by Paul O'Brien
Shane Montrose was a star. But he was a regional star. The guy with the heavyweight title was the national star. Flown everywhere, driven the rest. Best of hotels, more women than he could handle and the biggest money – by far – at the end of the night.
On drives like this one being home every night sounded great to him. But he knew he’d be bored in a week and would be out partying and chasing tail.
That’s the reason he was coming home to wife number three.
About five minutes away from home he saw a man walking in the middle of the road waving his arms. Shane checked the rearview mirror and saw that his was the only car on the road. The dark, secondary road.
Fuck it. He floored it and headed straight for the wandering man. The last couple of years had all been about surviving, avoiding lenders and making it to the next day.
Curt was only paying him a percentage of the gate in every town, “until Danno comes to his senses.”
The more speed he picked up, the closer he got, the more the man in the road looked terrified.
“Hey,” the man in the road shouted.
“Bert?” Shane wondered to himself.
Shane and Bert sat silently as they pulled into Bert’s house. Shane had been filled in on what happened earlier. He didn’t know what to say.
Crystal sat out on the porch and waited for Shane to arrive. She was smoking – he’d never seen her do that.
“Where’s the little one?” Shane asked as he approached.
Crystal stood and walked into his pathway. “She’s asleep. Finally.”
Bert entered the house and left them to it.
“I’m going to make this simple, Shane. I don’t know what you do on the road. I can guess, I can imagine, but I don’t want to know. But when your actions send a man to our home to do us harm, and he was serious, I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Shane put out his arms for a hug. “Baby, I’m sorry.”
Crystal began to cry. “I couldn’t even call the cops because I don’t know if you’re involved in something illegal or not. I don’t know what to do to protect my child.”
Shane put his hand at the back of her head and tried to coax her in closer to him. She pushed him away.
“You go back out there and fix whatever it is you’ve dragged us all into. Do you hear me? You moved us again with promises of a mansion and cars and vacations every other month. Where is it? Where’s the deal you made? I bet everyone else is making more than you. As usual there’s a pot of money somewhere and everyone else is dipping in to it except my husband. Mister fucking Big Time. The one the whole business is laughing at. Again. Open your eyes. You’re a joke.”
Crystal walked into her brother’s house.
Matthew Miller strode along Old Slip late and smoking. He knew the second part of his day was only starting even though he could feel the dark evening coming on.
On the opposite side of the street he could see his building, long and narrow, almost make its way down to the East River. No one in his department knew yet that the coming Christmas would be their last in that building.
He was just waiting on word to see if his First precinct was, in fact, going to be amalgamated with the Fourth. If that was the case then his building wasn’t big enough to hold both crews. They’d certainly have to move.
“Captain Miller?” called a voice from behind.
Miller stopped and turned. He knew the voice but didn’t know from where. He saw a man hurry to catch up. It was Dr. Melvin Pritchard, head of the New York Athletic State Commission, the governing body for both boxing and wrestling in New York. Amateur wrestling he could handle, but professional wrestling made him sick.
“Sir,” called Melvin. “My name is Dr. Melvin Pritchard. I believe we spoke on the phone.”
Miller nodded and extended his hand. “How do you do Doctor. I’m in a hurry I’m afraid.”
Miller continued towards his building. Melvin followed. He wanted to make sure that Danno Garland didn’t slip the cops like he did him and his organization. Melvin had spent a lot of his time trying to get professional wrestling, and Danno Garland, put under the federal spotlight.
“I was wondering how your investigation is going? With regard to Senator Tenenbaum?”
“I can’t comment.”
Both men dodged the oncoming crowds.
“And Danno Garland?” Melvin asked.
The captain stopped.
“I can’t comment on him either. Look, I appreciate the information you gave us over the phone, I really do, but the senator is saying he didn’t see anything that can help us.”
“Do you know where Danno was the night the senator was attacked?” Melvin asked.
Miller could see the lamps at either side of the precinct door glow a couple of hundred feet away. He wanted to keep walking but he was sure he was going to have to hear Melvin talk one way or the other.
“No. I don’t know where he was,” he answered.
“He was with me,” Melvin said with a pause. “He called to meet me in JFK that night and the night before. He sat in front of me and said nothing. As a matter of fact he did nothing for hours. He just watched the clock.”
Miller was failing to see how this was implicating Danno in any way.
“He used me as an alibi. He made me recite the date and the time before he stood up and left. That was the night the senator got attacked.”
Miller was unimpressed. “It means nothing. We’ll keep looking. I can promise you that.”
He turned from Melvin and took off into his stride again.
“Sir,” Melvin called.
Miller was short on patience.
“Sir, indeed,” Miller replied. “This fucking city is choking. The Bronx is burning, we don’t have the money to pay for our schools. I’m hearing about German Shepherds being posted down in the subway. Right here, where you’re standing, we had to bag up three Chinks who welched on a fucking bet last week.” Miller could see he had Melvin’s attention. “I don’t give a fuck about what you think a bunch of conmen are doing to the spirit of competition.”
Captain Miller again began to walk but Melvin stayed put.
“Did you know his wife was murdered?” Melvin asked as Miller walked away.
Melvin’s parting words stopped Miller in his tracks. He turned and made his way back to the doctor against the flow of foot traffic.
“What?” the captain asked.
“I still have to oversee these people as head of the Athletic Commission. I hear things when I’m with them. There’s something going on. Danno’s wife was killed in Texas a couple of days ago,” Melvin said.
Miller seemed genuinely taken aback.
“She was murdered?”
Melvin nodded. He could see he now had the captain’s attention.
“We were trying to shut Danno’s business down. The senator and I. We were one day away from getting the ball rolling when the senator was attacked. Or he was made an example of, I should say. A week or so later, Danno’s wife turns up dead in a hotel in Texas. I don’t know how one thing links the other. And maybe they don’t. But I thought you should know.”
The captain took a second to digest what Melvin was saying.
Melvin continued, “I don’t know what’s happening, but something is happening. Something is going down and they’re starting to get sloppy.”
Captain Miller needed to know what that was. He thanked Melvin and left him on the sidewalk. He needed to find out what was going on. He needed to find out where Nestor Chapman was.
The backstage area was packed with wrestlers stretching and going through their matches. New faces from all over the country. Ricky had the book in his hand with all the matches listed out.
“Where’s Ginny?” Ricky asked someone from the ring crew.
He was pointed towards the arena floor. Ricky should have known. He marched through the short tunnel and could see Ginny in the ring with a couple of other people. The further along the floor he got the
more he could see a small audience of wrestlers in the stands.
Ginny was on all fours and was talking to Oscar Dewsbury who was standing behind him. The same Oscar that Ricky grabbed by the throat the day before.
Ginny couldn’t see that Oscar was pretending to fuck him from behind. Oscar was miming and mugging for the onlookers and pretending to slap Ginny in the back of his head.
The other person in the ring was a stranger to Ricky. A stranger who was trying to hold in his laughter at the degrading scene in front of him.
Ginny spoke to the visitor, “So when you get scooped up for a slam you tuck your chin in and make sure that your feet come down to protect your kidneys. The more points that hit the mat the better.”
“What’s going on?” Ricky asked as he approached the ring and jumped up onto the apron.
Oscar immediately jumped up and dropped his head in feigned respect.
“Who’s this?” Ricky wanted to know of the stranger in the ring.
The small audience of wrestlers in the stands upped and left quickly. Ricky parted the ring ropes and entered the ring.
“That’s … I forget his name. He’s an All-American from the State of Michigan,” Ginny said about the visitor. “He wants to get into the business.”
“Is that right?” Ricky asked as he approached Oscar in the ring.
“He’s my cousin,” Oscar answered without looking up. He knew that Ricky saw what he was doing behind Ginny’s back. “He wants to try out… ”
“And you let him in this ring?” Ricky asked.
“You said it was okay,” Ginny intervened.
Ricky knew that Oscar had filled Ginny full of bullshit. “I said it was okay?” Ricky asked Oscar.
Oscar was getting nervous at Ricky’s questioning. “No, Mr … ”
Ricky stopped him mid-sentence with a short right hand that knocked him out clean.
“Hey, hey,” Ginny said as he used the ropes to get himself off the mat.
Ricky put his hand up to keep Ginny at arms length. He wasn’t done yet.
He next went over to the outsider. The one who was laughing. The one he’d never even seen before.
“You see, the thing you must have in this business is respect,” he said. “Respect earns you the right to stand in this ring.”
Ricky unzipped his jacket and threw it over the top rope. “What’s your name?”
“Franklin,” the All-American answered.
He was stocky with a huge neck and cauliflower ears from years of grappling.
Ricky pulled the young man into his face. “What we do in this ring is no fucking joke.”
The amateur wrestler gripped Ricky’s wrists but he couldn’t stop Ricky from hoisting him into the air and dropping him hard on his neck and head, folding him up like an accordion.
Franklin’s sporting pride made him stumble to his feet – but he was clearly stunned and in pain.
“Men have broken their backs to be in this ring in this arena,” Ricky said as he grabbed Franklin and slid his arm under his chin and began to choke him. “So you don’t fucking belong here.”
Franklin began to turn a shade of purple and the veins in his eyes began to break with the pressure of the hold. Ginny quietly tried to loosen the hold by putting himself between Ricky and the All-American.
“C’mon. It’s only this fake stuff that you hear about. Not like what you do, hah?” Ricky asked the flailing young man in his clench.
Ricky released the choke and Franklin flopped to the mat without any control.
“What are you doing Ricky?” Ginny shouted.
“They’re mocking you,” Ricky said as he walked to the ropes to see what damage he had done.
“I was showing them the basics. That’s what they pay me to do,” Ginny answered.
“No one pays you,” Ricky said.
Ricky dropped to the mat and rolled outside. He grabbed Franklin’s arm and dragged him out of the ring and dropped him on the floor.
“Someone get this piece of shit out of this building,” Ricky shouted towards the wrestlers in the back.
“And tell him,” Ricky said to Ginny about Oscar, “he’s fired when he wakes up.”
Ricky left the ringside area and was ready for the event that night.
Fucking show time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Five days after the murder.
New York.
Danno walked silently towards the sharp-nosed white plane. He felt like he was only hours away from making good on the promise to his wife.
He had gotten Curt’s whereabouts from Tanner Blackwell. It was in exchange for the bounty - and one of the heavyweight titles. An honor that Danno would have never given Tanner on a normal day. But there was nothing normal about this day.
Curt had hit the road and was gone when everyone was out looking for him. Over the last day or two he snuck back to his mother’s house for some money and supplies. Grobie couldn’t help but whine about her son’s return to some rookie who was going down on her outside a bar.
And nothing travels faster in the wrestling world than some juicy gossip wrapped up in a story about fucking.
Curt was at Grobie’s, but he wasn’t going to stay there long. Danno knew he didn’t have much time.
“Sir?” called a uniformed police officer as he approached Danno. Both he and his partner where acting a little wary as they got closer.
“Sir,” the officer continued. “Are you Danno Garland?”
“Why?” Danno asked.
In the distance he could see the steps of his plane still connected and waiting for him.
“Answer the question, sir.”
Danno knew time was running out. He needed to get to Curt Magee before he disappeared again.
He should have been more worried about Shane Montrose getting there first.
“Sir,” came a way more impatient voice.
Danno conceded. “Yes. I’m Danno Garland. What’s the problem?”
One of the police officers stepped forward. “You have to come with us, sir.”
“What’s this all about?” Danno demanded to know.
They had nothing concrete but that didn’t stop them from impeding his travel with questioning and anything else they could think of to make his life harder. Captain Miller didn’t trust Danno to leave and not come back. All he could do was get his men to stall him.
Danno turned around and saw his plane door closing.
“Come with us, sir.”
Five days after the murder.
New York.
The most flamboyant strut in all of professional wrestling was unrecognizable. Shane Montrose limped and grimaced and dragged his loosely bandaged foot. He held the walls of JFK International as he walked, foot to heel, across its crowded floor.
He made it to the American Airlines desk with the relief of the last stroke of a drowning man. “Dallas,” he said to the perfectly polished woman at the desk as he tried to control the sound of pain leaving his mouth.
“Are you okay sir?” the middle-aged woman asked.
Shane slammed a mixed ball of cash onto the counter and nodded. He was trembling and sweaty.
“Sir?” she asked again with a concerned voice. “Is everything alright?”
Shane deflected, “Can you just get me a ticket?”
“One moment, please,” she said as she rose from her position and looked around the terminal.
Shane pushed himself away from the counter. “I’ll just be a second.”
The eyes of the American Airlines worker scoured the room more frantically. “I just want to get you some help sir.”
Shane mumbled about ‘washing up’ and painfully scurried towards the restroom.
Inside he locked himself in a small vacant cubicle and sat on the toilet seat. His foot was unmercifully throbbing as he lifted it from the wet floor and lay it across his opposite thigh.
He rested his clammy forehead against the cubicle wall and openly cried in pain. It was weari
ng on him and he didn’t know how much longer he could avoid the lure of the strong sedatives in his pocket.
At this rate he wasn’t going to make it onto the flight. He looked too suspicious and he was drawing attention to himself.
Shane removed the gun from his jacket and wrapped it time and again in toilet paper until it was covered completely and made indistinguishable as a shape. What was he thinking bringing that into an airport?
He steadied himself and exited the cubicle into the empty restroom. He dropped his gun in the trash can before walking again to the desk where he found the same lady.
“Sir?”
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, immediately cutting her off. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
He read her name tag.
“Neve.”
The woman stood and looked over the counter at the disheveled man in front of her. He was pasty, and gaunt, and sweaty and his clothes were creased and unwashed. He had a giant, dirty bandage around his foot and he struggled to stand.
“That’s a nice name. Neve.”
She was unimpressed.
“I have to get to Texas, ma’am.”
“And why is that?”
“You want the truth?”
“Yes sir, I do.”
Shane gingerly took a step forward. “Because I just left my nephew in county morgue about an hour ago. And now I have to go and tell my bother that his son is dead.”
Shane pressed down on his own injured foot, which quickly brought pain to his face and tears to his eyes. “The little boy was with me. And we crashed. And all I got was this,” he said nodding to his foot. “And he … ”
Shane could see the counter lady beginning to melt.
“And I have to tell my brother face to face. I have to do that. Even if it means going like this. Now can you help me?”
“Hello?” Lenny half-heartedly shouted around the side of Mrs. Dumont’s house. Even though he grew up next door, Lenny hadn’t been on her property since he was a child. And with good reason. He could never really look her in the eye since the time she whooped him right outside her house because his left ball was hanging out as he ran up and down outside her house. Lenny made his pals laugh. Mrs. Dumont made Lenny cry shortly thereafter.
