Читать книгу Watch Mommy Die - Michael Benson - Страница 17

THE BLUE MARLIN

Behind the wheel of the black pickup, Stephen Stanko left the cul-de-sac in which Turner had lived and headed west—378 to Interstate 20, into the city of Columbia. He’d had a busy night and could really go for a beer. He began looking for an appropriate place to eat and have a drink or two. He stopped at a bar-restaurant on Lincoln Street, not far from the state capitol or the University of South Carolina campus, a steak house called the Blue Marlin.

It was the kind of place that bragged about the quality of its food: Blue Marlin produced a cuisine that captured perfectly the strange and perhaps mystical concoctions of the Low Country. The story went that the menu evolved from the days of the plantation owners, when the owners, up till then fed with bland European-type fare, smelled and were enticed by the spicy aromas coming out of the Low Country. As their peoples possessed kindred spirits, the Blue Marlin also worked some Louisiana Delta into their cuisine, a strong Cajun and Creole influence.

Perfect, Stanko thought. He could eat and sit in at the bar for a couple—shoot the breeze. He had a wallet full of Turner and Ling’s cash and was eager to spread it around a little. He was a big man—and big men made the party happen. Finally he had some noticeable affluence, and he could affect a lifestyle he felt was owed to him, a style long overdue. He changed his shirt before going in. He sat at the bar and drank steadily. Repeatedly he bought a round for the house, and quickly became a popular guy. How could one act less like a killer on the run? Though he was even then the subject of a nationwide manhunt, he did not hide. He was boisterous and social. Whenever Steve is here, it’s happy hour!

One of the people Stephen Stanko met at the Blue Marlin was Erin Hardwick, from Lexington, South Carolina. He said his name was Steve and bought her and her friends drinks. Round after round. They wondered where he got all the throwing-around money—and someone asked him

“I’m in commercial real-estate development,” Steve responded. “I just closed a deal. We’re building a commercial high-rise building, right here in Columbia.”

He added that he owned, or co-owned, a lucrative smattering of Hooters franchises.

“In South Carolina?” she asked.

“Throughout the Southeast,” he replied.

Everyone noticed that he had an injured hand. When they asked him how he did it, he offered a variety of stories. His first tale was that his car broke down and he punched it in anger. To Hardwick, he said he’d participated in the Cooper River Bridge Run a week before and had taken a spill near the end of the race. Later, he switched again, saying he punched a guy who was hitting on his date.

Observing this activity from a more objective point of view was Jane Turner, no relation to Henry, who was a friend of Erin Hardwick’s. Turner was at the Blue Marlin with her date. She remembered Stanko bragging that he was a real estate agent from New York who was in South Carolina to “close a big deal.” His exaggerations increased as the night progressed. She remembered him doing shots and flashing money. When Turner and her date left, she recalled feeling that leaving Erin in the bar with that man might not be the best idea. But Hardwick assured her she’d be fine, and Turner did leave.

Since the Blue Marlin was a steak house more than a saloon, it closed earlier than the taverns of the region. Stanko had been running a tab since a certain point. He asked the bartender what he owed.

“One-eighty,” the youthful bartender Ryan Coleman answered. Coleman remembered Stanko bragging that he was the vice president of some company or another. Whatever, the guy had a wallet full of Benjamins. Stanko gave him three $100 bills and told him to keep the change.

Since everyone was having such a good time, largely on account of Stanko, it was way too early for the party to end. Taking several Blue Marlin customers and the bartender with him, festivities traveled a somewhat meandering path to another local tavern.

Coleman went along with the party, but it wasn’t because he liked the guy. He didn’t. When one of Coleman’s friends implied that Stanko was full of shit, Stanko obnoxiously threw a handful of cash in the air—“Making it rain,” he called it—and turned the air blue with a torrent of profanity. Coleman felt almost compelled to go along. With $120 of Stanko’s money in his pocket, he was on the hook to buy a couple of rounds, at least.

Erin Hardwick stayed with the party till the end, and before they parted, Stanko gave her his e-mail address. Well fortified with alcohol, Stanko got in the pickup and hit the road.

Stanko listened to the car radio as he resumed his flight westward on Interstate 20. A sportscaster talked about the Masters golf tournament under way that weekend in Augusta, Georgia. That is, if weather allowed. The town was hustling and bustling with bored golf enthusiasts. The rain caused play to stop on several occasions. The first round had started on Thursday, but had to be completed on Friday. The second round began on Friday, but most of the players were still out on the course when rain halted play once again. There was plenty of downtime and business was great in Augusta’s drinking establishments. There was talk of more rain, so there was no telling if the tournament, one of the most prestigious on the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) tour, would be completed by Sunday, as scheduled. That meant a bonus night of partying for those so inclined. A Monday finish was very possible.

Everyone considered Tiger Woods to be the favorite to win, but he hadn’t gotten off to a great start. The early tee times produced the lowest scores, because those golfers completed their round before the weather became too bad. Tiger had a later tee time and shot his round in the thick of it. After the first round, he was seven strokes behind the leader, a relatively unknown Chris DiMarco.

This was perfect, Stanko thought.

The Masters oozed class out of its pores. It was played on the Augusta National Golf Club golf course, a fairytale beautiful setting for golf. The winner received a green jacket—along with a truckload of money, of course. Augusta had undulating greens and water features spanned by arching bridges. There was no rough (long grass), only pine straw. With azaleas and magnolias in bloom, the Masters tournament was, for those attending or watching on TV, a rite of spring.

TV announcers were not allowed to refer to “the crowd.” Too vulgar. Spectators at the Masters formed “the gallery.” They were the most affluent and polite fans in golf, perhaps in all of sports.

The gallery had a code of ethics, just as the golfers did. If a woman left her folding chair next to the green with her purse on her seat, she could be certain both chair and purse would be there when she returned.

For a gathering such as this, the cost of security was surprisingly light. The great bulk of that security was outside, carefully scrutinizing admission. Positively and absolutely no riffraff. Once members of the gallery entered Augusta National, they were secure.

That kind of setup made Stephen Stanko eager. He could drink, meet people, maybe a woman, and plan out his next move. The Augusta locals would be oblivious to a white man with spectacles wearing a golf shirt and khaki pants. Stanko pulled Henry Lee Turner’s Mazda onto the exit ramp for Augusta National and trolled for locations.