few more bucks. And they all showed up for the big Calcutta party at the Hotel Bon Air. Lord-a-mercy, the money that was being thrown around that ballroom Wednesday night every year before the Masters…could make your head spin. Hogan’d be sittin’ there with a pencil, his beady little eyes watchin’ everythin’ and ever’one. He was always figgerin’ the odds, tryin’ to beat the pros. Snead would be out on the dance floor dancin’ his fool head off, but he’d come over when his name was called and lay down a few hundred on hisself. The winnin’ ticket was usually worth 12, 15 thousand. That was pretty serious scratch back then. And a hell of lot more than the official check for first place.”
I took a sip of my beer. I had heard stories about the gambling at the Masters in its early years. It had continued, growing larger every year, until the U.S. Golf Association, worried about the appearance of impropriety with professional gamblers hanging about not only the Masters, but the other major golf tournaments, had issued its decree banning Calcutta or pari-mutuel wagering at golf events. But I hadn’t heard that Augusta National had been hanging on by its fingertips financially at the beginning of the club’s life.
“In fact,” Skipper continued, “I believe that Cliff Roberts used to plan on winning enough cash in the annual Calcutta to keep the place running. He used to bet a load on Hogan every year. I remember the year after the war, ’46 I think it was, he had a bundle riding on Ben. And little Herman Kaiser came along and was playing great golf, leading the tunnyment. Oh, my Lord, how they tried to booger that poor fella! Fired his caddie after two rounds. Sent Granny Rice out on the course to threaten him with slow-play. Had the marshals talkin’ about how Hogan was birdiein’ this hole and parrin’ that one ... just trying to get ole Herman off his game.”
Skipper guffawed with the memory. “Roberts even sent some Atlantic City roughs over to Herman’s house Saturday night and tole him he’d better think twice about winnin’! It just put that ole boy’s back right up, and he won the tunnyment and had to buy three wheelbarrows to carry his cash away. Ha!”
“Well,” I said. “I guess Roberts managed to raise enough cash to keep the lights on.”
“Oh, he did,” Skipper said, nodding his head in agreement. “But the question is…how? Where did he find the money? The boys over here used to talk about it. Now you gotta understand, the members here used to be the cream of the crop. Rich? My Lord, you ain’t seen rich like them. Family money, went back generations. Their damn wives were richer still! So they’d come up here, play them some golf, sit around of an afternoon right here on this porch, have a few drinks and talk about the National and that rascal Cliff Roberts.”
“Rascal?”
“Oh yeah,” Skipper said. “They knowed he was playing the odds somewhere to raise the money. Especially when he started building them cottages and things. Now here’s a club that’s been struggling to pay the light bills, cain’t pay the help, and all of a sudden they’re building houses and such? How’d he manage that? So the
boys’d sit around and chew the fat and tell each other tales of what they’d heard.”
“And what did they come up with?” I was fascinated.
“Oh hell, you name it, they figgured Roberts had done it, one time or ‘nother. Like those bent-nose guys he sent after Herman Kaiser. How’d he know how to find them fellers? Well, he was a New York guy, wasn’t he? Lotsa them Eye-talian types up there. La Cosa Nostra, you get my drift?”
“Cliff Roberts was tied into the New York Mob?” My voice was full of wonder.
“Oh, I’m sure he knew a few of them types,” Skipper was nodding. “Roberts knew all the angles, and wasn’t afeared of playin’ ‘em. He was a tough sumbitch. Smart one, too. He got hisself hooked up early with that Woodruff fellow over to Atlanta.”
“The Coca-Cola guy?” I asked.
“You bet,” Skipper said, nodding. “That was another smooth operator, let me tell you. Had more money than God and was always trying to double it. Though I have to admit, he gave a lot of it away later in his life.”
“I heard that Woodruff gave Jones and Roberts a bottling plant down in South America,” I said.
Skipper chuckled. Then he guffawed. Then he laughed aloud.
“Yeah,” he said. “A bottling plant.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Oh, it was a helluva lot more than a goldurned bottlin’ plant,” he said, shoulders still shaking with mirth. “There’s some of the old boys here used to say that bidness down there wasn’t nuthin’ but drug runnin’. Plain and simple.”
“Oh, come on now,” I said. “Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts used to smuggle drugs into the United States from South America? Now I have heard everything.”
“Well, Mister Smarty-Pants,” Skipper said, giving me a friendly look over his spectacles. “You obviously don’t know that one of the ingredients in that so-called secret formula of Co-Cola was actually cocaine. From the coca leaf. Hell, that’s why they named it Coca-Cola! Gave it that little kick that people liked. And it was in the formula until the 1950s when the guvmint decided that cocaine was a bad thing. But all through the 30’s and 40’s, it was still legal and Roberts and Jones’ little operation down there was just a plant for processing coca leaf. They’d fly that stuff up here all nice and legal and sell some of it to Co-Cola and ship the rest of it to Cliff’s pals over in Atlantic City. Made them some nice money.”
“The Eisenhower Cabin was built with drug money?” I was aghast. Delighted. Amazed. I wondered if I could verify any of this delicious gossip. Be a Pulitzer in it if I could.
“Hell’s bells,” Skipper said, “All that fancy equipment they got over there, the underground cables and air conditioning systems for their greens…how d’ya think they pay for all that?”
“I always thought they racked in with the TV contract and Masters sales,” I said.
“Do the math, sonny boy, do the math,” he said. “The tunnyment was always pretty much break-even. Ever’body knows the dues are kept low so nobody asks any damn questions. But that place is all the latest high-tech whiz-bang gizmos and such you’ve never seen the likes of! How d’ya think they pay for all of that?”
“Running drugs?”
“Well, they gotta get it somewhere,” he said.
“But Jones and Roberts are long gone,” I said. “What happened to that company in South America?”
“Ah,” Skipper said, leaning back in his rocker, a playful Cheshire-cat grin on his red face. “Now that’s an interesting question. I remember sittin’ right here on this porch ‘bout thirty years ago when a handful of our members from Wall Street asked the very same question. Couple of ‘em went inside and made a few calls. Came back out with the answer inside of an hour.”
He paused for dramatic effect. He probably wanted me to jump up and down and beg for the answer, but I just sat there and waited.
“You know the current chairman?” he asked.
“Grosvenor?”
“That’d be the one,” he said. “You know about his company?”
“Yeah,” I said, “Big import-export company.” It suddenly dawned on me. The Grosvenor Group had a lot of businesses in South America. “Wait a minute,” I said, excited. “The Grosvenor Group bought Roberts and Jones’ bottling plant?”
“Yup,” Skipper said, a satisfied smile playing across his face. “The bottling plant--” he held up his fingers to make a quotation mark around the world ‘bottling.’ “Also, a few hundred thousand acres of coca fields, the transportation company that shipped it up here and probably all the politicians and police that were getting paid off to look the other way. And remember—Clifford Roberts was the main fundraiser and campaign finance chief for Eisenhower when he ran for president. So he had him some friends in pretty damn high places.”
I was stunned. I suddenly remembered a press conference at one Masters when Hord Hardin was the chairman. He had been moaning and groaning about the costs of everything going up—especially the prize money—in other major tournaments, and said he was worried that some day soon, even the Masters might have to sell naming rights to its tournament in return for sponsorship dollars. “If we don’t offer the same purses as the British Open, the U.S. Open and the PGA, the players won’t want to come here anymore,” he had said. “But I can tell you that we’ll stop having the Masters tournament before we have to call it the AT&T Masters or the Masters presented by Burger King.”
Now, I was being told that Augusta National had long had a secret source of income, set up by Clifford Roberts and now controlled by Charlie Grosvenor. An illegal secret source.
“Did Bob Jones know about this?” I asked. I found it hard to imagine the great Bobby, renowned for his integrity and honesty as a golfer, agreeing to be part of a company that was running illegal drugs into the country.
“Well, Bob was a lawyer,” Skipper reminded me. “Be hard to imagine he’d get involved in sumthin’ without givin’ it a long hard look. But on the other hand, he tended to let Clifford have his way with all things involving money. Bob just wanted to be left alone, play golf with his friends and have a good time. And like I said, Roberts was a pretty slick operator. He liked to play with fire sometimes. In fact, there’s some who say he got burned.”
“How’s that?”
“There’s some who say he didn’t kill his own self,” Skipper said. “But that someone did it for him. There was always parts of that story that never did quite add up.”
“Such as?” Skipper was on a roll and I saw no reason to slow him down.
“The official story is that he was depressed and sick with cancer. So he walked out to that pond at 2:30 in the morning, in his jammies and robe and put a bullet in his head,” Skipper said. “Now anyone who ever met Clifford Roberts knew that he would never go outside his cabin unless he was dressed to the nines. Coat and tie and spit-shined shoes. He was a fastidious man. So it never made much sense to me that he’d go kill himself in his pajamas. Then, it’s said that earlier on the day of his death, he asked a Pinkerton guard for some instructions on how to shoot his pistol. Said he had heard some noises outside his cabin. This would be his cabin inside the gates of Augusta National, which is pretty heavily protected by those Pinkerton dudes. So that part doesn’t make sense either.”
“But if he had been threatened by someone, especially someone he knew to be dangerous, then he might have wanted to know how to defend himself,” I said.
“Exactly,” Skipper said. “Then, they say his suicide note was rambling and didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Again, the man was pretty tightly wound, and never wrote anything that wasn’t pretty damn short and to the point. Even if you think he was sick and despondent and ready to kill himself, if you knew Cliff Roberts, you’d be looking for a short, neatly written little note. You know, ‘Dear World: Bye for now. Don’t forget the nitrogen mix for the 15th green.’ What they found wasn’t like him at’all.”
“But did Roberts still have any connection with the
South America business?” I asked. “When did Grosvenor take over?”
“Jones and Roberts sold their interests, as far as I know, sometime at the end of the 1960s,” Skipper said. “But I figure Roberts probably kept a minority position for himself. He knew how much cash that little operation was bringing in every year. But even if he did sell out completely, he still knew all about it, and that made him dangerous. Especially as he was getting older and sicker. And if he did still own a piece, knowing Roberts, he was probably a total pain in the ass as a partner, telling Grosvenor what to do and how to do it. Not hard to imagine them getting fed up with him and deciding to do something about it. There’s lotsa fellers down there who will shoot somebody for a few bucks.”
“My God,” I said aloud. If what Skipper Evans was telling me was true—and it all sounded legitimate—then not only had Augusta National financed itself for decades with drug money, but Clifford Roberts might have been eliminated by a killer operating on orders from the cartel. The same cartel that quite possibly had sent another assassin north. One who had killed John Judge. Enrico de la Paz. Who might have been the unseen shooter in the woods earlier this afternoon here at the Palmetto Club. My head was spinning.
“Yessir,” Skipper said. “Been quite the day here at the old Palmetto.”
I couldn’t disagree.
Chapter Fifteen
I found Conn in the pro shop, chatting with several other golfers, and let him know that I was finally ready to go. We bid goodbye to Tom the pro and headed back to the parking lot.
“Thanks for the interesting day,” I said.
He snorted. “Just trying to show you the best of the Augusta lifestyle,” he said. “Believe it or not, it usually doesn’t involve gunplay.”
The sun had set and the dusk of twilight was settling in. Given all that had happened earlier, it seemed eerily quiet and peaceful. The last rays of the sun lit the tops of the loblolly pines, and the sky was half pink and half gray with the encroaching nightfall.
Death in a Green Jacket Page 11
