Less than an hour later, we had a mimeographed obitu- ary of Benton Bergmeister in hand, thanks to the efficient LPGA staff. The summary of his life did not mention his heavy drinking, nor his stated intention to resign. We had all been busy filing stories on the man’s demise and what it would mean to the Tour, long- and short-term. I put in a paragraph in my story questioning the appropriateness of the Tour continuing to stage its tournament despite the death of its commissioner, but I knew my balls-less editor would take it out. He understands that a simple death of a relative nonentity will never get in the way of American sporting commerce. I mean, they didn’t even hold off the NFL two days after JFK’s assassination. Everyone understood that the LPGA would soldier on.
Before breaking for lunch, I decided to head out to the practice range and get some reaction quotes from some of the famous players. My route took me through the main lobby of the hotel, where I ran into Honie Carlton. She was wearing a turban-style head bandage from her attack the night before and she was chatting with an elderly lady who was improbably wearing a light cardigan sweater draped over her shoulders. It was probably ninety-two outside in the sun.
“Hacker!” Honie called to me when she saw me. I trudged over dutifully. “Hacker, this is Ethel Burbank,” Honie introduced the old woman. “She is, or was, Benton’s secretary back at headquarters.”
I studied the woman. She was well into her sixties, with wispy, silvery hair pushed back from her face. Horn-rimmed spectacles hung on a string around her neck, where they banged into her formidable bosom as she moved. She was quite obviously distraught. She was clutching a damp-looking tissue in one hand and her face was red with splotches.
“How do you do?” I said politely. “I am sorry about your boss.”
“Yes, yes, it’s terrible, isn’t it?” she said breathlessly. “I just heard about it as I was finishing my breakfast! What a dear, dear man he was.”
“Ethel has worked for Benton for more than ten years,” Honie explained to me. “They were a real team.”
“Oh, that poor man,” Ethel began weeping, dabbing at her eyes with her tissue. Honie wrapped her arms around the older woman and hugged her. Over Ethel’s shoulder, she gave me an eye-rolling look.
“Mrs. Burbank,” I said gently. The two women separated. “When did you last speak to Benton?”
“Well, now, let me see,” Ethel said, mostly to herself. But I did note a return of sharpness to her eyes. Ethel Burbank was nobody’s fool. “I spoke to him several times yesterday,” she mused. “We always conversed first thing in the morning. Took care of the usual detail work at that time. Correspondence, telephone messages, things like that. But he called me later that morning and asked me to fly right down to Miami. He said he needed my help today in preparing something.”
“Do you often join him out on Tour?” I asked.
“Very rarely, dear,” she said, nodding. “I really have enough to do back at the office. But Benton said this was important, and that he needed me to fly right down. So I did.”
“Did he say what it was he needed?”
“He didn’t give me any details, dearie,” Ethel said, dabbing at her welling eyes again. “I think…he said something about needing to prepare some materials for presentation to the players’ council. But I don’t know what he wanted. Frankly, I thought he might just be making the whole thing up to give me an excuse to come to Miami. He knew how much I loved going to the racetrack.”
At that thought, she broke down again, her shoulders shaking. Honie, bless her nurturing heart, put her arms around the woman and cried with her. I stood there thinking while they wept, oblivious to the stares of curious passers-by in the lobby. After a minute or two, they were finished.
“Miz Burbank, may I ask you just one more question?” I began. Wiping her eyes with her now-drenched tissue, she nodded.
“Did anyone else here in Miami know you were coming? I mean, anyone from the LPGA?”
She fixed me with a level gaze, her eyes liquid but sharp.
“Why no, dearie,” she said. “I don’t think so. Except for Miz Casey, of course. I called her to book me a flight and arrange a room. She’s our travel expert you know.”
Honie and I exchanged a glance. Then she grabbed Ethel by the arm and walked her off. I stood and watched them go.
Casey Carlyle, the Delicious One, Big Wyn’s eyes and ears. She had known that Benton had asked his personal assistant to fly down to Miami suddenly. I had no doubt that Casey had pried the reason for Ethel’s visit out of the old woman. So Casey, and soon Big Wyn, had known that Benton was preparing something to present to the player’s council. Big Wyn had known something was up, despite her demurrals at this morning’s press conference.
Had she confronted Benton and scared him to death? Not an outlandish assumption, after what I had learned about the woman over the last several days. Or had Benton’s death been a coincidence, his alcohol-soaked body giving out at just the right time? For some reason, it was the latter scenario I found the most far fetched. * * * Out on the practice range, a dozen players were striking balls, preparing for the first round. Already, some twenty threesomes had teed off, from both the first and tenth tees. The afternoon wave was about to begin. Down at the far corner, I spotted Mary Beth Burke talking beside the water jug with Sybil Montgomery. I made a beeline.
“Afternoon, ladies,” I said as I approached. “I need some suitably morose quotes about Benton Bergmeister for tomorrow’s paper.”
“Quit, Hacker,” Mary Beth chastised me. “I thought he was a nice old guy. It’s so sad.”
“Right,” I echoed. “Nice guy. Real sad.’ Sybil? Got anything to add to that?”
She stared back at me. “How did it happen, Hacker?” she wanted to know. “What killed the poor man?”
“Don’t know yet,” I told them. “There’ll be an autopsy, probably this afternoon. For now, the police are assuming the guy just croaked.”
I saw Mary Beth and Sybil exchange a glance. I couldn’t read anything into it.
“It’s just a bit too neat and clean for me,” I said. “I mean, Benton told me a couple nights ago that he was thinking of quitting. I just found out that he called his secretary yesterday and had her fly in last night. She was supposed to help him prepare something to present to the player’s council. Then, he dies. From what I had gathered from the man, he was feeling like singing about something Big Wyn did or didn’t do to him. But now he’s dead. Pretty convenient for Big Wyn, huh?”
The two women looked at each other again. Something was passing between the two. As a mere mortal man, I knew not what it was.
“So I’m thinking there’s something below the surface going on,” I concluded. “And from what I’ve learned about this organization in the last few days, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that whatever’s going on might be nasty and subterranean. And watching you guys giving each other the secret look tells me I’m right and that you know what it is.”
They gave each other that look one more time, then looked at me. Perfectly blank-faced and innocent.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Burkey said calmly.
“Nor I,” said my British friend.
“Oh, bull,” I exploded. “We all are familiar with Big Wyn’s way of working, and we all know she had some kind of grip on poor Benton’s balls. He was about to break loose, finally, no matter how painful that might have been. But I don’t know what that hold was, and you both do. So tell me, for God’s sake.”
They looked at each other one more time. Another secret message passed. They turned back to me.
“Well, Hacker,” Burkey started, “We don’t know exactly what Big Wyn had on Bergie. All we know is the rumor that’s been around for years. Could be true, or it could be malicious gossip. That’s up to you to decide.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “That’s fair. What was it?”
Mary Beth sighed. “Well, the word was that Benton got caught in some kind of sexual fling with one of the rookies in his first year on the job. She was really a rookie, too, like about sixteen years old. That might have gotten Benton some jail time, if it were true. But the rumor is that Big Wyn bailed him out, had the whole episode buried and put Benton’s balls in her pocketbook.”
“Do you know who the young player was?” I asked. “Is she still playing today? Where does she live?”
I could smell the story now, and like a hunting dog, I was suddenly pitched into a fever of excitement. There were no fences too high, no thickets to overgrown, no holes too deep to prevent me from sniffing my way to the lair and howling to the sky at my discovery.
Burkey shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “Neither of us ever heard a name to go with the story. Like I said, it could be there wasn’t a real person involved. Could be the whole thing was someone’s imagination all along.”
“Guess I’ll have to do some digging,” I said. “Somebody’s got to know something.”
“Hold on, Hacker,” Sybil cautioned. “You’re leaping the hedgerow without your mount. I shouldn’t think you’ll have much luck running around here trying to get someone to help you dig up dirt about the Tour or about the late Mr. Bergmeister. We all liked him, you know. We players tend to band together whenever someone threatens our Tour. I think you’d best let Mary Beth and I muck about quietly and see if we can uncover the name of the unlucky lass in this alleged episode. Don’t you agree, Mary Beth?”
“That’s A-One correct,” Mary Beth drawled. “If anybody does know something, they’re more likely to confide some gossip to Sybil here or me instead of some wise-ass reporter who’s a goddam Yankee to boot.”
“Here, here,” Sybil laughed. They stared at me, compatriots in secret messages and the sisterhood, and tried not laugh aloud. But the smiles playing at the edge of their lips gave them away.
“Damn, it’s hard being a man,” I said.
Their peals of laughter rang out over the range.