The Pariot GAme (2 page)

“Caddie, mister?” Junior said, somewhat insolently.

The driver looked at him from behind the sunglasses. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I got it out of bed this morning, into and out of the shower. I think I can make it up the stairs here, things work right.”

“Club’s private,” Junior said.

“So what?” the driver said.

“Members only,” Junior said. “Just members.”

“And their guests,” Cody said, a trifle anxiously. “Guests can play too.”

“I didn’t come to play,” the driver said.

P
ETE
R
IORDAN
, still wearing his sunglasses, walked through the foyer and down the main hall of the Nipmunk Country Club toward the French doors that opened onto the eighteenth green. He took a right at the doors and went into the bar, which was empty. He walked through the bar to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio shaded in part by the green-and-white-striped awning over the white, circular metal tables. Beyond the shade there were women in golf clothes drinking iced tea and iced coffee. They wore pink Lacoste shirts and Lily Pulitzer flowered skirts in lemon and lime colors. They wore lime Lacoste shirts and yellow divided skirts. They wore white sun visors with green plastic inserts over the eyes, and under those they wore blue sunglasses. Beyond them were low green boxes containing low green hedge plants, and beyond the boxes was the swimming pool where seven or eight children were pretending to have diving skills that they had not mastered. The children shouted a lot and jumped off the diving board feet first. They swam furiously for a while before getting out to stand at the edge of the pool and blow their noses with their fingers. Now and then a lucky one would catch one of the others clearing his nasal passages and elbow him into the pool. The women ignored all of this.

Pete Riordan sat down at a table near the sliding doors, under the awning, and folded his hands in his lap.

After several minutes, a young man in a white jacket and black trousers, carrying an oval aluminum tray, came through the glass doors. As he left the bar area he picked up a folding table and carried it in his right hand, balancing the tray aloft on his left. He went to the table farthest from Riordan and set up the tray table with one hand. He put the tray on it and started serving salads to the four ladies who were talking at the table. Riordan could not hear what they were saying, but they laughed a lot and he could hear that.

The waiter completed serving the women and started back toward the bar, leaving the table behind but carrying the tray in his left hand, like a discus. He saw Riordan when he got out of the sun. He stopped in his tracks. “Sir?” he said.

Riordan nodded.

“Can I help you with something, sir?” the waiter said.

“Screwdriver,” Riordan said.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the waiter said.

“Screwdriver,” Riordan said pleasantly. “I’d like a screwdriver. On the rocks.”

“Excuse me, sir,” the waiter said. “Are you a member here?”

“No,” Riordan said.

“Because,” the waiter explained, “I’ve never seen you before.” Riordan did not say anything. “I thought maybe you might’ve just joined,” the waiter said.

“No,” Riordan said.

The waiter cleared his throat. “Well, ah, you see, ah, sir, unless you’re a member or a guest of a member, I can’t serve you.”

“I’m a guest of a member,” Riordan said.

The waiter shifted his weight and held the oval aluminum tray with both hands in front of him like a large metal fig leaf.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, firmly, “but I have to have the name of the guest.”

“I’m the guest,” Pete Riordan said. “You don’t need my name. I’m right here.”

“I mean the member,” the waiter said, shifting his weight again and slapping the tray against his knees.

“Don’t do that,” Riordan said.

“What?” the waiter said.

“I’m sorry,” Riordan said. “
Please
don’t do that with the tray. I’ve got a headache.”

“Oh,” the waiter said. He stopped banging the tray.

“Doherty,” Riordan said.

“Yessir,” the waiter said. “See, that’s just our rule here, Mister Doherty. They make us ask. Who’s the member, please?”

“Look,” Riordan said, “I had a bad night. You ever had a bad night, son? I had one. You want a bad night some time, you just call me up. You can have my next one, no charge. A screwdriver is a simple thing, right? It is some vodka and some orange juice and some ice cubes. A baby could make one. I could make one myself, probably, even in this condition, if it wasn’t for the clanking of the ice cubes and I don’t know where they are in this place anyway.

“Now,” Riordan said, “I am not Doherty. I am the guest. Doherty is the member. I am meeting Doherty here. He doesn’t know I’m meeting him here, but I’m meeting him here.”

“Doherty,” the waiter said, thinking.

“
Paul
Doherty?” Riordan said. “That ring a bell, maybe?”

The waiter shook his head and looked puzzled. “No, sir,” he said, “and I’ve been here almost three years now. I think I know all the members.”

“He’s a priest,” Riordan said.

“Ohh,” the waiter said. “You mean Bishop Doherty?”

“Yeah,” Riordan said. “Him. Paul Doherty. That’s the guy. I’m meeting him here and he doesn’t know it.”

“Are you sure?” the waiter said.

“Oh, yeah,” Riordan said, “I’m sure. I mean, I never saw the papers or anything, but he’s a truth-telling man. Known him for years, never led me astray once. Told me himself, right to my face. Told me the Pope made him a bishop. I’m a skeptical sort of fellow, myself, but Paul Doherty’s a trustworthy man. He says he’s a bishop, you can bank on it. Why, it would’ve insulted him, I’d’ve said to him, ‘Ah, come on, Paul, you aren’t no bishop. You’re just funnin’ with me, huh? Tryin’, bamboozle me?’ Nah, Paul wouldn’t do a thing like that, lie to an old friend like me.”

“No,” the waiter said, “it’s not that. It’s … you’re not the sort of … Bishop Doherty meets lots of people here, but I never saw … I
know
he’s a bishop and everything, but what I mean is …”

“
Aw
right,” Riordan said. He unclasped his hands and put them on the arms of the chair. He extended his right leg straight out in front of him until there was a muffled grinding sound and a louder click. After the click he stood up, keeping the knee locked. He unbuttoned the Harris tweed sports coat, exposing the butt of the magnum.

“
Jesus
,” the waiter said.

“Sand wedge,” Riordan said, resting his weight on his left leg. “Very useful when you get yourself in a trap.” He used his right hand to fish in his left inside jacket pocket. He brought out several airline ticket folders and slapped the collection down on the table. Keeping his right leg straight, he bent at the waist and shuffled through it until he found a black morocco credential case. He swept all the airline ticket folders into a pile and, using the stiff right leg as a pivot, spun to face the waiter. He flipped open the credential case as he did so. On the lower half there was a seal embossed in gold;
pinned next to it there was a small gold badge with blue lettering. In the upper half there was a picture of a clean-shaven man with a short haircut and no expression on his face, glued to a card that gave his name and department. “Justice,” Riordan said. “Inspector General. Riordan. Okay?” He snapped the case shut.

The waiter immediately resumed looking at the gun. “What is that?” he said.

“My credentials,” Riordan said. “Now can I have the screwdriver?”

“No,” the waiter said, “
that.
” He released his right hand from the tray and pointed at the gun.

“Magnum,” Riordan said. “Now, here is what you tell the guy to do. Take two shots vodka, six ounces juice, large glass, lots of ice, and pour them together, they play ‘Stormy Weather,’ and lightning shoots out of your ass.” Riordan scooped up the airline folders, slapped the credentials on top, stuffed the whole collection into his jacket pocket, buttoned the jacket, ran his right hand down his right leg to the inside of the knee, bent at the knee, shoved against the inside of the knee joint, made the grinding and the clicking sound repeat, and sat down in the chair. He clasped his hands in his lap.

“Screwdriver,” the waiter said.

“Screwdriver,” Riordan said. “The way I told you. And if Bishop Doherty comes in the back door, like he never does, tell him Riordan’s on the porch.”

“Yessir,” the waiter said.

“Oh,” Riordan said, “and a pack of Luckies. Regular, old-fashioned, good-time Luckies.”

P
AUL
D
OHERTY
in a white Lacoste shirt, light blue cotton trousers and a floppy white hat over Foster Grant sunglasses drove a white golf cart up the eighteenth fairway at Nipmunk. About one hundred and eighty yards from the hole, he stopped the cart and got out. There was a clump of rhododendron bushes behind him, and he swatted flying ants away from his head as he took a three-iron out of the bag in the back of the cart. He looked toward the green and the patio, where Riordan sat, hidden from his view in the shade. He addressed the ball without settling himself into an easy position or wriggling his buttocks. He swung the club through and watched the ball’s flight, using his right hand to provide additional sunshade. The ball landed and rolled to a stop about fifteen yards from the edge of the green. Doherty stuck the club into the bag, climbed into the cart and headed for the green.

He had a year to go before he turned fifty. His face was drawn under the golfing tan, and he had lost a lot of weight. There were slack folds of skin on his lower jaw. The collar of the golf shirt stood away from his shoulders and neck, exposing his scapula bones. There was a slack roll of flesh at his middle, and his pants were baggy on him. When he reached the ball, he stopped the cart, got out, took a pitching wedge
from the bag and used it to slap the ball onto the green. The ball rolled well beyond the flag. He climbed back into the cart, stuck the club back into the bag, and drove around the green to the back. He got out of the cart, picked up the ball, dropped that into the bag with the clubs, got back into the cart and drove around the clubhouse to the right, down the hill toward the pro shop. He did not look at the patio. He parked the cart in the row outside the small white-shingled building that was the pro shop and lifted the bag of clubs out of it. The pro was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

“Good round, Paul?” he said.

“No,” Doherty said, “lousy round. It’s a good thing a snake didn’t come out of the woods and challenge me. I couldn’t hit anything that was standing still today. I don’t know how the hell I could’ve hit anything that was moving.”

“They come, they go,” the pro said. “It’s still a nice outing.”

“I guess so,” Doherty said. “I keep telling myself that, anyway.”

“You keep telling yourself to keep your head down?” the pro said.

“Oh,” Doherty said, “sure. That, and lock the elbow. I know all the recipes. I tried to take up skiing about fifteen years ago, and to this very day I remember what the instructor said about bending the knees. I couldn’t ski either.”

“You’ve had some good rounds,” the pro said.

“Walter,” Doherty said, “when you’re my age, any round you come back from’s a good round.” The pro began to laugh. “None of your damned hilarity, Walter,” Doherty said. “You’re in your thirties now, and you’re like everybody else in that category. You shoot in the high seventies, the low eighties, and you make an honest dollar telling people how to do something that they’re never going to be able to do because
they haven’t got your talent. If Nicklaus came along tomorrow afternoon and told you how to win the Masters, you wouldn’t be able to do it even if he was telling you the God’s honest truth. It’s the same with your customers and it’s the same with me. The bones’re getting older and they weren’t that obedient to begin with. You still think that you’re immortal. You’ll learn, my son, you’ll learn. Some day, somebody like me’ll be sprinkling Holy Water on a long metal box on canvas swings over a hole in the ground, and you will be in that box, headed for the hole. And up in Heaven every poor clumsy bastard like me’ll be standing around yelling: ‘Don’t three-putt the hole, Walter, you dumb son of a bitch. Hole out, Walter, like we did. You gotta gimme there, Walter. You blow this one and the fat guys’ll never play Nassau with you again.’ Ashes and ashes, Walter, no matter how good you are at getting out of the rough. Remember, you heard it here first.”