Goldengirl

Going past Carpinteria Beach, he had the agreeable thought that Armitage’s rising star on the tennis scene could be a girl. Half a mile on, he shook his head and stubbed out the cigarette. There was something about women tennis players.

He filled up at Santa Barbara and bought four packs of cigarettes. At Gaviota, he followed U.S. 101 inland, since he had no reason to take the more spectacular route through the flower fields.

The coast came into view again soon after five. Pismo Beach. He was making good time.

Before six, he saw the first streamers of Spanish moss suspended over California 1 from the pine forest beyond the small dairy-farming center of Cambria. According to the brochure, there was a left turn soon.

A white notice confirmed it. No modest plaque hammered to a tree, but a thing the size of a billboard. THE DICK ARMITAGE TENNIS RANCH. TRY THE CHAMP’S WAY. HALF MILE LEFT.

He swung the Excalibur onto a descending road so thickly overhung that he needed headlights. The tires purred over pine needles. Past a firebreak, left again, another notice, trees dusty brown where the light never penetrated, and then the scene opened up like curtains parting.

The ranch lay below at the edge of the forest. Red-tiled roofs jutted among conifers. An arc of buildings sited at contrasting levels and angles, with obvious respect for the landscape. In the center, the tennis courts, smooth-surfaced like the piece of sea claimed by a fishing village.

Dick Armitage was at the gate as he drove up, unfamiliar in a floral Hawaiian shirt and black denim slacks. He made a movement that identified him as assuredly as an all-white outfit, raking his left hand through the length of his sun-bleached hair. On court, it would have drawn a rapturous murmur from his teenage following.

‘You should carry a racket,’ Dryden called out. ‘You’re not one bit like the guy on the cover of Tennis World.’

‘No more than you resemble the owner of that Third Reich automobile,’ Armitage responded, grinning. ‘The mustache is all wrong. I’m glad you made it, Jack. If I may get in, I’ll show you where we’ve located you.’

Dryden liked the ranch just as well in close-up. No gingerbread. The entire layout functional, yet visually pleasing.

He was housed in a casita overlooking the swimming pool. White-washed walls, rush carpets, original abstracts, the smell of pinewood furniture. ‘How do you persuade your guests to leave?’ he asked.

Armitage saluted the compliment with a smile that put creases in the places the sun hadn’t tanned. ‘The cocktail lounge is there, beyond the pool. Look me up when you’re ready.’

Dryden carried his case upstairs, decided which of the two bedrooms he would use, washed, took a green Shan-su shirt from its wrappings and slipped it on, picked up a pack of cigarettes and made for the lounge.

‘Seems quiet,’ he commented to Armitage as the whisky in the cocktail supplanted the chill of that first, long sip. He didn’t mean to offend, but he would have expected more guests to congregate there before dinner. Someone in a blazer who looked like staff was drinking Schlitz, and there was a couple with glasses of sherry in the bench seats behind the door.

‘I discouraged reservations this weekend,’ Armitage explained. ‘The few you’ll see around are residents, more or less.’

‘You want to work on your strokes in private before Wimbledon?’

‘Unkind!’ said Armitage. ‘Okay, I wasn’t putting it together in Paris, but I caught Raul on top of his form. He just can’t serve like that two championships in a row. Sure, I’ll be doing some homework, but there’s another reason for clearing the place.’

‘The reason I’m here?’

‘Check,’ admitted Armitage, peering into his beer. His conversation, like his tennis, progressed in phases, with intervals between points. He resumed: ‘I invited you here to meet — look, Jack, you’ve helped me a lot. That Dunlop contract a year or two back. Gave me security, a hedge against a sudden loss of form. You know?’

‘I took my commission,’ Dryden reminded him, curious why Armitage thought it was necessary to express gratitude. He wasn’t in the business from altruism, and he thought his clients understood that. ‘I don’t suppose Dunlop are sorry about it, either. It was a long shot, but on target. They aren’t all, and the trade understands that. There’s no such thing as a stone-cold certainty. The days when Dunlop, Slazenger and Spalding waited for the seedings to be announced before they drew up endorsement contracts arc history, Dick. Or legend. With so much going on in the game now — the Grand Prix, WCT, team tennis, the Federation Cup — they can’t afford to stand aside. There’s a fortune invested in tennis just now, enough for any young player of promise to take a cut.’

Armitage nodded solemnly, but ignored the cue. ‘How’s the auto-racing scene? I notice Jim Hansenburg won the Monaco Grand Prix last month. He’s a Dryden man, isn’t he?’