Playing the Devil

by R. J. Lee

  “Well, Wendy,” Deedah said, “looks like I might have to go visit Carlos after all. If this is the kind of fortune I’m going to have all afternoon, I might as well get a buzz on. You all very cleverly robbed us of our only chance at a game with that preemptive bid of yours. So, I think I’m in a very bloody Bloody Mary sorta mood. That means two jiggers of vodka, of course.”

  “I don’t blame you with the cards we’ve been getting. So I think I need another julep,” Carly added, pointing to her glass—empty except for the flecks of mint that were sticking to the sides of her tumbler. “Would anyone be interested in taking our drink orders over to the bar, pretty please?”

  “I will,” a female voice chimed in from just behind her.

  It belonged to Mitzy Stone, who had been kibitzing the bridge table after quietly approaching from her office in the pro shop off the front hallway. It was right next to Deedah’s in the same wing connected to the great room.

  “I thought I’d check up on all you guys and see how it was going,” Mitzy continued, “and it looks like my timing is perfect. I don’t mind playing barmaid one bit. So, who all wants what?”

  Wendy raised her hand and said, “I believe I’ll take another glass of wine. I’m having white Zinfandel.”

  Mitzy snapped her fingers. “Got it.” Then she pointed to Hollis. “And you, sir?”

  “A mimosa, I think,” he told her after a brief pause. “I need the vitamin C, so tell Carlos to throw in a couple of lime slices if he has them. He usually does that for me.”

  Mitzy looked down and counted the drinks on her fingers. “So, that’s another julep, a stiff Bloody Mary, another white Zinfandel, and a mimosa with extra lime, right?”

  Everyone nodded, and Mitzy started to head over to the bar; but at the last second, she turned around. “I’m just curious. What is this preemptive bid y’all were talking about? Sounds intriguing.”

  Wendy spoke up and quickly explained the requirements for such a bid.

  “Bridge is a more devious game than I thought,” Mitzy said.

  Wendy smiled politely and said, “More cerebral than devious, I’d say.”

  Mitzy nodded and then headed toward the bar again, but she had only gotten halfway there when Tip Jarvis shot up from his chair at his table and grabbed Brent Ogle by the collar of his blue polo shirt while uttering profanities. Connor James also leapt up and appeared to be trying to enter the fray but was pushed away when Brent freed himself from Tip’s intense stranglehold.

  More snatches of profanity began filling the air, and Tip actually landed a glancing blow to Brent’s cheek, but it didn’t appear to break his skin. Then Brent managed to push Tip to the floor. Mitzy hurried over in an attempt to try to put an end to the face-off. She was every bit as tall as any of them and in much better physical condition than even Brent Ogle was. When other golfers had observed her opening drive from the men’s tee at a distance, she had often been mistaken for a male golfer with her short dark hair and colorful plaid pants that she always wore. Yet up close, there was a softness to her features and her voice that clearly indicated she was a woman; and though she did not lack confidence, she made no attempt to lord it over anyone—male or female. She considered that it was her job to be a good golf pro to everyone.

  “Stop this, you two!” Mitzy shouted, devoting all her energy to restraining them both as Tip got to his feet and tried to lunge at Brent again.

  When she eventually succeeded, Brent glared at her with an intensity that was nothing short of murderous. “This is none of your bid’ness, Missy.”

  “That’s Mitzy to you,” she told him. “We don’t need this kind of childish conduct here.”

  Brent briefly maintained his hostile posing and then plopped into his chair. “Yeah, right. Who are you supposed to be now, our mother? Gonna put us in time-out?”

  Tip stepped away from the confrontation, exhaled noisily, and said, “Come on, Connor. Let’s get outta here. He’s not gonna sober up anytime soon.”

  Brent was obviously continuing to feel the effects more than ever of all the bourbon he had guzzled. “You mean, you guys . . . you don’t wanna stay here and get roarin’, screamin’ drunk with me?”

  “Nope,” Tip said. “I think we’ve heard just about enough from you this afternoon.”

  Brent began laughing and pointing in Tip’s general direction. “I guess you can’t take the truth, huh?”

  “I thought we’d called a truce years ago about all that high school stuff,” Tip said. “But evidently not. He’s all yours, Miz Stone. And thanks for the help. I was ready to wring his neck.”

  “And if Tip hadn’t pulled it off, I would’ve tried,” Connor added.

  “Oh, yeah?” Brent told them, sounding like the proverbial bully on the playground. “I would’ve liked to see either one of you make that happen. Big talk.”

  Tip got in the last word under his breath. “I knew coming out here to play with this bad weather forecast was a lousy idea.” Then he and Connor huffed off toward the men’s locker-room hallway, looking back over their shoulders and shaking their heads.

  By then, the altercation had broken up the bridge game across the room, causing Wendy and the others to join Mitzy and surround Brent’s table. He eyed the four players contemptuously after yelling at Carlos for another drink.

  “What was that all about?” Wendy said to no one in particular.

  “Let me handle this,” Carly said to her friends, moving to stand closer to her husband. “Brent, people have had about enough of your boorish behavior.”

  He laughed at her with a look of surprise. “Boorish? Now there’s a word you . . . don’t hear every day. What—are you carryin’ a dictionary around in your purse now?”

  Carly quickly turned to Carlos and made a throat-slashing gesture. “Cut him off, please, Mr. Galbis. He’s had more than enough.”

  Brent continued his contemptuous tone. “So . . . now you’re my mother? First . . . Missy Stone over there and now . . . well, who lit a fire under you?”

  “Ignore him, Carlos,” Carly added.

  “Chico, you better keeppo ’em comin’ . . . if you know what’s good for you,” Brent cried out, making a fist.

  Carly shook her head again at Carlos, mouthed the word, No, and then began lecturing her husband. “You embarrass me constantly everywhere we go. If you don’t get your way in everything, you act like a spoiled child. I’m at the end of my rope with you. I’ve held my tongue long enough. This has got to come to an end, as God is my witness.”

  “Whoa, what’s that s’pose to mean? You couldn’t stand on your own two feet . . . without me,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re used to all that . . . consumption, you know. The kind with credit cards . . . and I know you wouldn’t want me to cancel ’em.”

  “Never mind that. Why did you and Tip and Connor get into it? Too much to drink, I guess,” she continued. “They’re about the only two people left in Rosalie who can put up with you, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

  Brent tentatively touched his cheek where Tip had grazed him with his knuckles and examined his fingers. There was no blood, and Brent looked slightly disappointed. Macho men liked to broadcast the fact that they could survive any injury. Then he wriggled around in his seat for a moment and gave his wife a wicked smirk. “Hey, they started it.”

  “Good heavens, you sound like you’re five years old. What did they do?”

  His smirk turned into a sneer. “They beat me on the front nine . . . and they were . . . they were actin’ like they’d actually done something. They’re such losers. They’re nothing but a couple a’ jock sniffers.”

  Everyone looked puzzled, and Carly said, “What’s that?”

  Brent’s laugh quickly morphed into a drunken cackle. “It’s . . . it’s men who didn’t make it as athletes . . . so they hang around with other men who did . . . hoping that it’ll rub off on ’em. Kind of a macho thing, you know. I figured that out about ’em a long time ago. So I
went along with it because I got a kick out of it.”

  “That ego of yours is as wide as the Mississippi River,” Carly said, giving him a look of disgust.

  Wendy could hardly believe her ears and eyes at Carly’s sudden transformation. She had never seen her self-effacing friend so strong and determined, so she decided to try to lend her a hand.

  “Maybe some fresh coffee would help, Carly?” she said. “Carlos could brew some for us.”

  Brent turned on her immediately. “Who asked you? Are you a registered nurse or somethin’?”

  Then Deedah got in on the act. “Mr. Ogle, I’m well aware that you went out of your way to oppose my directorship, but now that I’m running things, I’m going to have to insist that you conduct yourself properly when you come to the club. It doesn’t belong exclusively to you.”

  “It ought to,” he told her, turning up his nose. “I’ve forked over enough money all these years to keep it in the black. All a’ you . . . seem to forget that. Hell . . . I’ve been successful at everything I’ve done . . . from football to lawyering. You can’t be a wimp like your Little Miss Hollis here, Miz La Deedah, and get anywhere in life, you know.” He corrected his slumping posture and cleared his throat, trying to enunciate a bit better. “Anyway, I don’t have to keep contributing, ya know. Not if this is the way it’s gonna be. I need some respect around here.”

  Hollis bristled at the insult directed his way. “Don’t threaten Mother like that, and I am not a Miss.”

  “And you’ll do what about it, Nancy?” Brent added.

  “Never mind these threats you’re making,” Carly said. “So Tip and Connor beat you on the front nine. Was there more to this playground fight?”

  Brent continued his cackling. “You asked for it. I told ’em that Daddy had paid Claude Ingalls, the clock operator of The Four-Second Game . . . and all the other officials . . . to do anything they could to make sure that RHS won the game. I told them that Claude really did put his thumb on the clock or whatever . . . to keep it from running out. I told ’em RHS cheated to win the game . . . thanks to my dear old dad, who was loaded as y’all well know. I told ’em . . . I said there were coaches in the stands from both LSU and Ole Miss that night . . . and a football scholarship was on the line for me. Hey, and as everybody knows . . . I got that scholarship. Money well spent. All due to a stolen extra second.”

  Carly exchanged flabbergasted looks with the others and said, “You told me you were going to take that bribery story to your grave, Brent David Ogle, and you swore me to secrecy.”

  “Looks like I changed my mind, doesn’t it?” He surveyed the gathering around him and rolled his eyes. “Because now, all of you know. Hey, why shouldn’t I have a little fun at everybody’s expense now and then? Ah, the secrets to my success.”

  “Are you proud of yourself for causing all this trouble?” Carly said, bearing down upon him.

  He ignored her comment and waved her off. “Proud, schmoud. I have decided that I need to . . . I’m gonna jump in the hot tub out on the back deck for a while and relax. Listen, all you losers—that is the deal . . . so all y’all can go back to your silly women’s card game . . . and, you, Missy, can go back to pretending you’re a man.” He pointed in Carlos’s direction once again. “And, hey, I’ll want you to bring me another bourbon out there on the decko, Chico. If you don’t, I’ll have your jobbo pronto . . . you understand me?”

  “You’ve had enough,” Deedah insisted, while Carly nodded vigorously.

  Brent managed to get to his feet, even if he had to hold on to his chair during and afterward. “Let me put it to you straight then. I know for a fact that you need my money . . . Miz Deedah Director. I’ll cut you off cold turkey if that wetback over there doesn’t do what I just told him to.”

  Deedah threw her hands up in the air. “I give up. Ladies and Hollis, let’s all go into my office and talk this over. We can’t go on like this another minute.”

  “Yeah . . . that’s right . . . you do that,” Brent said. Then he snapped his fingers at Carlos. “You in the penguin suit . . . another bourbon . . . out on the deck pronto. I mean it. Vámanos.”

  And as everyone headed toward Deedah’s office and Brent managed to make his way unsteadily toward the hot tub on the deck, Carlos busied himself making yet another drink for a man who had thoroughly disrupted everyone’s afternoon and thrown the RCC into chaos once again.

  * * *

  The storm that had hit Rosalie and vicinity in the early afternoon had continued to wreak havoc intermittently, and the RCC did not escape its wrath. There was even a brief period during which opaque chunks of hail danced around on the greens, fairways, and front lawn as if they were living, sprightly creatures that had fallen to earth on a lark. It grew increasingly dark outside, what with daylight saving about to go off just around the corner; but the activity inside the clubhouse doggedly persisted as the minutes crept along.

  Out on the covered deck, Brent was stewing in the swirling waters of the hot tub while Carlos dutifully served him the last drink he had ordered. As Carlos approached, he noticed that Brent’s eyes were definitely half-lidded and his head was swaying back and forth slightly as if he were listening to a tune inside his head. The man remained certifiably drunk, still slurring his speech, and largely oblivious to his surroundings.

  “Izza ’bout time,” Brent said with a scowl as Carlos handed him the glass. “Where’n hell . . . you been?”

  There followed a string of profanities that made Carlos wince, but he did not move from his spot. Instead, he gathered up his courage while carefully avoiding eye contact and said, “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “Just keep . . . you check in . . . umm, uh . . . check every five . . . no, ten minutes . . . if I need . . . uh . . . just do it. . . .”

  Carlos said he would do what was asked of him and scurried off to avoid any further confrontation.

  Meanwhile, Tip and Connor had checked their smartphones for the status of the violent storm cell stalled over Rosalie and decided to wait out the storm in the men’s locker room. Tip retrieved a deck of Bicycle cards from his locker, and they began playing gin on one of the changing benches rather than venture out and risk hail damage, a car wreck, or worse.

  In Deedah’s office, the discussion about Brent Ogle had become quite animated, though still civil, and the five people seated around the room had divided informally into two camps. Deedah, Hollis, and even Carly were of the opinion that drastic action needed to be taken at once to keep Brent out of the RCC for good, if at all possible. They were all fed up with his inexcusable behavior and excesses, and Deedah was leading the charge without hesitation.

  “I have allies on the board who’ll see things our way. They’re the same ones who voted me in over Brent’s objections,” she said.

  Surprisingly, Mitzy took a different approach. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m fed up, too,” she began. “But the reality is that we need his money to keep things running. You know that as well as I do, Miz Hornesby. I suggest we hold off on kicking him out until we’re sure we truly have alternative ways in hand of keeping things running the way they should. The RCC doesn’t operate on goodwill, you know.”

  Wendy thought carefully and agreed. “We can always let some of the others who’ve contributed in the past know about the current situation and go from there. That way we don’t leave ourselves high and dry. I think Mitzy’s point is well taken.”

  “I also think we’re being way too emotional about this right now,” Mitzy continued, though she had actually raised her own voice in the moment. “I suggest we reconvene when we’ve had time to think things through. We can e-mail, text, and talk to each other over the phone in the meantime.”

  That seemed to shut down the discussion, and after a prolonged silence Deedah said, “All right, then, let’s get together sometime next week and revisit this here in my office. We can decide on a date and time later.”

  Everyone agreed, and then the five of them
began focusing on their smartphones, displaying weather radar for Rosalie and vicinity on their screens.

  “I’m not about to venture out in this mess right now,” Deedah said, holding up her phone. “Everything’s either red or purple, and it says a tornado even touched down in Woodville, thirty miles south. I think this clubhouse is sturdy enough to protect us in the meantime.”

  After a good ten minutes or so had passed, restlessness seemed to overtake the group. “I need a breath of air,” Hollis said. “I don’t care what it’s like out there. I think I’ll pop out under the portico for a while before I get the vapors and faint.” He fanned himself dramatically and headed for the door.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Carly said. “Wait up, and I’ll go with you.” And the two exited together with their phones in hand.

  Mitzy echoed their anxious sentiments as well. “First I have to visit the ladies’ room, and then I have some online ordering of supplies and filing to do. I’ve been putting it off long enough. So I think I’d better get started.” And with that, she made her exit, too.

  “Well, it’s just the two of us for a while, sitting in my apparently stale office,” Deedah said to Wendy with a chuckle. “I’m beginning to feel like I should get out the air freshener.”

  Wendy flashed a smile. “When your son and Carly get back, we should resume our bridge game. Everything’s over there just the way we left it. It’s the perfect way to pass the time until this terrible weather lets up.”

  “I can only hope the cards come my way after this long break,” Deedah added. “Carly and I had that one tiny little contract, and then you and my son cut off our leg. But you and I are determined to make this bridge club thing work. Maybe this isn’t the good start we expected, but we can’t let the weather defeat us, now can we? There’ll be another day when the sun is actually shining outside and even on the cards I get inside.”