His second shot was 150 yards, again straight down the fairway, and V. Rodefer Harrow, riding in the cart, commented that he wasn't seeing anything impressive. Then Hunt hit his six iron a looping long, perfect parabola directly at the pin.
"Whew," whistled Harrow.
"Ah," said Dalton.
"Easy," said Hunt. He tapped in a two-inch putt for a par four.
"We each owe you thirty-three cents," said Dalton. "That's sixty-six cents." He had Harrow count the change out of his pocket.
"Let's play for sixty-six cents each. I want to get my money back," said Dalton. "Don't you, V. Rodefer?"
"Absolutely," said Harrow, who had scored a nine with cheating. Dalton had a seven with a good putt.
The next was another par four, which Hunt made with identical shots, including a four-inch putt after a magnificent six kon.
"Now you've got a dollar thirty-two. Let's go for double or nothing."
"This is a par three, 170 yards. I'm super on those," said Hunt.
"Let's see how super."
Super was a birdie two, and Hunt found himself playing for $2.64 on the next hole. As they went down fairways and on to putting greens, his new friends asked him about the "it," each time doubling the bet and saying they had to have a chance to get back their money. By the seventh hole they were playing for $42.24, and Hunt was positively expansive with his new friends.
His mother, he told them, had made him promise never to use the "it" for a living because of the sordid past of the talent. The talent was not always used in sporting events. Originally it had been used with knives and guns for profit. De Chef was an old French name. It went, back to a servant in the court of Louis XIV. The servant was an assistant chef, but to give him the right to kill royalty, the king had to make him royalty. The whole thing came about when an Oriental murderer—there was no other word for it—came to the court at the request of the king. Hunt didn't know how much history Dalton and Harrow knew, but at that time the Sun King, as Louis was called, was having trouble with the lords. He wanted to unify the nation. Well, this murderer took some sort of a dislike to France. He wasn't a Chinaman was the only description that had been passed down in the De Chef family. But he didn't like France. And the king who had a lot of respect—well, it was probably fear—said he would pay a large amount of money to this guy to teach a few of his loyal lords some of what he could do. The Oriental was supposed to be amazing.
"We think you're amazing," said Harrow, counting out $169 in bills and pushing them into Hunt's pocket as they stepped off the tenth green and headed back toward the clubhouse.
"No. This guy was supposed to be. I mean what I'm doing was nothing, or at least not much. In any case, none of the lords could quite pick it up, and this Oriental finds the assistant chef can learn, and the king says a commoner can't kill royalty, so to solve the problem like they always do in France, they found a bastardy thing somewhere whereby my ancestor had noble blood and therefore, picking up the 'it' from the Oriental, he could go out and zonk any nobility the king wished. When the family moved from France, before the revolution, they sort of made their money the same way until my mother. And she said enough is enough and made me promise never to use the talent for money."
"A noble thought and promise," said Dalton. "But if something is wrong and untrue, then it's not noble, is it?"
"Well, I guess not," said Hunt, who, having won $337.92, offered to pay for dinner. And when he did so, when he had paid out nearly $200 for dinner at Maxim's for three and he had already spent part of his winnings, Winthrop Dalton informed him he had already broken his promise to his mother.
"But it only started with thirty-three cents. I always used to play for lunches and things and maybe drinks and a few bucks."
"Well, it's now three hundred and thirty-seven dollars and ninety-two cents."
"I'll give it back."
"That won't unbreak the promise, and frankly we don't want it back. It was a pleasure to see you in action."
"It certainly was," said Harrow. "Probably one of life's fifteen best thrills."
"Does it hurt to have broken that promise?" asked Dalton.
"It does now," said Hunt.
"But it didn't until you told yourself so. When you had broken the promise without knowing it, the whole thing felt fine, yes or no?"
"Well, yes," said Hunt.
"Are you your own friend or your enemy?" said Harrow.
"I guess I'm my friend."
"Then why do you make yourself feel bad?"
"I, uh, made a promise."
"Right. And in your attitude toward that promise you're ready to take food out of your own mouth, force yourself to live in a slum—you're broke—and in general hurt yourself. Do you really think you deserve to hurt yourself?"
"Well, no."
"Then why do you do it?"
"I was taught a promise is a promise."
"You were taught a lot of things, and so was I, a lot of things that made me miserable and unhappy and, frankly, a hateful person," said Dalton.
"You can leave here broke," said Harrow. "You can return the money. You can even owe us for this meal and go without lunches for a month to repay me with money I don't need. Will that make you happy?"
"Of course not," said Hunt.
"Then that's pretty stupid, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is."
Dalton stretched a veined hand out over the youthful shoulder.
"Tell me, son, aren't you a little bit tired of being stupid, of hurting yourself, of making your one life miserable. Aren't you?"
"I guess, yes."
"You guess yes. You don't know?" asked Dalton. "Are you stupid?"
"No."
"Then stop acting like it," said Dalton. "What we're getting at is that you'd be pretty stupid to starve, trying to keep a promise that's already broken."
"I'll keep the money," said Hunt.
"Well, son, there's just a little bit more. We want you to be rich and happy. Will you join us in making you rich and happy?"
"Will you?" asked V. Rodefer Harrow III.
"Yes, sir," said Ferdinand De Chef Hunt.