Gratefully Jake Harp watched Kingsbury drop to one knee and plant the tee. Then suddenly the sun exploded, and a molten splinter tore a hole in the golfer's belly, spinning him like a tenpin and knocking him flat. A darkening puddle formed as he lay there and floundered, gulping for breath through a mouthful of fresh Bermuda sod. Jake Harp was not too hung over to realize he could be dying, and it bitterly occurred to him that he would rather leave his mortal guts on the fairways of Augusta or Muirfield or Pebble Beach. Anywhere but here.
Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue had driven up to Kendall to break into a house. The house belonged to FBI Agent Billy Hawkins, who was still tied up as Molly McNamara's prisoner.
"Think he's got a dog?" said Danny Pogue.
Bud Schwartz said probably not. "Guys like that, they think dogs are for pussies. It's a cop mentality."
But Bud Schwartz was wrong. Bill Hawkins owned a German shepherd. The burglars could see the animal prowling the fence in the backyard.
"Guess we gotta do the front-door routine," said Bud Schwartz. What a way to end a career: breaking into an FBI man's house in broad daylight. "I thought we retired," Bud Schwartz complained. "All that dough we got, tell me what's the point if we're still pullin" these jobs."
Danny Pogue said, "Just this one more. And besides, what if Lou takes the money back?"
"No way."
"If he can't get to the guy, yeah, he might. Already he thinks we tipped Kingsbury off, on account of all those rent-a-cops."
Bud Schwartz said he wasn't worried about Lou going back on the deal. "These people are pros, Danny.
Now gimme the scroogie." They were poised at Billy Hawkins's front door. Danny Pogue checked the street for cars or pedestrians; then he handed Bud Schwartz a nine-inch screwdriver.
Skeptically Danny Pogue said, "Guy's gotta have a deadbolt. Anybody works for the FBI, probably he's got an alarm, too. Maybe even lasers."
But there was no alarm system. Bud Schwartz pried the door jamb easily. He put his shoulder to the wood and pushed it open. "You believe that?" he said to his partner. "See what I mean about cop mentality. They think they're immune."
"Yeah," said Danny Pogue. "Immune." Later he'd ask Molly McNamara what it meant.
They closed the door and entered the empty house. Bud Schwartz would never have guessed that a federal agent lived there. It was a typical suburban Miami home: three bedrooms, two baths, nothing special. Once they got used to the idea, the burglars moved through the rooms with casual confidence wife at work, kids at school, no sweat.
"Too bad we're not stealin" anything," Bud Schwartz mused.
"Want to?" said his partner. "Just for old times" sake."
"What's the point?"
"I saw one of the kids has a CD player."
"Wow," said Bud Schwartz acidly. "What's that, like, thirty bucks. Maybe forty?"
"No, man, it's a Sony."
"Forget it. Now gimme the papers."
In captivity Billy Hawkins had agreed to notify his family that he was out of town on a top-secret assignment. However, the agent had displayed a growing reluctance to call the FBI office and lie about being sick. To motivate him, Molly McNamara had composed a series of cryptic notes and murky correspondence suggesting that Hawkins was not the most loyal of government servants. Prominently included in the odd jottings were the telephone numbers of the Soviet Embassy and the Cuban Special Interest Section in Washington, D.C. For good measure, Molly had included a bank slip showing a suspicious $25,000 deposit to Agent Billy Hawkins's personal savings account a deposit that Molly herself had made at the South Miami branch of Unity National Savings & Loan. The purpose of these maneuvers was to create a shady portfolio that, despite its sloppiness, Billy Hawkins would not wish to try to explain to his colleagues at the FBI.
Who would definitely come to the house in search of clues, if Agent Hawkins failed to check in.
Molly McNamara had entrusted the bank receipt, phone numbers and other manufactured evidence to Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue, whose mission was to conceal the material in a semi-obvious location in Billy Hawkins's bedroom.
Bud Schwartz chose the second drawer of the night-stand. He placed the envelope under two unopened boxes of condoms. "Raspberry-colored," he marveled. "FBI man uses raspberry rubbers!" Another stereotype shattered.
Danny Pogue was admiring a twelve-inch portable television as if it were a rare artifact. "Jesus, Bud, you won't believe this."
"Don't tell me it's a black-and-white."
"Yep. You know the last time I saw one?"
"Little Havana," said Bud Schwartz, "that duplex off Twelfth Avenue. I remember."
"Remember what we got for it."
"Yeah. Thirteen goddamn dollars." The fence was a man named Fat Jack on Seventy-ninth Street, near the Boulevard. Bud Schwartz couldn't stand Fat Jack not only because he was cheap but because he smelled like dirty socks. One day Bud Schwartz had boosted a case of Ban Extra Dry Roll-on Deodorant sticks from the back of a Publix truck, and given it to Fat Jack as a hint. Fat Jack had handed him eight bucks and said that nobody should ever use roll-ons because they cause cancer of the armpits.
"I don't get it," said Danny Pogue. "I thought the FBI paid big bucks what's a baby Magnavox go for, two hundred retail? You'd think he could spring for color."
"Who knows, maybe he spends it all on clothes. Come on, let's take off." Bud Schwartz wanted to be long gone before the mailman arrived and noticed what had happened to the front door.
Danny Pogue turned on the portable TV and said, "That's not a bad picture." The noon news was just starting.
"I said let's go, Danny."
"Wait, look at this!"
A video clip showed a heavyset man in golf shoes being hoisted on a stretcher. The man's shirt was drenched in blood, but his eyelids were half open. A plastic oxygen mask covered the man's face and nose, but the jaw moved as if he were trying to speak. The newscaster reported that the shooting had taken place at a new resort development called Falcon Trace, near Key Largo.
"Lou! He did it!" exclaimed Danny Pogue. "You were right."
"Only trouble is, that ain't Mr. Kingsbury."
"You sure?"
Bud Schwartz sat down in front of the television. The anchorman had tossed the sniper story to a sportscaster, who was somberly recounting the stellar career of Jake Harp. The golfer's photograph, taken in happier times, popped up on a wide green mat behind the sports desk.
Danny Pogue said, "Who the hell's that?"
"Not Kingsbury," grunted Bud Schwartz. The mishap confirmed his worst doubts about Lou's qualifications as a hit man. It was unbelievable. The asshole had managed to shoot the wrong guy.
"Know what?" said Danny Pogue. "There's a Jake Harp Cadillac in Boca Raton where I swiped a bunch of tape decks once. Is that the same guy? This golfer?"
Bud Schwartz said, "I got no earthly idea." What was all this crap the TV guy was yakking about career earnings, number of Top Ten finishes, average strokes per round, percentage of greens hit in regulation. To Bud Schwartz, golf was as foreign as polo. Except you didn't see so many fat guys playing polo.
"The main thing is, did they catch the shooter?"
"Nuh-huh." Danny Pogue had his nose to the tube. They said he got away in a boat. No arrests, no motives is what they said."
Bud Schwartz was trying to picture Lou from Queens at the helm of a speedboat, racing for the ocean's horizon.
"He's gonna be pissed," Danny Pogue said.
"Yeah, well, I don't guess his boss up North is gonna be too damn thrilled, either. Whackin" the wrong man."
"He ain't dead yet. Serious but stable is what they said."
Bud Schwartz said it didn't really matter. "Point is, it's still a fuckup. A major major fuckup."
The Mafia had gunned down a life member of the Professional Golfers Association.
Pedro Luz finally emerged from the storage room, where he had been measuring his penis. He rolled the wheelchair out to Kingsbury Lane for the morning rehearsal of the Summerfest Jubilee, a greatly embellished version of the nightly musical pageant. Pedro Luz needed something to lift his spirits. His leg had begun to throb in an excruciating way; no combination of steroids and analgesics put a dent in the pain. To add psychic misery to the physical, Pedro Luz had now documented the fact that his sexual wand was indeed shrinking as a result of prolonged steroid abuse. At first, Pedro Luz had assured himself that it was only an optical illusion; the more swollen his face and limbs became, the smaller everything else appeared to be. But weeks of meticulous calibrations had produced conclusive evidence: His wee-wee had withered from 10.4 centimeters to 7.9 centimeters in its flaccid state. Worse, it seemed to Pedro Luz (although there was no painless way to measure) that his testicles had also become smaller not yet as tiny as BBs, as Churrito had predicted, but more like gumballs.