by A. W. Gray
After three rings there was a click over the line, after which a youthful male voice said, “Golf course, Danny.”
Bino folded his arms and braced the receiver between his neck and shoulder. “Yeah, this is Bino Phillips. Barney around?”
“Hold on.” There was another click, followed by an easy-listening orchestral version of “New York, New York,” an arrangement which a couple of Bino’s clients would call “shoplifting music.” In about fifteen seconds a third click sounded, followed by Barney Dalton’s Texas-twang tenor saying, “Bino. We’re full up on tee times, if that’s what you’re—”
“That’s good,” Bino said. “I won’t be having the time to play. Listen, Barn, when’s the club tournament? You know, the Shoot ’Em Up.”
“That’s a partnership tournament,” Barney said. “I don’t know anybody hard up enough to play with you.” There was a raspy metallic sound in the background. Bino pictured Barney standing beside the workbench at the rear of the pro shop, talking on his speakerphone while using the vise to change the loft on his four-wood or pitching wedge. Barney adjusted his clubs around like a maniac. Bino wondered briefly if more loft on his own driver would lower his handicap.
“I wouldn’t have time to practice anyhow,” Bino said.
“I don’t think practice would save you,” Barney said.
“Ha, ha. When’s the tournament, Barn?”
“August 6. You know, there is one guy in the Eighth Flight—”
“I don’t want to play in the damn thing, Barney.”
“That’s a relief,” Barney said.
“And I really don’t want to know when the tournament starts.”
“Well, what’d you ask me for?”
“You remember when we played with Rusty Benson?” Bino said.
“I’ll never forget it. Look, if you’re calling to borrow poker money … ”
“Just before we teed off, you gave us all one of those little two-pronged gadgets for fixing ball marks, said dig ’em up for
THE SHOOT ’EM UP.”
“Sure, poyanna,” Barney said. “Fucking weed grows flat to the ground like a spiderweb, a month ago our greens were ate up with the stuff. The digging tools were the greenskeeper’s idea. Way we figured, if every member pulled up one clump of poyanna on every green while they were playing their round, by the time we had the tournament the greens ought to be in pretty good shape.”
“I remember that,” Bino said. Carla flipped over a page, raised her head to smile fleetingly at him, then returned to her reading. Bino said, “What I need to know, exactly when did those digging tools come in? One week they weren’t available, the next week you had a whole basketful sitting up by the register.”
“I could look it up,” Barney said. “We bought ’em from some outfit out in Arlington.”
“It had to be,” Bino said, “sometime between the fourth and the tenth. The tenth, Monday, that’s the day we played with Rusty. Time I was out there before that, seven a.m. tee time on the Fourth of July, so early I couldn’t hit myself in the ass with a paddle.”
“What’s unusual about that?” Barney said.
“The point is,” Bino said, “that I’m pretty sure you weren’t handing out those things on the fourth. It’s important for me to know exactly when you first put those digging tools out by the cash register. I found one of ’em in ... it was left in a car has to do with this case I’m handling.”
“Well, I could look it up, like I said, but I remember. I was unpacking those cartons the afternoon of Wednesday the fifth.”
“I need to be sure, Barn. Jesus, that’s—”
“I know it was Wednesday, because there’s this lady comes in for a lesson Wednesday afternoons. She showed up just as I was setting the basket out, interrupted me to go to the tee. She’s got this godawful banana-ball slice that—”
“So if one of those digging tools was inside a car in Houston, and that car was found in a bayou canal on Monday the tenth … ”
“You crazy? What’s a car doing sunk in a canal?” Barney said.
“I need to know a couple of things, Barn. One, check your records to make sure you’re right on the date you set out the digging tools. Second, and this is going to mean looking at restaurant tickets, swimming pool sign-ins, tennis court reservations—”
“Now hold on,” Barney said. “Me and the tennis pro don’t get along too good, he wouldn’t like me fucking around in his business.”
Bino rolled his eyes. “Make peace with the guy, Barn. You never know when you’ll need somebody, you know? I got to know the last time Rusty’s wife was out at the club.”
“That’s easy,” Barney said.
“What’s easy?”
“You’re talking about Rhonda Benson, right?”
“Sure, Mrs. Rusty Benson,” Bino said.
“She’s the broad. That’s who I gave the lesson to, on Wednesday afternoon.”
Bino’s jaw slacked. He couldn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, then said, “Your memory’s failing you. Rhonda Benson was out of town all that week, Rusty told me—” He closed his mouth with a near-audible snap of his jaws.
“Well, she may have been out of town that week,” Barney said. “But on Wednesday the fifth, she was right here on the practice range. And now that you mention it, something funny. She told me not to tell anybody, especially Rusty, that she was here that day. You learn around one of these country clubs, you don’t know what’s going on between anybody and their old ladies. When somebody tells you to keep your mouth shut, you do it.”
Bino sat up straighter on the bed and Carla shot him an inquisitive glance. He showed her a just-a-second wink, then said into the phone, “Are you sure it was her, Barney?”
“She had on white shorts looked like she painted ’em on,” Barney said. “Some of these women I might forget. Rhonda Benson, never. It was her, Bino. Take it from old Barney here.”
Running Half-a-Point Harrison down, Bino knew, would take some doing. Half had four or five favorite Vegas hangouts and might be in any one of the places. Lunchtime narrowed the choices a bit—Half was too tight with the dollar to dine on the Strip; he’d likely take in either the $3.49 buffet at the Four Queens, which included a free fifty-cent keno ticket, or the all-you-can-eat deal in the Sombrero Room at Binion’s Horseshoe—but locating Half, Bino knew, was at the very least an hour-long chore.
Carla was getting antsy. Her periods of concentration on her book had shortened as Bino talked to Barney on the phone, her irritated glances more frequent. Bino paused with the phone book open on the bed, his index finger beneath Las Vegas on the area code map. “Listen, this is going to take awhile,” Bino said.
Carla stood, raised up on her tiptoes, and stretched. “It’s already taken awhile. Police auto pounds and sitting around hotel rooms I can do without. Laying around hotel rooms, now, that’s a different story.” She looked the king-size over foot to head and arched an eyebrow.
“It’s business,” Bino said.
“Who’s that you were calling about Rusty Benson’s wife?”
“A golf pro. Friend of mine.”
“That’s business?”
“It’s what I do. Representing the guys I do, I talk to all kinds of places. Bookie joints, whorehouses … ”
“How enlightening,” Carla said, hands on hips. “What does a golf pro have to do with Rusty Benson being in jail?”
“Nothing, personally. He knows some things I need to work on Rusty’s next bond hearing, if the appeal works, plus some of this stuff can help another client of mine. Tommy Clinger.”
“Who?” Carla said.
“He’s a ... that’s not important. The point is, I’m going to be tied up and don’t want you to get bored.”
Carla looked at the ceiling. “Great fun. I bring this guy to Houston, barely get a good humping f
rom the guy before he’s in jail and I get to spend the night keeping my own feet warm.”
“How could your feet be cold? It’s hot as—”
“It’s a figure of speech, sweet thing. In addition to that I’ve had a tour of the jail and the police auto pound. I was hoping this afternoon we could see something at least a little cheerier. Like skid row or someplace.”
“Look, Carla, I didn’t plan this. I just wanted you to know this would take awhile, so if you wanted you could do something else.”
She pooched out her lower lip and blew upward. Her bangs lifted in the draft, then settled back down on her forehead. “You bet I can find something better to do. You have yourself a good time, sport.” She headed for the door, her bottom twitching.
“Carla,” he said.
She went out into the hall with a swish and a click.
Bino stood and took two steps in pursuit, then paused, picturing the scene in the hallway that was likely to follow, him charging after Carla, Carla standing in the elevator doing a toetap while the doors slid shut in his face. And the other hotel guests peering out of their rooms to see the cause of all the furor, while Bino stood in the corridor in his underwear. He thought, To hell with it, and retreated to the bed. Carla was cute and fun and all that, but her feistiness could be a massive pain. Bino gingerly touched the swelling above his eye.
Half-a-Point Harrison wasn’t at Binion’s Horseshoe, nor at the Four Queens, nor inside Lily Langtry’s at the Golden Nugget, where Half occasionally liked to chow down on the noon Chinese buffet. Bino then tried the Sports Book at the Fremont Hotel, catty-cornered across the street from the Golden Nugget, only to learn that Half had been there two days previously, had bought three winning tickets on the Dodgers playing at home against the New York Mets, but hadn’t even returned to cash in.
Forty-five minutes later Bino was totally disgusted. After no telling how much in long-distance charges—he’d even systematically called up and down the Strip, from the Stardust all the way to the MGM—he wasn’t any closer to locating Half than he’d been when he’d started. He decided to try his own office in Dallas, to see if Half had called and left a message. He should have checked with Dodie to begin with, but after her icy tone during the call the night before last, he cringed at the thought of talking to her. He sucked in his pride, punched in his number in the Davis Building, and listened to the series of rings on the line.
After the third ring Half-a-Point Harrison picked up and said, “Yeah, lawyer’s office.’
Bino gritted his teeth. “What the hell are you doing there?”
“What you think I’m doing? I’m doing what you ought to be doing, giving this little girl a break so she can use the bathroom. Which I wouldn’t have to be doing, except that you’re off running around with some broad.”
Bino pictured Half, thin with a pencil mustache, wearing a vest and tab collar which made his tie stick out from his chest, sitting on the edge of Dodie’s desk with a skeptical tilt to his mouth. The tab collars had been out of style for twenty years, which bothered Half not one iota, and Bino wondered where Half still bought the damned things. Half had never married and had no kids, and hovered over Dodie like a mother hen. Sometimes Dodie spent weekends out at Half’s farm in Mesquite, subbing for him on the phone taking baseball and football bets, and Bino had feared for some time that if the law were to bust Half’s bookmaking operation on the wrong day Bino’s entire office staff would be in jail.
“I don’t mean, what are you doing at the office,” Bino said. “How come you’re in town at all? I’ve been calling all over Vegas.”
“I got tired of it,” Half said, “after three days. Always do, Vegas gets old in a hurry. Plus, when I called last night the little girl said you were out screwing around as usual. So I thought I’d better—”
“Screwing around?” Bino said. “Dodie told you I was screwing around?”
“She’s too sweet to say that,” Half said. “What she said was, you went to Houston. I had to dig the part about the broad out of her.”
“Well, I’m down here, mainly, representing a guy. Rusty Benson.”
“They got newspapers up here, Bino. There was a nice photo of you on your way to jail. Nice going.”
“The courts down here are crazy as hell,” Bino said.
“Sounds to me like you’re crazy as hell,” Half said.
“Look, I need you to get on something. And I need a copy of your notes on this to go in Tommy Clinger’s file.”
“I thought you were down there representing Rusty Benson.”
“It’s a long story. As soon as I wrap up a couple of things my deal with Rusty is over. But in trying to get Rusty out of jail I’ve found some things out that I think we need to know to help Tommy Clinger. That clear?”
“As mud,” Half said. “But I don’t guess it’s any different than any of the other shit you get yourself into.”
Bino ignored the remark. “I want court dockets for the last year, countywide. Make a list of every case where Rusty Benson’s shown to be the lawyer for the defendant.”
“That’s one helluva big pain in the ass, Bino.”
“It’ll take a lot of work,” Bino said. “Then you’ll have to go do a records search at the county clerk.”
“I don’t like going to county records,” Half said. “Too many guys over there know me.”
“So tell Dodie to go,” Bino said. “I want the disposition of every one of Rusty’s cases, how much time the defendant got, whether charges were dropped … ”
Half said nothing. Faint static crackled over the line. Bino shifted the phone from one ear to the other.
“Half?” Bino said.
“I’m writing. How much time have we got to do all this?”
“ASAP. I want the same search done on federal criminal cases in Dallas. There’s probably fifty state cases on file for every federal, so the fed stuff shouldn’t take all that long. And Half. I want particular attention paid to cases that turned up in Edgar Bryson’s court.”
“Bryson?” Half said. “Ain’t he the religious nut?”
“He professes to be. Right now he’s presiding over Big Preacher Daniel’s trial.”
“I know a couple of guys,” Half said, “that he made believers of. You ever checked the sentences Bryson hands out?”
“I only tried a couple in front of him,” Bino said, “and had to appeal both. He won’t stay inside the federal sentencing guidelines if he decides he personally doesn’t like the guy.”
“So how come Bryson?”
“Just a hunch. Look, the feds are behind what’s happening to Rusty down here in Houston. Goldman was in court yesterday. They can only have one motive, wanting Rusty to inform on somebody. I’m hoping the somebody’s not Tommy Clinger, but I think it’s to Tommy’s best interest to check out what old Rusty’s been up to. Oh, and Half, one more thing.”
“I already got plenty of things,” Half said.
“We’re probably going to know some of Rusty’s clients. Or my clients will know them. If we’ve got contacts, we want to talk to them.”
There was a pause, after which Half said, “It bothers me, and you’re the lawyer. But it bothers me that you’re supposed to be Rusty Benson’s lawyer and you’re checking out all this other shit.”
“I told Rusty up front,” Bino said, “that if I discovered anything representing him that’d help Tommy, I’d use it. I’m not going to screw the guy around, though. Tomorrow morning I’m going to see Rusty at the jail and tell him exactly what I’m up to. He can like it or lump it. And if what I’m doing makes him not want me to appeal his bail denial, then he can hire himself another lawyer.”
“The papers up here,” Half said, “are full of hints that the feds think Rusty may have offed his old lady because she was about to inform on him and some other people. ‘Unnamed sources,’ you know
how they write it up. They’re saying Rhonda was hiding out under federal protection.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bino said. “That was in the paper?”
“Today’s edition. You figure there’s anything to it?”
“Until I’m sure,” Bino said, “I’ve got no comment one way or the other. But I’ll tell you one thing. People afraid for their lives don’t run around taking golf lessons.”
“Golf lessons?” Half said.
Bino rubbed his eyes and switched the phone from one ear to the other. “Forget I said that, Half. Just thinking out loud, okay?”
As soon as Carla exited the elevator on the ground floor of the Hyatt Regency, her demeanor changed. All of the hip-slinging anger gone from her walk, she crossed the lobby rapidly in an all-business posture, checking her watch three different times on her way to the front exit. A uniformed doorman held the entryway open for her, standing aside and saying briskly, “Have a good day, miss.” Carla didn’t act as if she noticed the guy.
She made her way down two city blocks, hustling through one intersection as the yellow warning light changed to red, shooting furtive glances over her shoulder every hundred yards or so. When she was out of sight of the Hyatt Regency, her walk slowed and her breathing returned to normal. She dug in her handbag, withdrew a Kleenex, and wiped perspiration from her forehead and upper lip, an attractive young lady in tasteful walking shorts with suspender straps, drawing appreciative glances from men passing by, ignoring the glances without so much as a smile of acknowledgment.
She paused near the center of the block and flagged down a cab, climbing quickly inside and looking both ways before closing the door, giving the driver her destination in precise, measured tones. The driver, a thin black man with a clipped Jamaican accent, said, “Yes’m,” moved the arm downward to start the meter running, then wheeled out into thickening midafternoon traffic.
