Tanzi's Heat (Vince Tanzi Book 1)

by C I Dennis

  Johannsen stopped his car at their house in Sunset Park and then headed north toward the airport. I figured he had dropped the boy. I followed about a mile back, watching the display on the laptop. He turned onto 60 West and took the causeway across the bay to Clearwater. We turned north again on Highway 19 to Dunedin, where he took a series of turns and parked. I gave him a few more minutes and then parked a few spaces away from him, at the Riordan Oaks Golf Club. It was a private club, but in the doldrums of summer anyone could play the private clubs, member or not. They needed the money, and the regular members didn’t care; most of them were snowbirds and were up North during the hot time of year.

  The clubhouse smelled faintly of sweat. It was furnished in the Early Testosterone period with brass plaques, sports photos, leather chairs and spittoons. D.B. was at the bar drinking beer and chatting with some of the members.

  I can hit a golf ball, but I’ll never look like a golfer; more like an ex-cop impersonating a golfer. I thought I’d at least try. I went to the pro shop and bought some spiked shoes, a sixty-dollar size XL shirt, a glove, a dozen golf balls and a bag of tees. They agreed to let me demo a set of Callaways for another thirty dollars. I signed up for nine holes, which is my limit on a hot day like this or on any day really; if I play eighteen holes I get bored and end up detesting whoever I’m playing with. Four hours with anybody is too much unless it’s in the bedroom, and I’m not even sure about that. I made my way back to the bar in my new duds.

  D.B. was finishing a beer, and there were two empty bottles in front of him. That’s fast drinking, I thought. He was talking about great shots he’d seen and so on, the usual golfer B.S. Then he said, “We don’t get the heat like this in Ohio, I don’t understand how you guys play this time of year.”

  Ohio? He lived here in Tampa as far as I knew.

  “So, is everybody too hot to play?” he said, to the room. “I guess that’s OK, I got a couple grand in my wallet and maybe it’ll stay there, for once.”

  I could see the facial expressions change. We got ourselves a pigeon from Ohio, with real money in his pocket.

  “What the hell, I’ll take your money,” one of them said. “What’s your handicap?”

  “Budweiser,” D.B. said, and the rest laughed. “Tell you what, since you ladies don’t want to get your shirts all sweaty, let’s just play three holes, Acey Deucy, a hundred a hole. Anybody else want to play?”

  “I’m in,” I said.

  Another guy nodded, and we had a foursome.

  *

  The first hole was a long par four with a lake along the left side of the fairway. There was a deep stand of palmetto on the right and your tee shot would have to be very straight and damn long if you were hoping to get on the green in two shots. I hate this kind of hole. I went first and sliced one into the palmetto.

  “You’ll find it,” one of the guys said. The other two in our foursome were members, Bill and Sal, and they both launched their tee shots safely into the fairway. It was D.B.’s turn.

  D.B. teed his ball up high and brought out a driver, then put it back in the bag and took out his three wood. “After a few beers I can’t hit my driver for shit,” he said to the three of us. He hit his tee shot easily past where Bill’s and Sal’s balls were lying, and I watched their expressions. Uh-oh. Their earlier vision of scoring big off this guy was wilting in the heat of the afternoon.

  I rode with D.B., or Dave as he’d introduced himself, and we drove the cart over to where my ball would likely be. I found it, beyond the palmetto, lying on a small patch of sandy grass, but in bounds and playable. I had a clean shot, though I’d have to clear some needle palms, and there wouldn’t be much room for the ball to roll. I could at least see the green, and there was no bunker in the way. A truly great shot, and I’d be on. I hit it straight, but it was forty yards short, leaving a long chip shot. “Good save,” Dave said.

  “Thanks,” I said. I’d noticed the Firestone Country Club tag on his bag, with “David Baker” written in where the member’s name went. Firestone is one of the world’s legendary golf clubs; you definitely have to be a Somebody to be a member, so naturally I was curious.

  “So Dave, how long you been a member at Firestone?”

  “Couple of years,” he said. “You want a beer? I got a cooler.”

  “No thanks. What did you do around Akron?”

  “Drug dealer,” he said. I gave him a look, and he laughed and patted me on the back. “I’m a retired pharmaceutical rep. I had you there for a minute.”

  “Yes, you did,” I said.

  “How about you?”

  “Interior decorator,” I said. He laughed and slapped my back again. Whoever he was, he sure didn’t match up with Barbara’s description of a dour businessman who was no fun in bed.

  He popped open a can of beer and took a swig. It looked good and I was tempted...but I was working. I sat in the shade of the cart while the other guys hit. All three of them easily made the green on their second shots. I was out of my league, but I’d told Barbara my fee was a thousand a day, so I wasn’t going to worry about losing a couple hundred dollars.

  I chipped onto the green, and the four of us stood back and measured our putts. In Acey Deucy the low scorer, if there is one, wins from the other three in the foursome. The high scorer also has to pay the same bet to the other three. So if you have one birdie, two pars, and a bogey, the bogey player is out $400, the birdie wins $400 and the pars break even. It can add up fast.

  I had hit a pretty good chip shot, but I was the farthest away, with about thirty feet left to the cup. I putted, squinting in the sun, and made the shot for a lucky par. The other guys were impressed, but it was a fluke; I don’t play often enough to putt like that consistently. Sal and Bill were next. They both missed, and had to settle for par. Dave was the closest to the hole but, incredibly, three-putted for bogey. A meltdown like that is not fun to watch, even if it means you just won a bet. He was out three hundred dollars, a hundred to each of us.

  The second hole began like the first, with another long tee shot by Dave and respectable shots by the rest of us, bunched in the fairway about 230 yards out. He and I got into the cart.

  “Hot out,” he said.

  “Must be in the nineties,” I said. “Reminds me of Vietnam.”

  “You’re too young to know about ‘Nam,” he said, frowning.

  “Did you serve over there?”

  He looked at me, and the backslapping bonhomie evaporated.

  “No,” he said.

  I missed the green with my approach shot, lying a few feet short. Sal got on, ending up about twenty feet away from the pin. Bill hit a straight shot, but the ball rolled well past the flag. Dave chipped to within five feet. The three of them had potential birdies, and this hole might cost me $400.

  The golf gods smiled on me, and I hit my wedge shot like a pro on TV; it even had some back spin and I had a tap-in for par. Sal two-putted for his par, and Bill hit a perfect downhill shot that rolled in ever so slowly for birdie. Dave missed his five-footer, and the ball rolled past the pin by another five feet. He missed again on the way back. It was excruciating. He kept his cool, but fell silent and just barely made his third putt, for a bogie and a $400 loss. This was twice he’d three-putted in two holes and he was down a total of $700. Bill and Sal were smiling furtively to each other. I was waiting for Dave’s next move. I’m not much of a golfer, but I was a cop for a long time, and I know when I’m about to be hustled.

  “Fuck it,” Dave said. “You guys keep playing, I’m done.” He took his bag off the back of the cart and walked toward the clubhouse while the three of us stood there. Maybe I was wrong—maybe there was no hustle.

  At least, not yet.

  *

  We finished our third hole and returned to the bar, which was busy with drinkers. Dave was there, and he produced a roll of bills and paid his gambling debt in crisp new hundreds. He made sure that we all noticed that the bills came from a fat log. There’s
the bait, I thought.

  Dave drank two more beers, which by my count made an even six, including the three he’d started with and one while we played. He had an obvious buzz. His voice got louder, and the bartender eyed our group, wondering if he was going to have to throw somebody out.

  “Tell you what,” he said, loud enough for the whole room to hear him. “That tractor shed out on the tenth hole, how far out is that?”

  “About two hundred yards,” somebody said. “It’s about one-fifty, and then it’s fifty yards out of bounds”.

  “Well then, I’ll bet any of you guys that I can hit it. One shot. A thousand bucks.”

  “I ain’t taking that wager,” a guy said. “With my slice I hit that damn thing every day!” The golfers laughed.

  “OK then, I’ll tell you what,” Dave said. “You can pick any club out of my bag and I’ll hit with it. But you can’t pick the wedges, or the eight or nine irons. Any other club—it’s your choice. Show me your money, people.”

  Some of the men in the back of the bar began to mutter to each other, out of earshot. Somebody had an idea, and the rest were grinning as the word spread. Six of them took Dave up on the bet. There was a lot of fussing around and cash-raising, but eventually $12,000 was in the pot; $6,000 of it Dave’s and $6,000 from his takers. The bartender took the money to a safe spot behind the bar and the crowd moved out toward the 10th tee.

  “Dave, we hate to break it to you,” one of the bettors said, laughing, “But you’re fucked.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said we couldn’t make you hit the wedges, or the 8 or 9. Any other club in your bag, right?”

  “That’s right,” Dave said.

  “Then let’s see you hit it with the putter.”

  Now, a putter is for just that: putting. It’s for tapping the ball a few feet on the ultra-smooth surface of a manicured green; technically it’s the shortest-hitting club in the bag. For a two-hundred-yard shot, you’d want some horsepower. A very good golfer might make it with a five iron. A pro might get two hundred yards of distance with a seven iron, but hitting a target would make it a lot harder. Most of us would just get out the driver or a three wood and hope for the best.

  Dave teed the ball up about an inch above the grass. He positioned his feet and began his address, setting up with the ball in line with the inside of his left foot. The face of the putter is at a right angle to the ground like a driver, so you could get some distance if you hit it perfectly, but the shaft is short so you had to be strong and incredibly accurate. And lucky. The crowd hushed as he completed his setup and stood rock still with the club poised.

  I watched the backswing as if it were in slow motion. A perfect arc, controlled, and then down hard on the ball, which flew off the tee like a bullet: straight, low, and directly at the corrugated metal roof of the tractor shed. It rang it like a gong in the smoldering sun.

  *

  We walked out to our cars together. Dave was treated like a hero in the clubhouse, but he’d never get a bet at the Riordan Oaks again.

  “It went well, didn’t it?” I said.

  He gave me a look. “It doesn’t always,” he said, as he put his bag into the trunk of the Lexus.

  “How often do you practice that shot?”

  “I got it to about seventy percent accurate.”

  “Good odds.”

  “You’re a cop, aren’t you?”

  I ignored the question. “Just curious, Dave. Do you have a twin brother? You look like a guy I know.”

  He took a long time to answer. “You don’t want to know my brother. He’s a hard ass. I’m the nice one.”

  He didn’t wave as he passed me, getting into the Taurus. I could see him taking a good look at my car. Any cover I might have had was gone now, but that was all right; sometimes you have to get in someone’s face and make things happen. It was time to go home and pick up some gear. I decided I would visit the Johannsen house again, and I needed my whole bag of tricks if I was going to do it quietly.

  *

  It was a long two hours on the road back to Vero. I thought about stopping at Quinn’s for some food, but I still wasn’t hungry after my red snapper lunch. I was wired from the encounter with D.B. Johannsen, and the adrenaline took away any interest in food. I reviewed the day as I drove and tried to lay mental odds about D.B. and C.J. One-in-two that they were the same guy. One-in-two that they were brothers. Three-to-one that I didn’t have a frigging clue, yet.

  If it was the same person, he had two marriages going and it was possible the wives didn’t know about each other. How convenient. It was a little curious how C.J. was basically out of touch with Barbara from Wednesday through Friday, every week. He’d trained her to accept that, or perhaps she had trained herself to accept it, like people sometimes do in a marriage. It was like that with Glory; however much we loved each other, there were places where we didn’t go.

  I pulled the Taurus to the side of the road to text Roberto. I’m not the type to text while driving, I’d end up in a canal.

  Want a research project?

  Sure, he texted back.

  Come ovr after homework. 8 PM?

  Dnt hv any hmwrk.

  BS, I texted. They load the homework onto the kids these days. But if anyone could breeze through it, it would be Roberto. I got back on the road and called Barbara. I can actually talk on the cell and drive; I’m not a total Luddite.

  “So how many consecutive reruns of Friends have you watched?”

  “I’m actually reading. I’m also bored and hungry and my skin is going to turn pasty white.”

  “I had an eventful day.”

  “Tell me.”

  “C.J. either has an identical twin brother or another wife.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Sorry. I kind of hit you with that.” I had been way too blunt. That was not the kind of thing you told a client over the phone.

  “It’s what I’m paying you for, isn’t it?”

  “Barbara,” I said, “Get your big sunglasses and baseball hat. You know, the celebrity-in-public disguise, so nobody recognizes you. I’m going to take you out for some fresh air. I have a meeting at eight, but I can be at the hotel at nine. Do you like the Citrus Grillhouse?”

  “I love the Citrus Grillhouse.”

  “I’ll see you at the hotel.”

  *

  I was home at seven, which would have been a great time for attacking a few beers after a long day, but I wanted to keep my mind clear. I showered and dressed in a black Rayon shirt, one that Glory had picked out. Roberto let himself in and went directly into the kitchen for a Coke. It was a forbidden pleasure that his parents knew about, but they liked me so they let it ride.

  “I have some work for you.” We sat next to each other at my computer table, and I filled him in on what I knew so far. He listened and surfed the web at the same time. Roberto never gets too far from a screen; it’s an extension of his body, or maybe even his soul.

  “There are two different Social Security numbers,” he said. “One for Johannsen, one for Butler. There’s nothing for Avery Bellar.” Jesus Christ that was fast; we’d been talking for less than ten minutes.

  “How hard is it to get a Social Security number?”

  “It’s doable. He got a Canadian passport, right?” He drained his Coke, and I went into the kitchen and got him a second one.

  “What about Tan Tieng?” I asked.

  “Fail,” he said. “It’s not on Google maps, but I’ll keep looking.”

  “Roberto, I need the computer for a few minutes,” I said. “I have to pay my credit card bill tonight, or I’ll get hit with interest.”

  “You got any other computers? I’m not ready to go home. This is fun.”

  The laptop was in the car, set up for the GPS, and I didn’t want to disturb it. But I did have another computer that I had forgotten about. It was a slim little MacBook Air that I had bought for Glory the year before she died. Sh
e loved it and used it for recipes or watching soaps while she worked in the kitchen. I remembered exactly where she kept it; it was in a lower cabinet that had a vertical rack for baking pans. The thin aluminum laptop was still there, perfectly camouflaged between cookie sheets. The power cord was stashed behind it. I remembered that when the police had gone through the house they hadn’t found it. Frank Velutto had been in charge and he’d asked me about it, but I wasn’t volunteering anything; I’d been a suspect, not a cop on that day.

  “Try this,” I said to Roberto as I handed it to him.

  “These things are awesome!” He powered it up and began to type. I paid my credit card bill on the big computer, and then brushed my teeth while he surfed on the Mac.

  “I have to go out. You can stay here for a while if you like.”

  “Where do I put the computer?”

  “Why don’t you just keep it?” His eyes widened. “It was Glory’s. I don’t have any use for it.”

  Roberto is a kid, but he’s one of those kids who understands people. He could see the expression on my face. He muttered a quiet thank you and accepted the gift.

  Barbara was wearing a short, form-hugging black dress when I met her at the door to her room. Some disguise—if anything, it would attract attention. She retreated to the bathroom and leaned toward the mirror, applying eyeliner. This was suddenly looking like a date, and I was beginning to have misgivings about inviting her out. On the other hand, she looked pretty damn good.

  She insisted that we stop at her house, and I waited in the car while she dashed inside. She took longer than she should have and my anxiety increased. I wasn’t sure why I was so uptight; partly because I had been hired to protect her, for sure, but also because it had been a long time since I’d done anything at night besides getting trashed in front of the TV. It felt good to be sober, although I would be tempted to break my alcohol fast and have some wine at the Citrus Grillhouse; they had a decent list.

  She came back out with a pair of shoes in her hand. “Sorry. I dawdled,” she said.

  “You went in there for shoes?”