Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [102]
When he pulled around a semi, he had to cover his crotch with his hand.
The bad mood stayed with him the whole forty miles to Kent, Hoversten completely unaware of how fast he was driving. He made excellent time, though, and got to Robert’s club an hour before their tee time. That too was excellent, because he never warmed up enough and Robert always took his goddamn money. He grabbed a bucket of balls and took some heavy divots on the range, long scalps of flying turf. He hadn’t played in a while and his short game was always the first thing to go, so he worked on his pitching for longer than usual. When you hit a pitch, Gary Player says, pretend you’re striking a metch. Oh, he was feeling it today! It was breezy, but he worked himself up into a good lather. He was actually drawing the ball with some control, especially when he pretended it was Marilyn’s temple.
“Some cheater’s been practicing,” Robert said.
Hoversten hadn’t seen Dr. Stevenson come up behind him, but he’d been watching him hit, his arms crossed, a true student of the swing. They said their hellos, and Hoversten could tell, even through the long, dark tunnel of his own mood, that Robert was in a bad place himself. We’ll have ourselves a game today, he thought.
On the walk to the first tee, caddies in tow, they agreed to a five-dollar Nassau, rich for a man out of work, Hoversten thought, but he’d been killing the ball on the range, especially his driver—a nice pro flight whose low, boring trajectory climbed and climbed. They flipped, Hoversten called heads, won the honor, and striped his tee shot, stepping out of the box without even watching it land.
“That’ll hunt,” Stevenson said.
“That’s a real nice ball,” said his caddy.
Stevenson put his tee in the ground and looked down the fairway. He took a half swing, then addressed his ball. “That will hunt,” he repeated. Hoversten couldn’t help watching him set up. It was like a study in perfect form. Stevenson was a tall, handsome man, hyperfit, long-boned, and muscular, and his stance had an athletic geometry, with the inverted triangle of his upper body resting atop the triangle of his spread legs, the triangle formed by his arms hanging relaxed between his shoulders and ending in the triangle of his large hands. It was an Apollonian image, what with his high head of curly hair, and the ball was like one of his arrows—fired down the fairway a good twenty yards past Hoversten’s.
“That’s a dandy too,” said Stevenson’s caddie, already getting a head start on the three of them.
Hoversten and Stevenson said next to nothing to each other until the fourth hole, though again Hoversten couldn’t help noticing how down the man was. Oh yes, Hoversten thought, Stevenson was in a very bad place, but unfortunately it was helping his game—he’d opened birdie, birdie, par—and there were important matters to attend to, like not losing all the cash in his wallet and where to sleep tonight.
“Someone else has been practicing too,” Hoversten said, then spit.
“I can’t complain,” Stevenson said.
“I need a favor. Do you think I could stay over this evening?”
“I thought you were working with Sheppard this week.”
“I am. But I can’t be in the same room as his wife.”
Stevenson looked at him for a moment, then stepped between the markers and took his beautiful setup. But he backed off, clearing his throat. Number four was a 175-yard par three with water fifty yards short left, a small lake that fronted the green on that side, never in play for Stevenson, who always hit a power fade. Yet for some inexplicable reason he proceeded to pull his shot right into the hazard.
“Well,” he snapped, “I can’t be in the same goddamn room as him.”
He reteed and blocked his next shot so far right