The polo tournament had been running every other day for two weeks on Long Island and also at the Greenwich Polo Club, in Connecticut—only ten miles away by water across the ominous gray currents of the Sound. I thought of Jay Gatsby standing on his lawn and staring across the water at the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock . . . But the Garden City Hotel is a long way from Gatsby country, and Daisy doesn’t hang out here anymore. Long Island has changed drastically since Gatsby’s time. Garden City was a rural hamlet back then, and when it was originally built, the hotel was so hard to reach by horse carriage from Manhattan that it seemed as far away as Cuba.
By the turn of the century, it had become a fashionable spa for the rich and famous. Teddy Roosevelt lived nearby in Oyster Bay and was often seen in the hotel bar, haranguing the local gentry to come on up to his place for a quick game of polo. But Teddy would not recognize the place now. It has burned to the ground three times and is now in its fourth incarnation. There is a disco instead of a carriage house, and Joey Buttafuoco has replaced Gatsby as the resident celebrity manqué.
By the time I got there, a rash of shocking upsets had thrown the championship up for grabs. Most of the foreigners had been humbled, and my homeboys had emerged as one of the strongest challengers. Four teams were still unbeaten going into the final week, and Aspen was one of them. They were whores, of course, and only one of them had ever set foot in the Aspen area—and that was the wily patron, Doug Matthews. But that is the way of polo, and I was the only one who seemed disturbed by it.
But not for long. I was beginning to learn that there was no need to be bothered by certain things. It is a different world, and the only way to accept it is to accept it completely . . . I was shocked at first to learn that the official headquarters of the tournament, the legendary Meadowbrook Polo Club, no longer existed except as an eerie shell of its former self. The grounds were still beautiful, and the deserted clubhouse was still elegant, but there were no polo fields, no polo ponies, no caviar brunches, no smirking, bankrupt aristocrats strutting around the terrace with half-naked Spanish courtesans on their arms. “It’s a parking lot now,” said club president Al Bianco Sr. when I inquired, “but we still call it the polo field.”
It didn’t faze me. “Of course,” I said. “Good show. Now let us retire to the bar and have a mint julep.”
“There is no bar,” he said. “But I know a nice Italian place over in Levittown. You must come and be my guest.”
“You’re too kind,” I said, “but I’ll have to take a rain check. I have a film crew waiting back at the hotel. I have to run.”
“What a pity,” he said. “We’ll see you tomorrow at the game?”
“You bet,” I said. “We will kick ass. Those goddamn Argies are about to get what they came for. My homeboys can’t lose!”
He blanched and looked away, then he pulled a plastic hip flask out of his coat and drank deeply. “What do you mean by that?” he finally asked, fixing me with a nervous smile.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “I didn’t come here to lose, Buster. You want to put your money where your mouth is?”
He stared down at his hands for a long moment, then shook his head. “I didn’t hear that,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the game. Thanks for stopping by.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” I replied. “We are champions.”
I walked across the lobby to the darkness of the Polo Lounge, which appeared to be empty. I sat down at the bar and picked up a crumpled copy of the Sporting News, which was open to the Dog Pages. Across the room was a big-screen Sony TV, which was tuned to the dog-racing channel. I slapped my hand on the bar and called for whiskey. I hate dog racing, and the sight of it made my mood foul. I reached into the pocket of my silk shooting jacket and pulled out a small ball of hashish, which I quickly ate.
I heard a noise behind me, and then a hand touched my shoulder. “Pardon me,” said a man’s voice, “are you here for the polo games?”
“You bet,” I replied. “This is the big one. It’s now or never.”
“Who are you with?” he asked.
“Aspen Polo,” I said. “My homeboys. We are undefeated. Nobody can stop us.”
He nodded thoughtfully but said nothing. He was still standing slightly behind me, so shrouded in darkness that I could barely see his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. It made me nervous. For all I knew, he was a cop or maybe a professional pickpocket. But when he sat down on the stool next to me, I saw a finely dressed gray-haired man who looked like he might own a few polo ponies himself. He was wearing what appeared to be a black cashmere tuxedo jacket and patent leather boots. He was an elderly gent with deep-set eyes and a suave patrician presence—as if he’d just come back from a garden party at the old Gatsby place. I was impressed. We shook hands, and he introduced himself as Averell Harriman.