Chapter One
The breeze from the Pacific was for the first time that day barely discernable, the kind that whispers into your hair and nudges the leaves like a nurse idly rocking a cradle. It was warm but not hot, and carried with it the moist, briny memories of my youth, much of which was spent on a surfboard.
And thats what distracted me for that one instant. I shifted my gaze from the tee box on the number seventeen at Waialae Country Club to the ocean a few dozen feet away, when the short little round man whod just straightened up from placing his ball on a tee let out a small cry and crumpled to the ground.
It took all of us a beat to react, mainly because its not something you see happen every day on a golf course. And, frankly, the man now lying partially on his side on the Bermuda grass, Sing Ten Wong, was something of a jokester, having kept us in stitches most of the day with his faux Chinese sayings and wacky observations. We werent a hundred percent sure he wasnt kidding around even then.
The first to reach him was his son, Rick, who was a law-school buddy of mine and, to be honest, the only reason I was in Hawaii at all. It was Rick whod talked his dad into giving me a sponsors exemption to play in the Sony Open that next week. Considering it was the beginning of the pro golf season, and considering Id lost my full status on the PGA Tour again last year by managing to make only a handful of cuts and a single top-twenty finish, it was a very kind gesture by Ricks old man.
We were out this day playing a friendly round to get a feel for the course before we teamed up for the Pro-Am tournament coming up next Wednesday. Ricks dad was to be my partner.
Sing Ten Wong was CEO of the Bank of the Pacific Islands, BOPI for short.
Sing Ten Wong was a very important man.
Sing Ten Wong wasnt looking so good.
Pop! Pop! Talk to me!
As Rick held his fathers face in his hands, I and the fourth guy in our group, Sam Ching, the banks VP of public relations, eased him the rest of the way onto his back, taking care to straighten out a leg that was twisted underneath him. I felt for a pulse in his wrist. Nothing. His neck. Nothing. His face was very pale, but it was naturally very pale so that didnt tell me much. One eye was partially open, though, and it had that no-fire-in-the-furnace vacancy that made my stomach seize up. Thats when I noticed the caddies and another foursome crowding around us.
Somebody call nine-one-one! And give us some space! Rick, you know CPR?
Yes . . .
You breathe, Ill do the chest.
We worked on him for ten minutes until the EMT guys arrived. They drove the ambulance right up the cart path and parked next to the little footbridge that crossed the drainage canal. They took over the CPR, using one of those squeezer bags with a rubber mask over Wongs face rather than mouth-to-mouth, lifted him onto a gurney and wheeled him back across the bridge. When I stooped to pick up the car keys that had fallen out of Sing Tens pocket, I noticed a dark circle of blood on the grass, about the size of a half-dollar, and wondered if hed hit his head on his driver or landed on his golf tee or something on the way down. With everything that was going on the thought came and went like a smoke ring in a stiff breeze.
Rick, Sam and I followed the ambulance to Queens Hospital in my tournament courtesy car, still wearing our soft spikes and golf gloves. We had to park the Toyota Camry in an adjacent lot so we didnt see Mr. Wong go into the emergency room, but by the time we ran inside the lady at the desk said he was already in surgery.
Rick blinked hard a few times.
Surgery? Surgery for what? Whats wrong with him?
Im sorry, sir, I dont know. Please have a seat over there and Im sure the doctor will be out to tell you everything just as soon as they can.
We shuffled over to the vinyl chairs in a fog.
There is without a doubt no more miserable place on earth than an emergency room waiting area, even one as clean and bright and nicely furnished as Queens. Because no ones there for a good reason. Everyone is either in pain, or scared, or both.
My friend, Rick, was both.
We didnt say a word to each other. We sat, looking at the seascape prints on the wall, or the tree in the corner, or the pattern in the carpet. We certainly didnt meet the eyes of the other miserable wretches in that place. That would have broken the unwritten rule of waiting room conduct.
Twenty minutes after we arrived, twenty agonizing minutes of counting every single tick of the clock, three men came through the double-doors and walked up to us. One wore a suit, the other two surgical scrubs. The suit spoke first.
Mr. Wong? Richard Wong?
Rick nodded.
Mr. Wong, Im Joseph Wagner, chief information Officer for the medical center. Could you please come this way?
We all three stood but Wagner held up his hands.
Im sorry. Just Mr. Wong.
Its Rick, and Id like my friends to come with me.
Certainly.
We followed them through the doors and into what appeared to be a doctors lounge. There was a small kitchen area and couches scattered about, a few low tables with magazines and newspapers. No one else was there. Rick looked confused.
Id like to see my father.
Wagner ignored the request.
Mr. Wong . . . Im sorry, Rick . . . this is Dr. Luo and Dr. Anderson. Dr. Anderson is chief of surgery.
Hands were extended and shook. Sam and I introduced ourselves. Then Dr. Anderson took a deep breath.
Im very sorry, Rick. Your father didnt make it. We did everything we could, but Im afraid he was already gone by the time he got here. In fact, Im almost certain he died instantly. The autopsy will determine that.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rick physically recoil from the news. I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. His voice came out strangled.
What do you mean, instantly? Was it a, was it a heart attack, stroke, or what?
The two doctors both raised their eyebrows in surprise at the same instant. They looked at each other. They looked at Wagner. And Wagner spoke.
I . . . we . . . assumed you saw what happened. After all, you were there.
He . . . just . . .
Rick was having trouble finishing the sentence so I cut in.
Mr. Wong just collapsed. Thats all we saw. One minute hes teeing up his ball, the next he collapses onto the ground and doesnt move.
You didnt hear anything?
Like what?
All three men looked at each other again. Rick, understandably agitated, repeated my question.
Like what?!
Like . . . a gunshot.
Not one of us could manage more than a blink. Wagner clarified.
Rick, your father was shot.
Thats when Ricks knees gave way. I managed to get him under one arm and ease him back onto a couch. Drs. Luo and Anderson pushed me aside and made sure there wasnt a second Wong casualty that day. While they checked him over, I pulled Wagner to the side.
He was shot? Shot where?
Im told the bullet entered his back.
That doesnt make any sense. We wouldve heard it. Thered be blood.
Flash on the half-dollars worth in the grass. Not enough for a gunshot wound. Not nearly enough. I know. Ive seen way too many of them.
I dont understand it either . . . Mr. . . . Doyle, you said? But the facts are the facts. Mr. Wong was shot dead. Dr. Luo and Dr. Anderson found an entry wound from a rather large bullet. The police are on their way, as is the medical examiner.
I want to see him.
That was from Rick, who was being helped up by the two doctors.
I want to see Pop. I need to see him.
Anderson looked at Wagner and nodded.
Of course. Ill take you to him.
They left the room. Luo and Wagner followed. Sam felt around his chest for a cell phone that was not, of course, there, considering he was still wearing his companys orange BOPI logo golf shirt and no jacket, and cell phones are verboten on club grounds.
I have to make a call. I have to make a hundred calls. What a nightmare. I cant believe this.
He asked for the keys and went out to the car to use my phone.
I sat back down on the couch, trying to replay those moments before Wong collapsed, and I couldnt remember hearing anything that would even remotely sound like a gunshot. It had been perfectly quiet, unusually calm, with just the shushing of water lapping against the beach and the twittering of colorful birds as the soundtrack to that paradise.
The number seventeen was a par three, 189 yards, which ran along Maunalua Bay, with the green lying somewhat in the shadow of the large Kahala resort hotel. One oddity of the Sony Open was that Waialae flipped the out and back for those two weeks only, making the number ten the tournaments number-one hole, and thus the number seventeen was normally the number eight. Get it? Me neither. Anyway, on the second to last hole, Sing Ten Wong had pulled out a fairway metal, teed up his Nike One and was about to take a few practice swings when someone apparently punched a neat little hole in his shirt and ended what up until that very second had been an extraordinary life.
A high-powered rifle and a silencer maybe? On one of those hotel balconies?
I caught myself thinking aloud.
That would explain the lack of gunshot. Except for one thing: Ricks dad was right-handed. His back was to the ocean.
And, while daydreaming about surfing, Id been looking right at the place where the bullet had to have come from.
And didnt see a goddamn thing.
Excerpted from Water Hazard by .
Copyright © 2010 by Don Dahler.
Published in March 2010 by St. Martins Press.
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.