Blood Red Turns Dollar Green Volume 3

by Paul O'Brien

  Years of wrestling, and his body growing out of control had made for a lot of nerve damage, and compression of the spinal column. Once, the giant could lift several people per arm, but he was now regularly defeated by lifting anything more than a few pounds at a time.

  “Lenny?” he called.

  There was panicked silence, as Lenny tried to suck down any breath he could. He managed to take in broken inhalations that were barely enough to keep him alive.

  Babu could only hold his own back, as he rocked backward and forward gently for a tiny amount of comfort. The giant landed with his back to Lenny, but he couldn’t turn over to see just how bad Lenny was.

  “Are you okay?” Babu asked.

  Lenny didn’t answer; he couldn’t, even if he wanted to. Babu was soothed by the fact that he could hear Lenny gasping for air behind him. It didn’t sound smooth, but at least he was breathing.

  As Babu cooled down, and his adrenaline levels began to lower, he could feel a pain in the top of his head. A quick check showed him that Lenny’s elbows had drawn blood: there was a nice opening in the top of Babu’s head.

  Babu was half-proud, and half-disgusted. The Lenny Long he knew would never be capable, or even want to be capable, of such a thing.

  Babu was quickly coming to the realization that the man moving behind him wasn’t the Lenny Long that he knew—not even close.

  Babu found it hard to move. His back was in such excruciating pain that he had spent the better part of the last five years trying to drink it better. He had known quite early on that alcohol wasn’t going to fix it, but he’d continued drinking, anyway.

  “Lenny?” he called from the ground.

  Babu could hear footsteps coming closer to him. He tried to roll over to see what was happening, because Lenny’s silence was making him wary, to say the least.

  As he began to turn, he saw a flash of grey slice down his peripheral vision. Lenny had taken a thick branch from the ground, and smashed it across the shoulder and the side of Babu’s neck.

  The giant threw up his hands in self-defense. He pushed himself through agonizing pain to roll onto his stomach, where he made it to all fours. Lenny was scouring the ground for another, bigger weapon.

  “Stop!” Babu shouted.

  He could see in Lenny’s eyes that Lenny was afraid, enraged, tired, and tormented, all at the same time.

  Babu pushed himself onto his knees, where he managed to lunge his huge right fist at Lenny. It connected, and Lenny fell like a dropped curtain.

  Babu could only moan loudly with pain. He just lay there, on his stomach this time, and watched Lenny’s fingers curl as he drifted further into unconsciousness.

  Babu hauled himself toward Lenny to make sure that he hadn’t bitten or swallowed his own tongue.

  “I’m sorry,” the giant whispered.

  Lenny snapped back to consciousness, and tried immediately to get up. Babu held Lenny firmly to the ground beside him.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Babu said.

  Lenny, panicked as to what had happened and where he was, began to piece together his last five minutes.

  “What happened?” Lenny asked.

  It was easy for someone as well versed as Babu to see that there was still no one home in Lenny’s eyes, yet.

  “Take it easy,” Babu said as he dragged Lenny closer to him.

  “Where am I?” Lenny asked.

  Lenny could see the trees and the fallen leaves, and the sky overhead. He knew that he was a long way from prison, from Manhattan, and from home.

  New York.

  1984.

  Three hours after Lenny got out.

  Babu and Lenny were back in the van, and on the bridge into the city. Both men were bruised and sore, but they hadn’t said a word to each other since they’d left the forest.

  Babu could feel that Lenny wanted to say something; Lenny could feel the same thing from Babu. They were only a couple of hours away from changing the wrestling business forever, and someone needed to go first.

  It was Lenny.

  “What option did I have?” he cleared his throat. “I loved Danno like a father. He told me that he was going to kill my wife if I didn’t...”

  “I know what happened,” Babu said. “I know what went down, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Babu turned to see a few tears make their way over Lenny’s bruised face. Lenny quickly wiped his cheeks; those tears had been twelve years coming, and only three seconds lasting.

  Lenny said, “I fought for my life in there. I begged more than one person to let me live. I was like a child. I fucking hated myself that I wasn’t bigger or tougher, and that’s why I was target number one. There were men in there that would take weeks to break me. They would threaten me, not let me sleep, and not let me eat. I was their entertainment. When I’d give up and just curl into a ball, they would high-five each other. Then, a day or two later, the next one would try to see if he could get me to break, too.”

  Lenny turned to see if Babu cared, but his face wasn’t easy to read.

  “And I cursed you into hell and back a hundred fucking times. Where were you? Where was Ricky? I know what I did, and I wanted to pay for it. I have paid for it with everything over and over and over again. But where the fuck were you guys? Did you even care?”

  Babu didn’t answer.

  “So, what choice did I have? I served my time. I waited, and... nothing. My team wasn’t fucking coming to rescue me. So, I took their offer—the only offer I had. I’m sorry.”

  “We didn’t just cut rope on you, Lenny,” Babu said.

  The cracked roads shook Babu and Lenny, and the loud honking of New York City outside kept them alert. Lenny hadn’t seen his beautiful mess of a city in a long time. She seemed as dirty as ever, but a little happier, and maybe a bit more rich, too. There were more nice cars and suits out and about.

  People looked shinier—brighter.

  Babu wished that he’d had a better plan. He had only heard the night before that Lenny was getting out, and the giant hadn’t thought that it would be too hard to change Lenny’s mind—not the old Lenny, anyway.

  Lenny wanted Babu to know that he’d had no choice: he was in a no-win situation. “I can’t sell to you, because I’d never get to rest easy again; Tanner wouldn’t allow it. So I’m asking you to put yourself in my shoes. I think I can say no to you, and walk away with my life. I just wouldn’t have that luxury with the other side—not after going this far with them. You understand?”

  Babu pulled into the building site. It was a metal skeleton of a huge building, half-covered, half-finished, standing tall into the grey sky over them.

  “Chrissy?” Lenny called the giant by his real name, “All I want to do is go home to my family. Can you help me do that?”

  There were only a couple of white vans outside, and no immediate sound of banging or sawing or general work going on. There was, however, the hum of music: loud music that came from the back of the site.

  “I’ll wait here,” Babu said, “for when you do the right thing.”

  Lenny got out of the van. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself.

  He walked to the mouth of the unfinished building without looking back. Exposed plastic sheeting flapped in the wind as Lenny kept his eyes on dark openings, and any other place that might be hiding someone.

  The music grew louder.

  “Go home,” Lenny shouted to Babu, as he entered the building.

  Across the road, Donta Veal watched the proceedings.

  Inside the building shell, Lenny was met by a man who would soon be identified as Percy. Lenny immediately heard the click of the hammer being cocked on a gun behind him.

  “Move,” Percy said.

  “You know the gun is unnecessary,” Lenny replied.

  “Why’s that?”

  Lenny began to take the dusty exposed stairs.

  “Because you’re bringing me somewhere I want to go.”

  Percy was kinda put
out. “How do you know you’re going where you want to go?”

  “Are you bringing me to see Tanner Blackwell?” Lenny asked.

  There was a pause.

  “Yeah.” Percy mumbled.

  “Then I’m going where I want to go,” Lenny said.

  “Shut up, you faggot.”

  Lenny and Percy went through a doorway into a huge, bare room. It was just a concrete box with exposed steel and openings for doors and windows. There was a makeshift table in the middle of the room, with a bag underneath.

  Lenny saw Tanner Blackwell first. He was sure that the man looking out the windowless rectangle was, indeed, the boss from the Carolinas. He was older, skinnier, and more brittle, but he was definitely Tanner.

  Also in attendance were Danno’s former lawyer, Troy Bartlett, and two men who Lenny recognized as the Botchco Brothers at the other side of the room. They had been newbies when Lenny last saw them, but now they were beetroot-red, balding, and three times the size they had once been.

  Tanner smiled when he saw Lenny approaching. “We didn’t think you were coming, seeing as how poor Percy, here, was knocked silly outside the prison this morning.”

  Lenny knew that it had been Babu’s work straight away. He glanced at Percy, who dropped his head in shame. Lenny could see himself in Percy—his old self. Percy was a simple, young, scrawny kid trying to make his way into the wrestling business.

  “I’m just here to collect my money and leave quietly,” Lenny replied.

  Tanner turned from the window, and took his first good look at a free Lenny. “Well, you’ll forgive us for thinking that you weren’t coming. Anyone associated with Danno Garland is an immediate traitor and liar, in my eyes.”

  Lenny took the contract from his pocket: it was creased, a little damp, and folded on the edges.

  “Do you want to do this, or not?” Lenny asked.

  Tanner smiled at Lenny’s forthrightness. “Yes, sir.”

  Lenny couldn’t help but notice the Botchco Brothers pulling their best heel wrestler faces in the background.

  Troy took the contract, and laid it on the table.

  The noise from the city was comforting to Lenny; he had missed it. He’d also missed the smell, which was one that only New York could cook up. It drifted its way into the building on a light breeze, which blew the edge of the contract up from the table.

  “You know what I’m putting here?” Tanner asked.

  Lenny didn’t really care. He just walked toward the papers to sign his name.

  Tanner turned to the Botchcos to see if they noticed Lenny ignoring him, too; they did. Lenny’s perceived ignorance was beginning to roil Tanner, and anything that roiled Tanner roiled his men, too.

  “Did you hear me asking you a question?” Tanner said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, what?”

  “Yeah, I heard you. Now have you got my money?”

  Tanner pointed to the briefcase under the makeshift table. “Spoken like a true New Yorker. Danno must have been so proud of you, huh?”

  Tanner laughed, which meant that the Botchcos laughed. Percy followed, too, a little behind them.

  “It’s little fucks like you who poison our business. No fucking respect,” Tanner said, as he grabbed up the contract and opened it to where Lenny needed to sign.

  “Got a pen?” Lenny asked Troy.

  Tanner gave Troy the nod. Troy took a pen from his jacket, and gave it to Lenny.

  “Open the briefcase and show me my money,” Lenny said.

  “Give it to the little runt,” Tanner said.

  One of the Botchcos—Lenny couldn’t tell which—kicked the briefcase along the floor toward him.

  Troy opened the contract, and Lenny approached it with pen in hand.

  “Show me where,” Lenny said.

  Troy pointed to a few places, but before anything was inked, Lenny first stooped to open the waiting briefcase. It was full of freshly pressed cash. He thought that, even if it wasn’t all there, there certainly was enough to turn things around for his family, and that’s all that he wanted.

  “It took a while to pay off, but it was a good job for both of us that you shot that fat pig in his fucking head,” Tanner laughed as he walked toward Lenny.

  Lenny instinctively slapped the taste out of Tanner’s mouth; the old man fell to the ground and held his face, and the whole room froze in shock, including Lenny.

  “Have some respect,” Lenny blurted out.

  Percy tried to bull-rush Lenny as Tanner’s other two men hurried to help Tanner up. Lenny jumped at Percy, his attacker, and threw everything he had into his offence.

  The closest Botchco brother threw the briefcase at Lenny, who ducked. It carried on until it hit the edge of the window opening, and burst open, releasing an explosion of hundred dollar bills outside.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Tanner shouted at his henchman’s stupidity.

  Lenny could then see that the other Botchco brother had a knife in his hand. Lenny tried to get untangled from Percy, but, as the Botchco lunged, Lenny could only turn his body enough to take the knife in the shoulder area.

  “I got him,” shouted the Botchco with the knife.

  Lenny turned and kicked him as hard as he could in the balls; he then fell to the ground, and dragged himself through the doorway. He looked at the window opening, and gave serious consideration to just fucking jumping.

  He knew that it was too high, so Lenny sprung up holding his shoulder, and began to run.

  He went down one flight of stairs, but it was still too high up. He could hear the heavy footsteps of the Botchcos behind him. He went down another flight, but it was still too much of a drop.

  Lenny made it down one more flight, and he knew it had to be this one. He looked out, threw his feet over, and then lowered himself as far as he could before he dropped into the parking lot.

  He knew that he only had seconds before his pursuers would catch up to him.

  Sixty thousand dollars was blowing gently around him: his ticket home. He wanted more time to collect every dollar—time to scoop it all up and make right his dream. He just wanted to go home.

  “Hey,” Babu shouted.

  Lenny could stay and take his chance with the money, or he could escape through the break in the fence straight ahead.

  “Hey,” Babu roared again.

  Lenny snapped back to reality, and looked back toward the familiar voice. He couldn’t believe that Babu had waited—not after what Lenny had just tried to do.

  The break in the fence and away on his own, or, try and make it to Babu and back to the wrestling business?

  “Start the engine,” Lenny called.

  Babu could see that Lenny’s face was swollen, and that blood was dripping from a stab wound in his shoulder.

  “Drive!” Lenny was only a few feet away, now.

  Babu didn’t run from nothing or no one—not even the two huge men who were running from the building site, also toward his van. As Lenny dove into the safety of the van, Babu slapped the first attacker into the nearest wall, and cold-cocked the second with a head-butt. He had knocked two three hundred pound men out cold in a couple of seconds.

  Lenny started the van, and Babu made his way around to the driver’s seat.

  “You’re not the driver, anymore,” Babu said.

  “Hurry up.” Lenny slid into the passenger seat.

  Babu’s weight made his side of the van bow down to his other foot. He sat in position, and threw his ride into reverse.

  Lenny Long and Babu found themselves twelve years later in different seats, both literally and figuratively, as they raced around Manhattan again in a VW Kombi van.

  “What did you do?” Babu asked.

  Lenny didn’t want to answer.

  “What did you do?” Babu shouted.

  “Something... very bad.”

  Babu sped backward into the street, and slammed the van into drive, as he watched the blood stain on Lenny’s sh
oulder grow bigger and bigger.

  “What does that mean?” Babu asked.

  “It means... I guess we’re in the wrestling business.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Memphis.

  1984.

  Seven hours after Lenny got out.

  Joe Lapine took one hundred and thirteen steps to his ringing phone: too many steps, he thought. As he had gotten older, he’d begun to see all the things in the world that could kill him. If he had a stroke or heart attack, he’d never reach the phone in time. His house was full of boxes, ready to move. He’d make sure to have a phone in each room in his new house.

  “What?” Joe asked a little too loudly.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Donta said down the line.

  Joe recognized Donta’s voice, and it immediately made his stomach sick with anxiety. He was nearly afraid to ask the next question.

  “Where?”

  “New York,” Donta replied.

  “Is the paper signed over?”

  “No.”

  Joe was ecstatic and relieved that Tanner had missed out on New York, and he’d get all the juicy details from Donta once they were speaking face to face. For now, Joe needed to contain whatever it was that Tanner had gotten himself into.

  “Get him out of there,” Joe said. “Get him the fuck away from that place.”

  Joe could feel all his hard work, negotiations, and personal plans slipping down the drain. Tanner had threatened that he would go after New York; Joe knew he should have listened.

  Now Joe had to do the thing he genuinely didn’t want to do: he called his office.

  “Martha, it’s me. Call the territories immediately. I don’t want you to speak to anyone other than the other bosses. Tell them we need to have an extraordinary meeting. Tanner Blackwell first, and tell him to get out of the country.”

  Joe slammed the phone down several times in frustration before ripping it out of the wall, and firing it down his hallway.

  “That fucking... fucking prick bastard fuck asshole. Cunt.”