The plan was so ingenious that it gave Gordon a warm feeling inside, a premature sense of accomplishment. Number eleven was a short hole and there was a bit of swamp alongside the fairway in which he could hide and watch both the tee and the lie of the ball. His dog Lesly, perhaps the best bird dog in the South (everybody said that about their quail dogs), was intricately involved.
Having shaved each of the punji stakes to a point as fine or finer than the $400 Shun Hiro Honesuki knife, he gathered the pieces and placed them in a preheated 375-degree oven where they would bake all night. In the morning he would plunge them into a bucket of ice water, and when they had dried they would be as razor sharp and strong as the tempered steel in the Shun Hiro. The Viet Cong dug punji pits on trails everywhere Americans patrolled and not a few soldiers were maimed and even died from their wounds. The bamboo stakes were so strong they would actually go through the soles of leather boots until the army wised up and put metal plates in the soles, but that didn’t make walking patrol any easier. The worst thing was that the Viet Cong smeared the tips of the stakes with human feces to create horrible and dangerous infections. That would be the finishing touch, Gordon thought, knowing full well where he would obtain the feces for that rat Horace Dumpler. There would be no steel plates in boots here. Only flimsy golf shoes. Gordon rubbed his hands.
While the stakes were baking in the oven, Gordon got into his truck with a shovel and drove to the Lakewood golf course of the Grand Hotel, and trudged to the eleventh hole, Dogwood run, now bathed in the light of a silver three-quarter April moon. He’d already sighted in the spot for his pit and had brought a small wheelbarrow with him to dispose of the excess dirt.
Lesly’s role had been well rehearsed. He would hide in the swamp with Gordon until Horace Dumpler and his companions appeared on the eleventh tee. It was a fairly long way off but Gordon would be able to identify Dumpler because as a hunchback he never used a driver or even irons — he always used his putter, even to tee off. That might seem ridiculous but he’d perfected long putts up to fifty yards, and on a short hole he could be on the green in three shots; once there, he was deadly at the cup. Gordon had watched him every day since he’d arrived. At the cup, Horace Dumpler cleaned up.
The trick was to watch and make sure Dumpler was up to drive — or putt, or whatever it was he did — and then, when the ball got down close to the green (and the punji pit), it was Lesly’s time to go into action. On Gordon’s signal he would rush out and grab the ball and deposit it just on the far side of the punji pit, so that Dumpler would have to address his shot by standing on the pit — then, voilà! For the time being Gordon had put a piece of plywood over the hole, covered with leaves to disguise it, but as Dumpler’s foursome neared, he would replace it with a light screen, camouflaged with leaves, which would immediately collapse when stood upon.
He could picture Dumpler writhing in agony when he fell into the pit, one or more of the deadly stakes driven into his feet and legs. Infection would begin immediately. Death, hopefully, would follow.
The first of the foursome teed up his ball. He drove a shot that landed square in the fairway, about forty yards from the pit. Gordon held Lesly back by his collar and he struggled to break free.
The others took their turns and then Dumpler addressed the ball with his putter. His first putt was straight down the middle of the fairway, but about a hundred yards distant. Dumpler, in his peculiar crouch, ambled down from the green toward his ball. Apparently it was the practice of the others to let their boss take more shots out of turn in order to catch up.
Dumpler hit his putt, which rolled to a stop within ten yards of the green and about fifteen yards from the punji pit. Gordon released Lesly’s collar and he shot out from the edge of the swamp and scooped up Dumpler’s ball with one smooth motion, turned, and trotted over to the lip of the pit and dropped it on the ground.
It all happened so fast that no one in Dumpler’s party seemed to notice.
That bastard, Gordon thought. Probably has these clowns playing with him on taxpayer money — hundred-dollar green fee — five times a week, plus meals, drinks, rooms, tips. Probably costing the taxpayers five grand. Maybe more. Bastard!
Dumpler approached his ball with a frown on his face. The others were standing around at the edges of the green, waiting. Gordon felt his throat tighten.
Dumpler had carried his putter over his shoulder but now swung it down as he reached the ball. He stood just beyond the leafy spot and scratched his ass, looking from the ball to the green. It seemed to Gordon that he could have used a 9-iron here, even with his hunchback crouch, but he kept to the putter.
Dumpler took a step forward onto the top of the pit. As his foot was still in the air, Gordon caught his breath and grimaced. The foot hit the pit. Nothing happened. The other foot stood on the pit as well, and Dumpler addressed the ball.
“Scheisse!” Gordon hissed, and slapped his forehead. He had forgotten to remove the plywood and insert the screen. Dumpler made his putt, which rolled right up the slope and onto the green. He then hunched over the ball and knocked it right into the cup. The others began to nod and clap. Dumpler smiled. The golfing party moved on.
Gordon sat at his kitchen table, steaming. It had been one of the dumbest mistakes he’d ever made, but he was determined to make up for it.
Later that afternoon he sidled up to one of the bellmen at the Grand Hotel and inquired what room Mr. Horace Dumpler was in. “I have a gift for him,” Gordon told the man nicely.
All through the cocktail hour and dinner Gordon secretly watched the Dumpler party. After dinner (in the most expensive restaurant in the hotel — steaks and champagne all around) they repaired to Bucky’s Birdcage Lounge for nightcaps. The men sat at the bar talking to several women, one of whom was, of all things, a dwarf, apparently on holiday. Gordon shook his head. He watched as long as he could, then snuck out and got his old golf bag, which he had left with the parking valet. Inside was a large, heavy, finely sharpened ax, a length of rope, an eyebolt, a small collapsible ladder, a measuring stick, a stud detector, a metal rod, a portable drill, and some light string.
He hid in the bushes waiting for Dumpler and his friends to go by; it was close to midnight when he heard them coming. It was too dark to see but they were headed back to their building, which was on the harbor where the boats were docked. Fourth floor. They had adjoining rooms.
Gordon gave it an hour and then went into action. He entered the building in the parking garage and took the elevator to the fourth floor. When he got to Dumpler’s room he put his ear to the door. Dead to the world inside.
He worked quickly, taking out the ladder, the drill, and the eyebolt. In the ceiling Gordon made a small hole in a stud that was, fortuitously, directly in line with Dumpler’s door. He used the metal rod to screw the eyebolt into the wood.
Bastard! he thought. Probably wasted a thousand bucks more of the taxpayers’ money tonight, and he wants to put me, an honest working man, out of business.
Gordon used the measuring stick to cut the rope so that it would put the ax exactly five feet and four inches high in the doorway. That’s how tall he figured Dumpler was. He tied the rope securely around the end of the ax handle and ran the rope through the eyebolt, winching the ax tightly against the ceiling; then he affixed the light string to the end of the rope and put the ladder and the drill away.
Gently, on tiptoes, Gordon tied the end of the string to the doorknob of Dumpler’s room. He moved the golf bag around a corner, then marched up to Dumpler’s door and banged on it five times with his fist. In a crack beneath the door he could see a light come on, and then he heard a voice complain.