Now, as Keller watched from the woods, he had no announcers to contend
with, and no commercials, either. The tee was two hundred fifty yards to his left, the green almost that far to his right, and what he mostly saw were golfers gliding past him in their carts. Golf was what prosperous men did for exercise, but there didnt seem to be much exercise involved. A good walk spoiled , hed heard the game called, but that was back when there was some actual walking involved in it. Now all you did was ride from one shot to the next.
He had to pay close attention, because he wasnt sure hed be able to spot Benjamin Wheeler. The face in the photographs was distinctive enough, certainly, but how distinctive would it be at two hundred yards?
For the first time in months, Keller had a handgun tucked into the waistband of his trousers, pressing against the small of his back. Hed left the shotgun in the trunk of the Cadillac, and was just as glad, but he found himself wishing hed brought the other long gun, the rifle. Not to try a shot at distance, but because the thing had been fitted with a scope sight, and the scope all by itself would be useful now as an aid in spotting his target. Meanwhile he stared hard at every golfer who came along, and none proved to be the man he was waiting for.
Soon, he thought. Theyd been scheduled to tee off at 11:15, and how much time was each hole likely to take? Some of the passing foursomes, he noted, took longer than others. Some golfers pulled two or three clubs from their bag before settling on the one they wanted for the shot, then prepared themselves with several practice swings, and finally tossed a handful of grass in the air to give them a read on wind direction and velocity. Others went straight to the ball, stepped up to it, addressed it (Hello, ball! ) and gave it a whack.
And, of course, the better golfers were faster, because the slower ones took more strokes. Keller couldnt really see what they were doing once they got to the green, but it seemed to take some of them forever to get off it.
A certain percentage of them hit slices, with the ball curving around sharply to the golfers right, sometimes into the light rough a few yards from Keller, sometimes into the deep rough where he was lurking. Each time he retreated deeper into the woods, remaining there until the golfer found his errant ball or gave up the hunt and played another. Now if Wheeler would have the decency to hit a shot like that, and then trot over to look for his ball
Soon, Keller thought.
He spotted Wheeler the minute the man reached the seventh tee.
With glasses, Keller had eyes like a hawk, but even an eagle would have had trouble at that distance. And Wheeler wasnt facing him directly, so it was hard to explain how he was able to recognize the man. Something about his stance, maybe but since Keller was seeing the man for the first time, how did he know what his stance looked like? Maybe it was pure animal instinct, the predator sensing the presence of his prey.
Once hed identified the man, he knew he wouldnt have to worry about spotting him again. Wheeler, conservatively dressed in all three of the shots Dot had printed out, hewed to a different sartorial standard on the golf course. His golf slacks were bright purple, and his shirt was a Day-Glo canary yellow. He wore a tam-style cap, too, the kind with wedge-shaped pieces like slices of pizza, with a little button where they met in the middle of the pie, and the slices were scarlet and lime green.
It was amazing, Keller thought, how a man could dress like a banker the rest of the time and then turn into a peacock on the golf course. But it did make it easy to tell the players apart.
Another man had evidently won the last hole, which gave him the honor of teeing off first. He topped the ball and hit a roller down the middle of the fairway, not a lot of distance but a shot that wouldnt get him in any trouble. It stopped fifty yards or so short of Keller.
Wheeler was next. To me , Keller urged silently. Hit it over here, Ben. Drop your shoulder, pull up on the ball, and slice the hell out of it.
Keller had been watching golfers today for long enough so that it seemed like forever, and of course hed seen the pros enough times on TV. And Wheelers form, from what he could see of it, was nothing great. A pro could very likely have found ten things wrong with his swing, from his stance all the way to his follow-through, but evidently the ball didnt know what a bad swing it was, because it took off as if Tiger Woods himself had just swatted it. Straight down the middle of the fairway, and damned if it didnt reach where Keller was waiting
and carry a few yards beyond him.
And then of course the third man, who must have been last on the preceding hole, did what he could to be last on this one as well. He hit just the shot Keller had hoped for from Wheeler, a wicked slice that was bad from the moment it left the tee. The golfer knew it, too, letting the club fall, putting his face in his hands. His buddies consoled him, or teased him it was impossible for Keller to tell which and then they all mounted their motorized carts and headed down the fairway for their second shots.