Good Faith (26 page)

“Genius,” said Gottfried.

He was right. He was exactly right, and I was going to feel some residual guilt when I stole that very idea and gave it to our future builder, whoever he might be. What I said was, “I like your ideas, but you were there at the meeting, Gottfried; it’s going to be months until we can break ground, and the clubhouse and the golf course come first, and after that the sewer plant, and you know how long that’s going to take, so what can I say?”

Gottfried stared at me without speaking, knowing for once that I had him, that practicality and wisdom were on my side, and no amount of ranting and raving would change, or quicken, our course. He nodded. They got into Gottfried’s truck and drove off, and all I could do for a few minutes was stand there, staring after them in relief.

CHAPTER

17

A
N EIGHTEEN-HOLE
golf course requires a hundred and eighty acres, but two hundred is better. This was the first thing I learned when Marcus and I began driving around and visiting golf courses in March, when the ground reappeared. I had played golf maybe half a dozen times over the years, mostly at a public course outside of Deacon called the Dawson Club, but not really a club at all. Marcus passed by the Dawson Club without a second glance and went straight to the Cookborough Country Club. The whole way out there, he told me about golf. “I hate golf,” he said. “I told you I hate sports, but even more than sports I hate golf, but I’ve played golf a hundred–two hundred times over the years, and every single time has been enlightening.”

“It takes so long,” I said. “I don’t see how anyone with an actual business to run can get the time in.”

“Or a family to raise. But do you ask your buyers why they have such oddball tastes? No. You just hope to find some house that will appeal to them. Same with golf. Now what we’re going to do is look at all the courses in the area, and we’re going to make our course more challenging than eighty percent of them. When all those golfers are living in all those houses and staring out their windows every day at the third hole or the eleventh hole or whatever, we don’t want them grinding their molars in frustration. Maybe there’ll be one hole, say the ninth, the last hole on the front nine, right by the clubhouse where no one can see it, that is the most challenging hole in the county. But all the other holes will beckon them outside. Nice plantings, contoured fairways, good views.”

At the Cookborough Country Club, he drove in the gate with a wave to the guard, pulled up in front of the pro shop, and parked in a reserved spot next to a golf cart. It was a nice enough day, but no one was playing, and there was still snow in the shady spots. The greens had begun to turn green, but the fairways were still brown. The door of the pro shop, which had a
CLOSED FOR THE SEASON
sign in the window, opened, and a man in a sweater and a jacket came out. Marcus went right up and shook his hand. “Hi. You are?”

“Ray. I’m Ray.”

“Hello, Ray. I’m Marcus Burns, and this is my friend Joe Stratford. I’ll tell you what we’re doing. We’re building a golf course! First one around here since 1949. What we want to do is see what’s needed. You know, what would fit in. What would be an addition to the area’s present facilities. Are you the pro?”

“Nah.”

“Do you play?”

“I been playing. I’m not very good.”

“Well, Ray, what do you like about this course?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just one little thing, the littlest thing you can think of. The first thing that comes into your mind.”

Ray looked at Marcus. After a moment, he said, “I like the crick across the fairway in front of the green on the sixth hole. You get the ball in that crick and you’re sunk, but if you put it on the other side, you’ve got a pretty good approach to the green and a good chance of making a birdie.”

“Would you mind showing us that hole?”

Ray looked at us again, then said, “I guess not. But it’s a ways from here. Get in the cart.”

We piled into the golf cart, and Ray wheeled us expertly down the winding blacktop path, past several tees and several greens, in and out of a few stands of trees, past sand traps and forlorn benches and ball washers. When we got to the sixth hole, we got out of the cart and stood on the tee, staring down the fairway toward the green. Sure enough, the sharp cut of a creek, wider than it looked from where we stood, angled across the fairway, which sloped gently upward on the far side. We stared at it for a minute.

Marcus said, “What’s par for this hole?”

“Par four.”

“How many times have you birdied it, Ray?”

“Maybe half a dozen.”

“I’m impressed,” said Marcus. “Why don’t you show us the rest of the front nine on the way back to the pro shop.”

“Well, all right,” said Ray. And we wound our way, into the chilly wind this time, back to where the car was parked. When we got out of the cart, Marcus took out a notebook. He took down Ray’s name and gave him his card. He said, “Now, Ray, you call me if you have any more thoughts about how this course plays, okay? What I’m interested in is the average player, you know, average but experienced. Okay?”

“Yeah,” said Ray.

We stopped for something to eat, which I had noticed Marcus never failed to do—he always got even more sociable over food—and we went on to the Marque Valley Country Club, where Marcus got into a chat with the guy doing maintenance on the sprinkler system for the putting green at Deacon Hill. His opinion was that the best course in the area was the Preston Mountain Resort course.

“I’ve never heard of that one,” I said.

“No one has. That’s the most exclusive club in the state,” he said.

Marcus’s face lit up. “Where is it?”

The guy drew us a map. It was down a road I had driven any number of times, between Nut Hollow and Roaring Falls. I said, “Well, I thought I knew this area.”

“You know what?” said the guy. “When I’ve got to go over there, they meet me at the gate and escort me to the work site, and when I’m done they escort me out. One of the caddies told me that when his shift is over, if he leaves something at work, he’s not allowed to go back and pick it up.”

Marcus was beaming.

“You know who I saw there a couple of years ago? Paul Newman. Paul Newman the movie star.”

I said, “Around here?”

The guy shrugged. “The security guard over there told me he comes here all the time, and that other guy too. What’s his name? Oh. Sylvester Stallone. Rocky. There’s movie stars and CEOs all over that place.”

Needless to say, Marcus picked me up at noon the next day, and we headed straight for the Preston Mountain Resort. We drove in his car—or, rather, I drove his car—and he sat in the backseat. Hatchcock Road was the sort of road they put into autumn travel brochures, pleasantly curving between rustic fence lines with leafy red mature maples bending together above. In the middle of March, the trees were bare, wet, and black, and the roadway was lined with puddles and dirty patches of snow, but there was nothing unbeautiful about it. Exactly 4.8 miles past the intersection with Nut Hollow Road, there was a paved driveway off to the right that swung around a thick stand of evergreens, and—what do you know?—when we drove back there we found a split-rail fence line, a nice stone gatehouse, and a closed gate. I eased to a halt and Marcus whirred down the automatic window behind me. I sat quietly. As soon as the guard approached, Marcus said, “Has Mr. Newman arrived yet?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m to meet Mr. Newman here, and I’m afraid I’m late.”

“I haven’t seen anyone this morning, sir. Who is Mr. Newman?”

Marcus smiled knowingly, then said in a low voice, “You know, Paul Newman the actor.” He looked at his watch. “I was supposed to be here at twelve-thirty, but I got delayed in Portsmouth on my way from the airport.” The guard cleared his throat to speak, but Marcus interrupted him. “Have you heard from him? I’m on my way to Florida, and he promised to meet me here so I could see the place.”

“What place?”

“The club.”

“The club?”

“Have we got the wrong place, Joe? Sir, isn’t this the Preston Mountain Resort?”

The guard looked around.

Marcus adopted a tone of convivial concern. “Mr. Newman drew me a little map, and I was sure I could find it, but maybe it’s farther down the road. We’re looking for a private club called the Preston Mountain Resort. I’m Marcus Burns. I do business with Mr. Newman, and we were planning to meet at that club because Mr. Newman is proposing me for membership, but he said it was so secret that even the neighbors don’t know right where it is, so I suppose we’re really screwed if his map is wrong.” He kept smiling in a friendly way.

The guard heaved a sigh, gazed at Marcus for another moment, then said, “This is the club, but members always call ahead, and no members have called for this morning. Maybe you should wait here for Mr. Newman.”

Now it was my turn. I got out of the car and took the guard over to one side. I said, leaning close and whispering, “I don’t think you should make Mr. Burns wait in the car. He’s had a long trip from Paris.” To Portsmouth? But the guard didn’t notice that. “He’s not really the kind of guy who waits in his car for movie actors. Or for anyone.”

“Who is he?”

“Have you heard of Horizontal Technologies?”

“No.”

“How about ABM?”

“I’ve heard of that.”

“He
is
ABM.”

“And he doesn’t want to wait?”

“He’s not
used
to waiting.”

He went into the guardhouse and picked up the phone. I got back into my car. Marcus kept smiling. I watched the guard. He nodded and shook his head and nodded some more, and then he came out with a doubtful look on his face, and before he could say anything, Marcus held out his hand and put a folded-up twenty-dollar bill up the guy’s sleeve and said, “Thanks so much for your help.” While the guard was pulling it out, he said, “Go on, Joe. Up to the clubhouse.” And so we did. He said, “Who did you tell him I was?”

“You heard of ABM?”

“What’s that?”

“Well, I believe it stands for antiballistic missile, but he’d definitely heard of it. I said you
are
ABM.” We laughed all the way up through the woods.

The club was laid out on a big piece of ground that sloped upward first, and then gently downward into a shallow bowl, then upward again toward the northeast. The buildings were made of logs in that northwoods style they loved at the turn of the century. It was in the deluxe-summer-camp architectural family, somewhere between Yellowstone Park and a cluster of cabins, one of the few architectural styles that is impossible to remodel and even, on this scale, to tear down. It looked like an entire virgin forest from somewhere out in California had been brought here. The grounds had an old-fashioned air also—more lawns than gardens, and the few gardens were very formal. The dark logs of the buildings gave even the air and sky the austerity of a pine forest. The Thorpe place, by contrast, had grace         and human scale in addition to grandeur. I had a moment of appreciating what we had before two security guards in their golf cart approached us. Marcus said, “Turn right.”

I turned right. In a moment we were cruising along beside the golf course, and Marcus was staring at it avidly. He said, “Don’t look. Just keep going and do what I say.” I kept going. The road curved around the lake. I turned right again, and went between a couple of fairways. I turned left and went up the hill behind the main lodge. Marcus said, “Speed up just a little.” I did. “Turn left.” Now we were at the beginning of the back nine, which stretched up the hill and had beautiful views of the lodge and the perimeter of trees and the valley beyond, toward Roaring Falls. Maybe I had seen this place from a plane sometime over the years. It still seemed amazing that I had never heard of it. Then the road eased around the back side of the mountain, and I saw that the property had another hidden valley with no road access other than from the lodge. We passed the outer holes of the back nine, probably thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, which wound around a man-made lake. Marcus said, “Pull over here.”

I pulled over into a service road, behind some bushes, and a few minutes later I heard the golf cart go by. Marcus said, “Now go.” I pulled out and drove in the direction we had come from, and soon we were at the top of the hill again, looking down toward the lodge and the gate. Marcus was laughing. He said, “Now they’re actually after us. I don’t think they believe in Mr. Newman! Let’s get out of here.”

I could see a more direct route to the gate, and I went straight for it. Marcus said, “They’re right behind us. That golf cart is going pretty fast.” I sped up. At some outbuildings, I turned toward where I thought the gate was, and sure enough, there it was. The guard was standing in the middle of the road and the gate was closed. Marcus said, “Slow down, but don’t stop.” He rolled down his window and began waving the guard out of the way. A moment went by. “Keep going,” said Marcus. Another moment. And then the guard stepped to the side of the road. He just stepped. He didn’t actually look afraid, but only as if he had decided not to chance it. Marcus leaned out the window and called, “Thank you so much, Lloyd! You’ve been terrific!” And then the gate opened, whether of itself or because Lloyd opened it, I have no idea. We sped around the blind curve and out onto Hatchcock Road, where I made a right turn and zoomed toward Roaring Falls. We were laughing and laughing. Marcus climbed over the back of the seat into the front and said, “Oh, God, I feel about fifteen! Wasn’t that a kick!”

“What a depressing place!” I exclaimed. “I can’t believe a guy like Mr. Newman spends much time there.”

“Nah. For sure he doesn’t. I’ve heard of places like that. It used to be where people like the Rockefellers and the Morgans brought the wife and kids and sat around for the month of August, planning world wars and fomenting counterrevolutionary movements. I bet there was a train station somewhere close by—”

“There was one in Roaring Falls.”

“—and they had a branch line for private cars that went right up to the lodge there. But I’m sure all they do now is the men gather for some kind of secret meetings where they swear allegiance to one another. My bet is, it’s owned by some secret society, you know, something like one of those Princeton eating clubs or Yale senior things. What else would you do in that lodge besides dress up in bear suits and howl in a ritualized manner against the hoi polloi and the Jews?”

“I didn’t even see the golf course.”

“I did. Not bad, but very old-fashioned. Wide fairways, big greens. The length is probably the challenging thing. Dogleg here, dogleg there. Ours is going to be much nicer than that one. Have you heard of Pete Dye?”

“No.”

“Jack Nicklaus?”

“Well, of course.”

“One of those two.”

“One of those two what?”