Blood Red Turns Dollar Green, no. 1

by Paul O'Brien

  Ricky slipped back onto the studio floor. Proctor finished by slapping the camera around to reveal Ricky Plick waiting to embrace the exiting Proctor. “Even your own have jumped ship, Danno. We're coming to get you, and that's a shoot.”

  Proctor dropped the mic to the floor. Pictures of Gilbert King, severely bloodied and battered, silently looped to end the program.

  October 1st 1972. New Jersey.

  Lenny chugged to a stop in his Mom's Datsun. He nervously stepped outside and checked the rooftops like he had seen in the movies. The motel parking lot was quiet. Lenny took out the piece of paper that the man in the suit had given him outside the jailhouse, and looked for a face or sign in one of the many windows.

  He had washed his wounds and his scraps were treated and patched. His polyester suit was replaced by bell-bottom jeans and a loudly printed shirt.

  He wasn't at all sure of what to expect. Some part of him wondered if he would make it out of this situation at all. If it was to get bad, at least he’d gotten to spend a morning with Bree.

  Danno whistled to Lenny from a balcony on the second floor and slipped back inside his room.

  Lenny walked to the door and tapped lightly.

  “Come in,” Danno shouted from inside.

  Lenny pushed the open door and entered the standard room. Danno sat at the dressing table with his back to Lenny.

  “I'm sorry for everything that happened. I have no excuse,” Lenny said. “I know you put your trust in me, boss. I've never been as sorry about anything in my whole life.”

  Danno pushed a seat out with his foot. “I'm in real trouble, Lenny.”

  Danno lit a cigarette and pushed the Marlboro box in Lenny's direction. “There's nothing I can do.”

  “What is it, boss?” Lenny asked as he slowly approached.

  Danno veered from helplessness to annoyance. “Did you fall asleep? Is that what all this is over?”

  Danno turned to reveal his severely swollen and bruised eye.

  “Jesus, boss. What the fuck happened?”

  Danno stamped to his feet and grabbed Lenny by the face. “What the fuck happened is right, Lenny!”

  Danno wanted to break his fucking neck, run him through the door, and throw him down to the lot below.

  But he couldn't. Not to Lenny.

  “It's time you were smartened up.” Danno closed the door. “I have nothing I can barter with here. You've left me with nothing. Proctor thinks I've tried to kill his son and fucked him out of his split and the belt all in one night.”

  Lenny wiped the smoky sting from his eyes. “Let me talk to him, boss.”

  “You're going to. I have no other choice.” Danno paused and Lenny could see that he was having a quiet argument with himself. Danno's nod punctuated an internal decision made. “There's nothing I can do, Lenny. He's out on his TV this evening calling us out and telling the world that we jumped his son and tried to kill him on purpose.”

  “But that's bullshit.”

  “Well, tell me what happened, then.”

  Lenny couldn't answer that question. He wished more than anything that he could, but he was driving one second and picking himself up from the ground the next.

  “I can't even tell him... I...” Danno tried to think again. Maybe there was something last second that could turn this all around. But nothing came. The crash had taken all this power away. Whatever happened now, happened.

  Danno looked at Lenny and struggled to hold in the tears. He hated that Lenny was making him do this. Hated that it was Lenny that was wanted.

  “I want you to bring Babu to Florida and drop the belt to Proctor,” Danno painfully said. He turned back into the room. He eyes were full and a single drop fell out and slid along his face. Danno quickly wiped it away before Lenny could see it. “There's nothing I can do.”

  Lenny pulled the motel door closed behind him and Annie came out of the bathroom where she had been listening.

  Danno didn't want her out of his sight while he had to meet Lenny. She tried to comfort her devastated husband.

  Lenny walked somberly to his Mom's car. He thought that Danno might be watching him out of his window and Lenny wanted his walk to say sorry. Inside, he was fucking partying.

  That's it. Drive the giant to Florida and have him drop the belt? I thought they were going to file my dick and burn my eyeballs. Drive Babu to the sun? Is that all?

  That wasn't all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  October 2nd 1972. New Jersey.

  Danno stared into the open pizza box that was on the motel dressing table. He could see it and smell it, but he couldn't bring himself to eat it. Annie sat on the flat bed behind him, looking out the window at the traffic rushing past.

  Danno ran through all the clips of his life so far that had him pinned down. All the people who mocked him. All the situations where he felt like a worthless piece of shit. The way the world beat on him sometimes. The way he was told how his life was going to play out.

  Crying didn't come easily to a man like Danno Garland. He just wasn't allowed to act like that, like a fucking pussy. He had to be hard and silent all the time. No emotion, no whining, no crying. It was all no good.

  But in this situation, there's no telling if he would have simply broken down had he been on his own.

  Every time he breathed, he could feel the ball of painful anger in his chest. How could he go back to being a nobody? Lose everything. All because Lenny fell asleep.

  “Dan?” Danno's wife's voice pulled him slightly out of his head. But only slightly.

  “Yeah?” Danno answered. He forced a slice into his mouth to avoid raising questions.

  “You want to tell me what he said?” Annie asked.

  He didn't really, but how long could he keep her away from all this stuff?

  “He said that Proctor just went on TV in Florida and told the people that we tried to kill his son.”

  “Can't you put him right?”

  “He doesn't care if that's the way it was or not. The story sounds better if we tried to kill him. There are more tickets in that. Maybe that is what he fucking thinks. I don't know.”

  “Dan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can't we get a better room if we're going to be on the run?”

  Danno turned around angrily. Annie's attempt to lighten the mood a little landed on a raw nerve. “Who said we're on the run?”

  Annie was taken aback on the directness of the question. “Well, we're not at home and not telling anyone where we are. What else do you call it?”

  “Do you think I'm afraid of him or something? I came out here to protect you, Annie. I don't know what this fucking nut is going to do.”

  “Is that right?”

  Danno was getting more offended at Annie doubting his motives. “Yeah, that's right.”

  Annie picked up a magazine and threw her feet onto the bed. Danno stared at her just long enough to prove that he won that particular exchange.

  “Everyone's dropping like fucking flies. I can't risk it with you,” he mumbled as he turned back to his pizza.

  Annie began to loudly and sharply turn the pages of her magazine.

  “What?” Danno asked.

  She threw down the glossy pages and slid off the bed. “When are you going to realize that you're the boss? What's got you so... paralyzed? You have all the cards. Start fucking playing them, Dan.” She walked into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Danno slapped his pizza back into the box and wiped his hands across his shirt. “Fuck.”

  He quickly calmed himself and walked to the bathroom door. “You decent in there?” he asked.

  “Well, I'm mostly just standing here looking at the wall because I have nowhere to storm off to, Dan.”

  “Okay, can I come in?”

  Annie opened the door and Danno entered like a shy guest. “I... don't know where to start with all this stuff. It's... bearing down on me, is all. People are getting hurt and I don't know what t
hat Senator has on me. Not to mention Proctor and all the madness that's going on there.”

  Danno hugged Annie in the middle of the bathroom of an old motel room on the outskirts of New Jersey. In was in that bathroom where the germ of an idea began to scratch at his thoughts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  October 3rd 1972. Atlanta.

  Barry came marching back into the same restaurant that he met Ted in the day before. He surveyed the busy tables, but couldn't see Ted's big frame.

  “Barry,” Ted called from a small booth in the corner. Barry approached. “What the fuck is it now?” he asked in a short manner.

  “You gonna sit down?”

  Barry remained standing.

  “Okay. Danno wants to be up front with you guys... so he wanted you to know he has a small concern. It may be nothing...”

  Ted leaned back and let the waiter pour him a fresh cup of coffee. He flipped up a spare cup for Barry and had that filled also. Barry begrudgingly sat down. He waited for the waiter to leave. “What concern?”

  “Well... now it could be nothing, but... it's these hearings coming up in a couple of days. I mean, he doesn't think that he's not going to have the belt for you guys or anything”

  “What?”

  “Like I said, it's probably nothing. He just wants to make sure your side knows everything our side does. And if there is a chance that Proctor will have to cancel his match, Danno thinks it's only a small one.”

  Barry sat in silence while he tried to figure out what was actually being said. “What?” he repeated, not quite understanding the language being spoken. “Are you saying there's going to be no match?”

  Ted quickly jumped in. “No. Danno doesn't want to cause panic here. He just doesn't know what's going to come up from Senator Tenenbaum. That's all. Nothing big. Probably.” He raised his coffee to his lips. “I mean, he's heard the Senator has something but... that's all it was. A rumor. Nothing concrete.”

  Barry's head dipped as he thought and muttered to himself. How the fuck was he going to tell Proctor this one?

  “We could move the match forward or something?” Ted suggested.

  “We've already...” Barry was undecided if Ted knew about Proctor's promo or not.

  “Oh, you guys already said something? Oh. Listen, I'm sure the original date will work. We're probably just worrying over nothing.”

  “That Irish prick needs to fix this, ‘cause if this match goes wrong again, I wouldn't want to be Danno or anyone related to him.”

  Barry slid back into his seated position and Ted grabbed his forearm. “Listen, Barry. I'm telling you that Danno's balls are cut off right now and he's just going to sit wherever he is, with the blinds pulled, until the deal is over with the Government on Thursday, and until Saturday is over with you guys. No one has even seen him in days. I'm just saying that the man is depressed or something. He's not exactly a man of action at the moment.”

  Barry slipped from Ted's grasp and tried not to look like he was galloping out of the restaurant.

  October 3rd 1972. New Jersey.

  Annie collected the message from Ted on the answering machine, “Job done,” his message simply said.

  Annie knocked on the bathroom door. Danno was in the shower inside. “Ted says ‘job done’,” she shouted through the door.

  “What?”

  “Job done.”

  Danno hurriedly stumbled for his towel. “Okay, make the call.”

  Annie dialed from Danno's address book. “Hello, may I speak to Melvin Pritchard, please?”

  Within the hour, Danno was starting to feel like his old self. He pulled down on his tie and slicked back the remaining hairs on his head. Annie brushed the dandruff from his shoulders. Tiny Thunder came out of their bathroom.

  “I'm not fucking wearing that,” Tiny said, holding up a schoolboy outfit.

  Danno was confused, “It's a disguise, Tiny.”

  “Well, you wear it then,” he replied. “If I go into Manhattan dressed like a schoolboy, someone is going to try and fuck me. Sorry, Mrs. Garland.”

  “You have to be able to blend in,” Danno stressed.

  “And you think a thirty nine year old midget in a schoolboy outfit won't draw attention?”

  Danno gave Annie a little devious smile. Seemed like he liked fucking around with midgets in his spare time.

  October 3rd 1972. New York.

  Danno wanted his money back. He specifically mentioned the sum of ninety-two thousand when he gave Ted the message to give to Lenny. That's why Lenny found himself trying to break into his own garage at ten at night.

  It was lashing down rain, and wind drove through the fence and long-ways across the front garden. Lenny thought that explaining a robbery to Bree was easier than explaining that the money wasn't theirs.

  He pulled the black hood over his head and made his way to the side of their house. All the lights were off inside except for the light on the landing. That was for Luke, ‘cause he thought the bathroom sink next to his room was trying to kill him.

  Lenny did all that he could to stop himself from simply putting his key in the door and slipping into his own bed for the night. He wondered if ninety two thousand was that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

  It was. He cracked open his side gate and the unkempt dog of the alcoholic next door barked like a coked up lunatic.

  “Shut up, you fucking dog,” Lenny hoarsely shouted.

  The dog ignored him and kept up the alarm. Lenny decided to just run to the garage.

  Inside, he wiped the rain off his face and ducked under the worktop where he pulled back the never-opened toolbox, and threw his hand down behind the workbench. He rustled around, but couldn't put his hand on anything that felt like the rucksack.

  He quickly forgot the stealth part of his mission and pulled out the bench, causing old appliances in need of a look, to crash to the ground. He slid his head painfully into the small gap behind the workbench and eyeballed the dark empty space.

  His heart sunk and he immediately felt sick. The rucksack was gone.

  Lenny sprung up and thought for a second if he had moved it to a better place one day or maybe he... something.

  He looked through the cobwebbed window at his house and knew that Bree had taken the money inside to a safer nook.

  He switched off the light and closed the garage door. Flipping up his hood, he took a brutal swipe of a gardening shovel to the back of his neck. Lenny dropped to his knees and tried to cover up.

  “Wait,” he shouted. “Wait.”

  He could make out the shovel being raised again in the light of the moon. “I live here.”

  The shovel stopped.

  “Lenny?” Bree asked. She was terrified and shaking with the fright.

  Lenny couldn't move to get up but he rolled over onto his side and saw his wife, as white as a ghost, standing over him, crying.

  “What are you doing, Lenny?”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “I thought you were going to come inside and go after the kids, next.” Bree's voice was trembling. “What would I do if that happened, Lenny?”

  Lenny struggled to his knees. He wanted to hug his wife and make her feel safe. He thought he might cry himself, seeing her so upset.

  “I didn't know what to do,” Bree said.

  Lenny made his way up to his unstable feet and tried to move her head onto his shoulder, but Bree was standing rigid. “What are you doing to me?” She pushed him away. “What are you doing?”

  “I need the money.”

  Bree shivered. “What money? The bag?”

  Lenny nodded. “Where did you put it?”

  “Inside.”

  Lenny tried to walk past Bree into the house, but she stood in his way. “What's wrong? What are you doing?”

  “I just need it.”

  “Why, Lenny?”

  Lenny paused and tried to think of a good enough lie. “I can't tell you.”

  “Lenny?”


  “I just fucking need it. How much of it is gone? I need something to make up the difference, Bree.”

  Lenny pushed past her and walked toward the back door of his house.

  October 3rd 1972. New York.

  Danno sat silently opposite Melvin Pritchard in the food court of JFK International. He had a plane ticket in his hand and the rucksack from Lenny's house by his feet. Over Melvin's shoulder, and across the room, Annie sat incognito beside the payphone.

  “Mr. Garland, not that I don't like your company, but... it's past two in the morning and you did say you were going to talk to me. 'Tell me everything' was, I believe, what your secretary said on the phone.”

  Danno covertly looked to Annie for a signal, but she shook her head.

  “Mr. Garland? We've been here for nearly two hours.”

  Melvin might have been there for two hours, but Danno and Annie had been there since six.

  “You have to know how hard this is for me, Mr. Pritchard. The workings of wrestling have been kept guarded for...” Danno began.

  Annie checked her watch and quietly left for the exit.

  “I've changed my mind,” Danno quickly said as he stood up and threw the bag over his shoulder.

  “Excuse me?” Melvin said.

  “You heard me. I'm going to need more time.”

  Danno, too, walked for the exit, leaving Melvin wondering about what had just happened.

  October 3rd 1972. Florida.

  Proctor watched as the sides of the cage were fitted around the ring. He had wanted to make himself relevant again for many years, but could never justify placing himself at the center of the territory. Now the paying public was demanding it, and he was ecstatic.

  Revenge money travelled quicker than any other kind of money. People would pay double the price to see a father defend his son against the Big City cowards. There would be a packed house for the crowning of a new champion, and the towns on the loop after it were all sold out too.