by Paul O'Brien
“Mrs. Dumont?” he said again gently.
Lenny had no choice but to talk to her. She had the key to his mother’s house.
Lenny opened the door and Luke charged inside like a crazy midget. James Henry waddled in behind him before falling over. Lenny stepped over his child and walked directly to the fridge. Inside, his mom left him a homemade pie just like she promised she would.
“Ok guys, let’s go and get you settled in,” Lenny said.
It wouldn’t take long. Lenny didn’t pack much and he concentrated most of his suitcase on diapers.
Luke ran upstairs and Lenny walked through the kitchen to look for the car in the adjoining garage. He opened the door by the little pantry and stepped from the kitchen directly into a small garage.
He flipped the switch and there she was – his father’s black and silver Ambassador convertible – locked up tightly, with less than a foot of room around all sides.
It looked as big as a tank in Mr. Long’s garage but the car was only a two-seater. But Lenny loved that car. It was his father’s pride and joy.
And it hardly ever left their garage.
Lenny checked to make sure the keys were in the ignition where his father always left them. It made Lenny smile to think that his father had the car always ready to go and never took it anywhere.
Lenny would take it into the city.
“Who wants to go and see some wrestling?” Lenny shouted.
There was no reply. Lenny knew the walls were thick in his parents house so he stepped back into the kitchen and asked again. Luke could hear his father but he didn’t reply in the hope that Lenny mightn’t ask again.
“I said, who wants to go and see some wrestling matches?”
Mickey Jack Crisp felt at odds with his surroundings. He was standing at the back of a cruising Gulf Stream II making himself a cocktail. His life was a bit like that since he started getting work from these wrestling guys. He noticed the bosses who didn’t have power were running matches at high schools and bars while the one who called all the shots got champagne arrivals on private jets.
There was no in-between in the wrestling business. You were either a star or you were a nobody. You were either on top or you were simply treading water.
Not that Mickey was complaining. The stack of cash he was paid to do this job was so thick that it was uncomfortable – even split up in his various pockets. And he didn’t even have to kill the guy. The old boss man said he was going to handle that – just like he did in the field with Proctor King.
Mickey was sorry to see the man who brought him into this business get his head blown off. But, like a stray dog, he was willing to go with whoever grabbed his leash and treated him well.
Cruising thousands of feet above Tennessee, sucking on a fresh strawberry would tick the ‘treated well’ box.
Shane sat in first class beside a very uncomfortable old lady who didn’t like the look of the struggling man beside her. He was sweating profusely, moaning in pain and his bandages were struggling to keep the dirt out and the blood in.
He rolled his head towards the small rounded window and counted down the minutes ‘til he landed in Dallas. Annie was all he could think about.
He would land and make this horrible situation right.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Danno sat handcuffed in the back of the police car. Both the arresting officers entered a gas station about a mile outside the airport – and failed to come back. Danno couldn’t reach the door to let himself out. Ten minutes or more passed before Nestor Chapman opened Danno’s door and escorted him from the patrol car.
“Say nothing and come with me,” Nestor said as he uncuffed Danno and escorted him by his forearm to another, unmarked car.
Danno wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t fighting either.
“You’re my prisoner now,” Nestor informed him as he opened his passenger side door.
Danno guardedly sat in and watched Nestor do the same on his side.
“How about I drop you home?” Nestor asked.
“How about you tell me what the fuck it is you want from me?”
Nestor started his car. “Why don’t we do mine first?”
Nestor backed out of the parking lot and saluted the two officers as they entered their patrol car. It was all perfectly timed, like this kind of thing happened all the time.
“You know, I’m on your side,” Nestor said.
“Of course you are.”
Nestor laughed a little and tapped his cigarette pack off the dashboard.
“What’s so funny?” Danno asked.
Nestor offered Danno a smoke, which he refused, and then picked himself one from the pack with his lips.
“You really haven’t had to think that much about my side of the fence before, have you Danno?”
“Am I under arrest or not?”
Nestor considerately rolled down his window and waved his smoke outside. “I’m like a subcontractor,” Nestor proudly said. “Your guy gives me a little something to make sure you and yours stay out of trouble over my side of the fence.”
Danno didn’t answer. He knew well enough about talking to the cops.
“Troy. Troy Bartlett,” Nestor said.
That name got Danno interested. He hadn’t seen or heard from his lawyer in days. Danno was starting to think that might be a bad thing too. If the cops did have someone who was willing to roll him, Troy Bartlett wouldn’t be a shock. He was a dirty lawyer with little or no morals. And that’s exactly what you need when you’re starting an empire. But it’s the last thing you need when you’re sitting atop one.
Nestor watched Danno hard to see if Troy’s name knocked Danno’s tongue loose.
“Hey, listen,” Nestor said, starting to lose his cool a little. “I fucking put my ass on the line back there so you better stop treating me like some junkie dirtbag or something. You hear me, old man?”
Danno still wasn’t talking. Nestor flicked his half-smoked cigarette out the window and reached around inside his jacket pocket.
“Here,” he said as he handed Danno an envelope. “This is for you. Thought you might appreciate getting these back.”
Nestor dropped the envelope in Danno’s lap. “It’s your wife’s things. What they found on her when … ”
Danno’s face contorted with anger.
“It’s true, man. I’m on your side. I got a friend of mine to do me a favor and get me that. I’m trying to fucking show you.”
Nestor slammed on the brakes and leaned across Danno to open his door. “Out,” he said. “When you open that and see I’m not bullshitting you, you give me a call. And make it soon.”
Danno got out and waited on the side of the highway as Nestor skidded off without him. Danno couldn’t decide if Nestor was who he said he was. He pocketed the envelope and began walking.
Ricky sat with ‘The Book’ on his lap. It was full of match ideas, possible outcomes and future match-ups. The page in front of him was now full of brackets and tournament outcomes.
He was being watched closely by Tanner Blackwell and not so closely by Joe Lapine.
“What are we up to?” Tanner asked.
“The semi-finals,” Ricky answered while looking at his watch.
It had been a painful few hours with negotiation after negotiation. Everyone wanted their guys to look good but someone had to lose.
“I want my guy up against a sneaky Jap,” Tanner said.
Joe and Ricky looked at each other to clarify if they both heard the same thing.
“A Jap?” Joe asked. “There’s no Japanese wrestlers here.”
“Then fucking find one. I want to position my guy as a real patriot. A fucking American hero,” Tanner answered.
He was working on his own plan in his own ‘Book’. And Tanner’s ‘Book’ was still trading off old prejudices from the 40’s.
He continued, “We have an African, a Chink, a Samoan, a German, three Americans and a Limey. So we need to lose the Samoan and make
him a Jap. Same fucking eyes.”
Ricky was done arguing. He just shrugged his shoulder in Joe’s direction.
“Can you do that Ricky?” Joe asked.
“He’s going to have to get a loan of some karate …eh… trousers or something,” Tanner said without looking up from his doodling. “And I don’t like the finish of the main event either.”
Ricky wasn’t having that. “You don’t like what, Tanner?”
“My guy should go over,” Tanner replied. “On his own.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Ricky said. “Joe?”
Joe stood up, “We voted, Tanner. They both get the pin and a title each. That’s what we decided.”
Tanner rubbed out his last scenario and blew the eraser residue from his page.
Lenny Long knew his way around Madison Square Garden. He knew the people who worked there. He knew all there was to know.
But taking a baby in there might be pushing it a bit.
“Helen, please,” he said through the will call window. “I just want to watch a couple of matches and then I’ll come straight back.”
The woman in the ticket booth was shaking her head adamantly.
Luke was grabbing his father’s hand tightly. He didn’t want to go anywhere without his father. James Henry was asleep in Lenny’s arms despite the noise.
“I’ve just gotten off a flight and I haven’t seen The Boys in days. I just want to … ”
Lenny could see that she wasn’t going to budge. He’d just have to watch his own children.
Lenny dragged his older son by the arm and guarded the baby as he passed through the rowdy fans. Under his coat he was bare-chested because he had taken off his shirt and tied it around his baby’s head to stifle the noise.
“What do you think of this, son?” Lenny stooped and asked Luke.
He didn’t wait for a reply as he marched them to section 422, row B, seat 4.
Lenny only got one. They’d just have to share.
The closer they got to their seat the more the crowd thinned out. Hugely. Lenny was taken aback by how small the crowd was in the mezzanine level. The ringside was tight and looked good, but the further up the seating they went the worse it got.
“How long are we going to be here?” Luke asked with his hands on his ears.
Even with the small crowd, chants and cheers rattled around in The Garden like noisy, aggressive, old ghosts.
They had just made it in time for the main event. Lenny opened his program, like someone starving might look at a menu. It had only been days since he was around this world, but to Lenny it was days too long. He immediately saw the confusing graphic of Babu listed as heavyweight champion. The last time Lenny saw Babu, just five days before, he was to drop the belt to Proctor King in Florida.
Lenny had no idea about how much had truly changed since he left Florida that night to start his new life away from wrestling.
The curtain flung open and out came the giant frame of the man Lenny now knew as Chrissy. To this audience he was the most despised man in all of wrestling – undefeated for years and likely to be so for more years to come. But more recently, and much more importantly to the New York crowd, he was the one who recently no-showed the biggest main event of all time. Years of buildup and bad feeling. A stadium packed to the rafters.
And he simply didn’t show up.
What they didn’t know was his no-show had zero to do with him. And the rules of wrestling meant they would never know.
The Garden’s small house was a ‘fuck you’ to the champion and the company he wrestled for. And as if the point hadn’t been made enough they also threw cups of liquid and trash at him as he ambled up the wooden steps and through the ropes.
“Go fuck yourself you cowardly bastard,” roared someone from behind Lenny.
“Champ?” Lenny shouted, even though he knew there was no way Babu could hear him. “Champ?”
“Ring the bell before he chickens out of the match ref,” shouted another.
It was always good for the heel to rile the crowd. That’s what they were there for. That was their job. And they would do almost anything to get that heat from the stands.
But Babu was the owner of ‘bad heat’.
That was the kind of reaction that no wrestler wanted. People would pay for ‘good heat.’ The kind where you would pay to see someone get their ass kicked. That’s ‘good heat’.
‘Bad heat’ was the other kind. The kind where a crowd just doesn’t want to see you or walks to the concession stand when you come through the curtain. Or worse – stays home. ‘Bad heat’ gets a low card wrestler fired, a mid-card wrestler sent to another territory and a champion wrestler stripped of the belt.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the ring announcer into the hanging mic. “This is the feature attraction of the evening, and is one fall to a finish. Introducing to you now, first, the challenger. From Orange County, Florida. Weighing in at two hundred and eighty four pounds. Flawless Fargo.”
The crowd clapped respectfully. Fargo was up from Florida and no one in The Garden knew who he was.
The ring announcer with the pot belly and slicked-back hair continued. “And in the other corner, The World Heavyweight Champion. Coming to you from deepest, darkest South Africa. And weighing in at four hundred and fifty pounds. BABUUUUUUU.”
The crowd lost it. They paid their ticket just to see Babu and tell him how much they fucking hated him.
The bell at ringside sounded over and over to try and start the match. But Lenny knew that Chrissy, the man everyone else knew as Babu, wasn’t happy.
Lenny’s own shouting towards the ring had his baby boy in floods of tears. His tiny mind couldn’t seem to process why it was so dark and so angry.
Lenny never even noticed.
“Dad?” Luke said.
Lenny continued to chant and whoop as the bell rang.
“Dad?” Luke repeated and pulled on his father’s sleeve.
Lenny looked down to see his eldest son’s face.
“Look,” Luke said, pointing at his little brother.
Lenny saw James Henry in distress. He was tired and his face was red and warm. Lenny desperately wanted to stay. He wanted to find out what was happening and why The Garden was so empty. He wanted to see Danno and Ricky.
He wanted back in.
Lenny walked from The Garden with his little boys both quietly sucking on stacked popsicles. He was feeling slightly hard done by, but not enough to be angry or anything. Fact was, after years on the road and having no responsibilities as a father, things changed.
He wasn’t any good at it yet, but he wanted to be. He wanted to be a wise father, someone they both sought out when life began to settle into its normal patterns for them. He even felt a little good about leaving the match. He felt like a grown-up. A grown-up trying to do the right thing by his family.
As he carried one son and let the other swing from his arm, Lenny felt like his father must have felt before him. He felt like a man. A proper, solid, doing-what-he-should man.
And for once in his life toughness had nothing to do with it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Five days after the murder.
Texas.
Shane couldn’t break through the hedging at the back of Curt’s house. It was just too thick, and there wasn’t a single gap down low, so he found himself trying to scale it – quietly.
The agony in his foot had brought a feverish sweat out on his face. He was tired and tortured and determined to surprise the man who signed him, wooed him, ignored him, conned him and threatened him.
He needed to get in there before Danno arrived.
And he knew that couldn’t be far from happening.
He clasped two hopeful fists of green and hoisted himself atop the large hedging which began to wobble and make far too much noise. He had no choice but to throw his leg over and fall into the garden. The paved portion of the garden.
Shane lay numb with pain and tried despera
tely to refill his totally emptied lungs.
As he lay there he wasn’t at all sure exactly which part of him was the sorest.
One day before the murder.
Texas.
Curt Magee and Shane Montrose sat opposite each other in a small steakhouse about a hundred miles outside of Austin. It was small and smoky and the sauces sat hardened at the top of their glass bottles.
Shane sat with his head dropped. Not in all his years as a wrestling star had the Sugarstick hoped to be not noticed. But it’s amazing how a huge loan and a serious money lender can turn an extrovert inwards.
“I have to wear a fucking leisure suit, Curt,” Shane mumbled under his breath. “Do you know what it’s like for me to have to wear this shit? I feel like a fucking failed cheerleader or something. Some fucking track goon or something.”
The waitress slipped a dry steak supper under both of their noses and then smiled at Shane before she left.
“Where’s my money?” Shane demanded to know.
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“What time?”
“Eight. I’ll pick you up,” Curt said.
Curt could tell by Shane’s twitchiness that he was not happy.
“How do you think I feel? Huh? I’m fucking losing everything here,” Curt said. “I have Danno, the fat prick, buying me out of business just so I can pay your fucking contract.”
“He’s buying us out of business,” Shane replied.
Curt shook his head, mumbled to himself and cut into his steak.
“What are you saying?” Shane asked.
“I’m saying that it seems to be our business when we’re about to sell. It was mybusiness when all the bills had to be paid.”
