Tourist Season (22 page)

By the fifth tee, Dr. Courtney had become confident enough in his partners' ineptitude that he'd started betting on every hole. Poor Mario Groppo promptly dropped thirty dollars and appeared headed for a major anxiety attack; the Seattle tourists went to the bourbon flask early and lost their amiable out-of-towner dispositions. Every time Dr. Courtney would bend over a putt, one of them would fart or sneeze in flagrant violation of golf etiquette. The psychiatrist haughtily ignored this rudeness, no matter how many strokes it cost.

The foursome made the turn with Dr. Courtney leading the Seattle engineers by four and seven strokes respectively, while Mario Groppo sweated bullets somewhere around twenty over par.

Weatherwise it was a fine Florida day. The sky was china blue and a light breeze fought off the lethal humidity. As they strolled down the twelfth fairway, the psychiatrist sidled up to Mario and said, “So how are we feeling today, Mr. Groppo?”

“Just fine,” replied Mario, fishing in his golf bag for a five iron.

“Come now,” Dr. Courtney said. “Something's troubling you, isn't it?”

“I'm lying three in the rough. That's all that's troubling me.”

“Are you sure? I've got some Thorazine in my golf bag.”

“I'm fine,” Mario said impatiently. “Thanks anyway.”

Dr. Courtney patted him on the back and gave a doctorly wink. “When you want to talk, just let me know. I'll set aside some time.”

Dr. Courtney and the Boeing engineers put their shots smack on the green, while Mario Groppo dumped his five-iron in the back bunker.

“Too much club,” the psychiatrist remarked.

“Too much mouth,” sniped one of the guys from Boeing.

Dr. Courtney snorted contemptuously and marched toward the green, his putter propped like a musket on his shoulder.

While the other golfers lined up their putts, poor Mario Groppo waded into the sand trap, a canyon from which he could barely see daylight.

“I'll hold the stick,” Dr. Courtney called.

Over the lip of the bunker Mario could make out the tip of the flagstick, Dr. Courtney's pink face and, beyond that, the visors of the two Seattle tourists, waiting their turns.

The psychiatrist kept shouting advice. “Bend the left knee! Keep the club face open! Hit behind the ball!”

“Oh shut up,” Mario Groppo said. He grimaced at the idea of surrendering another ten bucks to Remond Courtney.

Mario glared down at the half-buried Titleist and grimly dug his spikes into the sand. He took one last look at the flag, then swung the wedge with a mighty grunt.

To everyone's surprise, Mario's golf ball leapt merrily from the sand trap, kissed the green, and rolled sweetly, inexorably toward the hole.

“All right!” exclaimed one of the Seattle tourists.

“I don't believe it,” sniffed Dr. Courtney as Mario's ball dropped with a plunk.

At that instant the twelfth green of the Palmetto Country Club exploded in a hellish thunderclap. The bomb, hidden deep in the cup, launched the flagstick like a flaming javelin. The air crackled as a brilliant orange plume unfurled over the gentle fairways.

There was no time to run, no time to scream.

His face scorched and hair smoldering, poor Mario Groppo found himself lost in a crater. Haplessly he weaved in circles, using his sand wedge as a cane. “Holy God!” he mumbled, squinting through the smoke and silicate dust for some sign of the doomed threesome. “Holy Jesus God!” he said, as the sky rained wet clumps of sod and flesh, twisted stems of golf clubs, and bright swatches of Izod shirts.

Mario sat down in the dirt. In a daze he thought he heard a man's voice, and wondered if one of the other golfers had been spared.

“Hello! I'm right here!” Mario cried. “Over here!”

But the voice that replied was much too far away, and much too sonorous. The voice rose in proclamation from a stand of tall Austrailian pines bordering the thirteenth fairway.

“Bon voyage, Dr. Goosefucker!” the voice sang out.

‘Welcome to the Revolution!”

Jenna stood at the door, hands on her hips. “Boy, everybody in Miami's looking for you!” She wore an indigo Danskin and a white terrycloth headband. Her forehead was damp; the Jane Fonda workout video was on the television.

“May I come in?” Brian Keyes asked.

“Of course. I'm making granola bars. Come sit in the kitchen and talk.”

Jenna was in her element, and Keyes knew he'd have to take it slowly. One wrong move and it was lights out.

“Cab called. He's hunting all over for you.”

“I'll bet.”

“What about these cops?” Jenna emptied a box of raisins into a mixing bowl. “Cab says the cops want to talk to you about what happened. Hey, are you feeling okay? How come you left the hospital so soon?”

“I got better,” Keyes said, “thanks to this incredible nurse. ”

No reaction. Jenna stood at the kitchen counter with her back to him. She was stirring the granola mix.

“You're really something,” Keyes said playfully. “I got in all kinds of trouble, you know.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The doctors chewed me out, moved me to a private room. They said we violated about five hundred hospital rules. The whole wing was talking about it.”

“Yeah? You like carobs? I'm gonna add some carobs.”

“I hate granola bars.”

“These are homemade.” Jenna's stirring became rhythmic.

“I talked to Skip today.” She glanced over her shoulder at Keyes. “He wanted me to tell you how sorry he was about the Cuban. He said the little fellow means well; he just gets carried away with the knife. I told Skip you were doing better and he was quite relieved. He wanted me to tell you it won't happen again.”

“How thoughtful,” Keyes said acidly. “Where is the Madman of Miami, anyhow?”

“We didn't talk about that,” Jenna said. She was padding around the kitchen in jazz exercise tights and no shoes. “Skip made a bunch of new rules,” she said. “Rule number one: Don't ask where he is. Rule number two: Don't use his name over the telephone. Rule number three: No more horny love letters.”

“Jenna, you've got to help me find him.”

“Why? He's done nothing wrong. He told me he's got a clear conscience. Here, want a taste of this?” She thrust a wooden spoon in his mouth. “See, that's good stuff.”

“Not bad,” Keyes said, thinking: She's at it again.

Jenna poured the granola batter into a pan, and put the pan in the oven. She took a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and poured herself a glass.

“Fewer calories than you think,” she said, her green eyes sparkling through the wine crystal.

“You sure look great.”

“As soon as the granola bars are done, I'm leaving town,” Jenna announced.

Keyes said nothing.

“I'd ask you to stay for dinner, but I've got to catch a plane.”

“I understand,” Keyes said. “Where you going?”

“Wisconsin. T'see my folks.”

No hesitation; she had it all worked out. Keyes admired her preparation. If he didn't know her so well he might've believed her. He tried to stall.

“May I have some wine?”

“Unh-unh,” Jenna said. “Better not. You know how you get.”

“Sleepy is how I get.”

“No, sexy and romantic is how you get.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Tonight it's wrong.”

“It wasn't wrong in the hospital, was it?”

“Not at all,” Jenna said. “It was perfect in the hospital.” She kissed him on the forehead; a polite little kiss that told Keyes his time was running out. She might as well have tapped her foot and pointed at the clock.

He stood up and took her hands. “Please help me.”

“I can't,” Jenna said firmly. She looked him straight in the eyes, and Keyes realized that, for her, this was no dilemma. She wasn't torn over loyalties. Skip Wiley came first, second, and third.

Keyes guessed how it must have started: a spark of an idea—maybe Jenna's, maybe Skip's—something mentioned over dinner, maybe even in the sack. A fantastic notion to turn back time, to drive out the carpetbaggers, to reclaim the land by painting it as treacherous and uninhabitable. And to do it all with sly tricks and egregious pranks—Armageddon, with mirrors. Wiley would have embraced the idea, embellished it, talked it to life, and made it all seem possible. And Jenna, having started the spark or at least fanned it, would have slipped back to watch her passionate genius turn the whimsy into reality—watching with love and amazement, but not paying quite enough attention. So that when the killing started, and she finally understood how far he had carried the scheme, there was nothing to do but let him finish. The alternative was betrayal: to destroy Skip and orphan this dream, the thing they had created together.

“Is he going to stop this craziness?” Keyes asked.

“I don't think so,” Jenna said, looking away.

“Then he'll be caught,” Keyes said, “or killed.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” She removed her headband and plucked off her tiny gold earrings. “I know Skip, and he's way ahead of everybody. Even you, my love. Now, scoot out of here and let me pack. I've got a ten-o'clock plane.”

Brian Keyes retreated to the living room and sat dejectedly on the coffin-turned-coffee-table.

“What are you doing?” Jenna asked from the kitchen doorway. “Brian, it's time to go.”

“Did you hear what happened today? Today it was a goddamn bomb. Three people blown to bits. You think that's cute? The old Wiley sense of humor—you find bombs amusing?”

“Not particularly.” Jenna paused, frowning briefly, and something crossed her face that Keyes seldom had seen. Guilt, remorse...something. “Don't jump to conclusions about Skip,” she said finally. “That shrink had lots of enemies.”

“This isn't a game of Clue,” Keyes said. “Your boyfriend has become a murderer.”

“It's not like you to get so melodramatic,” Jenna said impatiently. “Why can't you just leave it alone? Get busy on your other cases and forget about it. You did your job: you found Skip. When he's ready to come back, he will. That's what I told Cab this morning, but he's just like you. He thinks Skip has some kind of crazy death wish. Nothing could be sillier, Brian. I'm really disappointed in you guys.” She was twirling the headband on her index finger, and looking very self-assured.

“Brian, you've got two problems Skip doesn't have.”

“What's that?” Keyes asked, sensing defeat.

“Your ego and your heart.”

“Well, pardon me.” Now it was time to go. He didn't have to take this Joyce Brothers shit from a woman who bakes her own granola bars..

Halfway out the door he turned and said, “Jenna, what about the other night in the hospital? What was all that?”

“That was a moment, Brian, yours and mine.” She smiled; the first soft smile of the whole evening. “It was one lovely moment, and that's all. Why does there have to be more? Why do you guys think there's always a Big Picture? Honest' to God, Brian, sometimes I think the newspaper business fucked you up forever.”

Jenna hardly ever used the word “fuck.” Keyes figured she really must be agitated.

“Have a good trip,” he said. “Give your parents my best.”

“Aw, you're sweet,” Jenna said. “You get some rest while I'm gone. Forget about Skip, forget about me, forget about the Big Picture. Everything's going to work out fine.”

 

Ninety minutes later she left the house carrying a canvas travel bag and a tin of hot granola bars. She wore tight jeans, a loose long-sleeved blouse, and white heels. Her hair was pinned in a prim bun.

The drive to the airport was vintage Jenna—no recognition or regard for curbs, stop signs, traffic lights, or pedestrians. Brian Keyes kept a distance of two or three blocks, wincing at Jenna's close calls. He had borrowed a rental car from one of the Shriners because Jenna surely would've recognized the MG, by sound if not by sight.

She parked in the long-term garage at Miami International. Slouching low in the driver's seat, Keyes whizzed right past her and found a spot on the next level. He bolted from the car, raced down the stairwell, and caught sight of Jenna disappearing into the elevator. He ran all the way to the terminal building and waited.

Even in a crowd she was impossible to miss. She had a classic airport walk, sensual but aloof; men always moved out of the way to watch Jenna's jeans go by, back and forth, a divine natural metronome.