Blood Red Turns Dollar Green Volume 2

by Paul O'Brien

  Curt purposefully left a break for Danno to chime in. He didn’t. So Curt had to be more direct. “What do you think?”

  Danno didn’t need to think. “Probably not.”

  “What?” Curt cautiously asked.

  “I can’t sign my guy up for that,” Danno said with a new confidence in his business dealings.

  The visiting Texan stumbled over his words, “Why … but … ”

  Danno continued. “I’ve got the giant signed up for something in the long run.”

  “You’re not sending your champion down to Texas?”

  Danno knew that he couldn’t politically cut Curt out. Danno was too new to make such a big play. Yet.

  “No, I can send the champ down if you like.”

  A small smile started to push its way back onto Curt’s face.

  “But it’s not for a program,” Danno said. “I can send Babu down there but he goes over strong. Your guy shows his ass - and in a squash too.”

  Curt heard loud and clear. Danno wasn’t going to allow any series of hard-fought matches. He was willing to let Shane Montrose and the new champion lock up, but Danno wanted Babu to win easily and ‘squash’ Shane Montrose before the champion moved onto the next town.

  Danno wanted Curt to make his new golden goose, Shane Montrose, to look like a pussy. This would give Curt a once-off payday – but would kill his territory.

  In wrestling there are two ways to lose. You can lose by the skin of your teeth and have people salivating for the rematch – or you can get destroyed by an unstoppable monster and be yesterday’s news. If Curt’s top star had to ‘show ass’ for the champ who was passing through, Curt would have a real tough time selling tickets with Shane’s name for the remaining years on his contract.

  Sometimes getting the champion to town wasn’t the best thing for a territory. Especially when the champion was being promoted as a ‘kill-all’ monster.

  “We could do a couple of draws and then your guy goes over in the third match or something,” Curt suggested, trying to clasp any shred of negotiation.

  Danno again shook his head. “Babu is going to be undefeated and dominant until it’s time for us to hand the belt to someone else.”

  “To who?”

  Curt was beginning to get agitated. He had taken down Merv Schiller, the main impediment to Danno’s run, and he was starting to get the sense that he was about to get nothing for it.

  “I can’t say. Not yet,” Danno replied.

  “You’re trying to tell me that you’re willing to leave a mountain of money on the table because you’re tied up with someone else?”

  Now it was Danno’s turn to be annoyed. “Listen Curt. I can’t be any clearer than this. I will send the champ to you. He’s not losing. He’s not going to look weak to an old, broken down guy like Montrose. My guy is the future. If you want him to come to your town you better have something more interesting that a squash match against a washed up has-been.”

  Danno’s reply had a calming, sobering effect on Curt.

  “I have been stupid here today Danno,” he said. “This isn’t my normal style. I know you’re only finding your feet.”

  Curt put out his hand. “Of course we can do business. We’ll think of something else. Something better.”

  Both men shook hands at the back of Danno’s new mansion.

  “Well?” Shane wanted to know as they pulled away from the house.

  “Wait a second,” Curt answered while checking his mirrors to make sure Danno couldn’t see the anger in his face.

  “You don’t look good, Curt.”

  As Curt pulled from the house, onto the open road, he noticed the black sedan approaching from the other side. He shook the gloom from his face and smiled and tipped his hat as the car passed. Lenny, the driver, acknowledged him in return. The car’s passenger, Danno’s wife, was reading a paper and didn’t notice the gesture.

  Curt and Annie Garland would get the opportunity to meet again soon.

  Shane covered his face as Annie’s car passed. Curt noticed.

  “You going to fucking tell me or not?” Shane asked.

  “He didn’t go for it … ”

  Shane threw his hands up in frustration. “I don’t fucking believe this man.”

  “He’s not going for it yet. He wanted to do a meaningless thing where the giant comes to Dallas and pins you clean and leaves.”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Exactly.”

  The reality of the situation began to dawn on Shane. “I just moved my family again. Because you told me … ”

  Curt put a prepared envelope into Shane’s lap. “I’m not like the other bosses. There’s your first week’s payoff.”

  Shane looked inside. “We didn’t shake on payoffs. We shook on me being a partner in this deal.”

  “Okay partner,” Curt said. “We made no money this week, would you prefer to split that with me fifty-fifty?”

  Shane reluctantly nodded.

  “I’ll get this done. Meantime, that’s some nice money in there.”

  Curt was right. The payoff looked thick and, as usual, Shane could sure use the money.

  “I’m going to do a trade with Jose Rios … ”

  “In Mexico?”

  Curt turned into a gas station. They were low.

  “Yeah, I’m going to get his top star to come to us for a program and then you go down there and return the favor. You hungry?”

  Curt opened his door but Shane grabbed his arm. “This isn’t what we shook on.”

  “I can’t make Danno pick us. We’ll have to bide our time. While we’re waiting, do you know how much we can make with a Mexican in Dallas?”

  Shane wasn’t happy but he knew the right Mexican name could draw big money. Not NWC champion money, but enough to live on for a couple of months.

  “I want a Mexican Mexican. Not a Puerto Rican Mexican. I can’t draw money against a Puerto Rican,” Shane said.

  “Okay. Now, can I get some gas?” Curt asked.

  Shane wanted Curt to look him in the face. He wanted Curt to know that he wasn’t to be messed with. Not this time. Not again.

  He said, “I’ve had enough of being screwed around by you guys. If you try and fuck me over on this deal I will kill you.”

  Curt nodded. “We’re going to make what I said we were going to make.”

  Shane backed off, his point was made and received. Curt patted down his pockets.

  “Fuck,” Curt said as he reached into Shane’s open envelope. “I’ll pay you back when we hit home.”

  Curt left the car and whistled as he walked to the kiosk. He didn’t want to whistle, didn’t feel like whistling. But he whistled. Whistling made the broken deal with Danno seem like no big deal.

  But he knew it was.

  There were boxes and bags and half-opened drawers. A TV sitting atop a makeshift stand of suitcases stacked one on the other. Danno and Annie eating from paper plates, across from each other. Just two people in a home made for more. A lot more.

  He thought of all the shit he had to crawl through, all the decisions he didn’t want to make. He wondered if she still loved him. He watched her watching TV. The smile on her face as she kept full contact with Debbie Reynolds. The way she leaned into her plate, with her food waiting on the fork until she stopped laughing.

  Every now and then she’d flick her eyes over to him and smile – not waiting for him to return the gesture. She was happy. And the real kind of happy too. The kind where a person feels content.

  A simple night, with a simple meal in a cobbled together setting in the middle of a huge, unpacked mansion.

  Danno had finally gotten the power and the money. But he knew he was losing her. She, the one who he was sure he still loved, was sure he couldn’t talk to, and was sure was having an affair.

  He wanted to be angry. He wanted to be a man. More of a man. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he understood it. He could see the reasons why his wife, his rational, kind and
loving wife, would cheat on him.

  And ‘cheat’ was such a harsh word.

  He was a young man when he married her. He promised her children and a certain type of life. She was shy and wanted nothing too explosive. They would talk endlessly about the life they were going to have and the plans they wanted to make. But when they were man and wife he bounced them around from city to city and became more quiet. Less inclusive.

  She begged him not to get into the wrestling business. To stay outside with her and be someone other than his father.

  Danno didn’t listen. His younger head was far thicker. He had his beautiful wife with him and he found it frustratingly impossible to talk to her. He wanted to say things to her. He wanted to apologize for what he had become. He wanted to wipe it all away and start again.

  He wanted to tell her that he loved her.

  And all the years passed on by and he didn’t talk to her. He didn’t find a way. He didn’t explain to her why he solely made the decisions that shaped her life. She never got what she wanted. Not even half, which would have been at least fair in Danno’s mind.

  He wanted her to be happy. And he wanted her to be with him. He wanted her to be happy and with him. But one didn’t equal the other.

  He knew why. It wasn’t some mystical edict from the gods. It was him. It was his inability to explain, to confide in his wife. To tell her what made him afraid.

  He planned with her, he married her and then he froze her out.

  And still she could be happy as she was, sitting across from him. She was happy. They were not.

  Danno stood up and walked around his wife to the door. Their new house was otherwise dark. The fire wasn’t lit but the light from the TV made the room look warm. He stood behind her and he wanted to lean in and kiss the top of her head. He wanted to say sorry. He wanted to ask her to stop.

  He wanted to, but he didn’t do any of those things.

  One month later. Three years before the murder.

  Texas.

  The Sportitorium was a white, barn-like venue that sat on the grounds of Industrial Boulevard. At one time it was one of the whistle-stop spots for blooding new up-and-coming recording artists before they became music mega-stars.

  It was also Curt Magee’s base.

  Attendance had dropped hugely since those heady days of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley singing in the center of a rope-less ring, but Curt felt they were on the verge of something. He could feel it in his bones that things were close to big-time again if he could just hang on. Hang on and make the match – Shane Montrose versus Danno’s champion in New York.

  “What the fuck is that?” Shane asked as he stepped out of his chauffeured ride into the splintering sun.

  “That’s Nelly,” Curt answered as he walked out of his office to meet him.

  “Nelly?” Shane asked, looking at the black bear tied to a tree.

  Curt nodded and seemed to want to move quickly into the building and onto other matters.

  “That’s not for me, is it?” Shane asked, half laughing, half serious.

  “We’ve got something for everyone tonight,” Curt said. “I got a bear, some midgets, a few nice ladies and a gimmick match.”

  Wrestling fans loved the gimmick matches. They were the matches where the conventional rules of wrestling went out the window. There was the Bullrope Match where two wrestlers were attached by the wrist to a long rope which had a cowbell in the middle which could be used as a blunt weapon. Or the Texas Bunkhouse Brawl, which was a free-for-all type match that typically left both wrestlers drenched in each other’s blood and the arena all torn up.

  Tonight, Curt had booked a tar-and-feather match.

  Shane was wondering if he’d just landed on another planet. “So, what am I doing?”

  “There’s a horse,” Curt answered.

  “I’m wrestling a fucking horse?”

  Curt opened the door to the arena and motioned for Shane to follow him inside.

  “No, you’re not wrestling a horse. You’re going to ride one down to the ring for your match later. I figured it would be a great way to introduce you to the fans here on your first night in. Give things a little local flavor.”

  Shane stopped dead in his tracks.

  “What’s the matter?” Curt asked.

  Shane got a strong feeling that he was in the wrong place. He turned around and could see a scared teenage boy with ginger hair leaving an open bottle of beer within the bear’s range.

  “Go easy on me later, you hear?” the boy said to the bear from a safe distance.

  Nelly the bear had just met her ‘opponent’ for that night.

  Curt walked around Shane and into his line of sight. “What’s the matter?” Curt asked again.

  “I ain’t no cowboy,” Shane said softly.

  Curt had spent all he had on this show. He even sold his car to pay for the animals. He needed his number one draw to be happy.

  “We need to get you over with the audience. We need you to go out there and get them on your side the second they see you,” Curt explained.

  Shane couldn’t have been more insulted. For any owner to tell an old pro like Shane Montrose how to get over with an audience was a slap in the face. Like telling a virtuoso how to play the piano.

  “Have you ever seen me in the ring?” Shane asked.

  “Of course I have. But down here it’s different. Trust me,” Curt answered.

  “I’ve wrestled down south for most of my career. I know all about the southern fans.”

  Curt smiled. “You’re not in The South. You’re in Texas.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Four days after the murder.

  Nevada.

  Bree boarded her number nine bus. Her hastily packed suitcase was jammed tightly against her knees. It had already been dragged across the country, shoved in a motel wardrobe, only to be packed and dragged away again.

  She was heading to Bakersfield to see she didn’t know what. She looked out the window and watched her sons wave her off. Her stomach turned at the thoughts of them staying behind and waiting for her call. It also turned at the thoughts of Lenny being solely responsible for their collective well being.

  “Goodbye,” she mouthed through the hot, dusty window. “I love you.”

  Lenny’s back was turned to the bus as he made a call at the station’s payphone. Luke waved frantically as it was the first time in his young life that he was going to be away from his mother. He didn’t really want to be left there at all. Lenny was more like an uncle that comes to visit than a father to him.

  “We’re going to fly in today, Mom,” Lenny said down the phone.

  “Me and your father won’t be here, Lenard. We’re going to head on down to your aunt Hendy’s birthday party,” Lenny’s mother replied.

  Lenny paused for a second to think.

  “Why don’t you bring the little ones there?” she asked.

  “Can I?” Lenny asked.

  Luke tugged on his father’s shirt as Bree’s bus pulled out onto the road. She was desperate to get his attention before she pulled off on her journey. She was waving like crazy and blowing kisses to her boys.

  “Dad?” Luke said, trying to get Lenny’s attention.

  Lenny just shrugged him off and continued talking to his mother.

  “You can come down to the Hendy’s with them but I don’t want you dropping them down there.”

  “Why not?” Lenny asked.

  “Because your father and I want to have some cocktails and stay for a few days. Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve been on vacation?”

  Bree’s bus was out of sight before Lenny realized his opportunity to say goodbye was long gone.

  “Don’t touch your father’s car,” Lenny’s mother warned him.

  “I won’t.”

  “He loves that car Lenard.”

  “I know.”

  “What are you coming back so soon for anyways?”

  A couple of years before, Dan
no gave Lenny a few grand here and there to stockpile in Lenny’s shed.

  It was a strategy that all the bosses used just in case they needed to get out of town in a hurry. They had money stashed everywhere. Or everywhere but a bank.

  Danno showing such faith in Lenny had Lenny feeling like one of the inner circle. He was only too happy to take on the job. Not that he could tell his wife what he was doing.

  At that time, Lenny was gone from his home weeks at a time and was so distant and secretive that Bree thought they were slowly separating. She watched her husband time and again sneak into their shed and hide money from her.

  After a couple of years of lies and deceit, she had enough.

  Her mind was made up and all she needed was some running away money for her and the kids. So Bree took a slice off the top of this ‘hidden’ money to set up a life somewhere else.

  But then Danno called. He wanted his money. And quick.

  When Lenny found out what Bree had done he couldn’t make up the difference. He packed the remaining cash into a rucksack with a note of apology – and as an act of loyalty – Lenny put his wife’s wedding ring set in the rucksack too.

  It was all they had of value. Lenny wanted Danno to know that he was going to pay him back. The rings were just a temporary thing until Lenny got the missing money together.

  But Danno never looked in the rucksack. He just handed it straight to his wife as she boarded a plane for Texas.

  It was the last time Danno ever saw her alive.

  “Lenard?”

  Lenny was staring at the hill in the road. He hoped Bree’s bus would come back so he could say goodbye to her.

  “Lenard?” Lenny’s mother shouted again down the phone.

  “What?” he answered.

  “What are you coming back to town so quickly for?” she asked him.

  “I’m just coming back to collect something for someone. I’ll just be a day or two.”

  Lenny had Danno’s money. Now he wanted his wife’s rings back.

  Pennsylvania.