Accused

by Mark Gimenez

  "Tell me about him. Goose."

  Nick put a DVD in the player then clicked the remote. The screen now showed a still frame from behind of Trey Rawlins standing in the fairway of a golf course. Next to him stood the massive white golf bag Scott had seen at Trey's house. And next to the bag stood a short, stocky man with a gray goatee and ponytail wearing shorts and a tunic that read "Rawlins" in block letters and above that in script "The Mexican Open." He had a big cigar clamped between his teeth.

  "Clyde 'Goose' Dalton," Nick said. "A lifer on tour, real popular with the fans, they're always yelling 'Goose! Goose!' when he walks down the fairway."

  "Why Goose?"

  "All the caddies have nicknames—Fluffy, Doc, Bones …"

  "No. Why's his nickname Goose?"

  "Oh. 'Cause he waddles like a duck."

  "Why not Duck?"

  "You want people yelling 'Duck! Duck!' on a golf course?"

  "Good point."

  Nick gestured at the screen. "This was down in Acapulco, back in April. Tour's trying to expand into Latin America. Nice weather and great beaches, but it's a little unnerving to see Federales with AK-47s walking down the fairways. They got into a shootout with some cartel gunmen at the resort down the beach while we were there." He chuckled. "Vacationing in Mexico these days is like starring in a fucking Schwarzenegger movie."

  Nick started the DVD. The scene went into motion. Goose tossed some grass into the air then consulted a little notebook like a preacher reading the Bible.

  Goose: "Two-twelve to the hole, two-oh-two to clear the front bunker. Uphill into a breeze." Goose pulled a club out of the bag and held it out to Trey. "Five-iron."

  Trey: "Give me the six."

  Goose: "Big lip on the front bunker. Come up short, it's a bogie. Hit the five."

  Trey: "Six."

  Goose: "Five."

  Trey: "Give me the goddamned six."

  Goose shook his head and swapped clubs then yanked the golf bag out of view. Trey made a smooth swing then posed on his follow-through. The camera cut to the ball in midair, rising high above the course then arching majestically—and diving down into the front sand trap. The camera cut back to Trey and Goose in the fairway.

  Goose: "Bunker. Probably buried."

  Trey: "Damnit!"

  Goose took a thoughtful puff on his cigar then blew out a cloud of smoke.

  "Good decision, to go with the six."

  Trey flung the iron at Goose, who ducked under it. He gave Trey a long hard look, then stared down at the club as if trying to decide whether to pick it up. After another long puff on the cigar, he leaned over and retrieved the club. He put the club in the bag then grabbed the strap and hefted the golf bag onto his shoulder. Trey and Goose walked side by side up the fairway. Goose did in fact waddle like a duck. The cameraman followed close behind like the cameras on that reality dating show Scott had caught the girls watching one night.

  Trey: "You gave me the wrong yardage."

  Goose: "You hit the wrong club."

  Trey: "I hired the wrong caddie."

  Goose: "When in doubt, blame the caddie."

  Trey: "No—fire the caddie."

  Goose: "What?"

  Trey: "You're fired."

  Goose dropped the golf bag. "You're firing me?"

  Trey stopped and faced Goose. "You can't count … Are you deaf, too?"

  Goose: "Who's gonna carry your bag the last four holes?"

  Trey pointed off-camera. "I'll get a Mexican. They can't be any worse than you."

  Goose glared at Trey then abruptly pushed him hard in the chest. Trey stumbled back then jumped at Goose. The two men grabbed each other like pro wrestlers, went down to the ground, and rolled around on the lush green fairway. Nick was laughing so hard he was crying.

  "A pro golfer and his caddie fighting in the middle of a round—you can't make that shit up."

  Back on the screen, other players and caddies were trying to separate Trey and Goose. Trey brushed himself off and walked over to the rope that lined the fairway and kept the fans away from the players. The cameraman followed. Trey pointed at a beautiful Mexican girl and said, "You want to caddie for me?"

  Someone interpreted for her. She broke into a big smile. "Sí." She ducked under the rope and walked with Trey over to his bag. She was voluptuous and billowing out of her tight shirt. Trey stuck his hand out to Goose.

  "Give me the yardage book."

  "Go to hell. It's mine."

  Trey grabbed at the book. They struggled a moment then Goose pulled away with the book. Trey puffed up.

  "Fine. Keep it." To the Mexican girl: "Pick up the bag."

  Trey stormed off. The girl struggled to lift the heavy golf bag, then tried to catch up to Trey, but not before turning back and waving to her friends outside the ropes, as if she had just won the bachelor. Goose stood alone on the wide fairway with the camera in his face; his expression was that of a fired auto worker. He put the big cigar in his mouth, sucked hard, and blew out another smoke cloud. He then turned slowly to the camera and made a quick movement; the picture was suddenly of the blue sky.

  "What happened?"

  "Goose decked the cameraman."

  "No. To Goose and Trey."

  "Oh. Tour fined them both, but it only aired on a few cable outlets, got posted on YouTube, but golf sponsors aren't exactly the YouTube demographics. So no big PR problem."

  "What's Goose doing now?"

  "He's a good caddie, got picked up by another player. Pete Puckett."

  "What'd Trey do without Goose? Who caddied for him?"

  "He tried to bring that Mexican gal up, but she couldn't get a visa. Fucking Homeland Security. He only played three tournaments after Mexico, so he picked up local caddies. I was trying to get one lined up before the Open next week."

  "So if Goose hired on with another player, why was he mad at Trey?"

  "Because Trey won that tournament and a million bucks. He never paid Goose his ten percent."

  "Caddies get ten percent?"

  "For a win. Seven percent for a top ten finish, five below that. Tiger's caddie makes a million a year."

  "That's a lot of money. Might be a motive for murder."

  "I don't think he'd kill Tiger."

  "For Goose to kill Trey. The hundred thousand."

  "Oh. Well, Goose sure as hell wanted to strangle Trey that day."

  "Where can I find him? Goose."

  Nick clicked off the TV. "Let's go."

  "Where?"

  "To the tournament."

  FIFTEEN

  Nick Madden drove a BMW convertible, and he drove it fast. They were on a highway heading north out of downtown in the fourth-largest city in America. Only two hundred fifty miles apart, Dallas and Houston couldn't be more different. Dallas was plains land, Houston swamp land. Dallas was white collar, Houston blue collar. Dallas was the Cowboys, Highland Park, and Neiman Marcus; Houston was Urban Cowboy, Enron, and a rocket ship to the moon. The only thing the two Texas cities had in common was that each claimed an ex-president named Bush as a resident.

  Nick yelled over the wind noise. "You were a star football player in college?"

  Scott nodded.

  "Why didn't you go pro?"

  "Wasn't big enough."

  "You never heard of steroids?" Nick laughed. "Tour started testing golfers for steroids, like those pudgy bastards wearing stretch-waist Dockers are juiced. Hell, they should be testing them for cholesterol, number of Big Macs they put away. Course, steroids wouldn't help those fat boys anyway—they hate to work out. More wives in the fitness trailer than players. Like your wife."

  "Ex-wife."

  Nick veered off the highway without slowing and screeched to a stop at a red light. Scott turned to Nick.

  "Were they happy together?"

  "Who?"

  "Rebecca and Trey."

  Nick shrugged. "Traveling first-class around the world, staying in five-star hotels, buying everything they saw—what's not to be hap
py about?"

  "Did Trey love her?"

  "That's a hard question when it comes to pro athletes. Their one true love is the guy in the mirror. But, yeah, I think he did." He gave Scott a sympathetic glance. "Gotta be tough to hear that."

  "I'm a big boy. Was he going to marry her?"

  "Never mentioned it to me." Nick cut a glance at Scott. "Seems odd, you defending her when she dumped you for Trey."

  "It's called loyalty."

  Nick snorted. "You wouldn't last long as a sports agent. You learn pretty quick that athletes got the loyalty of a pit bull. They cheat on their agents, their wives, and their taxes. So you take care of number one."

  "Agents have a fiduciary duty, Nick. The law says you've got to put your clients' best interests ahead of your commissions."

  Nick laughed. "The law never represented a pro athlete."

  Nick steered the Beemer into a high-end suburban community in far north Houston featuring tall brick walls and a waterfall on either side of the entrance, one of the many "gated golf-course communities" that had sprung up across the nation during the easy money years, places promising private country clubs and security guards patrolling the streets 24/7 and the new American Dream: a home in a neighborhood sealed off from the rest of America, like the Green Zone in Iraq. They drove down wide paved streets of brand-new ten-thousand-square-foot homes shaded by tall pine trees and sporting foreign cars in the circle drives; it wasn't River Oaks where the old money of Houston resided, but neither was it the Fifth Ward where no money resided. This was where the new money of Houston called home.

  Nick wheeled the Beemer through the open gates of a country club with a big banner that read "Houston Classic." Nick stopped at a barricade manned by two rent-a-cops. He flashed his credentials like an FBI agent, and he got the same respect; the guards scrambled to remove the barricade. Nick accelerated across the parking lot and turned into a vacant space. The lot looked like a Cadillac showroom.

  "Courtesy cars," Nick said. "Players fly into town on private jets, get a free Caddy for the week, free hotel, free food, free everything. Nice life, long as you can stay on tour. But there's always a younger hotshot wanting to take your place in the Caddy."

  Or Ferrari.

  They got out and walked toward the entrance gate.

  "Back in the days of Arnie and Jack," Nick said, "celebrities sponsored pro golf tournaments. You had the Bob Hope, the Bing Crosby, the Frank Sinatra, the Andy Williams … then the tour went corporate. Now you've got the Mercedes-Benz, the Sony, the BMW, the Barclays, the Deutsche Bank, the Stanford St. Jude …"

  He chuckled.

  "Tour had to drop Stanford from the tournament name when the Feds indicted him for running a seven-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Allen Stanford, he lives here in Houston—actually, he's living in jail until his trial—he bought himself a knighthood on some Caribbean island, calls himself 'Sir Allen.' Guy went to college in Waco, now he thinks he's a fucking Knight of the Round Table. Can't you see him in federal prison, demanding the other inmates call him Sir Allen? Those bad boys gonna show him To Sir with Love. That was an old movie I saw on cable."

  Nick again showed his credentials at the entrance gate, and they entered the tournament grounds. The world might be mired in the worst recession since the Great Depression and Texas in the worst drought in half a century—lakes were drying up, water was rationed and cost more than gasoline, the land was so parched and brittle that one cigarette tossed out of an automobile could torch the entire state—but the recession had apparently exempted pro golf and the drought this golf course. It looked like an oasis in the Texas desert with tall pine trees lining lush green fairways and a blue lake sparkling in the distance. A plantation-style clubhouse that harkened back to the Old South stood off to one side and massive white tents to the other. A red blimp hovered overhead in the blue sky, colorful neon signs adorned the tents, loud cheers erupted every few minutes, and the air smelled of popcorn and cotton candy, all of which gave the place a circus-like atmosphere. Nick abruptly stopped and spread his arms, his face that of a kid who had just spotted the clowns.

  "What do you see, Scott?"

  Scott glanced around. "Golfers, caddies, fans …"

  Nick was shaking his head. "You see WM squared."

  "WM squared? What's that?"

  "W-M-W-M. White men with money. Affluent middle-aged white men, thirty-five to sixty-five, the target demographic for sports advertising. That's where your sports dollars are today, Scott, and that means pro golf. No other sport can offer advertisers WM squared. I made that up myself."

  Scott now noticed that the fans were in fact white and most were middle-aged men. There were no people of color in sight. It looked like Highland Park Day at the tournament.

  "What about football, basketball, baseball? Those are popular with white men."

  Nick snorted. "Working-class white men. WM squared are lawyers, doctors, CEOs—white men with incomes in excess of two hundred fifty thousand—the white guys Obama's raising taxes on." He chuckled. "This place could pass for the fucking Republican National Convention, especially the players. They hate paying taxes more than making a double-bogie." He shook his head. "You ain't gonna find anyone out here who voted for Obama, except maybe the guy shining shoes down in the locker room."

  They walked on, Nick pointing out the sights, past the white tents—"Merchandise tent … margarita tent … media tent"—the first tee and the ninth green, and white, well-dressed, and well-behaved fans. This was not the raucous atmosphere of a pro football or basketball game with loud drunken fans painted in team colors and taunting the opposing players with profanities. These fans waited patiently for their favorite golfers' autographs and politely fell silent when a player teed off or putted. Genteel applause greeted putts that dropped and empathetic groans putts that did not. The scene seemed from another sports era, perhaps not quite like the old newsreels of Yankee games with white fans dressed in their Sunday best, but the fans were still—

  "White and polite," Nick said. "That's the way WM squared want their sports, Scott. And that means golf. Go to a major league baseball game today, it's like you're at a fucking bullfight in Juarez. All the players are named Rodriguez and speaking Spanish. WM squared don't speak Spanish, Scott."

  Nick waved to a young golfer strutting past followed by his entourage.

  "And football and basketball players, they're all homeboys from the 'hood, foul-mouthed, chest-pounding, crotch-grabbing, gun-packing, tattooed-and-taunting homies who brought the 'hood culture to the pros." Nick shook his head. "WM squared don't like homies, Scott."

  Nick acknowledged another golfer trailed by kids seeking autographs.

  "Course, what do you expect? You give a twenty-year-old black kid from the ghetto ten million in cash 'cause he can dunk a basketball or catch a football, what do you think he's gonna do? Invest in a retirement account with Schwab? Hell, no. He's gonna bling himself out with a chrome-plated Hummer and gold jewelry and high-powered guns, then go back to the 'hood and show off to his homies. He ain't suddenly gonna start wearing Tommy Hilfiger."

  Nick was amused by his own words.

  "Which leaves pro golf to provide the white-and-polite, English-speaking, non-violent, suburban sports experience for WM squared."

  "Tiger's black."

  Nick dismissed that comment as if he were annoyed by a gnat.

  "Tiger transcends race. He's the best there ever was and he's a marketing machine because he's programmed like a fucking computer—at least until he drove his life into a tree." Nick shook his head. "I preach to my athletes all the time: 'Never text your mistresses!' Do they listen? No, they don't." He sighed. "But Tiger, he'll be back. WM squared will forgive him because he ain't a homie—no trash talking, no tattoos, no guns. He always acted polite, and he endorsed white man products—Nike, Tag Heuer, Gillette, Buick, American Express." Nick grinned. "Homies wouldn't be caught dead behind the wheel of a Buick and they don't carry American Express when they go sh
opping—they carry Smith & Wesson."

  He thought that was funny.

  "White and polite—that's the key to success in golf marketing, Scott. Boy scouts, not homeboys." Nick's attention was suddenly diverted. He called out to a player. "Yo, Jake! My man! You seen Goose?"

  The player's cap and clothes sported logos for a dozen different sponsors. He yelled, "Practice tee!" Nick waved a thanks to the player.

  "Jake's one of my guys, looks like a goddamned NASCAR driver. Why? Because advertisers are chasing WM squared onto the golf course. Nike started off selling sneakers, now they sell golf clubs, balls, shoes, and clothes. Under Armour, they made their name selling sports underwear endorsed by pumped-up black football players. Now they make golf clothes for fat white guys. Hell, even Clint Eastwood's got his own golf apparel company, Tehama. Good stuff."

  Nick Madden, sports agent, paused and inhaled his world.

  "This is the whitest place on the planet—a pro golf tournament. We're not at a muny course down in the Fifth Ward, Scott. We're in the suburbs, baby—because that's where WM squared lives. White men with money."

  His expression changed, as if he had had an epiphany, and he turned to Scott.

  "Can I trademark that? WM squared?"

  "Probably."

  Nick smiled. "Might be some money in that."

  "Let's find Goose."

  They found Goose on the practice range, drinking beer from a can, jotting in a little notebook, and sitting on a red golf bag with Pete Puckett stenciled down one side.

  "Hey, Goose," Nick said.

  Goose didn't look up at Nick or smile at Nick. Clyde "Goose" Dalton was a squat man with muscular legs protruding from baggy shorts and thick arms from a white T-shirt with "Who's Your Caddie Now?" printed across the front. His cap was pushed back on his head, revealing a sunburned forehead beaded with sweat. His hair was gray and pulled into a ponytail, and his matching goatee needed trimming. He had the complexion of a construction worker—

  "The fuck you want, Nick?"

  —and the vocabulary.

  "Jesus, you're still pissed off? Give it up, Goose—he's dead." Nick turned to Scott. "I got him caddied up with Trey, now he blames me because Trey stiffed him." Back to Goose: "Where's Pete?"