3

 

 

An hour later, I was waiting outside the office of somebody named Stephanie Collier. She was the senior vice president of golf operations for the Gold Organization. It said so right on the business card I had been given by someone at IBS when I was told to go meet with her. Two meetings in one day. How did I ever get so lucky?

I had strolled over from the IBS building on Sixth Avenue south of Times Square, wandering up Fifth Avenue almost to the Park and entered the magnificent golden atrium of the fabulous Gold Tower, which had become one of the main tourist attractions in a town filled with them. The five-story-high atrium was loaded with super-luxury European shops, fancy restaurants and cafes, and, of course, the Gold Museum, the monument to the life and story of Conrad Gold his own self.

I had managed to ignore all of that—I didn’t find myself in need of a four hundred dollar tattersall shirt from the English house of Turnbull and Asser, and I pretty much knew the rags to riches story of Conrad Gold—and jumped on one of the high-speed elevators which had whisked me up to the forty-somethingth floor at a speed that made my ears pop.

The sign over the lobby door outside the elevator told me I had arrived at the Golf Operations Division of the Gold Organization, and a lovely young receptionist welcomed me cheerfully, offered me a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain and told me Stephanie would be right out.

Gold’s coffee was much better than the cafeteria crap I had almost spit out at IBS, and was served in a lovely Haviland china cup and saucer. I added some raw sugar and a dollop of fresh cream. There were a couple of issues of Gold Magazine on the coffee table in the waiting area, which I glanced at and did not read. Conrad’s own gleamingly bald coconut graced all the covers. Like Oprah does in her magazine. I dunno, if I ever start Hacker The Magazine, I’m thinking I’ll go with Taylor Swift or Scarlett Johannson on the cover.

The walls of the waiting room, painted a shade of royal hunting green, were filled with extra-large framed photos of Gold’s international collection of golf resorts and real estate developments. He had them in Florida, Arizona, Texas, southern California, upstate Michigan, Cape Cod, and, overseas, in Scotland, Ireland, southern France, Corsica, Greece and Israel. The man got around. I checked off the ones I’d been to, and could only remember about five. And three of those I’d visited before Conrad Gold bought them and added them to his golden stable of resort properties.

Of course, Gold also owned several pieces of expensive New York real estate, and even more out in L.A. Despite some setbacks with some Las Vegas casino deals that had gone south, Conrad Gold was still one of the richest men in the city and country. And while he had calmed down lately, ever since he had married a French movie starlet—wife number four, I think—he had once been one of the playboys of the western world. If you wanted to find him, all you had to do was pick up a copy of the National Enquirer, or the Page Six gossip pages, and there he’d be. Usually with some buxom beauty on his arm. Fending off reports that he owed back taxes, had been caught doing lines of coke in some nightclub or was feuding with one governor or another. Conrad Gold was a public man who liked to pretend he was a man of the public.

Another lovely young thing came prancing out from the back offices and told me Stephanie was ready for me now. I followed her back past the cubicles and glass-doored offices, all filled with trendy, fresh-faced and fashionable young people looking busy as bees. I’d heard that Conrad Gold only hired good looking people…no obese, zitted or scraggly haired types for him…and based on this sample, what I’d heard seemed to be true.

The senior vice president of golf marketing operations apparently was worthy enough to be assigned a very roomy corner office, with two window walls which framed the steeples and turrets of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a block or so away.

“Mister Hacker,” she said, standing up from behind her desk as I was ushered in. “Stephanie Collier. So nice to meet you.”

“Thanks,” I said as we shook hands. I nodded out the window. “Not a bad view.”

She turned and looked out her windows as if it was something she had never done before. “Oh,” she said, “yes, it is, isn’t it? I confess that after the first week working here, I hardly take notice. Unless it’s raining or snowing or something.”

She motioned me into one of her guest chairs and I sat down. Stephanie was in her late thirties. Long blond hair, nice St. John knit dress that clung to and emphasized all her curves, which were quite nicely curving, and bright, alert blue eyes. Her pale wood desk was mostly empty, save for her laptop and telephone. There was a gold framed photograph next to her telephone showing her with a smiling, goateed man and a young boy of about three who was trying to smile for the camera, but looked more like he was grimacing with a stomach pain.

“So Conrad told me a lot about you,” she said, “And some of your adventures in St. Andrews a year or so ago. “Did you really crash into one of our suites with the special forces from Mi5?”

I chuckled. “Um, no,” I said. “I think that story has been upgraded a bit from the truth of it. I watched the operation from the safety of the command vehicle outside. But those guys were quite efficient at what they do.”

“I’ll bet,” she said. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a brochure.

“What do you know about the Gold Hudson Links?” she asked.

“Practically nothing,” I said. Which was true. Obviously I knew that Conrad Gold had managed to get the PGA of America to reward his new golf development with the upcoming PGA Championship. But even back in the halcyon days when I covered the game of golf for the Boston Journal, I had never spent much time or effort trying to keep track of new golf developments. That was a job for the real estate or travel editors, not the golf writer. Of course, it had been decades since the Journal had had either one of those on staff.

“Well, this will help then,” she said and slipped the brochure across the desk toward me. I picked it up and glanced at the cover, which showed a golf hole photographed dramatically in late afternoon, so the shadows cast across the fairway were long. It showed a green set near the blue waters of the Hudson River, low rolling hills in the background on the far shore and a hint of mountains in the background. The picture looked like one of the painters from the Hudson River School had executed it in fine oils.

“We consider the Hudson Links to be one of our premier properties,” Stephanie continued. “It’s just 55 miles from Manhattan, which is less than a 30 minute helicopter ride from the West Side Heliport.”

“How long if you’re riding a mule-drawn buckboard?” I asked. “Which is more my speed.”

She laughed, tossing her head back.

“Conrad told me you were a wit,” she said.

“Did he now?” I said.

“In fact,” she continued as if my wit had not intervened, “Conrad first saw the land that is now the Gold Hudson Links riding in a helicopter flying up the Hudson River.”

“Is that right?” I said.

“Yes,” she said, nodding earnestly. “It was about ten years ago, and Conrad was on his way to play golf at the Paramount Country Club in New City—that club was founded in 1918 by Adolph Zukor who started Paramount Pictures. And Conrad looked out the window of the copter and saw the property—wetlands and river frontage and rocky high ground—and thought ‘That would make a great site for a club.’ And he asked around, began assembling the parcels and…well, here we are!”

“Yes,” I said, “Here we are. But the question is…why?”

She laughed again. Tossed her head again.

“Well,” she said, “If you are going to be the color correspondent for IBS at the tournament in May, we wanted to make sure you had all the color you need.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “Color. I think the network is hoping I come up with golf anecdotes to add to the tournament coverage. Like a story about Tillinghast getting caught in some quicksand while walking around the property and being rescued by the local farmer. You know, stuff like that.”

“Who is Tillinghast?” she asked.

I paused. I guess the thirty-something senior vice president of golf marketing operations couldn’t be expected to know about the golf course architects from the Golden Age of golf. I wondered, for a moment, how many generations will pass before no one remembers who Bobby Jones was.

“He was a golf course architect,” I said. “Back in the Roaring Twenties.”

“Oh,” she said, smiling. “Well, it’s interesting to know that Conrad Gold worked very closely with Clyde Stewart, who designed the Hudson Links course. Clyde, of course, is from Aberdeen, and is just finishing up an exciting new course on the Isle of Skye. Another of Mister Gold’s projects.”

“Yes,” I said, “That is interesting.” I stopped wearing wrist watches decades ago, but if I still had one, this is where I would glance at it and then say I had another appointment and get the hell out of here.

Stephanie, however, was still going great guns. She flopped open an appointment book.

“Are you planning on joining us for Media Day?” she asked. “We’re shooting for April 25th, a month before the PGA. We’re hoping for good weather, but it can be iffy in April in New York. Can I put you down?”

I smiled. “I think I’m scheduled to join the broadcast crew from IBS for a preview round,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, a frown turning her smile upside down. “I wasn’t aware of that. Some of those guys used to be tour pros. I’m not sure they’d enjoy having … you know …”

“A hacker holding them up?” I suggested. “Pun intended, of course.”

Her face reddened a bit. A voice from the doorway rescued her.

“Hacker is no bloody hacker,” the deep voice said. We both turned to see Conrad Gold himself standing in Stephanie’s doorway. His famously cueball bald head reflected the overhead can lights beaming down. He was not a tall man, but seemed to be in good shape, and he was dressed in an impeccably tailored pinstripe suit with his trademark gold tie and a pocket square in crimson. He was smiling.

“This man played on the Tour,” he told Stephanie. “It was a few years ago, but he always had game. He’ll give Jimmy Williams and the rest of that crew a good run for their money. I may lay down a few bucks on him myself!”

I stood up and shook his hand.

“I played against Jimmy, both in college and in the pros,” I said, referring to IBS’s main color announcer. “I think the best I ever did against him was a tie for third somewhere. He was always better than me.”

“Don’t care,” Gold said, shaking his head. “I’m still putting my money on you.”

He sat down in Stephanie’s other guest chair and I sat down again. Steph just looked at us with wide eyes. Her meeting had just veered off into uncharted territory with the sudden arrival of the main guy, and she was now just trying to hang on for dear life.

“How’ve you been?” I asked Gold. “How’s the hotel in St. Andrews doing?”

“Pretty damn good,” he said, nodding. “Sales have been up twelve percent since the Open. Even though I had to rebuild that suite after Mi5 got done.”

“Well, I guess they figured they had to take the Russian mob by surprise,” I said. “My caddie friend Johnnie was their prisoner, remember. They had to use that flashbang and come crashing in the window. No other way.”

“I suppose,” Gold said, smiling. “Actually, Her Majesty’s government paid most of the costs to restore the room.”

“Most?”

“Well, all of it,” he said. “Plus a little extra for pain and suffering.”

“Who’s pain and suffering?”

“Mine, mostly,” he said, and flashed that famous Conrad Gold grin.

I laughed. Stephanie tittered. Conrad looked at her.

“Collier here giving you everything you need?” Gold asked.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “More than enough. I really appreciate her help.”

“Good.” Gold nodded. He glanced at his watch. Rolex Oyster. Gold, of course. “Well, I have another meeting to get to,” he said. “Good to see you again, Hacker. Thanks, Stephanie.”

He vanished as quickly as he had appeared. Stephanie looked across her desk at me. The dynamic had changed and we both knew it. I was now a Friend of Conrad, and she was ‘Collier here.’ But I don’t play those stupid office politics games.

I thanked her for her time and left.