Crazybone by Bill Pronzini

pointed the way to the pro shop. It led me outside to the rear, past a crowded terrace overlooking the links and a bank of tennis courts. Nobody was on the courts and not many were driving or putting or riding around in awninged carts: it was the early cocktail hour, the one time of day that was likely to be more important to the country club set than their sport. The pro shop was part of a smaller stone building nearby, in the center of a pair of wings that would house the men’s and women’s locker rooms.
    Inside I found careful displays of clubs and bags and balls, clothing and other items — and a thin middle-aged woman in golf togs who was studying a packaged wristband with a puzzled expression, as if the writing on the package was runic symbols instead of English. Another There-challenged individual, maybe. I waited quietly for a couple of minutes. Nobody else put in an appearance, so I asked the woman if Trevor Smith was around. She barely glanced at me as she said, “He’ll be back soon, I’m sure.” The wristband package was clearly an object of much greater interest to her than a craggy stranger in an off-the-rack suit.
    I wandered over and looked at a rack of expensive irons and woods. Golf is one of those games that inspire grand passion or grand indifference, and I was firmly in the latter group. I could understand its appeal on an intellectual level, but I never could connect with it emotionally — maybe because I’m not coordinated enough to be any good at the game. The one time I’d let somebody talk me into trying to learn it, it had taken me a week to get over the damage to my ego.
    Another couple of minutes, and the little tinkly bell over the door sounded again. But it wasn’t Trevor Smith; it was a second middle-aged woman, obviously a friend of die wristband lady because she said, “There you are, Patty.” She likewise paid no attention to me, beyond the same kind of cursory glance I’d gotten from the other one.
    “I can’t decide if I should buy this band or not,” Patty said. “It’s supposed to be the best, but it gave Ellen Conway a rash. What do you think, Joan?”
    “Why don’t you ask Trevor?”
    “I intend to, if he ever gets back.”
    “I thought you’d gone up to the Greens Room. You did say you were thirsty.”
    “I am, God knows. Are the others still there?”
    “Waiting for us. Guess who else is still there, staked out at the bar.”
    “Who? Oh, you mean Dale.”
    “Drowning herself in gin, as usual. She hasn’t drawn a sober breath since the accident. You’d think she’d have come to terms with it by now.”
    “You’d think so.”
    “I mean, it was terrible what happened to poor Jack Hunter, but their little affair hadn’t been going on very long, and anyway it didn’t seem that serious. Did you think it was that serious?”
    They might have forgotten about me, if my presence had ever really registered on either of them, or maybe they were the kind of catty gossips who didn’t care who happened to overhear them. In any event, they had my full attention now.
    “No,” Patty said. “Just another of her flings, that’s what everyone thought.”
    “My God, do you suppose she was in love with him?”
    “If she was, it was strictly one-sided. Jack would never have left Sheila, no matter how much she played around.”
    “I don’t see Dale leaving Frank, either, do you? As much as money and position mean to her.”
    “No, but if she knows what’s good for her, she’ll stop all this public lushing and get a grip. Frank’s no fool. Word will get back to him, if it hasn’t already, and he can add two and two as easily as anyone else. You know him — he won’t put up with any sort of obvious nonsense.”
    “Do you think we should talk to her? Would it do any good?”
    “The only person Dale Cooney listens to is herself. If you ask me, the thing to do...”
    I didn’t hear what Patty thought was the thing to do. I didn’t much care, for one thing,