Beach Wedding(59)

I thought about my crazy brother Mickey still working as a cable tech and an electrician’s helper on the weekends to make ends meet because this asshole or his brother or maybe his sister took West Point away from him with a single phone call.

Because why? We were the little people was why. We were ants and getting stepped on was what ants were for.

Then again, maybe not, I thought as my hand balled into a fist.

We both turned as the door suddenly opened and a group of golfers came in.

Not just any golfers, I saw.

They were Tom and Mickey and Finn and Nick.

“You!” Tom said as he spotted Henry Sutton.

Then I saw a switch flip in my brother’s eyes. The crazy switch.

Henry must have seen it, too, because as my brother ran forward, Henry leapt immediately into one of the toilet stalls and slammed the door.

“Help!” Sutton screamed. “Somebody help me! Security! Police!”

Tom rattled savagely at the stall door, truly as unhinged as I’d ever seen him, which was saying something. The money, the pressure of the wedding, and his revenge scheme on the Hamptons for what it had done to our family had coalesced into a hurricane of rage that he was now finally unleashing in one incredible surge.

We were still holding Tom back from climbing in over the top of the stall and beating the billionaire to death when the security guys showed up.

“What the hell is going on in here?” the biggest of them said.

“I’m Henry Sutton and they’re trying to kill me,” Henry Sutton said.

Tom suddenly broke into laughter as we let him go.

“Well, I’m Tom Rourke, and he’s full of shit,” he said. “I didn’t touch him.”

“Exactly,” Finn said. “We came in here and the guy in the stall started having a panic attack or something.”

“We were worried about him. We were about to call you,” Mickey said.

“As a member of this club, I order you to escort these...these...off the premises,” Henry Sutton said as the security guards formed a protective circle around him and brought him out.

“For what? Taking a piss?” Tom said, unzipping at one of the grand urinals. “Please get back on your meds, sir. I hope you get better soon.”

The head security guy stayed behind as Henry and the others left. He was a big blond middle-aged guy with a mustache.

“We’re not going to have a problem here today, gentlemen, are we?” he said.

I shook my head and stifled a laugh as Tom zipped up and shrugged with the most innocent face I’d ever seen.

“From who? Us?” he said.



80

An hour later, we were chilling at the edge of a stand of white birch when my brother took his cigar out of his mouth and handed it to me, juicy end first.

“Gee, thanks,” I said as Tom unsheathed a five-iron from his leather Ping bag.

We were three-quarters up the green of the tenth hole. Finn and I sucked, but Tom and Mickey were really good. It was Tom’s second shot on the tenth, which was a long par four. He had crushed his drive off the box and had a 170 and a little to go.

Tom reared back and went for it with his five-iron. I’d only played golf with him a few times in high school, and even back then he had a beautiful swing. The way he kept his lower half quiet and kept his hands back, man, could he shellac it.

Mickey let out a whistle as the ball launched down the fairway like it was going to go into orbit. We all could have been grade-schoolers again as we watched in little-brother silent awe.

“No!” said Finn as it hit fifteen feet up over the pin and jumped and began rolling back and back and...

It went in.

I dropped Tom’s stogie as we all went ballistic surrounding Tom out in the middle of the fairway. We slapped the hell out of his back as he tossed his club over his shoulder and fist-pumped.

“May the road rise to meet you and may the wind be always at your back as you eagle the tenth hole at Maiden Rock!” Finn said with our mother’s Irish accent as we all broke up again.

The nirvana was still floating around as we headed to the eleventh tee. Just as we approached, a couple of security staff in polo shirts, whom we’d met earlier in the locker room, roared by on a golf cart and then stopped. One of the guys was on his hand radio.

“Hi. Are you Terence Rourke?” the bigger of the two said to me. It was the blond middle-aged guy.

Uh-oh.

“Yes. What’s up?” I said warily.

I thought about Henry Sutton. Had that wimp called the cops or something?

“Your wife, Vivian, called at the desk. She needs to talk to you.”

Still suspicious, I thought about that for a second. I had left my cell phone in the locker. You weren’t allowed to bring them onto the course. Club rules. And Viv was pregnant.

“If you want,” he said calmly, “we could give you a ride back.”

I looked at him, trying to detect anything in his face. He looked back placidly.

“Okay,” I said, walking toward the cart, not wanting to take any chances.

“What’s up, Terry?” Tom called over.

“Viv needs me on the phone. I’m not sure,” I called back.

We hummed along in the cart through a gap in the trees that separated the greens. The seventh hole we were rolling down was especially beautiful with a pale slate blue lake-sized pond on the left, rolling green hills on the right, and tall stately trees that lined the fairway.