The Sand Trap (39 page)

“And you Jose?”

“My future was established with the first
profit I made from Columbian gold. I have much more mining to do.”
He stood up to leave. “I will still be coming to the golf course
occasionally but we never have to indicate that we know each
other.” He paused at the door. “And, of course, you could tell
anyone all you know about me. But who would believe a black haired
Mexican woman with no passport or birth certificate who has red
cunt hair.”

And then he was gone, surrounded by his
phalanx of loyal foot soldiers.

That was six months ago, and she had thought
often about her old life and the transition to her new. She had
left a past behind once before and she was confident she could do
it again. She did not know how he arranged it, but she left that
day two years ago for San Jose del Cabo, the job at the golf course
and the casita on the beach. She had not seen Jose since until he
showed up at her casita six months ago and now she suspected, hoped
in a certain way, she would never see him again. It was time for
her to start a new life again. She finished her breakfast, cleaned
up the dishes and showered under the gravity shower fed by the
water tank up by the road that was filled once a week by a water
tanker. She dressed in her gardening clothes and walked up the
steep path to the road where her Honda was parked. She loved the
bike, the road and the speed with which she could negotiate the
twists and turns of the rough road into town. It was one of the
occasions where she could put herself in the “slow motion” zone and
exercise her special attributes to the limit. Some of the local
boys sometimes tried to keep up to her on their own machines but
gave up somewhere around the worst of the hairpin, cliff edge
turns. They teased each other unmercifully that such a mommita
could go faster than any of them. This morning though, she just
cruised, enjoying the morning breezes off the Sea of Cortez and the
spectacular view into the coves and beaches of the coast road.
Depending upon how fast she wanted to go, the eight kilometer trip
to the golf course took only fifteen minutes or so and she parked
and joined the other staff in the dining room for a special morning
staff meeting.

She liked the head professional Doug
Hernandez, although she thought he was young for such a good job.
She guessed thirty-something. The staff liked him, even the
ordinary labourers she supervised. He also respected her gardening
skills and left her pretty much alone to do her work. He hadn’t
asked too many questions about her past when she arrived relatively
unannounced one day, so she figured that he too had some connection
to Jose. All he asked was that she be good at her job and in the
two years the grounds around the golf course were more beautiful
than even the elaborate grounds around most of the high-end hotels
further south. She had a tremendous ability to use local plants to
exceptional visual effect. And her cactus garden with twenty-six
different types of Mexican cacti was becoming as large a tourist
attraction as the golfing.

This particular morning Doug was reviewing
the development plans for the area over the coming year. They were
going to stick with only eighteen holes for now. Although the
Nicklaus and Norman designs for two unique eighteen-hole courses
were still on track they would have to wait until the economy
recovered a little more. Maria herself had not played the course
yet, although she had rekindled some interest in golf by going to
the driving range during some off hours when no one would see her.
She had asked Doug when she first came if she could use the
facility and he looked puzzled but said all management staff had
free use of the golf facility.

“Do you play?” he had asked.

“Once when I was younger,” she replied. They
both left it at that.

Doug had finished the presentation on the
future developments and was starting to wrap up the meeting. Maria
thought she would get a cup of coffee while he was introducing the
newer staff members. She had just filled her cup when she heard him
introduce the new Teaching Professional and the shock caused her to
drop her cup on the floor where it shattered and sent coffee over
the empty chair beside her. She ignored the taunts of her fellow
workers and scuttled off to get a broom and cloths, but instead
went into the women's washroom and sat in a stall and shook.

“It couldn’t be,” she thought to herself.
“That’s a common name.”

She did not leave the washroom until
everyone had left the dining room.

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Gord was met at the airport by Doug
Hernandez, the Head Professional at the Puertos Los Barilles Golf
Course. Doug was a rare Mexican who had been inspired by Lee
Trevino rather than Manuel Rosas and chose golf as his passion over
soccer. He was even more rare in that he did not come to golf
through a wealthy family. He was brought up in Mexico City where
his father spent the nights cleaning the offices of those getting
rich from Mexico’s burgeoning manufacturing industry and his mother
spent the days cleaning their homes. One of those homes was on a
golf course on the edge of the city and before he was school age,
Doug would often go with his mother while she worked. He would want
to help, but at that age was more hindrance than help and his
mother would send him away to play on the spacious grounds of the
golf course mansion.

In 1987, the golf courses in Mexico City
were private and the security around this course was formidable.
Like most kids in his neighbourhood, he knew there was a golf
course, and the news reports of Trevino winning tournaments reached
even his neighbourhood. They were proud of any Mexican who did well
on the national stage, no matter what the sport. Lorena Ochoa would
soon be a national hero. But he and his friends were usually more
interested in old soccer balls, sometimes just tightly rolled up
plastic garbage bags, and dreaming of the day they would be picked
for the Mexican squad in the World Cup. His mother’s job gave Doug
a glimpse of another world and a kind employer gave him a glimpse
of another sport. On one of the first days, full of five-year-old
boy curiosity, he wandered around the grounds of the house and he
came to a spot where a bench was situated so that it overlooked a
tee box. He sat down and watched as a group of four players started
to hit their balls and he wondered why the object of the game
appeared to be to hit the little balls into the woods? After they
hit they said things that he only heard from the neighbourhood boys
his mother said he wasn’t to play with. They looked so funny
swinging at the ball that he laughed out loud just as one player
was in his backswing. That player also hit an apparently good shot
into the trees and said the same things as the others and turned
around, looked at Doug and threw his club at him. The club missed;
the other players laughed and Doug ran as fast as he could back to
his mother. The next day he went back to the same spot and watched
again. He found to his surprise that they had left the thrown club
in the bushes. As soon as he picked up the old 5-iron, Doug
Hernandez was hooked.

Soon he was finding those lost balls for
golfers and cleaning their clubs as they went past the third hole
bench. With the help of the owner of the house where his mother
cleaned he talked his way into a job as a caddie. The rest is well
known golf history in Mexico. Although he never went to a college
or university, Doug Hernandez went on to become one of the few
Mexicans to have a shot at the PGA tour and he won once on the
fledging Nationwide Tour. However by thirty years of age, Doug and
his Mexican backers, many from the old club that had given him his
start in golf, realized he was not good enough to go the distance.
Despite an abundance of natural talent, he never received the good
instruction needed early in life to really excel at this game. So,
again with the help of his backers, he obtained his PGA instructor
certification and decided he would dedicate the rest of his life to
helping young Mexican golfers learn and excel at the game that had
pulled him out of the cycle of drugs and gangs that most of his
childhood friends had found.

He wasn’t particularly happy that he was now
spending his time coddling to wealthy Cabo condo owners, mostly
from the U.S. and Canada.

He especially wasn’t happy that his new
teaching pro was a nobody from Canada.

“From where?” astounded, he had asked the
course owner over a beer at the clubhouse bar, surrounded on all
sides by heavily armed guards. “Canada? What the fuck? Will he
bring his own hockey stick?”

“Look,” Jose Gorges, the course owner had
replied as he slid Doug the file with Burt’s resume. "We get a lot
of Canadians down here and he might make them feel at home.”

“We’d have to have two feet of snow every
morning to do that,” Doug replied as he opened up the folder and
glanced at it. “There are a lot of young Mexican pros who would
have loved this job, so this guy had better be special.” And then
he noticed Burt's age. “Christ Jose. He’s fifty-two years old?
Maybe he’ll bring his crutches and Viagra along with the hockey
stick.”

Jose laughed briefly. He enjoyed his time
with Doug. He had known Doug ever since the days when Doug’s mother
and Jose had been neighbours in the barrio. “Be careful there
Doug,” Jose lectured with a somber grin. “I’ll be fifty soon. Is
this how you will talk about me?”

He turned serious. “Doug, this is not an
appointment that either you or I have much choice in making. There
are things that our government doesn’t even tell me when they ask
for something, but I’m telling you now, asking you if you like,
help this guy do his job. It is important.”

That was a month ago and now Doug was
picking this ‘guy’ up at the San Jose airport. He had gone over the
details of his assignment and he would take good care of this man.
Jose had gotten him this job, a plum for a thirty-year-old washed
up pro. Not only was Gorges a very rich manufacturer, but he was
very connected to the political life of Mexico. Some suggested he
was the only man in Mexico who had contacts with every active drug
gang in Mexico. He brushed off his thoughts and his conversation
with Jose as he held the photo of Burt Van Royan in his hand and
stood with the taxi drivers and condo sellers waiting for the plane
from Pearson to disembark its warmth seeking passengers.

“Van Royan?” Doug went to a tall man as he
left the immigration counter and headed into the morass of
greeters. The man turned and with a broad smile Doug put out his
hand. “Hi! Burt Van Royan?" he offered in English. "Welcome to
Mexico Burt. Are these all your bags?”

Van Royan had a large Booq backpack sling
over one shoulder and a carry on suitcase that he pulled behind
him. “Yeah. I shipped most else I need down earlier.”

“We got it all,” Doug replied. “Your clubs
included. They are in your house. Good flight?” And they started to
walk out of the airport to the parking lot.

Burt walked with a visible limp.

“The flight is only four hours from Toronto
so no big deal. But with this,” he slapped his knee, “sitting still
too long is a little bit of a challenge.”

“How did you do that?” Doug pointed to the
knee.

“Ski accident. Just had the damn thing
rebuilt. It’s a little stiff but I’m now bionic. After a little
more physio I’ll be better than ever.”

They arrived at Doug’s car, a perfectly
restored sky blue 1962 Volkswagen bug. Burt threw his gear in the
back seat. “Wow! I’m impressed! I used to have one of these when
they were not called an antique. Is it stock?” He slid into the
passenger seat as Doug started it up.

“Yup. All original. It was my Dad’s car and
he and I have been fixing it since I was old enough to walk. When
he passed on I took the car and it became my stress reliever to
fully restore it.” He slipped the car into gear and they headed out
onto the traffic heading south from the airport. Doug explained
that most traffic was probably going all the way to Cabo San Lucas,
forty-five minutes away, but they were only going ten minutes to
the smaller village of San Jose del Cabo where the golf course was
located and where Burt would live. “Have you been to Mexico
before?”

“Not really. When we were kids in California
we used to head over to Tijuana to party. That was before the drug
wars gave the phrase 'party till you drop' a whole new
meaning."

“I can see there would be no shortage of VW
parts,” Burt suggested, observing that half the cars they passed on
the highway were VWs of different sizes, models, shapes and
condition.

Doug nodded. “Yeah. Nor of mechanics. Every
boy in Mexico knows how to strip down a VW engine and fix any model
with a piece of wire and duct tape. You hungry?”