“About what, sonny boy?”
“About what you’ve seen. About what you know.”
Dirt Road Dave let my bag fall to the grass at my feet, then he spat. “I know you’re a smart-mouth young cop. I know that’s a roscoe and handcuffs under your sweater. I know the kind of things you guys do that you think people don’t know about. I know guys like you die hungry.” His finality was awesome. I picked up my bag and walked to the clubhouse–only to be ambushed by another madman en route.
It was Wacky, materializing out of a grove of trees, scaring the slit out of me. “Jesus!” I exclaimed.
“Sorry, partner,” Wacky whispered, “but I had to catch you out of earshot of Big Sid. I need a favor, a big-o-rooney.”
I sighed: “Name it.”
“The car–for an hour or so. I’ve got a hot date that won’t wait, passion pie in the great by-and-by. I’m eating kosher, partner. You can’t deny me.”
I decided to do it, but with a stipulation: “Not in the car, Wack. Rent a room. You got that?”
“Of course, I’m a cop. Would I break the law?”
“Yes.”
“Ha-ha-ha! One hour, Fred.”
“Yeah.”
Wacky disappeared into the trees, where his high-pitched laughter was joined by Siddell Weinberg’s baritone sighs. I walked to the clubhouse feeling sad, and weighted down by strangers.
3
I figured that Wacky would be at least two hours late returning my car, and moreover that good taste dictated I remain to drink and shoot the shit with Big Sid. I wanted to take a run to Santa Barbara and look for women, but I needed my car for that,
I showered in the men’s locker room. It was a far cry from the dungeonlike locker room at Wilshire Station. This facility had wallto-wall deep-pile carpets and oak walls hung with portraits of Hillcrest notables. The locker room talk was about movie deals and business mergers with golf a distant third. Somehow it made me uneasy, so I showered fast, changed clothes, and went looking for Big Sid.
I found him in the dining room, sitting at a table near the large picture window overlooking the eighteenth hole. He was talking with a woman; she had her back to me as I approached the table. Somehow I sensed she was class, so I smoothed my hair and adjusted my pocket handkerchief as I walked toward them.
Big Sid saw me coming. “Freddy, baby!” he boomed. He tapped the woman softly on the shoulder. “Honey, this is my new golf partner, Freddy Underhill. Freddy, this is my daughter Lorna.”
The woman swiveled in her chair to face me. She smiled distractedly. “Mr. Underhill,” she said.
“Miss Weinberg,” I replied.
I sat down. I was right: the woman was class. Where Siddell Weinberg had inherited the broadness of her father’s features, Lorna exhibited a refined version: her hair was more light brown than red, her brown eyes more pale and crystalline than opaque. She had Big Sid’s pointed chin and sensual mouth, but on a softer, muted scale. Her nose was large but beautiful: it informed her face with intelligence and a certain boldness. She wore no makeup. She had on a tweed suit over a white silk blouse. I could tell that she was tall and slender, and that her breasts were very large for her frame.
I immediately wanted to know her, and quashed a corny impulse to take and kiss her hand, realizing that she wouldn’t be charmed by such a gesture. Instead, I took a seat directly across from her where I could maintain eye contact.
Big Sid slammed me so hard on the back that my head almost hit the linen tablecloth. “Freddy, baby, we killed them! Four hundred and fifty simoleons!” Big Sid leaned over and explained to his daughter: “Freddy’s my new gravy train. And vice versa. What a swing!”
Lorna Weinberg smiled. I smiled back. She patted her father’s hand and looked at him with exasperated fondness. “Dad’s a fanatic, and a hyperbolic personality. He loves to classify people with colloquialisms. You must forgive him.” She said it lovingly, but with the slightest air of condescension to her father–and of challenge to me.