Deadman's Bluff - James Swain [92]
“You got a shoe fetish or something?”
“No, I just want to look at them.”
Rufus turned to the caddies. “Boys, what do you say?”
The caddies removed their spiked golf shoes and handed them over. The Greek examined each shoe, pulling forcefully at the sole.
“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