NativeTongue

He hoped so, but he truly couldn't recall. One thing was certain: today he was physically incapable of swinging a golf club; it was simply out of the question. He wondered how he would break the news to Francis Kingsbury, who was bowing to the photographers in acknowledgment of Charles Chelsea's effusive introduction.

"Frank," said Jake Harp. "Where am I?"

With a frozen smile, Kingsbury remarked that Jake Harp looked about as healthy as dog barf.

"A bad night," the golfer rasped. "I'd like to go home and lie down."

Then came an acrid gust of cologne as Chelsea leaned in: "Hit a few, Jake, okay? No interviews, just a photo op."

"But I can't use a fucking graphite wood. This is Jap voodoo, Frank, I need my MacGregors."

Francis Kingsbury gripped Jake Harp by the shoulders and turned him toward the ocean. "And would you please, for Christ's sake, try not to miss the goddamn ball?"

Chelsea cautioned Kingsbury to keep his voice down. The sportswriters were picking up on the fact that Jake Harp was seriously under the weather.

"Coffee's on the way," Chelsea chirped lightly.

"You want me to hit it in the ocean?" Jake Harp said. "This is nuts."

One of the news photographers shouted for the security officers to get out of the way, they were blocking the picture. Kingsbury commanded the troops of Pedro Luz to move to one side; Pedro Luz himself was not present, having refused with vague mutterings to exit the storage room and join the phony golf clinic at Falcon Trace. His men, however, embraced with gusto and amusement the task of guarding Francis X. Kingsbury from assailants unknown.

Having cleared the security force to make an opening for Jake Harp, Kingsbury ordered the golfer to swing away.

"I can't, Frank."

"What?"

"I'm hung over. I can't lift the bloody club."

"Assume the position, Jake. You're starting to piss me off."

Tottering slightly, Jake Harp slowly arranged himself in the familiar stance that Golf Digest once hailed as "part Hogan, part Nicklaus, part Baryshnikov" – chin down, feet apart, shoulders square, left arm straight, hands interlocked loosely on the shaft of the club.

"There," Jake Harp said gamely.

Charles Chelsea cleared his throat. Francis Kingsbury said, "A golf ball would help, Jake."

"Oh Jesus, you're right."

"You got everything but a goddamn ball."

Under his breath, Jake Harp said, "Frank, would you do me a favor? Tee it up?" "What?"

"I can't bend down. I'm too hung over, Frank. If I try to bend, I'll fall on my face. I swear to God."

Francis Kingsbury dug in his pocket and pulled out a scuffed Maxfli and a plastic tee that was shaped like a naked woman. "You're quite an athlete, Jake. A regular Jim Fucking Thorpe."

Gratefully Jake Harp watched Kingsbury drop to one knee and plant the tee. Then suddenly the sun exploded, and a molten splinter tore a hole in the golfer's belly, spi

Bud Schwartz and Da

"Think he's got a dog?" said Da

Bud Schwartz said probably not. "Guys like that, they think dogs are for pussies. It's a cop mentality."

But Bud Schwartz was wrong. Bill Hawkins owned a German shepherd. The burglars could see the animal prowling the fence in the backyard.

"Guess we gotta do the front-door routine," said Bud Schwartz. What a way to end a career: breaking into an FBI man's house in broad daylight. "I thought we retired," Bud Schwartz complained. "All that dough we got, tell me what's the point if we're still pullin" these jobs."

Da

"No way."

"If he can't get to the guy, yeah, he might. Already he thinks we tipped Kingsbury off, on account of all those rent-a-cops."

Bud Schwartz said he wasn't worried about Lou going back on the deal. "These people are pros, Da

Now gimme the scroogie." They were poised at Billy Hawkins's front door. Da

Skeptically Da

But there was no alarm system. Bud Schwartz pried the door jamb easily. He put his shoulder to the wood and pushed it open. "You believe that?" he said to his partner. "See what I mean about cop mentality. They think they're immune."

"Yeah," said Da

They closed the door and entered the empty house. Bud Schwartz would never have guessed that a federal agent lived there. It was a typical suburban Miami home: three bedrooms, two baths, nothing special. Once they got used to the idea, the burglars moved through the rooms with casual confidence – wife at work, kids at school, no sweat.

"Too bad we're not stealin" anything," Bud Schwartz mused.

"Want to?" said his partner. "Just for old times" sake."

"What's the point?"

"I saw one of the kids has a CD player."

"Wow," said Bud Schwartz acidly. "What's that, like, thirty bucks. Maybe forty?"

"No, man, it's a Sony."

"Forget it. Now gimme the papers."

In captivity Billy Hawkins had agreed to notify his family that he was out of town on a top-secret assignment. However, the agent had displayed a growing reluctance to call the FBI office and lie about being sick. To motivate him, Molly McNamara had composed a series of cryptic notes and murky correspondence suggesting that Hawkins was not the most loyal of government servants. Prominently included in the odd jottings were the telephone numbers of the Soviet Embassy and the Cuban Special Interest Section in Washington, D.C. For good measure, Molly had included a bank slip showing a suspicious $25,000 deposit to Agent Billy Hawkins's personal savings account – a deposit that Molly herself had made at the South Miami branch of Unity National Savings & Loan. The purpose of these maneuvers was to create a shady portfolio that, despite its sloppiness, Billy Hawkins would not wish to try to explain to his colleagues at the FBI.

Who would definitely come to the house in search of clues, if Agent Hawkins failed to check in.

Molly McNamara had entrusted the bank receipt, phone numbers and other manufactured evidence to Bud Schwartz and Da

Bud Schwartz chose the second drawer of the night-stand. He placed the envelope under two unopened boxes of condoms. "Raspberry-colored," he marveled. "FBI man uses raspberry rubbers!" Another stereotype shattered.

Da

"Don't tell me it's a black-and-white."

"Yep. You know the last time I saw one?"

"Little Havana," said Bud Schwartz, "that duplex off Twelfth Avenue. I remember."

"Remember what we got for it."

"Yeah. Thirteen goddamn dollars." The fence was a man named Fat Jack on Seventy-ninth Street, near the Boulevard. Bud Schwartz couldn't stand Fat Jack not only because he was cheap but because he smelled like dirty socks. One day Bud Schwartz had boosted a case of Ban Extra Dry Roll-on Deodorant sticks from the back of a Publix truck, and given it to Fat Jack as a hint. Fat Jack had handed him eight bucks and said that nobody should ever use roll-ons because they cause cancer of the armpits.