The Sand Trap (46 page)

With John it was just getting him to loosen
up a bit, play like an overweight 50 year old and keep his
expectations in check. He actually was greatly improved and told
Burt he could hardly wait to get out with his buddies. He asked if
he could keep the videos to show his buddies back home.

Soon after these lessons, the requests for
Burt as a teacher started to pour in, both from the ladies living
around the course and the senior gang John played with. Burt even
organized a ladies tournament using the set of new “fun” rules he
had taught Joanna. Over the next three months Burt was as busy
teaching as he had ever been in the V.P. job. He stuck to his basic
instruction on stance, balance and rhythm and found that was good
enough for ninety percent of the golfers who wanted some
instruction. Doug was thrilled since the volume of both lessons and
play on the course doubled over previous years. Burt found to his
surprise he was enjoying teaching and even felt his own game was
improving. “It had better,” he thought. “May is fast
approaching.”

Things with Maria did not progress quite as
fast or well.

Throughout the first day, while teaching
John and Joanna and while playing a round with them, he kept
looking to see if Maria was with the other gardeners, but he never
saw her. During the next two weeks he only saw her once, watching
him from a distance while he was having his own golf “workout” on
the range. When he went over to where she was standing she had
already disappeared. He even went to Vultures several times over
the next month to see if she would show up, but Frank and Jan said
they had not seen her since what they now called “fight night at
Vultures”. The idea of a one night stand was not foreign to him,
but he wasn’t sure what happened to them would even qualify as
that. Even for a typical relationship brush off, totally ignoring
him, even avoiding him, was unusual. However, it was now nearing
the end of January and he was busy with tourists so while he was
curious, he soon retreated into his own challenges. Between his
teaching and his own practicing he was simply too busy to worry
about what had happened. He started seeing more of her around the
club grounds as she did her job, but she never recognized his
presence.

He woke up in the middle of the night a
couple of months after they had met and was sure he heard the sound
of her Honda over by the course driving range. He remembered Doug
had told him she sometimes came and hit balls in the dark so he
quickly dressed, crept down to the range and hid behind a palm tree
in the dark. She had just arrived at the tee box and under the
light he could see she had a full bucket of practice balls and what
looked like a 5-iron. She started hitting quickly with no
preliminaries or practice swings. Burt was so surprised that he
almost gave himself away. Her swing was a funny one for sure and he
understood why the staff member who saw it would say she was not
much of a golfer. But he recognized the stance, the set up and the
swing. A single plane swing. The club starting eight inches behind
the ball. A crisp hit every time as far as he could tell. He
watched until she hit the full bucket of balls into the dark void
and went over to the tub of balls to get another one before he
crept back to his room. A short time later, still wide awake as his
mind churned over what he had seen, he heard the Honda disappear
towards the East Coast Road.

The next morning he went out to the range
just to verify his suspicions. The balls were picked up at the end
of the day so the range was fairly clean except for the balls that
she hit the night before. He walked out until he reached the
200-yard marker where to his astonishment he found one hundred
fifty balls all clustered within yards of each other. It was as if
someone had taken a couple of buckets, dumped them on the ground
and had hit each other as they landed they scattered around. He
thought for a moment and then walked back to his apartment, and
before the day’s lessons started, he sent an email to Mary. He
called Doug and asked if he could borrow his jeep that night to go
into town.

He waited until he saw her leave for the day
and drive up the road before he climbed into the jeep and followed
her. He didn’t have to follow too closely since Doug had told him
previously that her casita was at the point where the East Coast
Road left the beach. He figured he could find that even in the
dark.

Maria was confused. She had affairs before
and they were fun and one or two were serious enough to go on for a
few months, but her secret, the events of her past and her emotions
had ultimately sabotaged her potential for commitment. She had
basically set up her whole life to be immune to a normal life and
normal love. Her emotions were buried very deeply. But this liar
from Canada had touched something. She didn’t even know who he was
and they had not even slept together. “Well, slept together but
nothing else,” she thought. “He is only here for a few months and I
have a new life here now. I don’t need to pretend that love exists
anymore.” So she figured that the most prudent attack on her
confusion was simply to ignore him. Several nights she tried
pounding out golf balls. She had discovered the very pleasurable
habit of going to the range and hitting some balls. That had worked
to clear her thinking before but all it did now was to get her
thinking about him more and his publically stated goal to make the
Champions Tour. And there was the fight. She had never seen anyone
as fast as she was until she watched him that night. There were
just too many unanswered and unresolved issues for her to simply
leave it alone. Not the least of which was why some guy was trying
to pretend to be the person she hated most in the world. She needed
answers but had no idea how to get them so she just ignored him and
went home every night to her casita. Maybe he would just go
away.

Her other stress reliever was to drive the
XL250 as fast as she could up the coastal road to her casita.
Focusing on not going off the edge of the road into the sea had a
way of taking her mind off things like strange men. And this night
she drove faster than normal.

It was still a couple of hours to sunset and
the road was empty as she roared, if a 250, two-stroke can roar,
out of the parking lot and towards the East Coast Road. The first
part of the road went along the golf course and around the empty
lots and some multi million dollar homes that were built on the
course. She drove slowly through the populated part and when she
hit the end of the settled part she gave the Honda full throttle
and the fun began. She was so focused on the road and the turns and
gravel that she didn’t see the jeep following her at a distance.
When she was halfway to the casita she stopped, as she often did,
at the edge of a portion of the road that looked down into a small
bay where some fishermen had pulled up their boats. She took off
her helmet, sat on the bike and enjoyed the scenery and the sound
of the waves caressing the small beach. She heard, rather than saw,
the jeep behind her since there was a sharp turn in the road just
before this place where she liked to stop. The sound was enough to
make her turn towards the curve in the road behind her just in time
to see the jeep fishtail around the corner and without slowing down
head straight for her bike. A normal person would have been either
crushed under the wheels of the jeep or sent careening down the
steep cliff to the rocks and the beach below. Maria saw it all
happening in slow motion and, as she looked the driver in the eye,
she leaped sideways off the bike just before the SUV slammed into
the XL and sent it over the cliff. The jeep sped away up the coast
road, leaving her unhurt but fuming at the side of the road.

She had a fleeting thought the hit was
purposeful, that the driver wanted to hurt her. "That's silly," she
thought. "Who up here would want to hurt her?" She walked over to
the cliff edge and stood looking at her bike spread out on the
rocks thirty yards below. She looked up as she heard the sound of
another vehicle approaching the corner. This one was coming at a
much slower speed. As it came around the bend she saw that it was
Doug’s jeep and as it came closer she saw the man pretending to be
Burt Van Royan was in the driver’s seat.

“Need a lift, lady?” he said as he leaned
over and opened up the passenger door. He saw the shocked look on
her face as he climbed down from the jeep.

“I was almost killed. Some idiot in a jeep,”
she smiled. “Another idiot in a jeep. He hit my bike.”

They both looked over the edge where the
bike was lying in the rocks. “Shit. How did he miss you? You look
OK. Well, you’re not driving that home now,” he observed. “Get in
the jeep and I’ll take you home.”

Maria pulled herself up into the jeep and
following her directions they reached the parking spot above the
cabin in ten minutes. They silently walked down the steep path to
the casita and Maria opened the door that joined the porch to the
rest of the cabin and beckoned Burt inside. “I think I need a
drink,” she announced as she went to a cupboard above the kitchen
sink and brought down a bottle of tequila. “Here. Pour us a couple
and let's sit outside on the veranda.”

Burt did as he was ordered. It was still
light outside and the view over the Sea of Cortez was spectacular
as the sun started to set behind them.

“Wow!” Burt exclaimed. “How did you find
this place?”

“A long story,” she replied as she sat
silently nursing her tequila.

Burt was not sure how to start the
conversation they needed to have. He had to start with the
assumption she actually did want his company and that there was
some good reason for her ignoring him for the last two months. He
started the exploration on some common ground.

“So tell me. Uma Thurman aside, what form of
martial arts was it you were using that night at the bar?”

“Hwa Rang Do.”

“Ha what? I’ve never heard of it?”

Burt had indeed heard of it. It was one of
the two ancient forms of martial arts the Agency taught its
employees. He recognized it as the arts that his North Korean
attacker had used. He had learned another form of fighting, from
China rather than Korea, but he decided to let Maria explain it to
him.

“I don’t know much about it except that it
comes from Korea. I was taught it by an older lady who was a cook
in the place I worked in in Puebla.”

Burt didn’t know how much to believe of what
she was telling him.

“Road House and Sam Elliot aside. What kind
of training do you have?"

“Wing Chun. It isn’t as obscure as your Ha
Wa something but I have been studying it for a long time and
actually was inspired to learn it by a movie. It is the form of
martial arts that Bruce Lee used.”

“So which is better do you think?” she asked
as she downed the last of the tequila in her shot glass.

“I guess it depends upon the practitioner,
but I would put my money on Wing Chun.”

“Really?” she teased. “Let’s find out?” And
she bounced up and jumped off the porch and laughing, took a stance
on the flat sand ten yards from the porch.

“You can’t be serious? Look at me. I’m just
and old man! What satisfaction could you get from whacking me
around?”

“Quit the sandbagging. I’m as old as you
are.”

“Ah, but much prettier. I’d rather make love
not war,” he offered as he took a classic Wing Chun stance opposite
her.

“You had your chance!” and she took one of
the thirty traditional “one step” attacks common to Hwa Rang Do. To
her surprise he easily sidestepped the attack.

For fifteen minutes they sparred back and
forth, alternately blocking each other’s jabs and kicks while
sending off their own. They each had opportunities to inflict some
kind of pain, but each held back. Burt knew from sparring at the
Agency that the tall, balanced and narrow Wing Chun position that
kept the elbows close to the body was a good defense against the
more aggressive Hwa Rang Do attack, but had a fleeting thought that
he was very glad she was not using a Jang Bang or staff. That would
hurt. Both slightly out of breath but invigorated, they
stopped.

“Shit, I’m too old for this,” Burt exclaimed
with a laugh. “That was fun, but I think I need another tequila,”
and he started to go back to the porch.

Maria laughed a little breathlessly as well
and followed him back to the table and chairs on the porch. She
poured them each a full glass of the Don Julio Anejo. “For an old
man you’re not bad,” she offered. “How old are you anyhow?”

“Do you think our relationship has reached
such a personal stage that I should share such secrets with you?”
He paused and looked at her. “Fifty-two. You?”

“Same,” she immediately replied.

“Hey! We’re getting somewhere! Next question
is mine!” He decided to jump right in. “Why have you ignored me for
two months?”

She paused and took a sip of her tequila.
“It’s not a good idea for me to establish deep relationships. We
all have secrets we need to keep and if we enter relationships they
only last if there is some degree of honesty. I’m sure there are
things that you want to keep to yourself?”

“Maybe,” he offered. “So you ignored me
because you were afraid of letting out some deep dark secret about
your past? If that is the case wouldn’t the worse result simply be
that I would just not like you anymore and our relationship would
be over?”

She paused again before she answered as if
she was only thinking of the answer now. “ I don’t know why. We
only knew each other for a night. But I think that in a perverse
twist of logic I didn’t want our relationship to be over, so I
decided not to start it.”

“Maria?” he reached over and touched her
hand “It has already started!”

She pulled her hand away. “Yes, already
started with lies and deceit and hidden secrets. Look me in the eye
and tell me you had never head of Hwa Rang Do before. You knew
every move I was going to make.”