Fair Prey

by William Campbell Gault

  “Four rounds like that wouldn’t win this one,” I told Charles.

  “That would be two seventy-two,” Charles said thoughtfully. “That might put you in the first ten.”

  Maybe…If the traveling pros were off their game and none of the local boys had a hot week-end. But it was wrong to think about their games and wise to think about my own. In golf, you really have only one adversary—the course.

  In the dining room, Clare Dunning and his wife were eating at a corner table. I’d caddied for Clare during a Los Angeles Open at Canyon. They beckoned me over.

  “Eat with us,” Jean Dunning said, “and tell us about the scandal at Canyon.”

  “Not much to tell,” I said, and sat down. “Bud Venier was killed. I found his body.”

  Clare looked thoughtful. “Don’t I know him?”

  “You played a round with him in the Open in ’49. Muscular boy, hits a long ball.”

  Clare nodded. “I remember. Arrogant, wasn’t he?”

  “Some of the members think so.”

  “I remember him,” Jean said. “Handsome, too.”

  Clare said, “Going out on the trail, Denny?”

  “I don’t know. What does a man need out there?”

  Jean’s voice was at a dead level. “He needs a wife who can find three-dollar rooms and one-dollar meals or he needs to be single.”

  Clare looked at her and then at me, and there was a silence.

  I said, “Financial insecurity never bothered me.”

  “It can bother your game, though,” Clare said. “If I don’t get one medium-sized win this year, it’s going to be my last.”

  “You took an untied second at Phoenix,” I said.

  Clare’s smile was wry. “Thank you for remembering that. And let me say, as courteously as possible, that I’m sorry to see you here. I’ve heard some stories about your game.”

  “College golf,” I said. “That’s minor league.”

  Clare had a date on the first tee at one; he left before I’d finished eating.

  Jean watched him walk out. “I certainly sounded like a sour wife, didn’t I?” Her eyes looked past me. “There are times when I’m the only person in Clare’s gallery. I always hope he gets paired with Hogan or Snead or Middlecoff, so the gallery will be big and I can pretend that a few of the people are there to watch Clare.”

  “This is no game for egotists,” I said. “I’ll bet Ben Hogan doesn’t know if two or two thousand people are following him. I’ll bet he doesn’t even know whom he’s playing with.”

  “Hogan,” she said. “How many are like him?”

  “We should all try to be.”

  Her smile was cynical. “Would it be presumptuous to ask why?”

  “Because,” I said, “he’s a golfer. He doesn’t try to be a wit or an orator or a Dale Carnegie extrovert. All he wants to be is the best golfer in the world.”

  “And that’s enough, to be the best golfer in the world?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what enough means. I can guess there are twenty million people in this country who would consider that enough.”

  Jean finished her coffee and looked at me bleakly. “In Tucson, we were down to three and a half dollars. We were out of gas and Clare didn’t have a clean shirt or an unstained pair of slacks. We owed twelve dollars rent in a rat’s nest that was only costing us three dollars a day double. Did it bother Clare? No, no. He went out and played a fifty-dollar Nassau with Joe Devlin. With Joe Devlin, I repeat, the man who won the Western.”

  I smiled. “Clare always had Joe’s number. I’ll bet he won.”

  She stared at me. “Is that important?”

  My smile wilted. “When you’re down as low as that, I would say it was very important.”

  “I see. And is it important that I had to run out and buy a fifteen-cent can of lighter fluid to clean up the stains in Clare’s one pair of slacks so he could show up for this friendly morning round?”

  “If it helped him win, it was important,” I said.

  Her voice was a whisper. “Golfers—dear God, how does a person get through to golfers?”

  I could feel myself blush. I said, “Jean—I’m sorry I talked so stupidly. I don’t know anything about the tournament trail and very little about people.” I stood up. “I’ll take the check.”

  “Not ours, you won’t,” she said. “Clare won a hundred and fifty dollars from Joe Devlin.” She reached out to flick the end of my nose with a forefinger. “Forget it; it’s been a bad morning.”

  She went away, and I sat down. I thought of Judy running out to buy a can of lighter fluid. I thought of her in a three-dollar hotel room in the heat of Tucson. What a life.

  And then I thought of matching drives with Sam Snead, of walking down a fairway with Jackie Burke, of shaking the strong hand of Bantam Ben Hogan. What a life!

  Charles came in to tell me there was a hole, now, if I planned to get in an afternoon round. And Ray West was looking for a partner.

  “I’ll be right out, Charles,” I said. “Did I ever tell you my dad ran for two hundred and forty-six yards in a Rose Bowl Game?”

  Charles shook his head. “But I remember the game.”

  Lots of people did. And how many remembered who was president of U.S. Steel in 1928?

  Ray West was putting on the practice green, and he came over as I approached the starter’s shack. He’s stocky and muscular but the long ball is not his game. It’s from a hundred and seventy yards in, where Ray will murder you.

  “Neil told me you were here,” he said. “Going to play with the big boys, Denny?”

  “Maybe. That’s why I’m here, to see how they play.”

  He smiled. “They’re not here. They’re in Milwaukee, this week-end. But we’ll try to show you a reasonably accurate facsimile.” He signaled to his caddie, and then looked back at me. “Little wager?”

  “Three holes for a nickel,” I said. “Am I crazy, betting against you? I know your money game.”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t cost anything to ask.”

  We didn’t bet. We went out into a hot afternoon, trying to get the feel of the course, the roll of the fairways and the greens. A good morning had turned into a steaming afternoon, but it was no hotter than Ray’s game.

  He birdied three of the first six holes and didn’t have a tee shot longer than two hundred and twenty yards. Of course, the Beach Course is not long, but the kind of irons he was playing would look great anywhere. And his putting was superb.

  There is a dog-eared maxim that goes, “Drive for show and putt for dough,” I was glad it wasn’t my dough he was putting for.

  On the tenth tee, I said, “I’d hate to play you for a living, Ray.”

  “Today, maybe,” he said. “You’ll be playing much better men if you follow the tournaments, kid.”

  “Better than you are today?”

  He inhaled heavily. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really think any of them are better than I am. For some reason, they’ve been scoring better.” He smiled wearily. “But that’s the same attitude every also-ran in the game has or they’d be back home, cleaning clubs.”

  “Where I belong,” I added. “You’ve got the honors. Belt one, champ.”

  He belted one, a long one for him, almost two hundred and forty yards. We went on, trying to get the pattern of the layout, trying to find a spot where a man could save a stroke that might mean a thousand dollars.

  Ray picked up three more birds on the back nine and finished with a 66. I had a 70.

  In the showers, I said, “Jean Dunning was telling me it’s a rough life, being married to a tournament golfer.”

  “I guess it is,” Ray said quietly. “But in four years of it, my wife has never mentioned it.”

  “Any kids, Ray?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “We simply never had the time.”

  Silence, except for the running water, and then Ray added, “I guess that sounded like a criticism of Jean, and I didn’t m
ean that. You’ve got to remember Clarence is a fast man with a dollar. I never was. And I’m not living off my golf.”

  “Haven’t you ever been hungry, Ray?”

  “Never,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I never won a major meet.”

  Charles and I ate dinner at the motel lunch counter. Both of us were tired. I kept remembering Ray’s remark about not being hungry. Dempsey has said a champ has to be hungry.

  Bobby Jones had never been hungry, not for money. But Bobby had been an amateur, like Ray. What then, does a man need?

  He needs all the shots, of course, from tee to green. A competitive spirit and the ability to insulate himself. And there’s an overused word that describes what else he needs. The word is dedication. A man must believe that golf is important and being a great golfer a worthwhile objective. I believed that. But did I have the rest? Could I insulate myself from the crowds and my competitors, playing only one shot at a time, without imagination or foreboding?

  Well, I’d been under par today in two rounds on a course I was only faintly familiar with. I’d done this knowing the man whose body I’d discovered would be buried tomorrow.

  I heard my dad saying, “Not cool—cold—”

  Charles slurped his coffee and said, “I’m going to hit the sack. You’d better, too, Denny.”

  I looked at the clock over the griddle. “It’s only seven.”

  “Okay. Suit yourself.” He left.

  I had another cup of coffee and went out to the motel court. I was sitting there, looking at the stars, when the Jaguar came in off the highway. It was a black Jag and the state is loaded with them, but I had a feeling I knew who it was.

  I was right. Pat Faulkner climbed out and headed for the motel office.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHEN I WALKED INTO the small office, Pat was talking to the manager.

  I said, “Welcome to San Diego, Pat. Business?”

  He turned to grin at me. “Business, hell. I’m your gallery, boy. Somebody has to follow you around.”

  “Isn’t Bud’s funeral tomorrow?”

  He nodded. “Judy and Dad are going. I’m not a hypocrite; I don’t like him any more dead than I did alive.” The smile came back. “Where’s old money-bags?”

  “Charles? He went to bed. Pat, don’t you think you—I mean, for appearances’ sake, shouldn’t you attend the funeral?”

  “No,” he said abruptly, and turned back to the manager. “You have a vacancy, I hope?”

  The man nodded. “A very fine suite at sixteen dollars.”

  He’d seen the Jag. Charles and I had a double at seven, but I was driving a 49 Chev.

  “Fine,” Pat said.

  He signed the registry card.

  I went back to the court and he came out after putting his bags in the suite. He stretched out on an aluminum chaise longue next to me.

  I said, “I haven’t seen a paper today. I’ve been trying to think of nothing but golf.”

  “There’s nothing new, anyway. That Sergeant Morrow certainly can get nasty, can’t he?”

  “He’s got a nasty job.”

  Pat yawned. “I suppose. Any favorite suspects, Denny?”

  “None.”

  Pat stretched. “I keep thinking of Doc Evans.”

  I looked over at him. He was staring up at the sky. I said, “That’s crazy. Doc was just about Bud’s best friend.”

  “Huh!” Pat said contemptuously. “Now, if you’d said Doc’s wife was Bud’s best friend—”

  “Pat, you’re reaching. She must be close to forty years old.”

  “She’s thirty-four. And a highly attractive woman. And I hope you don’t think this is what the sergeant calls country club gossip.”

  Silence, for seconds, and I said, “Do you know the Griffiths? Bud’s car was in the driveway up there.”

  Pat nodded. “I know ’em. I went to college with Fred. A real lady’s man. It figures that Bud was using the house for his own romantic purposes. Bud and Fred were very thick, you know.”

  I saw the body again, and the dried blood. I closed my eyes and saw the twelfth hole at Beach and that long carry over the water. Cold, cold, cold…

  I moved my shoulders, stretching the shoulder muscles, loosening them. “Let’s not talk about the murder.”

  “Okay,” he said genially. “Let’s talk about your game.”

  “I had a sixty-eight and a seventy today. I played the afternoon round with Ray West. He had a sixty-six.”

  “Ray’s erratic,” Pat said comfortingly. “The way I see it, Clare Dunning is the boy to beat.”

  “He’s been off his game since Phoenix,” I said.

  “But he knows this course. Clare was pro here for three years.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Ask me anything,” Pat said. “Nobody ever played golf worse than I do or knew more about it. Clare was the pro at Fox Hills, too, for six months.”

  “Okay, wise guy. Now tell me how to beat him.”

  He chuckled. “Why, Denny, you’ve seen my game. I know everything about golf except how to play it.”

  I stretched and arched my back.

  Pat said, “Let’s hope you don’t get paired with him, though. He’s the gabbiest living player. Releases his tension that way.”

  “It wouldn’t bother me,” I said. “I never hear what people are saying when I’m playing.”

  “Maybe,” Pat said. “But ear plugs wouldn’t hurt, if you go out with Clare.”

  At ten, when I turned in, Pat was still stretched out on the chaise longue, staring at the stars.

  The morning dawned clear; it was going to be hot. All that saves us from that burning California sun out here is the overcast we bemoan but desperately need. A really clear day can dehydrate you.

  At breakfast, Charles said, “We’ll have to eliminate one club from your bag. USGA meet—and that means no more than fourteen.”

  “Take out the four wood,” I told him.

  On the other side of me, Pat was eating three fried eggs, some pork sausages, hash-browned potatoes, toast, jelly and milk. My stomach got heavy at the sight of it.

  “Eat, Denny,” he advised me. “You’ll need the strength.”

  I ate my prunes and drank my tea. At the far end of the counter, a heavy-set man was drinking a cup of coffee and reading the local paper. He looked like a policeman to me.

  We finished eating, and Pat told us he’d see us on the first tee. I was due to tee off at 10:06.

  I was in a threesome with Jeff Mapes of Fremont and Bill Kruger, assistant pro at Baldwin Hills. Neither of them followed the trail; they played the state meets to build up their prestige for bargaining purposes.

  The sun was out and working; heat waves shimmered from the still-wet rough bordering the first fairway. The sprinklers had been running right up to the moment the first threesome teed off.

  There were about forty people in our gallery. And one of them was the heavy-set man who had been at the motel lunch counter. His eyes met mine and slid away.

  Mapes said, “They could have turned off those sprinklers a little earlier, if you ask me.”

  Kruger winked at me. “We didn’t ask you, Jeff.”

  “Think of the boys who went out at nine o’clock,” I said.

  And then it was time, and Bill had won the toss for honors. He slammed out a low, reaching drive with a faint tail that ran and ran.

  Jeff’s was shorter. Mine fell between theirs; it had been hit too high without carry. Was I tense already?

  As we walked down the fairway, Charles said, “A little to the left on this one, remember. The slope is all to the right.”

  I nodded, ignoring everything but the position of my ball on the fairway and the waiting green a six iron shot from the ball.

  Jeff’s shot I don’t remember. My shot, I’ll always remember. It went out on the line I’d imagined and came toward the pin from the left. It caught the slope of the green, and bounced exactly right.

  For a mo
ment, I thought I’d dropped it. But as we came closer I saw it was directly behind the pin and only inches away.

  It had been three inches from an eagle; it started me with a bird. It set the pattern for the round.

  I made the turn four under par, and there’d been no scrambling. I’d bit every green in regulation figures and canned four birdie putts. On the second nine, I hit six greens the way I was supposed to and one par five in two shots. I picked up four more birdies, to finish with a 64.

  That made me the first day medalist and was only a stroke from tying the course record.

  On the eighteenth green, Pat was jubilant. “I’m going right up to phone Willie,” he said.

  Word must have gone out to the spectators; the forty fans we’d started with had grown to a couple of hundred. The heavy-set man from the lunch counter had followed us every step of the way.

  Everybody looked happy except Charles. Charles said, “After that first hole, those middle irons didn’t look so hot.”

  “After that first hole,” I said, “I only used one five and two four iron shots.”

  He nodded. “But you remember them. How come you remember them?”

  I smiled at him. “Because they were so rare. I was always asking for that wedge, the way it seems now.”

  With sixty-one perfect shots, Charles remembered the three bad ones. And the sad fact was that he was right. To stay up where my hot first round had put me, I couldn’t afford any bad shots.

  I was out on the practice range, hitting those middle irons when Pat came down to tell me Clare Dunning had finished with a 66. That put him in the second spot. Two strokes didn’t seem like enough of a lead to have on Clare Dunning.

  If you follow the big meets, you will notice there are quite often a knot of unknowns leading the first day’s shooting. And then the cream begins to rise to the top and the unknowns get buried lower and lower on the list as class begins to tell.

  On this Beach Course, that big drive and the wedge second would keep a man on the happy side of par. But what if the big drive went, sour, or they got the fairways too soft? I stayed on the practice range.

  At six, I headed for the showers. Gene English was in there; Gene was tied at 69 with Al Levine for third place.