“What are you doing?” Marcy Baldwin called from the golf cart.
“I’m making sure the soles don’t come off,” the Greek said. “I had a guy trick me one time. His caddy’s shoes had removable soles. Every time his ball went into the rough, his caddy picked up the ball with his toes, and dropped it in a favorable lie.”
“Ha!” Marcy Baldwin said.
“‘Ha’ is right,” the Greek said. Finished, he handed the shoes back to the caddies. “Don’t let me catch you pulling any fast stuff, hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” they both said.
The Greek went to his bag and pulled out his driver, then removed three brand-new golf balls from the bag’s side pocket. He walked over to the first hole, teed up a ball, and drove it 250 yards down the fairway, then teed up two more balls, and drove them equally as far. His swing was clean and pure, and Valentine and Gloria craned their necks, watching the balls fly gracefully through the air.
“I’ll use the third ball,” the Greek said.
“Third ball, it is,” Rufus said.
Rufus teed up, and drove his ball 150 yards down the fairway. His swing was awkward and ugly, its only saving grace that it made the ball go straight.
The Greek burst out laughing. His ball was a hundred yards closer to the pin than Rufus’s. He hopped into the golf cart and Marcy gave him a kiss.
“Good going, honey,” she said.
By the ninth hole, the Greek was ahead by eleven shots, and insulting Rufus at every opportunity. The Greek had finally found a game he could win, and was doing victory dances on the greens each time he sank a putt.
“This is insulting,” Gloria said, sitting in a golf cart with Valentine. “Go sock him in the nose, will you?”
Valentine was at the wheel. She knew him too well, and he said, “I would, but there are witnesses.”
“I’ll lift my blouse and distract them,” she said.
He tried not to laugh too loudly and glanced at Rufus standing on the edge of the green, trading one-liners with his caddy. He’d helped Rufus win a lot of money in the past few days, and Rufus had given him his share that morning. Valentine had already decided that he wasn’t going to keep it, and now had an idea where it should go.
“Do you know anything about wiring money?” he asked Gloria.
“I’ve done it a few times. Why?”
“There’s a woman in Atlantic City I want to send the money Rufus gave me.”
“Is this woman someone I should know about?”
He nearly said yes. The case had started with Jack Donovan trying to sell his poker scam so he could give his poor mother in Atlantic City money to live on. That had been Jack’s dying wish, and now he was going to fulfill it.
“Just trying to help someone out,” he said.
Gloria’s arm encircled his waist. She pulled close to him and kissed him on the lips. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she said.
By the time they reached the thirteenth hole, the Greek appeared to be a sure winner. His victory dances had gotten longer, with him snapping his fingers and puffing out his chest like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof.Then a strange thing happened.
The Greek teed up his first ball and hit his drive. Instead of flying straight and true, the ball shanked left and flew over a stand of trees, landing on the fairway of the third hole, which ran parallel to the thirteenth. Cursing, he teed up his second ball, and again shanked it left. In disgust he teed up his third ball and smacked it. The result was exactly the same.
“Those balls are out of bounds. That’s a two-stroke penalty,” Rufus said.
“I know the rules,” the Greek said testily.
The Greek pulled three more balls from his bag, teed up the first, and drove it. The ball again shanked left. Moments later, they heard a golfer on the third hole let out an angry yell.
“Sounds like you hit someone,” Rufus said.
The Greek shanked his second ball left, and his third. The yelling from the third hole became a bellowing rage.
“That’s another two-stroke penalty,” Rufus said.
“Shut up!” the Greek roared.
“He’s playing like he couldn’t hit the side of a barn,” Gloria said under her breath.
Valentine leaned back in his seat, seeing the trick that Rufus had played on the Greek. Driving a golf ball required a lot of arm strength, and the Greek had exhausted his muscles by driving the ball three times each hole. The Greek could have beaten Rufus without the extra strokes, but had let his desire to win cloud his judgment.
The Greek continued to shank balls, ignoring calls from Marcy Baldwin and the suckers to take a break and rest his weary arms. Then a man wearing loud golf clothes appeared with a sheriff in tow. The man had a sizeable welt on his forehead, and angrily pointed at the Greek. “That’s him! He’s the one who hit me.”
The sheriff told the Greek to stop what he was doing. The Greek ignored him, and continued to shank his drives like a man possessed. The sheriff waited until he’d run out of balls, then arrested him. As the sheriff escorted him away from the hole, Rufus came up from behind, and tapped the Greek’s shoulder.
“I win,” Rufus said.
42
Valentine drove Gloria back to the clubhouse in a golf cart. Rufus was ahead of them in a separate cart, having collected his winnings from a sobbing Marcy Baldwin. Seeing Rufus win had ignited a spark in him, and Valentine was eager for the tournament to end so that Rufus could play DeMarco in a winner-take-all showdown.
“Can I ask you a question?” Gloria asked.
He glanced sideways at her. “What’s that?”
“Will you let me film you when you expose DeMarco?”
Valentine thought about it. It would be an ugly black eye for the tournament, and the governor of Nevada.
“Sure,” he said.
She smiled at him. He’d come to the realization that Gloria was about to become a part of his life. He couldn’t have asked for a more perfect ending to his trip.
Up ahead, Rufus’s cart had disappeared around a curve, and they were alone on the course. It was a flawless morning, the air crisp and clean, and he slowed down so they could stare at the mountains. The sound of an electric horn ripped through the stillness.
He glanced in his mirror. “What’s this jackass doing?”
“Who?” Gloria asked.
“The guy behind me. He’s driving like a suicide bomber.”
She turned around. A cart had come up behind them, and was hugging their tail. She waved for the cart to come around, which it started to do. The trail narrowed, and the cart’s driver needed to punch it to pass them.
Only the driver didn’t punch it. Instead, he turned his cart into theirs, and pushed them off the trail and down into a steep sand trap. Moments later, their cart hit bottom and slammed onto its side, the wheels still turning.
“Ohhh,” Gloria moaned.
She’d eaten the dashboard, and Valentine jumped out of the cart, came around to her side, and pulled her out. He heard footsteps and looked up at the top of the trap. The guy who’d forced them off the road was coming down.
“Can you run?” he asked her.
“I think so.”
He gently pushed her forward. “Go get help.”
The other side of the trap was not as steep. Gloria ran up it, her hand pressed to her face. She stopped at the top of the trap.
“Tony!”
“Run,” Valentine told her.
“But…”
“Do as I tell you. Please.”
Valentine spun around to face their attacker.
Little Hands saw Valentine kick off his shoes and square off to face him. For an older guy, he had guts, and Little Hands remembered Billy Jack doing that in a movie instead of running away from a fight with about a dozen guys. On the other side of the sand trap, the blond woman had taken off. The golf course was quiet, and it would be a few minutes before she’d find any help. He came to the bottom of the trap and stopped.
“Remember me?”
Valentine squinted at him in the bright sunlight. “Al Scarpi.”
“That’s right.”
“Thanks for the postcards. You made my Christmas.”
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”