Like
all bad ideas, it started out life as a simple one.
Richard
was an awful golfer and a degenerate gambler with an ex-wife he
despised. I was making moderate bank as his golfing
coach-cum-therapist at the Cedar County Golf Club, while I built up
my book.
Richard
had a lot of cash and liked to spread it around. Making bets and
losing them. He always paid out big. Put my eldest boy through his
first year of college.
You
could say he was my best customer and my best friend.
One
afternoon, we were on the eleventh hole, and he started in on the ex
again. It was routine, but I was disappointed as hell. While he was
ranting, he wasn’t gambling. He’d be cussing her out for hours.
No cash injection for me that week. I’d been counting on that
money. Had alimony to pay for my second wife. The State had been on
my back about it.
Richard
tossed his club down on the green. Turned to fix those black eyes on
me and put a manicured finger to his temple like a pistol. Told me he
wanted to blow his brains out. Said he was passed depressed because
he couldn’t protect his two little girls. Told me his ex-wife,
Elizabeth was beating the kids. Ditto the piece of shit she’d taken
up with. Some kind of doctor or pharmaceutical salesman or something
or other.
I
just nodded. Making the same sympathetic noises I’d been making for
the last nine months since the pair of them had split. Taking a
couple of steps back. Richard spat when he talked. He waved his
skinny arms around in the air, raving he’d tried every kind of
legal means to get her to stop the abuse. Nothing had worked, he
said. The Justice system had failed him. He was at his wits end.
Divorced
two times myself, I felt bad for the guy, but he’d brought i
t on
himself. He’d fucked every waitress at the golf club. Got one of
them pregnant even. Richard may have been a millionaire, but he
wasn’t smart. Making stupid life decisions and stupid bets. Maybe
having that kind of cash made a man foolish. I wouldn’t have known
either way. I was smart and broke.
On
the twelfth hole he suggested it. A beating. A beating would get her
to stop, he said. I laughed at first of course, that kind of laugh
you do when someone says something completely insane and you’re
sure they’ve got to be yanking your chain. Richard wasn’t joking.
He glared at me. I shook my head, told him that was only going to
make things much worse. It was crazy talk, though I didn’t say
that. He was my best customer and best friend.
I
changed the topic. Talked about the weather and baseball for the last
couple of holes and then gave up, fell into a sharp silence. Richard
ruminated.
Driving
back to the clubhouse, he told me to pull the golf cart over into the
shade underneath an oak tree and said, “I'll give you thirty
percent.”
“Thirty
percent of what?” I said.
“You
know I’m investing twenty million dollars into that new golf-course
project, right? Well, I’ll give you thirty percent of that. If…”
“If
what?” I said.
“If
you handle the thing with Elizabeth. That thing we were talking about
earlier.”
“Come
on, man. I’d never slap around a woman. It just isn’t me.”
“You
know people who would though. You’re a bookie for Christ’s sake.”
“Maybe,
but I still wouldn’t feel right about it.”
“Thirty
percent to help a friend in need. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Think about your son.”
“My
son?”
“The
one with the problem walking or whatever it is he’s got there.”
“Michael’s
got Vestibular problems is all.”
“Well,
whatever. What I’m saying is, think about how life changing thirty
percent of a golf course would be for him. I know he probably can’t
play golf with the Testicular problems, but the money. Life.
Fucking.
Changing.
Money.”
“If
I get someone to slap Elizabeth around?”
“No,
not that. That’s cola-lite. I want her crippled in a wheelchair, no
offense to your boy. I want the tongue cut out of her head. She needs
to pay for what she’s done.”
I
didn’t laugh. I popped prickly heat and needed a drink from the
clubhouse bar.
“Nah,
man. That’s not going to fly. Not with anyone I know,” I
stuttered.
“She’s
abusing my kids, goddammit!”
Spittle
flew and touched down on my left fist gripping the cart’s steering
wheel.
“I
don’t know, man. Maybe if it was just a few slaps and that was it.
I really don’t know... I’d have to really give it some proper
thought.”
“What’s
to think about? Don’t be dumb, be smart. Look it, I can give you
$14,000.
In cash. As a down payment. Today.
Today!
It’s in the trunk of the car. You give it to whoever you want to do
the job. I'll give you the rest after it’s been done. And then, you
my friend, you become a partner in your own golf course. Just think
about it. No more coaching. No more caddying. No more scrabbling
around taking bets from lowlifes. No more of all the bullshit.”
I
stared at a group of silver haired old aged pensioners practicing
their swings over by the rough.
Richard
put his hand on my shoulder. Squeezed. “But I want that bitch hurt.
Badly. I want her to pay for what she’s done to me. To my kids, I
mean.”
He’d
been talking up the golf-course project for months. He was right too,
with thirty percent of that, I’d never have to work another day in
my life. My own kids’ futures would be set. Probably their kids
too. Like a generational wealth kind of deal. Richard’d been
talking about the abuse for months too. So there was that. I’d tell
whoever did the job to go easy on Elizabeth, give her a black eye.
Job done, Richard couldn’t refuse payment. Everyone would be a
happy winner.
“What
about the cops?” I said.
“What
about them?” Richard said.
“The
last thing I need is something like this leading back to me, if it
all goes to shit.”
“The
key word here is: compartmentalization,
my nervous friend. Whoever you get to do the job, you tell them to
get someone else to do it. Like a chain of command or whatever the
fuck. I don’t want anyone knowing my name. Or yours. If no one
knows who’s at the top of chain, and you choose someone smart,
we’re all in clover. You know me, when have I not gambled smart?”
As
soon as Richard said that, I should’ve walked. But I didn’t. I
took the cash.
The
wad so thick I couldn’t push it in the pocket of my slacks. It felt
good in my hands. Goodbye alimony payments. He handed me a scrap of
paper with his ex’s address on it and a recent photograph of her
hugging one of the kids at what looked like a birthday party. She was
pretty and had these kind, blue eyes. The picture gave me a shitty
feeling in the guts, but I said I’d see what I could do. Reminding
myself over and over, Elizabeth wasn’t a good person. She beat her
kids and was a bad mother. It would only be a couple of slaps anyway.
That number of thirty percent bouncing around in my skull like a
deranged golf ball.
Even
though I’d said I’d see what I could do, I already knew who I was
going to get to do the job before Richard’s Mercedes Benz even sped
out of the club’s parking lot.
Scotty.
Scotty
was another caddy at the club. He helped me collect bets for my book
on occasions when I needed to impress debtors. He was big. Scary big.
But dumb as a mule. The kid did whatever I told him to do. Liked to
tell people he was my bodyguard and he was connected.
Not averse to a little violence or law-breaking and knew when to keep
his mouth shut. He was ideal.
The
next night I caught him leaving the club and told him to jump in the
car. I needed to talk.
“Okay,
Boss.” The poor schlub said.
When
he got in the passenger side of my Cadillac, he almost flipped the
damn thing over. Looking at me the same weirdly hopeful way he always
did.
“Someone
not paying what they owe?” He asked.
“Nah,
it’s something just a little heavier than that this time, Scotty.”
“You
need someone clipped?”
Clipped.
The kid had been watching too many episodes of The
Sopranos.
I played along to the wannabe’s fantasy.
“Nah,
you’re not going to get your button as quick as that, Scotty. You
gotta put more of the street work in. Show your down for the life.
You get me?”
“Sure,
Boss. I’m down. Just tell me what I gotta do.”
“All
right, listen, there’s this guy. A rich guy. He’s having trouble
with his ex-wife. She’s kidnapped his kids and is abusing them and
all this kind of horrendous shit. The guy wants the woman hurt a
little so he can regain custody of his kids.”
Scotty
looked as though he was about to burst into tears.
The
kid said, “No women, no children. That’s my code and I live and
die by it.”
“Don’t
bullshit me, Scotty. Since when did you have any kind of code?”
He
shrugged and wiped some yellow crud from the corner of his eye. Put
his thick fingers on the door latch to get out. I placed my hand on
his massive arm. Squeezed, “Scotty, its just a little slapping
around, that’s all. A little slapping around. Nothing more.
Besides, if you do this, I’ll talk to my boss. See what we can do
about bumping you up. Getting you your stripes.”
Scotty
wasn’t the only one with HBO. The kids face lit up. Elated.
“Really?
I could get made?”
“Yeah,
sure.” I looked away from his face and out of the window. Biting my
tongue. “We need people like you in the… family… sure.”
“I
want to be a made man but still, I don’t know. I’ve never raised
a hand to a girl in my life.”
The
kid didn’t seem to know we weren’t Italian. Like I said, he was
big and dumb.
“You
won’t have to hurt the girl yourself.
You can get someone else to do it. But get someone smart, someone
scary. You tell them to just give the ex-wife a fat lip and a swollen
eye. That’s all. Like I said, nothing heavy.”
“How
much would this guy pay anyhow? Twenty thousand dollars maybe?”
Scotty licked his thick lips.
“Don’t
be a dumbass, Scotty. No one’s paying that kind of money for a
light sparring session.”
“So
how much?”
I
did profit calculations in microseconds.
“Five
thousand. Two and a half before, two and a half after.”
“That’s
for the guy that hurts the girl, right? So what do I
get?”
“No,
I give you
the five; whatever you pass on to your guy is up to you.”
“What
am I supposed to pay them?” He whined.
“Pay
them a fucking nickel for all I care.”
He
stared through the dusty windshield. Sweat glistened on his upper
lip.
I
needed to close the sale, “think about what you could do with five
thousand bucks, brother. You could buy something pretty damn nice for
your ma, I reckon. She just got out of the hospital, right?”
“Yeah,
she busted her hip.” He looked as though he was going to cry again.
“You
could take her on vacation with the cash. She’d love that.”
His
face lit-up like a streetlight.
“Yeah,
sure. That’s right, I could. Hawaii or somewhere nice like that,”
he smiled, obviously imagining the old woman hobbling around on some
sandy beach somewhere hot. “Okay, I’ll do it. I think I know a
guy.”
I
gave him the two and half and the photograph. He read the address on
the scrap of paper aloud, like he was reading Spot the Dog and then
pushed it into the half-torn breast pocket of his shirt. He got out
the car and it fell back to horizontal.
He
waved as I drove away. I didn’t wave back.
Not
a week later, I start seeing the headlines:
MOTHER
OF TWO FOUND SLAIN.
TEENAGER
FINDS MOTHER MURDERED.
MOTHER
STABBED TO DEATH.
Round
the fucking clock news coverage — flashing up the image of the
woman whose photograph I’d placed in the sweaty hand of an
imbecile.
Cops
had arrested some vagrant fucking meth head for the murder.
As
soon as the crackhead gave up Scotty, I’d have, maybe an hour or
two, before half the city’s police department came knocking on my
door. I was going to rot in jail for the rest of my life.
Unless,
I got to Scotty, before the cops did. Compartmentalization. Tie off
lose ends. With the kid gone, there’d be nothing leading back to
me. I’d be free and clear.
I
ran round the house into the garage. There was an old refrigerator
underneath a workbench I used for keeping beer. I reached behind it
and retrieved the bundle of cloth wrapped around the .38. Checked the
cylinder. Five bullets. One was all I’d need.
I
took deep breaths, pulled the cellphone from the pocket of my slacks
and dialed Scotty. The prick didn’t answer. I screamed at the lawn
mower and dialed again.
“Boss,
is that you?” He sounded like he had shit his pants and was sitting
in it.
“Yeah,
it’s me. Where are you?” I said, attempting to keep some thread
of composure and sanity in my voice.
“Did
you see the news? He… he… he killed her. He killed the girl.”
The kid started blubbering and drooling down the line. There was not
a shred of doubt in my mind he was going to drop my name to the cops
as soon as they flashed their badges at him. Scotty had to go.
“Yeah,
I saw. Where are you? We need to lam it, kid. I’ve got your money,
too. Double what we agreed.” I said through gritted teeth.
“Really?
Double?” He stopped blubbering. I imagined him wiping his snotty
nose on his shirtsleeve.
“Yeah,
sure.”
“You’re
not angry at me? For hiring that guy because I wanted to save money.”
“Nah,
Scotty. Look, you’re going to be a made man, but we need to meet
somewhere out of the way, so I can pay you the cash and we can split
to Mexico for a week or two.”
“Okay,
Boss, I suppose. Where should I meet you?”
“Good.
Good. You know the old dump, right? Just out of town.”
“Sure,
I do. The place where everyone throws away their old cars and
refrigerators and stuff?”
“Yeah,
meet me there in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty
minutes?” he whined.
“You
want to spend the rest of your life in jail?”
“No,
sir.”
“Then
leave now. I’m on my way.”
I
hung up. Wiped the sweat from my eyes. Ran back round the house into
the kitchen. Snatched up my car keys from the breakfast nook.
My
cell rang.
“Just
get in the car and fucking go,” I screamed down the line.
“Hello?”
My
best customer and best friend. Richard’s voice.
“Ah,
Richard, I take it you’ve seen the news then.”
“Yeah,
a little more extreme than what I’d asked for, but I’m happy.”
He
didn’t sound happy. Voice cold and monotonous, I could’ve been
talking to someone at a call center.
“We
need to meet somewhere quiet,” he said.
“Why?”
“You
want to get paid don’t you? Plus, I’ve got a couple of contracts
I want to go over with you.”
“Contracts?”
“For
the golf course. We’re partners now, brother.”
“I
see… When did you want to meet?”
“Right
now, of course,” he said.
A
long void down the line.
“Where?”
“You
know the boathouse I’ve got out on the lake? Let’s meet there.
It’s nice and relaxing.”
“Okay,”
I said and hung up.
One
word bouncing around my brain like a deranged golfball:
Compartmentalization.
Stephen
J. Golds was born in North London, U.K, but has lived in Japan for
most of his adult life. He writes in the noir/crime genres, though is
heavily influenced by transgressive fiction and dirty realism. He is
also the co-editor of Punk Noir Magazine
