The security chief sprinted down the aisle and bounded onstage. "My God, what happened here? Back off, girls, give him air. Give him air."
Jesus Bernal glanced at Viceroy Wilson and thought: The dumb spade just ruined everything.
"The man slipped on a puddle," Bernal told the security chief.
"Naw, it was an epileptic attack," said Viceroy Wilson.
"Get a doctor!" the security chief hollered into his K-Mart walkie-talkie. "Somebody get a doctor."
"An epilepsy doctor," advised Viceroy Wilson.
Kara Lynn Shivers gracefully dropped to her knees and cradled the emcee's head. Discreetly she removed some tissue from the left cup of her bathing suit and began dabbing the emcee's forehead. The injured man gazed up at Kara Lynn's perfect sophomore breasts with a stunned but tranquil look.
"I told you she's gonna win," Viceroy Wilson whispered. "This'll be so damn easy."
"Let's move," Jesus Bernal said, commando style. "We've got to find the golf course before it gets dark."
"Hay-zoos, lemme tell you something," Wilson said, taking his time. "If your little box of Tinker Toys goes off before we get there, just 'member the last thing you're gonna see on this earth is my black face—and I'll be chewing on your fuckin' guts all the way to hell."
They teed off at 7:08 A.M. The foursome included one of his patients—a vastly improved schizophrenic named Mario Groppo—and two total strangers from Seattle. The strangers were engineers for Boeing, the aerospace company, and they tended to shank the ball off the tee. Predictably, Mario Groppo would hook the ball on one hole and slice the ball on the next. Nobody in the foursome could putt worth a damn.
As for Dr. Remond Courtney, his golf swing was so unusual that from a distance he appeared to be beating a snake to death. It was a very violent golf swing for a psychiatrist. He managed an eight on the first hole and still won it by two strokes. It looked like it was going to be a long morning.
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 Australian 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 him 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."