April 11, 2021
The Gimmee
I go to the Boca Raton police station in order to meet with officers Cooper and Jenkins at 9am. It is located in a long and narrow nondescript single floor building on St Andrews. It is, I kid you not, conveniently located one block from a Dunkin’ Donuts. It is convenient for me because I stop to pick up a coffee and a blueberry muffin on the way. I sign in at the station with one of those pens that have a string on it and am really proud of myself for not making a joke about the station being located in a bad neighbourhood. At 9:30 a sargeant calls out my name and I follow him to an office to meet with officers Cooper and Jenkins.
They thank me for coming in and I don’t say anything about the fact they kept me waiting. I think, but don’t say, “this will have to be quick because I have another interrogation booked at 10.” Because this is my life and not a Fletch movie and I am dumb but not dumb enough to be a smart aleck.
So I say “it is my pleasure” and then, for reasons that are not entirely clear, and which puts into question how dumb I really am, I say “I just had to shuffle around my morning ablutions.”
Now at this point I don’t know yet that officers Cooper and Jenkins are both morons, that will become quite apparent in a matter of minutes, so I think it would be wrong of me to pass judgement about them not knowing a word which was more commonly used in Victorian England. So when Cooper, or it might have been Jenkins says “huh?” I just ignore it and hope, like a bad stomach cramp, that it might just go away on its own.
But then Cooper, yes definitely Cooper, I can see it says D. Cooper on his name tag and I wonder to myself if his middle name is Barry because then he would be D.B Cooper and wouldn’t that be a hell of a riddle solved, then Cooper says “huh” again and I realize I will probably have to explain that instead of shit, shower and shave I had instead showered, shaved and shat which is what I meant by shuffling my morning ablutions but I don’t think it is a great idea to say shit in a police station. Sounds like something a criminal might say. So, instead I say nothing, have a very abbreviated staring contest with both Cooper and Jenkins, and they seem to forget all about it. But I do develop a bit of a stomach cramp which was bound to happen after having shuffled around my morning ablutions.
Jenkins then, referring to his notepad, it was the kind of notepad a waitress might have in a 50s diner, said “you were observed saying that you wanted to kill Mr Zakarian.”
I said “No. What I said is I wished he would drop dead.”
“You admit saying you wanted him dead? Asked Jenkins.
“Well,” I replied, “I’m not crazy about your sentence structure. What I said was ‘Zakarian, I wish you would drop dead.’ It is nuanced but a little different.”
“You admit to saying it?”
“Yes. It was in the club dining room. I think it was in front of about eighty people. It was lobster night. The place was pretty packed. But I wasn’t saying it. I was merely repeating it. I had already said it earlier, on the golf course.”
“You were now saying it again?”
I didn’t want to get into this whole semantic thing with these guys “Zakarian saw me at the buffet table and yelled across the room ‘tell everyone what you said to me today’. Now I had said quite a few things to Zakarian that day but I figured he was talking about me wishing that he would drop dead so that is what I shouted across the room.”
“That you wished he would drop dead.”
“Yes.”
“But you were just repeating it.”
“Yes.”
“Let me ask you this,” said Jenkins “when you repeated it, did you still wish he would drop dead?”
I have to admit that was a good question. I had underestimated Jenkins. I had to think about it. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I would tell the truth. The truth might not set me free. But it was a lot easier to remember.
“Yes,” I finally said “when I repeated it I still wished he would drop dead.”
“And two weeks later,” said Cooper, “he did drop dead, didn’t he?”
“Officer Cooper,” I said “respectfully. Do you think if I could make my wishes come true that is really what I would wish for?”
“Maybe you helped it along,” he said.
“I don’t think you really believe that.” And I didn’t. It was a dumb theory. Someone had killed Zakarian. But it wasn’t me.
“Why did you want him to drop dead?” Asked Jenkins.
Ah, now we were getting somewhere.
“Because he wouldn’t give me a putt.”
“He wouldn’t give you a putt?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“He owed you a putt?” Asked Cooper.
“Yes. An eighteen incher. A hole earlier, II had given him a three footer. He was being a dick.”
“A three footer?” Asked Cooper.
The look on his face, and on that of Jenkins, and perhaps on yours, made me realize that maybe Cooper and Jenkins did not play golf and did not know what the hell I was talking about.”
“Wait,” I said “Do you guys play golf?”
“No,” said Jenkins.
“Game for pussies,” said Cooper. Which made me think I could probably have said shit shower and shave after all.
“Well,” I said “this isn’t going to work. I’m going to need some other guys.”
“Are you asking for a lawyer?”
“No.”
“Because you aren’t under arrest. We’re just talking here.”
“No, I don’t want a lawyer. I want a golfer. Someone who will understand.”
“We can understand,” said Cooper. “Tell us all about this putt he owed you.”
“It was the club championship and there were three flights. Zakarian and I were in the middle flight.”
“Flights?”
“Yeah. Like levels. One championship for the very good players. One for the ok players. And one for the shit players.” I was now ok saying shit.
“You and Zakarian were ok players,” said Cooper looking very much like the cat who had swallowed the canary.
“Yeah. Zakarian was a lot of things but he wasn’t a sand bagger.”
“A Sandbagger?”
“Golf has two different type of players- boasters and sandbaggers. Boasters are those vain players who say they are better than they are. They revel in having a low handicap. While sandbaggers spend the entire year pretending their scores are higher than they actually are just so they could win their flight in the club championship.”
“Boasters and sandbaggers,” said Cooper.
“Yes.”
“One is lying high and one is lying low.”
“Exactly.” Now I felt bad about calling them morons.
“What about the golfers who don’t lie about their scores? What do you call them?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I meet one,” I said.
“If Zakarian wasn’t a sandbagger then he must have been a boaster right?”
“No. Zakarian and I are,” then realizing Zakarian was dead, “well he was a tiny bit of a sand bagger and I am still a little bit of a sandbagger. It’s all a matter of degrees.”
“There are degrees of sandbagging?”asked Jenkins.
“Yes,” I answered.
Then Cooper turned to Jenkins and said “you know who I think golfs? Gomez over in arson. Let me see if I can go get him.”
So Jenkins and I just sat in silence in the office for a few minutes until Cooper came back with a mountain of a man. Bald and with a 1970s fu manchu mustache, he looked more like a linebacker than a golfer.
I said “Jesus, what are you 6’5?”
“Six six,” he said.
“You hit it 300?”
“When I hit it straight. Most of the time I hit it crooked.”
“Yeah. I hear you. I’m lucky if I poke it out 200.”
“300 if I hit it straight,” he repeated.
“I hate guys like you. I wish you would all drop dead.”
Gomez laughed. So did Cooper and Jenkins.
“Where do you play?” I asked.
“Osprey,” he replied “try to get out there three or four times a week after my shift.”
“Nice track,” I replied. It was. Three nines out on the edge of the Everglades. No houses to hit. “You play from the tips.”
“Have to. My buddies won’t let me move up. They would call me a sandbagger.” I looked over at Cooper and Jenkins who were nodding their heads.
“Number 7 on Raven must be a bitch from the tips. 230 easy.”
“250 when the wind is blowing.”
“I put about 100 balls into that pond. You ever play with Max Shapiro there?”
“Maxie the fisherman! No. But I know all about him. The guy is a legend. What is this all about?”
“Your buddies here think I killed a man.”
“Did you?”
“No. But I should have.”
“What happened?”
“Match play. We are even. On 16 I give him a three footer that he could have easily missed. A sidewinder. Then on 17 I have an 18 incher to push the hole. It is an obvious gimmee. But that whole Kuchar Garcia gimmee incident had just happened and the club had made it clear that all gimmees, no matter how short, had to be announced loud and clear. So now I wait for Zakarian to give me the putt but he turns his back on me and walks away.
“Asshole.”
“Precisely.”
“You missed the putt?”
“Of course not. It was 18 inches. But I was really pissed. I catch up to Zakarian on the tee box on 18. You ever play the Grove?”
“No. I heard it was nice.”
“They keep it in good shape. On 18 there is water on the right and the street on the left. It’s not a long hole but you want to keep it straight. Zakarian took his driver.”
“Oops.”
“Yeah. He gets up to the tee box and I say ‘Zakarian, I really wish you would drop dead. You know, I was upset about him not giving me the putt. It was a really dick move.”
“So what happens?”
“He slices the drive into the water. I win by one.”
“Karma is a bitch,” said Gomez. Then turning to Cooper and Jenkins he said “you like this guy for murder?”
Jenkins says “you don’t think so?”
“I don’t like him for murder,” answered Gomez “maybe arson. Was a house burned down?”
“No. Sudden death. We suspect foul play,” said Cooper. “Still waiting for the Coroner’s report.”
“Not sure this is your guy,” repeated Gomez.
Jenkins shrugged his shoulder and said I was free to go.
Then Cooper said I should leave my number with the front desk in case they had more questions.
I stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home. My stomach was doing somersaults.
The bathroom was a lot cleaner than I expected. The phone rang while I was on the john. Now I don’t make a habit of having conversations when I was on the toilet. But it was the police.
“Mr Rabinovitch?” It was Cooper.
“Yes,” I said. I was Rabinovitch. Josh Rabinovitch.
“The coroner’s report came in.” He then paused for dramatic affect. I farted during the pause. “They found traces of arsenic. We now have a murder case.”
I farted again.
“Oh,” I said “I see.”
“Yes indeed. And Mr Rabinovitch,” he continued “with words you don’t want to hear while sitting on the toilet or standing anywhere. “Don’t leave town.”
The end.