“That guy passed out down there about an hour ago.”

“A hundred dollars if anybody tags him from here,” Jack offers.

“Maybe he’s dead,” Costello says.

“A couple guys from Dinoffria Plumbing reported back,” Mumbry says. “He’s breathing.”

Ajax has a tent set up. Glorious standards flapping in the wind. A few plumbers stand around, drinking, looking through catalogues, playing with the new faucet models.

Mumbry has orange chicken-wing sauce all around his mouth.

“You just missed the Hooters girls, Marty. They got hot wings inside these heat packs that keep them hot.”

Jack puts an arm around Mumbry. “Collectively, the girls opted not to fuck Dave.”

“I’m a married man,” Mumbry says.

“So am I,” Jack says. “It’s a common condition.”

“When does the Best Ball start?” Costello asks.

“It got cancelled,” Mumbry says. “There’s some disorganization going on.”

“Then fuck it. I’m having a whack.”

Costello with a 9-iron. Bend the knees, let it rip. Losing the ball in the white sky, then the silence of a distant landing, four feet in front of the sand trap. Costello grabs a wedge and a putter.

“If I don’t return,” he says, “avenge me.”

The grass is summer brown. Hot winds whirling down from the freeway. Sirocco, an old crossword word. A ball whizzes past Costello’s head.

“Incoming!” Jack’s voice louder than the wind. Friendly fire.

The drunk in the sand trap rolls over. Lying there, quite peaceful, with an empty bottle of peppermint schnapps next to his head, is the man himself, Lamrock, patron saint of plumbing contractors throughout Christendom.

Costello pitches his ball over the trap, over the corpus of Lamrock. The ball rolls onto the green. The flag, at first, is nowhere to be found. But then he sees it floating in the water hazard, along with several empty beer cans. Costello drops his putt, saving par.

A golf cart crests the hill, plumbers dangling out the sides, wielding golf clubs and forty-ounce bottles of beer. A blond Hooters girl driving, swerving, laughing. She skids onto the green and someone yells, “Marty!”

Rocha, riding shotgun, has his arm over her shoulder. “Marty, man, are you loaded or what?”

“I’m just trying to get in a few whacks.”

Rocha introduces his fellow-technicians from Advanced Plumbing Specialists, and his young cousin, an apprentice. He introduces Mandy.

“This is crazy,” she tells Costello. “Most of the shit they send us to is so boring.”

“Yeah, we have a lot of fun out here,” Costello says, a little too brightly, his voice cracking like a thirteen-year-old’s. Christ, the goofiness, it never goes away.

“Marty’s a nominee for sales rep of the year,” Rocha says, drunk, grinning ear to ear, nudging Mandy with his shoulder.

“Wow!” Mandy says, with big mocking eyes.

Just once a piece like her, just once, but never. A bit trashy, but still, there’s a time and a place for everything.

“We’re speed-golfing,” Rocha says. “You have to hit the ball from the cart while it’s moving. It’s like polo.”

“The sport of kings,” Costello says.

A cart marked “Ranger” comes over the hill. A man armed with a bullhorn, yelling at everybody to go home. The W.C.P.A. Best Ball Extravaganza is drifting into chaos.

“Fascist motherfucker,” Rocha’s little cousin says.

Costello and Rocha extract Lamrock. His face plastered with drool and sand. They pour some water on him.

“It’s prime-rib time,” Rocha says, nudging Mandy once more. “You like meat, right?”

A frozen smile. She looks trapped all of a sudden. Waiting for them to go away. They load Lamrock into the cart and drive up the fairway. Jack sees Lamrock and laughs.

“That was you down there? You fucking lightweight!”

“I think I got dehydrated,” Lamrock says.

The Ajax standards are coming down. In carts and on foot, plumbing contractors sweep across the steppes of the municipal course. The Mongol hordes. Costello helps carry the faucet displays back to the clubhouse, which is now off limits. Through the windows, the silver vats of prime rib. The wait staff taking it all back to the kitchen. Security pushing plumbers away from the door.

“Somebody tell somebody that Jack Isahakian wants to eat,” Jack says.

A forty-ounce shatters on the pavement. Pushing and shoving. Security guards on their walkie-talkies, calling in an air strike. Night falling on Harbor Municipal.

“I don’t think they’ll let us back next year,” Mumbry says.

In the end, the banquet is held in the parking lot. The W.C.P.A. supreme council gathers everyone up and, just like that, the awards ceremony is over. Jack wins manager of the year. Mike Melendez, of Southwestern Sales, gets rep of the year. Costello congratulates Mike, who says, “That ball-cock thing fucked you up.”

Mike takes his plaque and leaves. Most of the guys head out, a cavalcade of plumbing trucks. Lamrock pouring shots into Dixie cups for everyone who sticks around. The lifers. The heavies. In the amber darkness, Jack mounts the hood of his Grand Marquis, holding up his plaque in triumph.

“Hey, listen up. I’m not leaving here without a speech. Somebody introduce me. No, fuck it. I’ll do it myself. I’m Jack Isahakian. Some of you are lucky enough to know me.” A chorus of “fuck you”s. “Yeah, well, I’m a lucky man myself. I work with a lot of highly competent professionals. Solid people top to bottom. Warehouse, inside, outside. I can point to anyone at Ajax, man or woman, and say, ‘That guy right there, he’s a fucking pro.’ Let me give you an example. I have five minutes, right? Most of you know Marty Costello. He’s what we call a salesman. What he does is make sales calls. A couple months ago, on a rainy day, he walks in the door at Munson Pipe & Supply in Hawthorne.” Some whooping and hollering from the Munson contingent. “That’s what salesmen do. They show up and they walk through the door. On this day, it turns out that our competition, who shall remain nameless. . . . It’s Gary Yeager from Carlton-Hill Sales. Is he here? I don’t want to throw Gary under the bus or anything, but on this day he excused himself from walking in the door because it was raining outside. He actually called up Munson and said that. I admire his honesty, but if I felt I couldn’t work because it was raining outside I wouldn’t admit it to anybody. I’d go home and shoot myself. Anyway, our friends at Munson also thought it was funny, and since Marty the Brentford toilet rep was there instead of Gary the Kenner toilet rep, they thought, Why not have Marty take a look at our inventory and see what’s what? Forty items and ten categories later, Marty walks out of there with the biggest order of the year. And all he did was show up for work.”

Jack drops his plaque. It hits the bumper on the way down and thuds on the pavement. “I had this thing planned about Gila monsters, but it’s getting late, comrades, and I’ve had a lot to drink.”

A smattering of applause. Rocha and Mumbry laughing, shaking Costello’s hand. The guys from Munson shaking his hand. Other wholesalers, plumbers, Lamrock.

“Somebody call Jack a cab,” Costello says.

Saturday afternoon. The girls on their way. Costello has shocked them with an actual plan: dinner in Catalina.

But first a bit of sun. The pool turquoise. The glass door sliding. The roof, the wall, the wires. This house is his. Or the bank’s, but he still lives here.

Costello hops on the raft, pushes off, lights up. The telephone pole in the corner of the yard, like the mainmast of a ship.

He rolls off the raft and into the pure blue water. Down he goes to the bottom of the deep end. His eyes open, burning. The lizard pale from the chemicals. She never complained, not once, her hair falling out, the hideousness of her round beautiful face. That final moment, her green eyes popping open, and all the bile spilling out of her. A goddam captain, going down with the ship.

Back on the raft, the lizard in his hand, pale and soggy, tiny black eyes and tiny white feet. Costello throws it over the wall and hears it splash in his neighbor’s pool. ♦