by Paul O'Brien
Shane jumped up and pushed past a paralyzed Grobie standing in shock behind him. Shane sprinted as fast as his foot would allow him. He tried to take the stairs too many at a time and fell to the bottom. He felt his forearm snap when he hit the last step.
He could hear movement upstairs as he scrambled to his feet. He dragged himself along the hallway and into the kitchen. He swung open the back door and knew straight away that he couldn’t climb that fence again. Especially with a broken arm. He changed direction and limped along the side of the house and out onto the street.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The day of the murder.
Texas.
Curt pulled into a free spot and launched himself from his seat. His legs carried him up the steps two at a time. He didn’t know what he was going to do but he was going to make sure that no one took him for a fucking pushover again. If today was his last day in the wrestling business, he was going to make sure that each and every one of those bastards who were left would remember him for a long time to come.
Curt walked up to Annie’s door and pounded on it. He knew there was no way she was going to answer it. So he tried to bust his way in.
“Annie,” he shouted with his forehead on the door. “You let me in.”
The room was quiet. Curt checked to make sure he had the right door. It was definitely the one he saw her enter earlier. Maybe she checked out already. Maybe she made a run for it.
Curt scrutinized the parking lot for movement or anything suspicious.
All this game playing was just making him worse. He had one last quick look around and threw a kick at the door.
His heart was pumping and, such was his anger, he was having a hard time unballing his fists.
“Annie?” he said as he kicked again. The door shot open with the force of his foot and Curt saw Annie lying on the floor, already clearly dead.
He backed out slowly and ran for his life. His shouting and kicking the door drew many people to see him flee.
Five minutes before the murder.
Texas.
Annie Garland collected the few things she had together and threw them into her bag. She didn’t know what she was going to tell her husband. She made a huge mess of the one deal he ever trusted her with.
As cool as she played it with Curt, she feared for her safety in Texas. Annie wasn’t used to the type of anger that Curt showed at the end of the meeting. She was sure her husband could pull something together in the end, but she wanted to close the deal herself.
She took out two pills and lay them in her cupped hand, before downing them with a drink of water. She felt the rings and note in her pocket. Annie thought she would bring the rings back home and quietly return them to Lenny. Danno didn’t have to know.
“Annie?” whispered a familiar voice from outside the door.
Even his voice made her feel a certain way. A way she had a hard time explaining. But it was a way she was instantly attracted to. She pressed her eye to the door and saw a distorted version of Shane Montrose looking left and right outside. She cracked open the door and let him in.
He clearly needed a shower and looked disheveled. His clothes were stained and his eyes were red raw. Annie had never really seen him like this before.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in return. His version of the question was loaded and paranoid.
Annie took seriously the instructions to not let anyone know about the deal. It wasn’t to be announced to anyone in case one of the other bosses were to swoop in and pick over the bones for a quarter of the price.
“I was just… visiting a friend. A girlfriend from college,” she lied.
Shane approached too fast and too threatening for her liking.
“I fucking saw you out there with him,” Shane said. His teeth were clenched and his eyes were saucer wide. Annie saw a fraction of this before. She saw him go wild. He would punch some table and flex his muscles. Get into a brawl. Ten minutes later he would hold her gentle to his chest and try to explain why he did what he did. He always failed to put into words why he did what he did, but a man like Shane Montrose got real good at learning how to apologize the right way.
He grabbed her wrists. “Answer me, Annie. What are you doing down here?”
“It’s none of your business what I do,” she said as she struggled free. “What right have you got to ask me anything like that?”
“You’re in on this with them, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“Your fat fuck of a husband is pulling you back in, is he?”
Annie walked to the door but Shane stood in her path.
“I want you to leave. Now,” she said, her voice dropping with fright.
Annie turned her back on him and he grabbed her hair and yanked her onto the bed.
“Were you in on this from the start? Were you part of them cutting me out of this?”
Shane followed her eyes as she instinctively looked towards the bag full of money. He could make out the faintest sight of the bills on top.
They both dived for the bag and grabbed a handle each. Annie refused to let go.
“That’s my fucking money,” he shouted and lashed out, slapping her across the face.
They both paused in shock. Her face began to sting from the impact of his hand. She had never been hit before.
“I’m sorry,” he pleaded.
Annie rose to her feet and walked quickly for the door. He couldn’t let her go. He needed to make it right before she got back to Danno. Money and backstabbing was all fair play. But hitting the boss’s wife? That would get you killed.
“Annie?” He walked into her path again. Her right cheek was red-raw and there were tears coming from her eyes.
“They are going to kill my family, Annie. Please.”
“Move,” she said trying not to cry in front of him.
“My little girl. I have to get the money. They’ve been to my house.”
Annie wasn’t listening. Or didn’t care anymore. Either way, Shane knew if she crossed that door he was dead.
He stepped aside and she fumbled nervously with the lock. She was sure it turned right to open. He pulled her back forcefully and cranked his arm under her chin and clasped his hands shut at the side of her head.
She struggled a little in silence. She couldn’t move much or make any noise. His grip left her helpless. She could only kick her legs and try in vain to unlock his hands. His grip was simply debilitating after a few seconds.
They both lay on her bed. In silence. They both knew she was dying. They both waited for it to happen. They both cried.
Her body was unresponsive but her mind knew exactly what was happening.
She violently jerked and tried one last time to free herself. Then she went limp. He let her go and guided her sliding body softly onto the floor.
Shane took a second. He wiped his eyes and looked at her.
He shook the money from her purse and stacked it on top of the money in the rucksack.
He then left.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Five days after the murder.
Texas.
Mickey Jack turned down the top of Curt’s street and immediately saw the ambulances and police cars scattered around. All their lights were flashing in the dark and there were people starting to gather to see what was happening.
“Just continue, I have the wrong place,” Mickey Jack said to his cab driver.
He checked the address he got from Danno with the house that was surrounded and knew it was the one.
He seemed to have a knack for turning up with the job already done.
He snuck a look through the back window and could see a covered body being wheeled out of the house. A local news truck was also unloading its equipment as the cab turned the corner.
“Where to now?” the cab driver asked.
“Take me back to the airport,” Mickey said, sliding a five dollar bill between
the front seats.
Six days after the murder.
New York.
Joe Lapine never fucking liked the phone ringing when he was asleep. That stupid fucking phone, fucking ringing and giving him a fucking heart attack.
“What?” he shouted down the line.
“Are you on your own?” Tanner Blackwell asked in a very matter-of-fact way.
Joe threw the phone against the wall and begrudgingly put on his glasses. He knew ten seconds in that this day was going to be a terrible day. He rose and fumbled around for the light switch. It was late afternoon but his room had ceiling-to-floor heavy curtains blocking the daylight out.
It had been a long night for Joe. A long, great fucking night.
“Move it,” he grunted to the woman in his bed. She didn’t move nearly fast enough out of the room.
“Chop, chop, sweetheart,” he said as he stomped around the bed and clapped his hands like he was trying to scare chickens out of his way.
With the room now empty and the curtains pulled back, Joe sat on the edge of his bed.
“You there, Joe?” Tanner shouted down the line.
Joe picked up the phone and put it to his ear. “Yeah?”
“I just got a phone call from Texas. We have to settle this now,” Tanner said.
Across town, Ricky was nodding off in his chair while Ginny took a shower. Ricky kinda liked not having to talk sometimes so he’d put on something loud and distracting. He liked his day after a Garden card to be without fuss – an all too infrequent thing these days.
Joe sat distressed in his hotel room chair.
“So, one of the wrestlers Curt fucked over on a payoff called one of my guys, who called me,” Tanner said, explaining how he knew what he knew.
“Are you sure it’s Curt?”
Tanner was getting annoyed at how little of a fuck his chairman seemed to give. “Yes, it’s all over the TV down there. His goddamn mother gave an eyewitness account that it was Shane-fucking-Montrose they were looking for.”
Tanner paused and his voice went cold for a couple of seconds. “Just tell me that you’re sorting this now. We warned Garland to stay away from Texas.”
“And how do you know Danno was behind this?”
“Don’t give me that shit Joe. You know what has to happen here. I need to be protected. I’m fucking in with Danno and the title situation up to my ass.”
Joe was genuinely hurt by what he was about to do. “I got it,” he said.
“You’ve got an hour,” Tanner warned him. “You handle it within an hour or I do.”
Joe grew tired of Tanner’s questions and demands. “I fucking got it,” he said as he slammed the phone down.
In that instant, Joe Lapine from Memphis, Tennessee found himself tasked with the job of protecting the wrestling business and making sure it sustained no more damage. He was left with zero option. Danno was making him deal with him. He wasmaking him do something. For nearly a hundred years the wrestling business kept its mouth shut, put its head down and just made money. Joe knew that they couldn’t let one man – Danno Garland – ruin all that.
So he quickly got dressed and made his way across the huge hotel suite where last night’s date was waiting patiently on a seat.
“So what do I tell my husband?” the young woman asked as Joe scuttled her out the door.
“Tell him to call my office in a couple of days.”
“So you’re going to hire him? He could be a champion, I’m telling you.”
Joe pulled the door closed and walked past the woman like they never met. He entered the elevator and managed to make eye contact with four other patrons without smiling or making small talk. Ding. Out onto the marble floor and across the nearly empty lobby, through the large revolving door and out into the New York hustle to the payphone on the corner.
He took a small contacts book from his back pocket and fingered through the pages as the city pushed and pulled its inhabitants up and down stream.
He dialed in a number and waited a few rings until the voice kicked in, “Hello, you have reached the New York Booking Agency, the home … ”
Joe hung up and quickly went to his book again. He dialed. The Chairman needed to deal with the issue or he in turn would be dealt with.
“Hello?” answered the voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello,” Joe replied.
“Joe?” Ricky asked. “What do you want?”
Joe heard Ricky’s TV blaring in the background
“You got a big fucking problem here. You want to turn that down?” Joe asked.
“What problem?”
Joe didn’t even know where to start. But he knew he didn’t have time to sugarcoat anything. “Curt was killed. It was down in Texas and they’ve got Shane Montrose.”
Ricky’s day off was ruined. “It was Shane?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Joe snapped back.
“What?”
“What’s he gone and done, Ricky?” Joe asked with regret.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s doing out there anymore,” Ricky said honestly. He was tired of defending Danno. He knew the whole business heard Danno put a bounty on Curt Magee.
What was left that Ricky could do?
“I can tell you what’s coming next,” Joe said. “Tanner is going to set the cops on him.”
Joe felt like he was betraying another boss by talking to Ricky and giving him a heads-up. But he liked Danno and appreciated Danno giving him the Chairman position.
“Why?” Ricky asked. “What does that do?”
“He knows Danno is where all the poison is coming from. He wants to serve him up, make him the reason for all this stuff, and make all this go away in one fell swoop.”
Ricky tried to interrupt but Joe stopped him.
“He’s finished. I’m sorry,” Joe said.
Ricky needed more time to think. He had never come across a situation where someone from within the NWC was talking about ratting another boss to the cops. Ricky wondered whether Mickey Jack Crisp was trustworthy. He wondered if Mickey did what he paid him to do.
“What’s he going to say, Joe? I need to know what’s coming,” Ricky said.
“Don’t you waste time trying to fix this, Ricky. Tell Danno to run and get the fuck out yourself if you can.”
“What’s he going to say?”
“Ricky? I swear to God … ”
Ricky threw down the phone and bolted from his apartment.
Joe put his phone down and watched as New York struggled past outside. It was dirty, grimy and packed with panhandlers, whores and junkies. He wanted to go home to Tennessee where he could breathe clean air.
New York was nothing but a fucking headache.
He waited by the phone in a full suit and his shoes still tied. Danno had been sitting there all night and all day wondering when Mickey Jack Crisp was going to call from Texas. He used the empty time to imagine what it would be like to pump a bullet into the man who killed his wife. With no one around, and his thoughts all to himself, Danno knew that having to kill again sickened him and frightened him.
But what else could he do? How else could he begin to make it right? Not doing anything was having a much worse effect on him than doing something. And that’s where he found himself. With no real good option. Danno only had the terrible choice of killing again or the unbearable option of not.
The shrill sound of his phone finally ringing jumped him out of his thoughts in the sharpest way.
“Hello?” he said in a hurried voice.
“It’s me,” Mickey answered.
“Where the fuck were you?” Danno snapped.
“It’s not a good situation down here.”
“Have you got him?”
Mickey paused as he tried to figure out what to say next.
“What is it?” Danno asked.
“Do you want to make your way to another phone and call me back or something?” Mickey asked.
&nb
sp; Danno didn’t care. “No.”
Mickey drew a couple of pained breaths and stuttered his way into a poorly constructed line. “I don’t know … ”
Danno could wait no longer. “Fucking say it.”
“He’s dead.”
“What did you do?” Danno shouted angrily.
“Not me. They’re saying on the news that they’re holding Shane Montrose in connection with it.”
“What?” Danno asked in disbelief.
“I’m watching the local news. Shane Montrose. They’ve got a picture of him up on the screen now. They arrested him a couple of miles from the house.”
Danno couldn’t process what he was hearing. How did Shane get down there? How did he know where he was?
“I got to go,” Mickey said.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“He’s dead?” Danno asked disbelievingly.
Mickey hung up.
Danno sat with the phone to his ear and tried to digest what had happened. What was he supposed to do now? How was he going to make right his wife’s memory?
Danno heard a car approaching and he lifted himself from the couch and checked the window. A black and silver Ambassador drove towards his house.
Danno hurried and took up residence behind his front door. He heard the footsteps approaching.
“Hello? You there? Boss?” Lenny shouted as he knocked on the front door.
Lenny?
Danno took a breath before opening the door slowly. Lenny was standing there smiling with his arms out.
“I … knew you were here,” Lenny blurted out.
Danno couldn’t help but smile back. He felt overjoyed at seeing the harmless Lenny Long standing in front of him.
“I just wanted to say hello,” Lenny said as he walked cautiously towards his former boss. “And I wanted to set something right.”
Lenny had the missing money in the back of his car.
Danno dropped his head a little when he felt his lip quiver. He put out his arms and Lenny, totally confused as to what was happening, moved quicker into Danno’s embrace.
