Your cousin and buddy
Charlie, my friend, if you knew the kind of people your erstwhile cousin hung out with, you wouldn’t be Ha! Ha!’ing quite so much. Bad-ass dobermans are not much use against shotguns, arsonists, and crooked cops.
I tossed the letter into the glove compartment. Augie Dougall was headed to Cathedral City now, running from the frying pan into fire. If he traveled by bus his most logical point of departure would be Santa Monica Greyhound on 5th and Broadway. I drove there, fast.
The woman at the counter told me an extremely tall funny-looking man aged about fifty had purchased a ticket for the 7:15 bus for Palm Springs. That was enough for me. I hit the Santa Monica Freeway to the Harbor, to the Pomona. Soon I was passing through the depressing Eastern suburbs of L.A. with my top up, air conditioner on full and cassette player blasting Wagner. I was filled with expectancy and the calm certainty that whatever awaited me in the desert would not be dull.
I stopped in Riverside for gas, then switched on the radio for the rest of my journey. I found a Palm Springs station and lucked into a news report on the caddy killings. It was obvious they had taken the desert resort community by storm. The newscaster went on dramatically: there were no clues, the motive was still “up in the air,” Gaither and Marchion had no known next of kin, while George Hansen’s wife had been informed of his death. Another newscaster took over and announced that he had a Special Report on the world of caddies. I turned the volume up.
The newsman, his voice dripping with sentiment, began:
“I’ve known a lot of caddies in my time. A lot. They’re a strange, adventurous lot. A group of men for whom freedom and love of golf reign supreme. Many of them have given up on the idea of family life and a nine-to-five job just to be where the golf action is. Caddies love golf and they know the courses where they work like the backs of their hands. And what golf stories they have to tell!!
“When I was broadcasting at KMPC in Los Angeles, it was my pleasure to play golf with Dick Whittinghill at picturesque Lakeside Country Club in North Hollywood. I remember one caddy we had, a scruffy character named Leo. Leo was a golf authority who compared certain aspects of Dick’s swing to that of the great Jimmy Demarit. Dick used to keep a bottle of vodka in his bag and he often invited Leo to join him in a drink. It was Leo’s custom to walk ahead of his players to identify their balls. Dick would always yell to him ‘Have I got a shot, Leo?’ and Leo would drop the bags and do a little jig right there on the golf course! It was wonderful to see! One day Dick hit his ball right up behind a tree. It was a crucial shot. Dick and I were playing a five dollar Nassau and he needed to win this hole. Leo wasn’t dancing any jigs when he walked to Dick’s ball. When Dick called out ‘Have I got a shot to the green, Leo?’ Leo called back, ‘You have several shots to the green, Mr. Whittinghill!’ Spoken like a true caddy!
“Caddies are being phased out, sadly, in favor of golf carts. What a shame. A caddy can take ten shots off a high handicappers game. The pro’s couldn’t do without their caddies. I’ve known a lot of caddies, yes sir. Some drank too much, some talked too much, and some were too opinionated. But I have never met a stupid caddy or one who didn’t love the game of golf and the club where he worked.
“Now this tragedy. Right here in Palm Springs, the golf capital of the world. The authorities tell us there were drugs involved! I say ‘Baloney.’ I have known many caddies who imbibed a bit too much, but never have I known a caddy to take drugs! Never have I known a caddy who would knowingly disgrace the game of golf!
“Robert Marchion, George Hansen, Stanley Gaither, the heart of every golfer in America mourns for you and prays for a swift, merciless justice for your killer. We thank you from the bottom of our collective heart for your service — greens read well, good yardage calls, traps raked and heavy bags cheerfully toted. God bless you in your final resting place. This is Don Castleberry, signing off with Special Report. Have a good day.”
I couldn’t think for my sudden anger. My mind was seized with a boundless hatred for America. America, with its optimism, boosterism, and yahooism that opted for sentiment over truth every time. America, that would turn the truth of the lives and deaths of three men into a cheap advertisement for an infantile game.
After a few moments my anger subsided. I was in the desert now, the smog was behind me. It was sweltering outside, but the arid landscape was beautiful. I was snug in my air-conditioned cocoon, and in the matter of the people versus Haywood Cathcart, Richard Ralston, and Fat Dog Baker, I was the arbiter of justice, not America.
Palm Springs shot up in the distance, a green shimmering oasis in my tinted windshield. Cathedral City, if my memory served me, was to the southeast of the Springs, a working-class community on the edge of the desert mountain range. I got Augie Dougall’s letter out of the glove compartment and checked the return address: Charles Dougall, 18319 Eucalyptus Road, Cathedral City.
I passed through Palm Springs on Palm Canyon Drive, the ritzy main drag. The expensive boutiques and gift shops that lined its immaculate sidewalks were closed for the summer. Only a few restaurants, coffee shops, and gas stations seemed to be open. The few people about seemed in a hurry, rushing toward some air-conditioned sanctuary. I took Palm Canyon out of town to where it turned into a desert highway, winding around to Cathedral City and Indio.
Cathedral City was as I remembered it — dusty residential streets crowded with old wood frame and faded stucco houses reaching up toward some scrub-covered mountain too insignificant to name. I bumbled on to Eucalyptus Road, almost missing it, jamming right at the last second. I put my car in low and climbed up slowly, scanning the house numbers.
18319 was midway between highway and mountainside. It was white with aluminum siding, the dream house of a modest dreamer. There were small statues of forest animals guarding both sides of the narrow walkway. They had been pink once, but were now faded almost white by the sun. I parked and alighted from my car, shedding my suitcoat as the sun hit me like a blast furnace. I rang the doorbell and was answered by a dog’s furious barking. Old bad-ass Rudolf, no doubt. I rang again. There was no one but Rudolf at home.
I drove to a gas station, and asked the attendant if he knew where the freeway embankment was where the three guys got shot. I gave him a big ghoulish smile. He returned it and we related, one ghoul to another. Before giving me detailed instructions on how to find it, he elaborated his theory of the killings: the “Mafia” was responsible. The three dead caddies wouldn’t cut them in on their golf course dope action, so they had to be “snuffed.”
I thanked him for his help and took off for the scene of the crime. I was there within five minutes. It was just an innocuous freeway off-ramp, the wide overpass providing shelter from the sun. It looked like a good place to get drunk and shoot the shit. Only today the sand flats on both sides of the roadway were jammed with cars, working-class men in Bermuda shorts, housewives with children in tow and low-rider types in tank tops and cut-offs, spilling forward to see the place where death and drama happened. I joined them and right away found my prey in the middle of the crowd, standing a head taller than everyone else.