Deep Rough

by A. J. Stewart

  “Not many people remember that,” I said.

  “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t.” He smiled. His eyes closed again. “But a pal of mine knows you.”

  It was seven degrees of separation. “A pal?”

  “BJ Baker. We play golf together.”

  “How is old BJ?”

  “He’s still as self-important as ever.”

  BJ Baker and I were not buddies. Ron and I had worked a case for him, a theft from his house. We found his item, and returned it to his home, but he wasn’t the most gracious fellow. He was a former football player, and had a media career. He thought he was the cat’s pajamas, and I was a litter box. I don’t take kindly to attitudes like that, so I doubted anything BJ had told Donaldson was going to be good. But it seemed that old Nate had summed up BJ pretty well, all on his own.

  “Give him my regards,” I said.

  “I surely will. Now I hear you were at the Coligio wedding?”

  “That’s right.”

  Donaldson smiled. “Tell me all about it.”

  “You want the sanitized version?”

  “I want every gruesome detail.”

  “It’s pretty grim.”

  He sat back in his chair. “Good.”

  So I told him. I promised I would, and I did. Another plate of sandwiches arrived as I was regaling my host, but the story took my appetite away. Donaldson didn’t flinch. He just nodded and grinned, like he’d just won big at the track. When I finished I sipped some water and he steepled his fingers to his mouth.

  “Thank you for sharing that,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “You know the history there.”

  “I know enough.”

  He nodded. “And now, Mr. Jones. What is it you want?”

  “I want?”

  “Yes. You didn’t come here just to make my day with that story. You want something.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Everybody wants something. Anyone who says different is a liar. Are you a liar, Mr. Jones?”

  “Not often.”

  He nodded as if he liked that answer.

  “Okay, Mr. Donaldson. What I want is this. I’d like to know if you were behind what happened at the Coligio wedding.”

  He looked at me, his fingers still to his lips. Like he was summing me up, which I suspect he’d been doing the whole time.

  “I like a man who is direct. People who beat around the bush waste my time.” He watched me some more. “So I’ll answer your question. And the answer is no. I didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”

  Now it was my turn to look at him. I have a pretty good poker face. Not that I play a lot of poker. But I used to like to give batters the I know something you don’t know face, just to unsettle them. It’s pretty much the same as my poker. So I gave it to Donaldson. He didn’t flinch. He’d been in enough boardrooms and done enough deals. He was okay with being checked out because he knew it was part of the process. And he knew he got what he wanted in the end.

  Here’s the thing, though. I believed him. I believed he had nothing to do with it. He might have been playing me like a buck-toothed man plays a banjo. He was that smooth. But he seemed so at ease. He looked like a man telling the truth. And it meshed with what Sally had told me. That when he took Coligio down, he’d want to do it in a way that left no doubt he was behind it.

  I slapped my hands on my thighs. “Well, Nate, I’ve taken enough of your time. Thanks for the hospitality.”

  “Any time. Thanks for the story. It made my day.”

  We both stood and he walked me out.

  “This is a beautiful property you have here,” I said.

  “Thank you, we love it.”

  “You said you played golf with BJ. Where do you play?”

  “I have a course down in Boca. Do you play?”

  “Not for a long time.”

  “You ever want a round, give my office a call.”

  “I appreciate it. You ever play South Lakes?”

  “I only play on my courses. I don’t deal in second-best.”

  “You don’t rate the course there?”

  “It’s a fine plot of land.”

  We stepped outside and my car was waiting for me. I shook hands with Donaldson, and the valet opened my door and I got in.

  Donaldson said, “Has Heath McAllen arrived for the tournament yet?”

  I recalled the arrival of the player Ron had said was ranked number one in the world.

  “This morning.”

  “We’re old friends. Tell him he should come over for dinner.”

  “I’ll be sure to pass it on.”

  He stood with his hands behind his back as I pulled away, around the circular driveway and back out through the gates. I headed off the island and toward a fine plot of land.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I took Southern Boulevard back to the mainland, across Bingham Island. I was sitting at the lights at Federal Highway when I glanced to the side and noticed a low brick building with signage on it telling me it was the offices of Yarmouth Realty. Since I was in the area, I thought I’d drop in on old Barry. Perhaps he could tell me more about the financial situation facing the club, and help me figure out who might want to bring them down, if indeed anybody did.

  I cut across the lanes of traffic and pulled into the empty lot. The place was in good condition. Fresh asphalt, recently painted lines marking the parking bays. I pushed the door open and found a young guy at the reception counter. He wore a headset and was talking into it. That told me everything I needed to know about him. As I waited I played with the leaflet stands that were on the counter. There was a sheet of current listings in West Palm. I pulled one out and looked at it and noted that although I could look back and see Palm Beach island from the sidewalk outside, none of the listings were there. Everything was on this side of the bridge. The Palm Beaches are like that. I slipped the sheet back in the stand and looked at the guy. He tapped a button and took another call and offered his palm as an apology. I checked out the next leaflet stand. I wasn’t in the market for a home. I had a perfectly good one that I’d gotten for a song during the last property downturn. Sal told me it had probably doubled in value, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to sell. I didn’t want to live anywhere else. But the sheet I looked at wasn’t for local listings. It was for a beach community someplace called Puerto Escondido. It sounded Mexican. It had an artist’s rendition of a resort apartment building, looking across a turquoise pool toward the ocean. I wasn’t sure why, but in real estate pools are never blue, they’re turquoise.

  The guy behind the counter finished his call and looked at me like I had just beamed down from the Enterprise. “Help you?”

  “Barry Yarmouth,” I said. I didn’t feel like doing chitchat with this kid.

  “Is Mr. Yarmouth, expecting you?”

  “Tell him Miami Jones is here.”

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “Just tell him.” I gave the kid my look, the one that suggests I’m about to throw a fastball at your head, and he pressed a button. I stepped away from the counter so I didn’t lean over and slap some manners into the kid, and sat down. There was a coffee table with magazines. The glossy mags that cities like to commission and local businesses get strong-armed into advertising in. There was a copy of the Palm Beach Post. The headline was talking about the golf tournament. Evidently some people actually gave a damn about it. There was a glossy brochure for another development. Just what Florida needed. I picked it up to see what traffic snarl they were going to create, but the development wasn’t in Florida. It was just outside of some place called Dededo. The brochure said it was a western Pacific paradise. I wasn’t sure if that meant it was near Fiji or the Philippines. Or somewhere between the two. It was far away, I knew that, but the photos looked like Florida. I really couldn’t see the point.

  Yarmouth appeared from the depths of the office. He was in another Greg Norman polo and differe
nt Nike trousers. I wondered if the golf industry had stolen its uniform from the real estate industry. Barry waved me in and told the kid at the counter to hold his calls. We walked back, past empty desks by large windows. Barry saw me looking at the empty furniture.

  “If you’re at your desk, you’re not selling real estate,” he said, waving me into a large private office. Although it was his name on the building, his office was in the middle and had no window. It seemed oddly magnanimous.

  “What about you?” I said as I sat.

  “Only here for a moment—you’re lucky to catch me.” He sat, scratching at his arm. He had a small Band-Aid, half covered by his shirtsleeve. “Needles,” he said. “Hate ’em.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I’d had my fair share of painkillers during my playing career, and I wasn’t a fan either.

  “You not out at the tournament?”

  “Actually I’m off there soon. You?”

  “I’ll be there later. Just came from Bonita Mar.”

  He frowned. “Bonita Mar Club? Why?”

  “Had lunch with Nate Donaldson.” It was a bit mean of me, but I figured Barry would give his sore arm to lunch with a famous developer like Donaldson.

  “Why?”

  “Just shooting the breeze. We have mutual friends.”

  “You do?”

  I nodded. “So Dededo. That’s the next hot spot, is it?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “That’s not for you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You strike me as more a Florida kind of guy. If you’re looking to invest, I can get you in on a new community near PGA National. The first phase has just completed. State of the art. Solar power, eco-friendly, the whole nine yards.”

  “Maybe next week.”

  “Sure, next week would be better. But they are going fast.”

  Weren’t they always.

  “So how can I help you, Miami?”

  “I wanted to run something by you. A colleague gave me the idea that someone might want to run the club into the ground in order to buy it for a low price. As treasurer, do you think that’s possible?”

  “How would they do that, exactly?”

  “We’ll let’s say the tournament got canned, and the club lost that prestige. Your members own the club, right?”

  “We’re an equity-based country club, that’s right.”

  “So if it all went to pot, they could vote to sell.”

  “Technically, I suppose. But Keith said we dealt with the health department. It’s all good for the tournament.”

  “Sure, sure. But things happen.”

  “What things? What are you saying? Do you know of an issue with the tournament?”

  “Don’t give yourself a wedgie. I’m just spitballing here.”

  “All right. Okay. But I think the only thing that could stop the tournament now is the weather. And the forecast is good.”

  “Yeah, I’m talking more like an external thing. Like imagine if there was a bomb threat.”

  “I don’t think that’s funny.”

  “Me either. And I’m not saying it has happened. But now the players are arriving, the cameras are arriving. Now would be the time to try something.”

  “We have a terrorist threat protocol.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. Every big event has to have one now. That’s why there’s extra sheriff’s deputies and private security.”

  “They didn’t stop the first green from being damaged.”

  “No,” he said. He looked disappointed, like he was responsible for it, as if it had happened on his watch. “Security is expensive. We had planned on beefing it up from today.”

  “So someone got their licks in early.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Let me ask you a professional question. As a real estate agent. What’s the land worth out there?”

  “I don’t know. As a tax-exempt club we don’t pay property tax, so it doesn’t get valued regularly. But I’d say plenty. Depends what someone wanted to do with it.”

  “Do you know who owns the property around the club?”

  “Around it? No. Why?”

  “Just wondered. It’s mostly residential, right?”

  “Yes. And there’s an old power substation at the back, along the seventh hole.”

  “Florida Power and Light?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure it’s even operational anymore. But it’s there, and it’s kind of ugly. We planted some Australian pines out there a few years back to hide it. But listen, didn’t I hear that the sheriff thinks the green damage was done by a guy at the club? The facilities guy?”

  “Ernesto,” I said. “He has fallen off the face of the earth.”

  “Not good timing to do that. With the tournament on. But if he’s the guy, it sounds like this is really a disgruntled employee type thing, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “I’m just worried Keith’s got everyone on a wild-goose chase.”

  “Like I say, anything’s possible.”

  Barry stood and I looked up at him. “I think I need to get out there.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to meet with the security people, just in case. Make sure we have everything covered.”

  “Probably a good idea.”

  “Thanks for stopping in. And do think about that investment opportunity. Perhaps I can give you a call next week to chat about it.”

  “Call my office. I’m in the book.”

  Truth was, I’m not in the book. I’m not even sure there was a book anymore. My cell phone isn’t listed anywhere that I know of, and the office is listed under Lenny’s name, not mine. When he left the business to me I never changed the name. It didn’t feel right. It still doesn’t.

  I walked out with Barry. There was a cool breeze coming in and it was pleasant.

  “McAllen arrived at the course a bit earlier,” I said.

  “He did? Great.”

  “You’re lucky to have him. Number one player in the world. I bet he brings a lot more eyeballs to the event.”

  “You know, I think you’re right. We are lucky.”

  I shook his hand and got in the Porsche and headed back to the club.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was lucky to get into the club when I got back. It was like the circus had arrived. There was a procession of vehicles, mostly black. Suburbans, Town Cars, a couple Priuses. The players were arriving. Most of them had caught the morning flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to Palm Beach International, found their hotel rooms or rental homes or whatever golfers stayed in, and now they were descending en masse at the tournament venue. I showed my access pass to a different security guy and he directed me away from the line of players’ cars that were taking turns to dock at the front of the clubhouse. I didn’t bother with the fancy car section. The tournament was starting to hit full swing, and fancy cars were the norm, so I parked at the back of the lot, away from the hospitality tents, and walked in.

  Pro golfers don’t travel light. They’ve got baggage. Figuratively and literally. There were hard-sided cases holding bags of clubs, and sports bags of other gear. There were wheelie suitcases and garment bags. And then there were the people. There were golfers, obviously. But what I didn’t figure on was how much golf was a team sport. There were caddies, and I thought it would end there, but it didn’t. There were swing coaches and putting coaches; there were psychologists and visualists; there were managers and agents and wives and kids and a whole range of other hangers-on. I didn’t know what half of these people did, but Ron stood with me near the entrance and gave me the rundown. Some players shared coaches, some shared psychologists, some shared agents. One New Zealand player had no one with him and carried his own bag. I thought he might have been a new guy, still making the minimum pay and doing it on a shoestring, but Ron assured me he had several top ten finishes to his name but just preferred it that way. I liked the cut of his jib. Doing it old
-school. Ron said the guy would walk the course, take his yardages and then hire a caddy at each event. Ron suggested that could only go on for so long. The guy was sure to run out of steam and quit, or win a major and have a million people tugging at him. Whatever—I’d keep my eye on him.

  It was a pretty white crowd. The players, the caddies, the support staff. Mostly white. A few Asian guys here and there, and one black guy. There was no Tiger. Other than color the notable similarity across the guys was how fit they looked. Maybe that was part of the attraction of golf as a spectator sport. The top guys were just as elite as athletes in other major sports like football, baseball or basketball. But unlike those sports, the fans who had left college, gotten jobs, risen up the corporate ladder and become decision makers with corporate expense accounts—and gained ten to a hundred pounds in the process—could still play golf. They could go out on their weekends and hit the same clubs on the same fairways as the pros. You couldn’t say the same for the NFL—the torn hamstring quotient would be astronomical.

  But the players hadn’t gone to pasture. They were lean, and more muscular in the upper body than they looked on television. And they were tall. The average had be somewhere around six foot. Which isn’t anything in baseball pitchers these days, or anyone outside of running backs in the NFL, but it’s still up there. It didn’t escape my attention that the world number one who had arrived hours earlier than everyone else was also one of the shorter guys.

  I stayed with Ron until the players began to blur into one. My mind’s eye took all the corporate logos that had walked past and mashed them into one logo, and it didn’t surprise me that the logo I ended up with looked like the Aqueta logo. I don’t know who came up with that garbage, but they were certainly overpaid, and I was willing to bet they attended golf tournaments. I left Ron to the procession of polos and sensible haircuts and wandered up the stairs to the bar. It was midafternoon, and glory be, the bar was open. I scanned the room. There weren’t a lot of people there, but there were enough that I wouldn’t be the only sad sack drinking. There looked to be a good number of expense accounts at work in the room, and a young guy I didn’t know was working the bar. I wandered over to the window and looked out at the practice green. A bunch of the pros were standing around chatting. The shadows were growing longer on the fairway beyond. No one was playing. Today was what we called in baseball a travel day.