Read Train for Free Online Page B

nothing.
     
     
Mr. Packard thought about things a minute, then did that chuckle again. “I guess they’re old and they feel it slipping away,” he said. “Maybe it doesn’t seem possible to a kid your age, but it does slip away.”
     
     
The fat man poured himself another drink.
     
     
Train looked at Florida again. It was true that he couldn’t see himself laid out across the sixth green dead, still trying to smile, but he already knew he could be laid out somewhere. He’d known that a long time. He sat down to put on his shoes.
     
     
“So what are we supposed to do here?” the fat man said.
     
     
Mr. Packard said, “I think I’ll wait. I think I’ll sit here and wait until somebody comes and takes care of this man’s body.”
     
     

The ambulance rolled over the hill with the light flashing but no siren, leaving tire marks in the fairway. The members wouldn’t like it when they found out who it was for. Mr. Packard stood close and watched them load Florida into the back, and then closed the back door himself, making sure it was shut tight. Nobody wanted to see Florida slide back out onto the golf course.
     
     
The fat man carried his own bag awhile and then quit at the turn, said he’d lost his timing waiting for the ambulance. “Maybe I can get a couple of players, we can come back out Thursday or Friday,” he said. Players meant gamblers. Brookline itself had the oldest membership of any course in Southern California, average seventy-three years old, and the richest, and probably the cheapest. You didn’t commonly see big stakes unless somebody brought in outside money.
     
     
Mr. Packard didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He just appear tired of the whole situation. “Whatever you want,” he said.
     
     
The fat man went into his pocket and came out with a roll of bills. There were rules against gambling at Brookline, but then, there were rules against everything. Probably against carrying guns, if anybody thought of it yet. The only rules that counted, though, were who could play and what they could wear. And time, of course. Time was important. “What do I owe you?” he said.
     
     
Mr. Packard looked away like it didn’t matter. Like after what happened, he didn’t even know.
     
     
“I lost the side and four presses, right?” the fat man said, flipping through the bills.
     
     
“Five,” Mr. Packard said.
     
     
The fat man looked at him a moment, then flipped two more bills off the end of the roll and pulled all the bills he had counted away from the rest of the money. It reminded Train of a card trick, the way he handled his money, and he saw that the fat man did a lot of business out of his pocket. He handed the bills to Mr. Packard, who never even looked to make sure it was right.
     
     
“Maybe next time we won’t be sitting around forty-five minutes while somebody dies,” the fat man said.
     
     
Mr. Packard said, “He looked like he was dying as fast as he could.” The fat man didn’t look up at that, couldn’t meet his gaze, and Mr. Packard chuckled again and put the money in Train’s hand.
     
     
“Give this to the old man’s wife, would you?” he said, still staring at the fat man.
     
     
Train looked at the money, felt it sliding out his hand. Twenty-dollar bills everywhere. The fat man was also looking, trying to sort out the exact nature of this new insult. Mr. Packard waited him out, enjoying it again, in no hurry at all.
     
     
The fat man shook his head. “Shit,” he said. Like he just saw life’s grand design, as often happened in golf. “Good luck on that.”
     
     
“Keep five for yourself,” Mr. Packard said to Train, “and see that she gets the rest.”
     
     
Train folded the money over on itself so it would fit in his pocket. It felt as thick as a sandwich. The fat man said “shit” again, and then he laughed in that bitter way they sometimes did after they lost money. Mr. Packard said, “What is that, Pink,