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When ever 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,