COVER STORY : Bing’s Buddies Liked to Play Games

The scene: Lakeside Golf Club, where, according to Bing Crosby, no one was immune to put-ons and put-downs.

A club member whose name, Crosby wrote, he “wouldn’t dream of disclosing” played the horses and had piled up massive debts with a ring of bookmakers.

Despite threatening telephone calls about what might happen to him if he didn’t pay up, the horse player boasted airily to friends that he’d pay when he got “good and ready.”

One night, the horseplayer participated in a poker game at the club. A comedian who also belonged to the club retreated to the switchboard and, on the telephone, disguised his voice, telling the indebted horse player menacingly that he would soon arrive to settle the matter.

The horseplayer returned to the poker table, visibly rattled.

Soon a fellow club member named Hugh Herbert, who, Crosby wrote, was “about the same size and general appearance” as the horseplayer, said good night and left the club.

Outside, two gunshots rang out. As Crosby would write in the club’s history:

“We all dashed outside, and there was Hugh, lying on the grass, a great red blotch staining his shirt front.

Seeing our friend through glazed eyes, Hugh raised up and said, in a hoarse whisper, ‘For God’s sake, pay him the money.’

“The horseplayer sank to his knees, moaning, ‘What can I do? What can I do?’

“Hugh sat up, giggled and said, ‘You can buy me a new shirt. I don’t think I’ll ever get the ketchup out of this one.’ ”