Back Spin

by Harlan Coben

  Win's voice was firm. "Oscar Madison would never wear a rug. Never, I say. Felix, maybe. But Oscar? It simply cannot be."

  "It is," Myron said. "That's a hairpiece."

  "You're still thinking of the last episode," Esperanza said. "The one with Howard Cosell."

  "Yes, that's it," Win agreed with a snap of his fingers. "Howard Cosell. He wore a hairpiece."

  Myron looked up at the ceiling, exasperated. "I'm not thinking of Howard Cosell. I know the difference between Howard Cosell and Jack Klugman. I'm telling you. Klugman is sporting a rug."

  "Where's the line?" Win challenged, pointing at the screen. "I cannot see a break or a line or a discoloration. And I'm usually quite good at spotting lines."

  "I don't see it either," Esperanza added, squinting.

  "That's two against one," Win said.

  "Fine," Myron said. "Don't believe me."

  "He had his own hair on Quincy," Esperanza said.

  "No," Myron said, "he didn't."

  "Two against one," Win repeated. "Majority rules."

  "Fine," Myron repeated. "Wallow in ignorance."

  On the screen, Felix fronted for a band called Felix Unger and the Sophisticatos. They rambled through an up-tempo number with the repeated phrase "Stumbling all around." Kinda catchy.

  "What makes you so sure it's a rug?" Esperanza asked.

  "The Twilight Zone," Myron said.

  "Come again?"

  "The Twilight Zone. Jack Klugman was in at least two episodes."

  "Ah, yes," Win said. "Now, don't tell me, let me see if I remember." He paused, tapping his lip with his index finger. "The one with the little boy Pip. Played by ...?" Win knew the answer. Life with his friends was an ever-continuing game of Useless Trivia.

  "Bill Mumy." It was Esperanza.

  Win nodded. "Whose most famous role was ...?"

  "Will Robinson," Esperanza said. "Lost in Space."

  "Remember Judy Robinson?" Win sighed. "Quite the Earth babe, no?"

  "Except," Esperanza interjected, "what was up with her clothes? Kmart velour sweaters for space travel? Who came up with that one?"

  "And we cannot forget the effervescent Dr. Zachery Smith," Win added. "The first gay character on series TV."

  "Scheming, conniving, gutless--with a hint of pedophilia," Esperanza said with a shake of her head. "He set back the movement twenty years."

  Win grabbed another slice of pizza. The pizza box was white with red-and-green lettering and had the classic caricature of a heavy-set chef twirling a thin mustache with his finger. The box read--and this is absolutely true:

  Whether it's a pizza or submarine,

  We buy the best,

  To prepare the best,

  And leave it to you for the rest.

  Wordsworth.

  "I don't recall Mr. Klugman's second Twilight Zone," Win said.

  "The one with the pool player," Myron answered. "Jonathan Winters was in it too."

  "Ah, yes," Win said with a serious nod. "Now I remember. Jonathan Winters's ghost shoots pool against Mr. Klugman's character. For bragging rights or some such thing."

  "Correct answer."

  "So what do those two Twilight Zone episodes have to do with Mr. Klugman's hair?"

  "You got them on tape?"

  Win paused. "I believe that I do. I taped the last Twilight Zone marathon. One of those episodes is bound to be on it."

  "Let's find it," Myron said.

  It took the three of them almost twenty minutes of sifting through his vast video collection before they finally found the episode with Bill Mumy. Win put it in the VCR and reclaimed his couch. They watched in silence.

  Several minutes later, Esperanza said, "I'll be damned."

  A black-and-white Jack Klugman was calling out "Pip," the name of his dead son, his tormented cries chasing a tender apparition from his past. The scene was quite moving, but also very much beside the point. The key factor, of course, was that even though this episode predated the Odd Couple by some ten years, Jack Klugman's hairline was in a serious state of retreat.

  Win shook his head. "You are good," he said in a hushed voice. "So very good." He looked at Myron. "I am truly humbled to be in your presence."

  "Don't feel bad," Myron said. "You're special in your own way."

  This was about as heavy as the conversation got.

  They laughed. They joked. They made fun of one another. No one talked about a kidnapping or the Coldrens or business or money matters or landing Tad Crispin or the severed finger of a sixteen-year-old boy.

  Win dozed off first. Then Esperanza. Myron tried to call Jessica again, but there was no answer. No surprise. Jessica often didn't sleep well. Taking walks, she claimed, inspired her. He heard her voice on the machine and felt something inside him plunge. When the beep came on, he left a message: "I love you," he said. "I will always love you."

  He hung up. He crawled back onto the couch and pulled the cover up to his neck.

  21

  When Myron arrived at Merion Golf Club the next morning, he wondered briefly if Linda Coldren had told Jack about the severed finger. She had. By the third hole, Jack had already dropped three strokes off his lead. His complexion was cartoon Casper. His eyes were as vacant as the Bates Motel, his shoulders slumped like bags of wet peat moss.

  Win frowned. "Guess that finger thing is bothering him."

  Mr. Insight.

  "That sensitivity workshop," Myron said, "it's really starting to pay off."

  "I did not expect Jack's collapse to be so total."

  "Win, his son's finger was chopped off by a kidnapper. That's the kind of thing that could distract someone."

  "I guess." Win didn't sound convinced. He turned away and started heading up the fairway. "Did Crispin show you the numbers in his Zoom deal?"

  "Yes," Myron said.

  "And?"

  "And he got robbed."

  Win nodded. "Not much you can do about it now."

  "Plenty I can do about it," Myron said. "It's called renegotiate."

  "Crispin signed a deal," Win said.

  "So?"

  "Please do not tell me that you want him to back out of it."

  "I didn't say I wanted him to back out. I said I wanted to renegotiate."

  " 'Renegotiate,' " Win repeated as though the word tasted vinegary. He continued trudging up the fairway. "How come an athlete who performs poorly never renegotiates? How come you never see a player who has a terrible season restructure his deal downward?"

  "Good point," Myron said. "But, you see, I have this job description. It reads something like this: Get the most money I can for a client."

  "And ethics be damned."

  "Whoa, where did that come from? I may search for legal loopholes, but I always play by the rules."

  "You sound like a criminal defense attorney," Win said.

  "Ooo, now that's a low blow," Myron said.

  The crowd was getting caught up in the unfolding drama in an almost disturbing way. The whole experience was like watching a car crash in super slow motion. You were horrified; you stared; and part of you almost cheered the misfortune of a fellow human being. You gaped, wondering about the outcome, almost hoping the crash would be fatal. Jack Coldren was slowly dying. His heart was crumbling like brown leaves caught in a closed fist. You saw it all happening. And you wanted it to continue.

  On the fifth hole Myron and Win met up with Norm Zuckerman and Esme Fong. They were both on edge, especially Esme, but then again she had a hell of a lot riding on this round. On the eighth hole they watched Jack miss an easy putt. Stroke by stroke, the lead shrank from insurmountable to comfortable to nail-biting.

  On the back nine Jack managed to control the hemorrhaging a bit. He continued to play poorly, but with only three holes left to play, Jack was still hanging on to a two-stroke lead. Tad Crispin was applying pressure, but it would still take a fairly major gaffe on Jack Coldren's part for Tad to win.

  Then it happened.

&n
bsp; The sixteenth hole. The same hazard that had laid waste to Jack's dream twenty-three years ago. Both men started off fine. They hit good tee-shots to what Win called "a slightly offset fairway." Uh-huh. But on Jack's second shot, disaster struck. He came over the top and left the sucker short. Way short.

  The ball landed in the stone quarry.

  The crowd gasped. Myron watched in horror. Jack had done the unthinkable. Again.

  Norm Zuckerman nudged Myron. "I'm moist," he said giddily. "Swear to God, I'm moist in my nether regions. Go ahead, feel for yourself."

  "I'll take your word for it, Norm."

  Myron turned to Esme Fong. Her face lit up. "Me too," she said.

  A more intriguing proposal but still no sale.

  Jack Coldren barely reacted, as if some internal wiring had shorted out. He was not waving a white flag, but it looked like he should have been.

  Tad Crispin took advantage. He hit a fine approach shot and was left with an eight-foot putt that would give him the lead. As young Tad stood over the ball, the silence in the gallery was overwhelming--not just the crowd, but it was as if the nearby traffic and overhead planes and even the grass, the trees, the very course had all aligned themselves against Jack Coldren.

  This was big-time pressure. And Tad Crispin responded in a big way.

  When the putt dropped into the cup, there was no polite golf clap. The crowd erupted like Vesuvius in the last days. The sound spilled forward in a powerful wave, warming the young newcomer and sweeping aside the dying warhorse. Everyone seemed to want this. Everyone wanted to crown Tad Crispin and behead Jack Coldren. The young handsome man against the ruffled veteran--it was like the golf equivalent of the Nixon-Kennedy debates.

  "What a yip master," someone said.

  "A major case of the yips," another agreed.

  Myron looked a question at Win.

  "Yip," Win said. "The latest euphemism for choke."

  Myron nodded. There was nothing worse you could call an athlete. It was okay to be untalented or to screw up or to have an off day--but not to choke. Never to choke. Chokers were gutless. Chokers had their very manhood questioned. Being called a choker was tantamount to standing naked in front of a beautiful woman while she pointed and laughed.

  Er, or so Myron imagined.

  He spotted Linda Coldren in a private grandstand tent overlooking the eighteenth hole. She wore sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low. Myron looked up at her. She did not look back. Her expression was one of mild confusion, like she was working on a math word problem or trying to recall the name behind a familiar face. For some reason, the expression troubled Myron. He stayed in her line of vision, hoping she'd signal to him. She didn't.

  Tad Crispin took a one-stroke lead into the final hole. The other golfers were finished for the day, many coming out and standing around the eighteenth green to watch the final act of golf's greatest collapse.

  Win started playing Mr. Merion. "The eighteenth hole is a four hundred and sixty-five yard, par four," he began. "The tee is in the stone quarry. You need to hit it up the hill--a two-hundred-yard carry."

  "I see," Myron said. Huh?

  Tad was up first. He hit what looked like a good, solid drive. The gallery did that polite golf-clap thing. Jack Coldren took his turn. His shot climbed higher, seemingly pulling itself against the elements.

  "Very nice golf shot," Win said. "Super."

  Myron turned to Esme Fong. "What happens if it ends in a tie? Sudden death?"

  Esme shook her head. "Other tournaments, yes. But not at the Open. They make both players come back tomorrow and play a whole round."

  "All eighteen holes?"

  "Yes."

  Tad's second shot left him just short of the green.

  "A solid golf shot," Win informed him. "Sets him up nicely for the par."

  Jack took out an iron and approached the ball.

  Win smiled at Myron. "Recognize this?"

  Myron squinted. Deja vu swarmed in. He was no golf fan, but from this angle even he recognized the spot. Win kept the picture on his credenza at the office. Almost every golf book or golf pub or golf whatever had the photograph. Ben Hogan had stood exactly where Jack Coldren now stood. In 1950 or thereabouts. Hogan had stroked the famous one-iron that had made him the U.S. Open champion. It was the golf equivalent of "Havlicek stole the ball!"

  As Jack took his practice swing, Myron could not help but wonder about old ghosts and strange possibilities.

  "He has an almost impossible task," Win said.

  "Why's that?"

  "The pin placement is brutal today. Behind that yawning bunker."

  A yawning bunker? Myron did not bother asking.

  Jack fired a long iron at the green. He reached it, but as Win had predicted, he still left himself a good twenty-plus feet away. Tad Crispin took his third shot, a beautiful little chip that came to rest within six inches of the hole. Tad tapped it in for par. That meant that Jack had no chance of winning in regulation. The best he could do was force a tie. If he made this putt.

  "A twenty-two-foot putt," Win said with a grim shake of the head. "No chance."

  He had said twenty-two feet--not twenty-one feet or twenty-three feet. Twenty-two feet. Win could tell from a quick glance from over fifty yards away. Golfers. Go figure.

  Jack Coldren strolled to the green. He bent down, picked up his ball, put down a marker, picked up the marker, put down the ball again in the exact same spot. Myron shook his head. Golfers.

  Jack looked very far away, like he was putting from New Jersey. Think about it. He was twenty-two feet away from a hole four-and-a-quarter inches in diameter. Break out a calculator. Do the math.

  Myron, Win, Esme, and Norm waited. This was it. The coup de grace. The part where the matador finally drives the long, thin blade home.

  But as Jack studied the break in the green, some sort of transformation seemed to take place. The fleshy features hardened. The eyes became focused and steely and--though it was probably Myron's imagination--a hint of yesterday's "eye" seemed to flint up in them. Myron looked behind him. Linda Coldren had spotted the change too. For a brief moment she let her attention slip and her eyes sought out Myron's, as if for confirmation. Before Myron could do more than meet her gaze, she looked away.

  Jack Coldren took his time. He read the green from several angles. He squatted down, his club pointing in front of him the way golfers do. He talked to Diane Hoffman at some length. But once he addressed the ball, there was no hesitation. The club went back like a metronome and kissed the ball hard on the way down.

  The tiny white sphere carrying all of Jack Coldren's dreams circled toward the hole like an eagle seeking its prey. There was no question in Myron's mind. The pull was almost magnetic. Several seemingly infinite seconds later, the tiny white sphere dropped to the bottom of the hole with an audible clink. For a moment there was silence and then another eruption, this one more from surprise than exhilaration. Myron found himself applauding wildly.

  Jack had done it. He'd tied the score.

  Over the crowd's cacophony, Norm Zuckerman said, "This is beautiful, Esme. The whole world will be watching tomorrow. The exposure will be incredible."

  Esme looked stunned. "Only if Tad wins."

  "What do you mean?"

  "What if Tad loses?"

  "Hey, second place at the U.S. Open?" Norm said, palms up to the sky. "Not bad, Esme. Not bad at all. That's where we were this morning. Before all this happened. Nothing lost, nothing gained."

  Esme Fong shook her head. "If Tad loses now, he doesn't come in second place. He's just a loser. He would have gone one-on-one with a famed choke-artist and lost. Outchoked the ultimate choker. It'll be worse than the Buffalo Bills."

  Norm made a scoffing noise. "You worry too much, Esme," he said, but his usual bluster had tapered off.

  The crowd began to dissipate, but Jack Coldren just stood in the same position, still holding his putter. He did not celebrate. He did not move, even when Diane Hoff
man began to pound his back. His features seemed to lose their tone again, his eyes suddenly more glazed than ever. It was as if the effort of that one stroke had drained every ounce of energy, karma, strength, life force right out of him.

  Or maybe, Myron wondered, there was something else at work here. Something deeper. Maybe that last moment of magic had given Jack some new insight--some new life clarity--as to the relative, long-term importance of this tournament. Everyone else saw a man who had just sunk the most important putt of his life. But maybe Jack Coldren saw a man standing alone wondering what the big deal was and if his only son was still alive.

  Linda Coldren appeared on the fringe of the green. She tried to look enthusiastic as she approached her husband and dutifully kissed him. A television crew followed her. Long-lensed cameras clicked and their flashes strobed. A sportscaster came up to them, microphone at the ready. Linda and Jack both managed to smile.

  But behind the smiles, Linda looked almost wary. And Jack looked positively terrified.

  22

  Esperanza had come up with a plan. "Lloyd Rennart's widow's name is Francine. She's an artist." "What kind?"

  "I don't know. Painting, sculpture--what's the difference?"

  "Just curious. Go ahead."

  "I called her up and said that you were a reporter for the Coastal Star. It's a local paper in the Spring Lake area. You are doing a lifestyle piece on several local artists."

  Myron nodded. It was a good plan. People rarely refuse the chance to be interviewed for self-promoting puff pieces.

  Win had already gotten Myron's car windows fixed. How, Myron had no idea. The rich. They're different.

  The ride took about two hours. It was eight o'clock Sunday night. Tomorrow Linda and Jack Coldren would drop off the ransom money. How would it be done? A meeting in a public place? A go-between? For the umpteenth time, he wondered how Linda and Jack and Chad were faring. He took out the photograph of Chad. He imagined what Chad's young, carefree face must have looked like when his finger was being severed off. He wondered if the kidnapper had used a sharp knife or a cleaver or an axe or a saw or what.

  He wondered what it felt like.

  Francine Rennart lived in Spring Lake Heights, not Spring Lake. There was a big difference. Spring Lake was on the Atlantic Ocean and about as beautiful a shore town as you could hope to find. There was plenty of sun, very little crime, and almost no ethnics. It was a problem, actually. The wealthy town was nicknamed the Irish Riviera. That meant no good restaurants. None. The town's idea of haute cuisine was food served on a plate rather than in a basket. If you craved exotic, you drove to a Chinese take-out place whose eclectic menu included such rare delicacies as chicken chow mein, and for the especially adventurous, chicken lo mein. This was the problem with some of these towns. They needed some Jews or gays or something to spice things up, to add a bit of theater and a couple of interesting bistros.