Damn Straight

by Elizabeth Sims

"You know more than you think you do."

  "But—"

  My last protest was sucked out of my lungs as Genie eased me back in the chaise and took it downtown, right there on the dark, dark patio.

  Late that same night I sauntered down a street in Indian Wells, then darted behind a parked car and crouched there. Catching my breath, I watched a scorpion skitter across a patch of gravel near my foot. "Hello, happy little sweetie," I whispered fearfully, on the theory that a soothing tone might make it feel friendly and not so misunderstood, as scorpions must generally feel.

  I held still, and it stopped at the edge of my sneaker, thought a minute, then skittered around and came to the next sneaker. I could've peed on it. After another minute it shuffled sideways and disappeared under the car.

  A breeze kicked up, and I smelled dust and something musky. Maybe there was a dog around.

  I was looking over the house that Coco Nash had rented for the week. It happened to be trash night; someone had wheeled a large bin from the garage to the curb shortly after I took up my watch. The someone wasn't Coco; it was an older white woman in a head rag. I could see her faintly, by the light of the moon and a porch light. She looked as if she'd just blown in from a women's shelter in Oslo or someplace. She had a thin sad face and big shoes.

  I waited a while after she went back in, gathering my nerve. Now I stood up, strode over to the bin, and wheeled it away down the street.

  I'd learned the address of Coco's temporary home base by approaching her caddie before they teed off.

  "Hi, I'm Nancy Rogers from the Blevin Group. Coco doesn't know me from a bale of hay—I'm just a drudge." I talked in a rush, consulting a piece of paper in my hand. Coco was talking to the starter across the tee box. "I'm supposed to run a goodie basket over to where she's staying. Is she renting from that couple, the ones Sheila Kahn used to rent from before she got that tumor—what the hell's their name, over in—"

  "No, she never rented from—"

  "Oh, right, those other people in—"

  "Indian Wells. Um, hey, Coco, who're those people you're renting from?"

  Quickly, I turned away and sneezed.

  "Hancock. Otis and Julie Hancock. Who wants to know?"

  "Blevin."

  "Oh."

  When he turned back to me, I said, "Yeah, I know the house. It's right on a—what do they call those things?"

  "Cul-de-sac."

  "Yeah."

  "Thanks a bunch. Go get 'em, hey?"

  So now I was trundling this trash bin down the street. I'd remembered that Tonya Harding had gotten busted for her role in the Nancy Kerrigan hit because she'd dumped her trash containing incriminating notes in the alley behind a bar she liked. Pissed that somebody was filling up her dumpster, the bar owner fished out the stuff and went through it.

  What could I gain by snooping into Coco Nash's trash? All I can say is, you gotta start somewhere. What could I lose?

  I wheeled the container into a clump of bushes at the end of the street. Out came my Mag-lite Solitaire, which I'd clipped to my key chain last year after getting stranded with a flat tire at night miles from nowhere.

  The bin was large but not much was in it. Holding the light in my teeth I found a handful of Power Bar wrappers, empty golf ball sleeves, a copy of Time magazine with a graphic showing something about the stock market on the cover, an egg carton, a recipe for blueberry waffles written in a jagged hand, welcome literature from the tournament, and many used Kleenexes. Grossed out, I put the stuff back in the bin and trundled it back.

  Just as I got to the house, the door opened, spilling out yellow light. I dropped to the ground, where I was more or less hidden by the bin and a spiky bush.

  Someone came out, walking heavily. I didn't dare peek. The steps came closer, then stopped right next to my head. There was a huge thunk, then the footsteps retreated to the house.

  Someone had dropped a cardboard box next to the bin. I scuttled back to my hiding place behind the parked car to reconnoiter. The box was obviously heavy. Should I try to carry it away, or risk picking through it right on the street? In the hour since I'd arrived, only two cars had come by, both while I was hidden.

  Before I could decide, the door opened again and I saw the silhouette of a woman standing there uncertainly. She seemed to be peering out. After a minute she came out and walked slowly toward the street. It was Coco, strolling carefully, as if approaching something dangerous. She stopped before the box and gazed down at it, hands on her hips.

  Suddenly, she stooped and with a grunt hoisted the box onto her shoulder. She headed into the driveway, and a minute later I heard the slam of a car trunk.

  I stood up and started walking toward the Jaguar, which I'd parked about a quarter-mile up the road. Over my shoulder I saw a car backing out of the driveway. After it passed me I ran the rest of the way and jumped in.

  I caught up with Coco's silver BMW, then dropped back and followed close enough to keep her in sight. She stopped at a Circle K in what must pass for downtown Indio. I watched from a parking lot across the street as she came out lugging a bag of charcoal briquettes. She put the bag in the trunk, looking neither left nor right in the glare of the parking lot lights, her face focused inward.

  She got on the I-10 going east, then got off a few exits later and headed into the desert on a secondary road. She drove a few miles, then slowed down, then pulled off. I whizzed by, pulling off farther along, past a swell in the land that cut off the sight line back to where Coco was. I cut the lights, got out, and began to creep along the roadside. The ground was sandy, and from it grew skeletal bushes that gave me a little cover.

  The moonlight helped me. I saw Coco haul out the heavy box and dump it on the ground. She picked up the briquettes and upended the bag on top of the stuff from the box. Then she moved around busily in the dark.

  I saw the flare of a match and decided to get a closer look. I stepped onto the asphalt and kept walking. My Chuck Taylors were noiseless on the smooth surface. Another match flared, then a flame took hold of something in Coco's hand and grew. She dropped it, and a fire began on the ground.

  A feeling of tragedy came over me. She was destroying something, destroying something important enough to have to do it in secret. I quickened my steps as the fire burned brighter, flashing on Coco's face.

  The breeze had stiffened into a real wind. Coco was speaking in a strong voice, but I couldn't catch any words. It occurred to me that she was gaining something in this fire. I saw her body begin to rock rhythmically, comfortably, as if she were getting in tune with something.

  Before I knew it, I was running. Hearing the slap of my sneakers she looked up. I kept coming, running into the circle of light to see what was on fire.

  "I want to talk to you," I blurted.

  She stared at me with gigantic eyes, and she screamed a scream that split the night like an axe. In two bounds she was in the BMW, cranking the starter.

  "Wait! Wait!" I yelled, torn between saving whatever was burning and throwing myself on the hood of the car. Some instinct made me not jump on the car; I'm sure she wouldn't have hesitated to run me over or drag me all the way back to Indian Wells.

  A shower of stones peppered me as the car fishtailed onto the road. In a second it was gone.

  I kicked dirt over the fire and stomped on the briquettes, which hadn't really caught. Panting, I pulled what was left away from the ashes. There was a pile of stuff that hadn't burned yet—scrapbooks, it looked like, and bundles of pages from magazines. I looked around for body parts and weapons and decoder rings, but found none.

  I carried what I could back to the Jaguar, then drove it over and loaded in the rest.

  Chapter 14

  Wednesday was the second day of the pro-am. That's where the pros play with a few non-superstar celebrities, and anybody else who coughs up the five grand charity fee. I could only imagine the bullshit the pros have to deal with during a pro-am. There's one before every tournament, I think, except the
men's majors. Most of the amateurs are these big executive types who may stand in awe of people who make more money than they do, but they really revere professional golfers. For even though an executive can get by—even succeed spectacularly—by faking it half the time, there's no faking it on the golf course. There's no loyal staff to make you look good, no scapegoat flunky to soak up blame, no rival department head to connive against and score on. There's only you, and you either can hit the goddamn ball or you can't.

  Every executive wishes to behave well and honorably on the golf course, and it can be done, even lacking solid golf skills. You can laugh off a bad shot or a bad hole and settle yourself to calmly do better on the next, or you can stomp around and get tense and embarrassed and ruin the day for yourself and your party.

  That's why executives respect professional golfers so much. The pros have conquered their inner assholes enough to play the game at the highest level; they're athletic enough to have that body awareness that makes it possible to execute good shot after good shot, and their mental discipline is the ideal blend of focus and relaxation.

  Unnerved by the competence and cool of the pros, most amateurs try too hard and end up stinking up the course. Imagine the excuses, the painful rationalizations, the nervous laughter. As if the pros really care how the amateurs play.

  "Is it really as much of an ordeal as it looked from the sidelines yesterday?" I asked Genie.

  "Absolutely, but none of us ever says so in public. You get used to it. Most of them are really nice people; they just go brain-dead when they golf."

  After I dropped Genie off, I went back to the house and dragged the charred stuff out from behind some plants on the patio, where I'd hidden it. I spread it out in the shade of the awning. It was a hot morning.

  There were three fat scrapbooks and an assortment of loose clippings. The books were your ordinary dime-store scrapbooks, in dark-red leatherette. Do teenagers keep scrapbooks these days? What about autograph albums?

  In less than five minutes I determined that everything in them was about Genie Maychild.

  There were stories from what appeared to be her hometown newspaper, the Pearl Center, Illinois Bugle; the Chicago Tribune; USA Today; Golf Digest; Golf for Women; Sports Illustrated; and more besides. It was a compilation of the history of Genie's public life, beginning when she was a junior in high school.

  There were the usual small notices about the winners of local and state amateur titles, then bigger, well-written stories in the prestige publications. The early stories from the Bugle were smudgy and printed on copy paper—gleaned from microfilm, maybe, or just copied on a crummy machine. The headlines for those stories were heavy on the "Magic Genie" theme. Everything had been pasted in carefully, though, nice and straight.

  Going through the unmounted items, I saw something that made the hairs on my arms stand up. It was the most recent big piece on Genie, a pullout from the February Golf Digest showing her swing in stop-motion.

  Using a black marker, someone had drawn an unmistakable noose around her neck, tied to a tree in the background, along with arrows shooting at her kneecaps. The marks were rough and angry.

  I went through the books carefully, looking for other marks like those on the photos, but didn't find any.

  Now what was I supposed to say to Genie? "Welcome home, sweetheart. I've cooked pasta and shrimps, and by the way, Coco Nash has been nurturing an obsession with you that has turned murderous"? I looked up at the blue blue sky and the hot, hot sun and thought.

  I hid all the stuff again and went into the air-conditioned house. Todd was dozing in a corner of the den. I changed his newspapers and washed his food and water dishes, and filled them again. He woke up and bumped over to me, first rubbing his chin on my shoes, then sniffing the charred smell that still clung to my hands.

  "Toddy boy." We played one of his favorite games: Mad Scramble. You take a balled-up sock and push it along the floor very slowly. Todd turns his back as if uninterested. Then you make a little low sound like juuu, juuu, and in an instant Todd explodes into a frenzy and runs in figure eights around the sock and you. Then he stops and the game begins again. We did this for some time.

  It didn't help me, though. I got in the car and drove over to the clubhouse, deep in conversation with myself.

  Me: I'm so freaked out and pissed at Coco Nash I could spit.

  Me: Easy now.

  Me: I have to confront her.

  Me: Why? When?

  Me: Now, goddamn it, today! What can I gain by waiting? I've got evidence, solid empirical evidence that she means harm to the greatest creature ever to tread ground. That's why, for Christ's sake. I almost caught her twice. Three times.

  Me: Wait. I really think Genie should know. Let her decide what to do.

  Me: What, are you crazy? She's already said she doesn't want to make a big thing out of this, she doesn't want to stir up this kind of publicity, and for sure she doesn't need the emotional turmoil that'd go with it. The fucking tournament starts tomorrow! It's time!

  Me: You're acting rashly.

  Me: Am I? Or am I simply taking appropriate measures to ensure my beloved's welfare?

  Me: Would you consider admitting that you're doing this for purely selfish reasons? To win points with Genie? To impress her so that she'll love you forever? To make up for the many inadequacies in your life?

  Me: No, I would not.

  Me: I thought not.

  Me: Look, if she were in a burning building, would I stop and dither, or would I rush in?

  Me: You'd rush in.

  Me: I rest my case.

  Me: And I rest mine.

  This argument took so long I had to drive past the clubhouse and around again. Finally, I turned in.

  The pro-am was wrapping up; there was to be a party and charity auction afterward. I stationed myself near the clubhouse and wondered how to get a private audience with Coco—just walk up to her and start talking? Slip her a note?

  Player after player came in; Genie went by chatting with a couple of the British pros. After a while I asked a club official where Coco Nash was.

  "I believe she's inside already."

  "May I go in—just for a minute?"

  "Are you a pro-am participant?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "May I see your pass, then, please?"

  "Oh, never mind."

  .

  So once again I found myself lurking late at night outside the house in Indian Wells, but this time I didn't lurk long. After a brief reconnaissance, I strode up and rang the bell.

  The Norwegian woman opened the door and stood there looking at me hostilely.

  "Coco Nash, please."

  "Who are you?" Her face was a narrow wedge.

  "Lillian Byrd." I handed her my card. "She's expecting me."

  "This is concerning?"

  "She's expecting me."

  She shut the door and I heard her throw the bolt. I waited.

  Coco came to the door and stood with her hands braced behind her hips. She still had the bandage on her chin.

  I said, "Do you recognize me?"

  She looked me over, sizing me up. "It was dark," she said. "Was it not?"

  "Yes." I sure didn't need to size her up. She projected the same graceful athleticism Genie did, but she had an edge, an anger in her eyes that I'd seen in the eyes of kids in the projects in Detroit. Those kids' eyes betrayed a baffled anger; Coco Nash's anger, though, was knowing.

  She said, "I want to talk to you, bitch."

  "Good, because I want to talk to you."

  I followed her through a fancy foyer to a fancy living room. We stood in deep pile carpet facing each other. The carpet was Air Force blue; I saw a grand piano in a large room beyond. No one else was there.

  "Who the fuck are you?"

  "My name is Lillian Byrd, and I'm a friend of Genie Maychild."

  "Why are you spying on me?"

  "Why are you bothering Genie?"

  "What are you talkin
g about?"

  "Somehow I knew you'd say that. You know what."

  "Suck my dick! What do you want?"

  "I want you to leave her alone. You'd have to kill her to stop her, do you know that?"

  "Kill her!" She lunged for me, but I sidestepped fast. I could have tripped her, but I'd made up my mind not to hurt her, no matter what. She whirled and seized me in a hug and kicked my knees out. I went down backward, my head bouncing on the carpet. She sat on my stomach and pinned my arms over my head.

  She was awesome to look up at, I'll tell you. The cords in her neck were like cathedral columns.

  And she was so frenzied that spittle flew as she said, "Now what the fuck are you talking about?"

  "All right. You've tried to frighten her with threats. You've prowled around at night trying to scare or hurt her." I tried to launch some spittle back. "Obviously, you're obsessed with her. She's your dream and your nightmare rolled into one. Anyone can understand that. And I've got evidence that you're planning to execute her. You hauled it out to the desert last night to destroy it. I've got it!"

  "Why do you say I want to kill her?"

  "That picture! With the noose around her neck! You drew a noose around her neck! You want to lynch this white girl who's in your way, you sick self-aggrandizing bitch! I'd call you something worse, but I'm too polite!"

  My adversary arched her back, lifting her face to the ceiling. I didn't know whether she was going to slam her forehead into my face, or bite off my nose, or what. I probably would've bitten my nose off if I'd been her.

  Her hands were like iron bands around my forearms.

  To show I wasn't scared, I said, "Make it happen, bitch, whatever you're going to do. I'm getting bored with this."

  She let out another shriek of the kind she'd let out the night before. Suddenly, her face was an inch from mine.

  "I should kill your candy ass."

  I waited.

  "You're the biggest asshole I ever met," she said.

  "Eat me."

  "You eat me."

  "I would, if it'd make you leave Genie alone."

  She collapsed as if she'd been shot. All in an instant she released my arms and rolled off me, burying her face in her arms. I hoped maybe she was having a nervous breakdown. I sat up.