He nodded. “Very good,” he said. “Now I know why Rico might be getting antsy about you. But you are correct. Roberts and Jones—it was mostly Roberts—took over the Colombian company and helped expand its bottling and distribution network throughout South America. In addition to Coca-Cola, RoJo started importing coffee beans to the U.S. They did quite well and made a lot of money.”
“And the drugs?” I asked. “Did they shut that part down?”
“Officially, yes,” Wilcox said. “I’ve seen the FBI files from those times, in which agents went down, inspected the plants, were shown the bottling operations, looked at the company records. The agents came back and wrote up a report giving RoJo a clean bill of health. Everything was hunky-dory.”
“But it wasn’t?” Conn asked.
“Of course not,” Wilcox said. “That guy Clifford Roberts never passed up a chance to make a buck or three. He was a financial guy who knew his way around a balance sheet. He just moved the illegal part of the operation off the official books, and let the good times continue to roll. Coffee beans are a good way to get the stuff past the customs agents and their dogs. And with the political connections the guy had into the White House, he made sure he was told anytime there was going to be a crackdown at the border.”
“And then he sold the company to the Grosvenor Group,” I said. “Which is now run by the current chairman of Augusta National.”
“You got it,” Wilcox said, sitting back with a smile. “Small world, huh?”
“So you’re saying that the drug-running component of RoJo is still operating today, under the aegis of Grosvenor?” Conn said. “And Charlie Grosvenor knows this?”
“Knows it? Hell, it probably makes more money than his tin, iron, gold and banana operations combined,” Wilcox chuckled. “Oh, and the Coca-Cola plant, too.”
“And you narcs haven’t broken this thing up?” Conn said. “How come?”
“Not my department,” Wilcox said again. “And as you might expect, some of these guys have connections. Roberts was Eisenhower’s main man. That helped him. But he saw that if he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, it might not help Ike. That’s when he sold the company to Grosvenor’s old man. Who later became the U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and chairman of the Commerce Committee.”
“And how does this Rico guy fit into the picture?” I asked.
Wilcox shrugged. “It’s a dirty business,” he said. “There is no honor among thieves as they say. Best we can figure, something went wrong, somebody cheated somebody, and Rico was sent up here to straighten things out.”
“By shooting John Judge and trying to kill Travis Kitchen?” I asked.
“We figure the Judge killing was a way to warn Grosvenor that he’d better fix the problem or else,” Wilcox said. “Today’s thing? I figure Rico was shooting in self-defense. That Kitchen guy seems like a bulldog who wouldn’t scare off easily.”
“And so Augusta National brought me in me to …?” I let the question hang.
“To muddle around a bit and see if Rico was still in town,” Wilcox said. “And maybe to see if any of this story I just told might come out. So they could take steps to prevent that from happening. They got a lot of resources over at that club.”
“You mean if Rico de la Paz doesn’t kill me, then Charlie Grosvenor will?” I felt myself getting angry.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Charlie,” Wilcox said. “He’s connected and he’s dirty as hell, in this deal and about seven others I know about. But he’s not a violent person. More of a wuss. He prefers throwing money at problems to make them go away.”
“Allright, Hacker,” Conn piped up. “Sounds like your ship has just come in. With what you already know, I’ll bet you can hold ole Charlie up for a few hundred thousand to shut up and go away.”
Wilcox was nodding. “At the very least,” he said.
I just looked at the two of them, amazed, and tried to figure out if they were serious.
“So you guys think I should waltz into Grosvenor’s office and just ask for moolah?” I said.
“Why not?” Wilcox said. “He’s got more than he’ll ever spend.”
“It would be tax-free,” said Conn. “Don’t think you can deduct graft and corruption. At least not yet. But if you get it in cash, no one will be the wiser. Unless Wilbert here decides to tell on you.” “Not my department,” Wilcox said.
“And what about John Judge?” I asked. “After I get paid off and retire to the French Riviera or St. Andrews, whichever one I decide on, I’m just supposed to forget all about him? Who killed him and why?”
“If you don’t, it’ll probably be you stretched out in the morgue next,” Wilcox said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s not a good enough reason.”
He shrugged. “Your life,” he said.
There was a buzzing sound. Wilcox produced a small cell phone, which he flipped open and held up to his ear. “Yo,” he said. Then, “Right. OK. I’m ready.”
He hung up. “Gotta go, fellas,” he said, rising from the table. “Duty calls.” He reached into his pocket and gave both us a business card. The only thing printed on it was a phone number. “Whoever answers this number can find me. Call me if Rico shows up or if you need me. If you can still dial the phone, of course. Ha-ha.”
We followed him outside and watched as a black SUV with tinted windows pulled up in front of the restaurant, a long, whippy radio antenna draping back over the roof. Wilcox opened the door, gave us a final wave, and the car swallowed him and drove off. Conn and I walked back over to his car, parked in the side lot. We both peered into his back seat before getting in. We’d had enough surprises for one day.
“Well, that was interesting,” Conn said as we drove away. “What are you gonna do next?”
“Beats the hell outta me,” I said.
“Good plan,” he said.
Chapter Seventeen
There was nobody behind the counter at the Olde Magnolia. I wanted to confirm my check-out date, when I would move over to the barren motel on Washington Road that is my home for the tournament week. The thought alone was depressing. I made a mental note to ask in the morning, and wearily climbed the stairs to my room. It had been a very long day.
I unlocked my room and walked in. Before I could flick on the light, my heart jumped up into my throat. There was somebody in my room. It was a presence, a sense. There was someone else in here. Fully expecting to come face-to-face with a pistol-toting bandillero from Colombia, I reached over in the darkness and pushed the light switch up.
The room was flooded with light from the overhead fixture.
“Umph,” said a small, female voice from the bed. The comforter had been pulled back, the large decorative throw pillows were gone, and an S-shaped body curled under the blankets and sheets. The body shifted, then suddenly sat up.
“Hi, Hacker,” said a sleep-tousled Mary Jane Cappaletti. “Surprise!”
She was wearing loose-fitting pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and her golden-brown hair was all mussed. She held out her arms and I stepped over to the bed and pulled her in close, sinking into her humid sleepy warmth. For several long moments, we stayed like that, unspeaking, letting the presence of the other seep into our pores, re-establishing the connection. After the day I’d had, I wanted to crawl in beside her, pull the sheets over my head and drink in her warmth and her love and her life force forever.
I really don’t know how long we stayed there on the bed, wrapped in our embrace. Mary Jane might have fallen back asleep. Perhaps I did, too. But eventually, I moved, and then she moved and then we sat up and looked at each other.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked. But gently.
“Good to see you, too,” she said, yawning. But she was smiling. “After we last talked, I called Victoria’s grandfather and asked if he could take care of her for a while.”
“That’d be the gangster who runs the North End,�
� I said.
“I think she’s safe with him, don’t you think?” Mary Jane’s blue eyes twinkled at me. Her former father-in-law—one of the main capos in the Boston area—doted on his only grandchild, spoiling her rotten, and we’d both imagined what might happen if something, anything, remotely dangerous threatened to break out around Victoria while the old man had her in his care.
“She’ll end up eating pasta three times a day and turn into her grandmother,” I said, smiling back.
“I told him you had run into some problems down here in Augusta and that I needed to come make sure you were OK,” she continued. “He’s sorta used to you getting into scrapes, so he understood.”
Mary Jane’s in-laws maintained close family ties even though their son-- Mary Jane’s late husband--had been a ne’er-do-well wiseguy who ended up getting all shot up in the stairwell of a housing project over in Charlestown some years before. I think Carmine, the old man, knew his son had been a major loser, but his sense of famiglia dictated that he keep an eye out for Mary Jane and Victoria.
“Scrapes?” I said in mock indignation. “Who said anything about scrapes?”
“I heard on the radio driving over from Atlanta this afternoon that the former homicide detective for the county had been shot at by a sniper at a golf course in South Carolina,” Mary Jane told me. “If you weren’t somehow involved in that, I’ll eat my pillow.”
I didn’t say anything, so she reached behind her, grabbed a pillow and began chomping on the corner. I reached out and pulled it away.
“Thought so,” she said. “That’s why I came. My man needs me. Someone’s gotta watch your back.”
I laughed. “You’re gonna get my back if some crazed Colombian drug lord comes at me, six-guns blazing?”
She looked at me, her blue eyes serious and wide. I fell into those eyes and stopped laughing. It was suddenly serious. Very serious.
“Yes,” she said, simply. “I am.”
She meant it. She reached out and grabbed my hand. I reached back and grabbed her. We kissed. I stood up and went over to the wall and flicked the switch off. The room fell back into inky blackness. I went back to the bed and reached for her.
Somehow, miraculously, noiselessly, her pajamas had disappeared. Somehow, miraculously, my clothes fell onto the floor. And then we were very, very busy in the dark for a very, very long time.
Chapter Eighteen
We were both ravenous the next morning at breakfast. Before we stopped, we had loaded up on omelets, waffles, grits, home fries, bacon, ham with red-eye gravy, toast, and an ocean of coffee. Give her credit, our waitress said nothing, but kept bringing us food and refilling our coffee pot. I suspect she knew what had made us so hungry overnight, but had the class not to say anything about it.
Once we had satisfied our hunger, at least the food kind, we took our third or fourth cups of coffee into the sitting room, found a quiet corner in the sun, and sat. I filled Mary Jane in on the happenings of the last few days since we had talked. Instead of interrupting with questions and comments and asides, she sat there quietly and let me talk until I was finished.
“So what’s next?” she asked when I finished. “Go over to the club and confront Grosvenor? Tell him we know he’s a drug-running bastard? Or wander around town and wait for this Enrico guy to step out from behind a tree and pick us off?”
“Me,” I said.
“Beg pardon?”
“I think it’s me he’d pick off. You, he’d probably ask out for a drink. You are looking especially fine this morning.”
“Afterglow and a good breakfast,” she said, “And don’t change the subject. What are we going to do next?”
“We?”
“Get used to it,” she said.
“I’m not so sure what to do,” I confessed. “I have to report something to Brett Jacoby over at The National. I have no idea what to tell him. I thought I might go see Travis Kitchen, assuming he’s still in the hospital. Maybe compare notes. I also have to get ready to move over to the Motel 6 and prepare some Masters preview pieces for the Sunday paper. I’m still a golf writer, y’know.”
“So what do we do first?” she asked, eyes bright with excitement.
“Drink some more coffee and maybe go back upstairs for a morning round of whoopee?” I suggested hopefully.
“Down, big fella,” she said. “We’ve got work to do. Play is for later.”
“If that’s a promise, OK,” I said.
Mary Jane went off to call back to Boston and check in with Victoria and her grandpa. As she left the room, Beatrice Samper, the Colombian golf official I had met the other night, walked into the sitting room, saw me and came over.
“Buenas dias,” she said. “It seems to be a lovely morning.”
I motioned for her to pull up a chair. “Indeed it is,” I said. She told me that the group of international golf officials had been busy sightseeing and being wined and dined. While she was talking, Mary Jane came back, grinning.
“This is my inamorata, Mary Jane,” I said. The two women greeted each other. I poured Beatrice a cup of coffee. “Senora Samper is the director of the Colombian Golf Federation,” I told Mary Jane.
“Are there many golf clubs in your country?” Mary Jane asked.
“Not so much,” Beatrice said. “At the moment, it is mainly the wealthy and the businessmen who are playing. But we have a plan to build more courses and to encourage the children to play. In that way lies the future. We are very lucky to have Senor Grosvenor helping us fulfill our goals.”
“He’s donating money?” I asked.
“Oh, much more than that,” she said. “He is very involved with our project. He has arranged for the golf companies in the USA to send equipment—the clubs, the balls, the shoes…everything! And now he is helping to find people to build some new courses for us. He is a very kind man. We could not hope to succeed without him.”
Mary Jane and I exchanged glances.
“Well,” I said, “That sounds like a good story. I will have to ask him to tell me all about it.”
“Yes!” she said excitedly. “I’m sure that would help us very much! That would be so kind of you!”
I smiled and decided not to tell her that the chairman of Augusta National would probably choose to run naked down the 18th fairway on Masters Sunday rather than talk to someone like me from the media, even if it was for a good cause. I also wondered why Charlie Grosvenor was suddenly involved in helping youth golf in Colombia when there were all kinds of programs—like the First Tee—right here in the United States that needed help too.
“What are you doing today, Beatrice?” Mary Jane asked.
She glanced at her watch. “They have arranged a bus to come take some of us to a mall that sells … how do you say … out-takes …?”
“An outlet mall?” Mary Jane said, her voice rising in excitement. “Hubba hubba ding-ding!”
“Would you like to come along?” Beatrice asked, smiling.
“You bet I would!” Mary Jane said. “Would it be OK?”
“I am sure there is no trouble with one more,” Beatrice said. “You would be very welcome. We may be there for several hours.”
“Is that all?” Mary Jane’s color was up. “Hacker, you’re on your own. I’ll catch ya later. Gotta go put on some comfortable shoes and get my bag. Taa-taa!”
She bolted out. Beatrice and I watched her go, then looked at each other and laughed.
“Your woman friend enjoys shopping?” she asked, a sly look on her face.
“Apparently more than life itself,” I said.
She tittered. “I believe I can understand,” she said rising.
“Yes, I believe you can,” I said. “Have a wonderful time.”
In truth, I hadn’t known that Mary Jane was a shopaholic. I’d never seen her get so worked up over a trip to the mall before. But then, in the short times I was actually home in Boston, we had other things to do toget
her. More important things. I was a bit surprised, but chalked it up to yet another learning experience in our relationship.
Now I had the day free to do what I wanted. But I had no idea what. First, I found someone in the office of the Olde Magnolia and learned that my check-out was Sunday morning. OK, good. Then I got the number of the local hospital and called to check on Travis Kitchen. He was reported to be resting comfortably and would likely be kept for a few more days. Check. Be good to go over and chat with him some.
I knew I should call Brett Jacoby at the National to report, but I had to give some thought to what I wanted to say to him. I finally decided that I really hadn’t found out anything more about the Judge affair that I could write up for the paper, so I could honestly report that I was still in the process of digging around.
I placed the call and was patched through to his office.
“Hacker!” he said when he came on the line. “Are you OK?”
“Why do you ask?” I said.
“I heard you were over at the Palmetto Club yesterday when that sniper started shooting the place up,” he said. “What a world, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “A small one.”
“What do you mean?” It was his turn to be curious.
“There’s a chance that the shooter yesterday might be the same one who killed John Judge,” I said. “The, ummm, cops are looking into it.”
“Really?” Jacoby said, amazement in his voice. “You mean it might be some serial killer with a thing against golf courses?”
“Something like that,” I said. “I’m supposed to meet some people later today and hopefully get a few more facts. I’ll call you tomorrow. You gonna be in the office?”
“Are you kidding?” he said wearily. “I’ll probably be here until Thursday morning, when I might be able to go home for a few hours’ sleep.”
“That’s why you make the big bucks,” I said.
“Bite me,” he said and hung up.
I only felt slightly guilty about dancing around the truth a bit with Brett. Then I thought about the fact that he had known where I was and what I was doing the day before. I recalled Conn’s observation that everything that happens in Augusta goes through, back to or somehow involves Augusta National. Made me wonder why Brett hadn’t commented on Mary Jane’s arrival. It seems likely that someone at the Olde Magnolia had placed a call over to Washington Road about that. In any case, from what I had learned yesterday, the fine folks over at the National apparently already knew the answers to the questions they had sent me out to discover. I was the decoy, intended to lead the bad guy out of the shadows. For whose benefit? And what if the bad guy decided to stay in the shadows and use the same high-powered rifle he fired from the woods yesterday at Travis Kitchen? In that case, I would very likely be toast.
Death in a Green Jacket Page 13
