The Sand Trap (51 page)

Burt tried once again to hide his surprise.
“You do your homework Senor. But my story is not complicated. I
needed the money and the facility and the time. Doug and Puertos
gave me all three. I’m hoping to qualify for the Champions Tour
this fall. ”

“You’re Spanish is very good as well – for a
Canadian.”

Burt wasn’t sure if that was a question or a
statement so he ignored it.

“And you like Yoga.”

Again Burt ignored the question, but he now
knew that he had been carefully watched and this man knew the
things about Burt that were publically visible, including his
relationship with Maria. He was glad now he had promised Mary he
would only practice his martial arts in the privacy of his
bedroom.

Gorges continued. “I’m told that it is good
for older bodies. Maybe I should take it up. What do you think
Helen?”

“Ah, but you are not yet old Jose! You still
stretch very well!”

They all laughed again. Burt, a little too
nervously.

“So Mr. Van Royan, when do you leave our
country to chase your dream?”

Burt looked over at Doug. He hadn’t yet told
Doug the exact date he was going but now was as good a time as
any.

“Actually you will be my last lesson this
season. I am leaving on the plane tonight.” That was closer to the
truth than either of them knew.

Both men showed their surprise.

“I got a call from a friend in California
last night and there is a tournament next weekend I should enter to
see if I am ready to compete. Sorry to spring that on you Doug, but
I just decided last night.” The truth again he thought.

“So you will only teach me one lesson? I
hope it is a good one?”

“I assure you it will be a permanent fix to
your golf swing. But if you two will excuse me I’m going to grab
some lunch, do a little packing for tonight and set things up at
the range. It was a pleasure to meet you Senorita Fiquentes. And
Senor Gorges, I’ll see you at 2:30.”

He stood up, left the dining room and went
into the kitchen to get a snack, never glancing in Maria’s
direction and leaving Doug and Gorges in their own conversation. He
noticed that the guard watched him carefully and spoke to another
guard who followed Burt into the kitchen. They clearly knew
something, but he suspected it was only a suspicion at this point
or he would already have been taken care of. He grabbed a quick
sandwich and went back to his apartment, the assigned guard
following at a discreet distance.

Maria was shaken by Gorges’ comments. She
felt the complete weight of the ruthlessness of the Mexican drug
trade that simply trades lives for profit, and revenge for simply
expediency. She was nothing more than the latter and she now
wondered where she would be if she had not met Burt, the new Burt.
She was aware she still did not know every detail about his life,
but despite the fact he was just as much a killer as Jose, there
was a core goodness that was touchable. Could a killer have core
goodness she wondered? But this was conjecture for another time.
Right now she had to get out of Mexico with her head attached to
her body.

Burt had said to pack a bag, but all her
belongings, except what she kept in a locker at the club, were at
the casita. It made her wonder what she would miss if she could not
recover it all and realized she had little in the way of
possessions to show for thirty years in Mexico worth taking away
with her. Her Mexican passport and other identity papers were at
the casita; they were forgeries that would easily be picked up by
U.S. or Canadian customs so they were all useless now. There was a
photo album she would miss. It at least contained the happy
memories of those years, the university days, the children, the
friends, the Korean cook who was the closest to a mother she had
had. But they were just photographs and the memories would not be
left behind. She trusted Burt. She had no choice she guessed. But
how they would get out of Mexico with all of Jose’s resources after
her, and with no documents, was beyond her. He had said to meet at
the bikes at eight so she would be there. In the meantime she would
do what he suggested and just carry on as if nothing had happened.
Spend the rest of the day surrounded by her gardening co-workers
and the bustle of the golf course. It would be during the night she
would have to worry. She waited an appropriate length of time and
followed Burt into the kitchen to get a sandwich, aware of
Francisco's following glare.

Burt went back to the apartment again. He
realized the ring trick wasn’t going to work now. He had counted on
being introduced to Gorges at the range and they would shake hands
there. He couldn’t expect a second hand shake and he could not
guarantee he would have another opportunity to some way firmly
grasp Gorges bare skin, so he need another way to get the toxin
into the man. He knew the toxin could be absorbed through the skin,
but there were two problems with that method; it had to be moist
and the shelf life of the moist toxin was only two hours and after
that it lost its effect. If he could somehow get the toxin onto one
of Gorges clubs, and do it in the time window allowed, the moisture
from his grip should be enough to allow skin penetration. He
decided to gamble on this method. He poured some of the mixture
that was in the fridge in a small bowl that he had prepared before,
and carefully spread a tablespoon over the palm of his golf glove.
It was now 1:30 so he had until 3:30 or so to get the mixture
transferred to Gorges. The glove would protect him from the toxin
but if he could grip one of Gorges clubs the glove should leave
enough residue to do it work. He would only have to make sure that
he gripped the club low enough to hit the spot where Gorges’
non-glove hand would be placed. Satisfied that he had the solution,
he put the glove aside and dumped the left over materials down the
kitchen drain so a maid would not accidently come in contact with
anything toxin. He hoped it would have lost its potency by the time
it hit the ocean. He took one last look around the apartment,
carefully picked up the golf glove and left for the practice
range.

Maria and her gardening team decided to work
that day in the gardens directly behind the practice range. There
were mostly cactus plants. They required constant pruning and
weeding so the decision to work there on this particular day was
not an unusual one. She was watching when both Gorges and Burt
approached the practice facilities, one from the clubhouse and one
from the direction of the houses overlooking the sea and the first
hole. She noticed right away that, oddly, Burt was already wearing
a golf glove, but just dismissed it as his keenness to get at the
lesson. Gorges was followed by his usual coterie of guards and one
in a dark suit looked quite funny following him and carrying his
set of Pings. They reached the first covered practice area at the
same time. Maria looked around for the guard Fernandez but could
not see him. Since she was fairly hidden behind a wall of flowering
hibiscus she assumed he was one of the men the range with their
boss and she just couldn’t see him.

“Well Senor Teacher!” Gorges exclaimed. “You
ready to fix my game?”

“No problem I’m sure. Let’s see what you can
do,” Burt ordered as he took a 7-iron from Gorges bag and handed it
to him with the right, ungloved hand.

Gorges took the club and one of the three
men with him put some balls down on the grass tee mat.

Burt interrupted him. “Look Senor Gorges.
This tee box area is hardly big enough for the two of us. Do you
think the suits could stand aside for just a few moments? I’d hate
for one of them to get maimed by an errant back swing?”

Gorges waived the three men away and they
stepped off the tee box teaching area. He used the toe of the club
to put a ball in place and hit a seven iron. Burt saw right away
both what was wrong and who had taught him to play. His swing
looked just like Maria’s although not as good or with the same
result. It wasn’t bad, but as he said in the clubhouse, he had a
serious fade – slice. Burt figured he could fix that but he
realized now there was more to the relationship between this man
and Maria than he has been told.

“Hey, not bad. Not bad at all!” Burt
offered. “You have a good swing. You have been taught well. And you
have some athletic ability as well. You were probably a good
football player in your younger days?”

Even a man like Gorges was susceptible to
flattery before being told what he was doing wrong. “Yes, I was a
star in our barrio league. I sometimes wondered what might have
happened if I had pursued a football career.”

Burt thought for a moment about his own
truncated hockey life.

“Well your swing is very similar to one of
the top Canadian golfers who ever lived. He won many tournaments in
Canada, but had an unusual swing, so whoever taught you taught you
at least some elements of his swing.”

“Canadian, eh? I’ll be damned. A blonde
Canadian!”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. What do you mean unusual?”

“Well three things actually. First you swing
in what we call one plane. Let me show you.” Burt put out his right
hand to take the 7-iron club from Gorges and, gripping the club
much harder and a little lower than usual, started to
demonstrate.

“This is a classic two plane swing.” He
swung the club in the traditional, hands below the shoulders,
45-degree angle between the arms and club shaft type swing.

“This is a single plane swing.” He swung the
club with a straight line between the arms and the clubs shaft with
no angle, and no change of plane in the back or forward swing.

“So, is what I do wrong? Do I need to change
this?”

“Absolutely not. One of the most beautiful
and athletic women golfers alive today uses elements of this
swing.”

If he had been closer he would have heard an
eavesdropping Maria chuckle behind the Hibiscus curtain.

“Well what is wrong?”

You don’t have spatial recognition Burt
wanted to tell him, but instead he just offered some analysis. “As
I said, there are only three things you need to work on to improve
your game and you will be glad to know that none require a hockey
stick or a mop.” Burt nodded to the hockey stick leaning against
the back of the practice enclosure. He handed the club with his
gloved hand back to Gorges. “First thing is your grip. You have a
weak grip that will tend to bring the clubface back to the ball
slightly open, or facing to the right. This doesn’t cause a slice
in itself, but will push the ball to the right. Does that happen
often?”

“Yes! I’m going right! Straight right!”

“Alright . Change your grip to this.” Burt
grabbed one of his own clubs and showed him the thumb next to the
hand type grip that Burt had been taught. He put his club back in
the bag. “Now take a few easy swings.”

Gorges hit a half dozen balls and by the
sixth try he was still slicing a bit but not pushing the ball
right.

“Does that feel better?”

“Yes, I feel that I am hitting the ball more
solidly for sure.”

“Good, that is your grip from now on. Now
number two.”

Burt would normally have taught only one
thing a lesson, but since there would not be a second he was going
to give him the full treatment. Of course he realized for a moment
this whole thing was bizarre. He was teaching a dead man how to
play golf. But appearing as normal as possible might be important
for their get away so he continued.

“Imagine that you are looking down at the
ball from above and it is a clock face. The six is at your right
facing the clubface and the twelve is at your left facing the
target. You slice because you hit the ball at 5 o’clock. You should
be hitting the ball at the 7 o’clock spot. One teacher I know used
a baseball analogy; you should be hitting the ball to right field.
So now keep the grip I just taught you and try hitting the ball at
the 7 o’clock spot. Here, I’ll line the ball logo up to help you.”
Burt put the ball on the ground with the Nike check mark at the 7
o’clock spot. With his first hit the ball flew straight and
far.

“Shit!” Gorges exclaimed. “That’s fucking
amazing!”

He hit a half dozen more and they all went
straight.

“Change my grip. Hit the 7 o’clock spot. I
got it. You said that there were three things wrong. What’s the
third?”

“I think that’s enough for now. I’ll save
the last hint and the most important until we meet again.” Burt
carefully took off his golf glove and carefully placed it on the TV
at the back of the teaching area and decided to do a little
fishing. “Maybe next year when I come down to teach again you can
get another lesson.”

Gorges paused and leaned on his iron.
“Senor, I think it would be a good idea to teach me now.” Burt
noticed him make an imperceptible glance at one or more of the
guards at the edge of the practice area ten feet away. Burt had his
answer.

“Oh, alright, but for this tip I do need the
good old Canadian hockey stick.”

He reached over and picked up the stick and
at the same time he saw a movement off to his right where the
guards were standing. All three were moving towards him as Gorges
moved off the tee box to get out of the way. Wing Chung was not as
good with the bamboo stick as was Kwa Hang Do and a hockey stick
was not a Jang Bang, but Burt figured it would be more than good
enough to handle three unsuspecting thugs. His first blow broke an
arm that was holding what looked to be a .45 and the gun dropped to
the ground as the man howled in pain. His second move was a jab to
the throat with the butt end of the stick and another man went down
choking for breath. Bruce Lee would have been proud of that one he
thought. The third man was six feet way – too far to hit. The man
had his gun leveled at Burt’s head and he watched in slow motion as
the finger curled around the trigger and started to squeeze. Burt
leaned his head sharply to the left at the same time as he saw the
man’s head explode in a mass of red and the shot went far to the
right. When he regained his balance he turned around to see that
Gorges was running back to the clubhouse. He looked back at his
attackers and saw that the last man who had fired at him had a
shovel stuck in the middle of his head and Maria was standing over
the man in an action stance. They looked at each other.