Damn him to hell! Laura wanted to curse out loud but had to act against all her instincts instead. Waves of panic rippled through the backstage, and now she, too, had to spring into action and go to Holt’s aid.
“You gotta get some fluids into him!” a voice called out of the throng of glistening, bulgy flesh crowded around Holt.
“Gotta get electrolytes! Electrolytes, man!” someone else yelled.
The crowd around Holt parted, though, as Laura approached. She was the highest-ranking WBBF official on the scene. She had, in effect, become an authority figure in the crisis.
So she went for Holt’s duffel bag, just a few feet away from his cramping, pain-contorted body. Among his warm-up gear, tanning lotions, a candy bar, and a jar of strawberry jam, she saw two plastic water bottles with some colored liquid inside. Sports drinks, no doubt. At the moment of the contest, the athletes no longer needed to worry about too much liquid in their system. Knowing the strain of competition could push them to the edge like this, they all kept the liquid nutrient drinks on hand for emergencies.
Something like a jolt of energy passed through Laura as she reached for one of the bottles. If her plans went without a hitch, she needed to get her hands on one of these bottles again during intermission and get Holt out of her life for good.
She handed the bottle to one of the competitors closest to Holt. Although it took some doing, they eventually propped his head up and got him drinking. Within five minutes, even his voice started rising. “I’m going on!” he began exclaiming louder and louder. “No way I’m not going! No way I’m not going!”
The swelling chorus of encouragement and general good cheer as Brad regained his senses let Laura fade from notice. She, naturally, was thankful for this since she’d gotten a glimpse of Brad’s cell phone in his gym bag. The commotion allowed her a quick slip of the hand to palm the phone, to make sure it was set on “ringer” and not “vibrate,” then slip it back into Brad’s bag.
CHAPTER 5
Not long after the ruckus backstage had been quelled, all of the non-contestants were asked to remove themselves. The men and women in the show needed the downtime to get mentally prepared for the ceremonies. Thus, wishing Frank Jankowsky a good show, Gunnar and Kelly left for the auditorium lobby once again and from there straight to a couple of seats in the middle of the gallery. Inside they noticed the judges had taken their seats along a row of tables at the foot of the stage, backed up by two photographers, Jeanie O’Shaughnessy and Arnold Tempelton.
What Gunnar was mainly noticing, however, was Kelly’s frigid behavior after realizing who Brad Holt was.
“Look,” Gunnar said as they took their seats, “it’s not like we’re drinking pals or something.”
“Not like you get together and have a howling good time watching Girls Caught in the Buff while drinking a couple of brewskies with the buddies?” Kelly asked tartly, not bothering to look at him. “Sit around and rate how well each of the babes are stacked?”
“No, as a matter of fact, we don’t. I don’t even watch those things.”
Kelly looked at Gunnar at last, fixing him with a cold, piercing stare. “It’s really childish, you know.”
“What is?”
“Bringing me to this ridiculous spectacle to meet your pornographer buddy. If you’re still sore over our disagreement last time—”
“I told you I’m not, and he’s not my buddy.”
“It’s not like we have to work together—”
“Kelly, will you calm down?”
“You’re free to work wherever and with whomever you want, and you can take them to bodybuilder extravaganzas from now on.”
Kelly looked away again, crossing her arms in agitation. Gunnar figured she had spoken her peace and would refuse to acknowledge him for a good while.
“Like I was saying,” he began nevertheless, “this guy is not my buddy or pal or drinking crony, or anything like that. I don’t know how many years it’s been since I’ve seen him, and I have no idea why in hell he invited me here. We just trained together in the Corps at one point.”
Gunnar paused to see how all of this was going over on Kelly. She was still staring off toward the stage, not bothering to engage him in any more conversation.
“The funny thing is,” Gunnar said, “if anyone owes anyone here anything, it would be me. He saved my life once.”
At least that line earned Gunnar a raised eyebrow.
“You know how I told you about my back problems that eventually got me out of bodybuilding competition.”
“I seem to have forgotten that part of your very fascinating bio,” Kelly said at last.
“It was a training accident,” Gunnar continued, glad for the dialogue. “A transport chopper crashed, and I was stuck inside. Holt got me out before the whole thing went up in flames.”
Kelly looked at him full on this time. “So why did he invite you now?”
“I said I don’t know. I mean, the point is that after the chopper crash, we worked out together a few times, seeing as how we were both planning on turning pro, but then went our separate ways.”
What Gunnar didn’t elaborate on, noticing that the show was about to start, was that he and Holt went their separate ways when Holt won a national level show and qualified for a WBBF pro card. There was definitely a rarified air about him from that moment on.
Not that Gunnar minded losing his new training partner. The fact was that Brad Holt was one of those people you could dislike without being able to say why. There seemed to be something prickly, something unpleasant simmering about under the surface, something you didn’t care to disturb, something you just unconsciously knew better than to want to expose. The only concrete thing Gunnar would have been able to point to was the disturbing quality of Holt’s stare. He had disquieting, flat, very menacing eyes. Sure, he had his movie-star looks which, matched with his chiseled, muscular body, might have given him an easy pass into any woman’s bed, but he had a pair of cold, flinty, predatory eyes. No matter what his facial expression might have been at any time, Holt’s eyes always seemed to be the same emotionless, flat pools. Tony Alvarado, a soldier they had lifted with at the base gym, remarked something to Gunnar on one occasion that stayed with him afterward. The comment, actually, made Gunnar glad when Holt no longer cared to be buddies. Alvarado said that he felt nervous bench-pressing maximum weights when Holt was spotting. There was a look in Holt’s eyes that said he was hoping for the lifter to slip and drop the barbell on himself because Holt would have been curious, and ultimately amused, to see how someone died while being crushed to death.
Gunnar commented on none of this to Kelly because the lights dimmed. But he thought about bringing the issue up at some later time if she cared to complain any more.
One of the WBBF officials Gunnar had seen backstage, a good-looking, statuesque woman, appeared on the curtained dais and approached a podium with the sign #OlympicBB placed underneath the federation logo.
Gunnar almost laughed out loud at that hashtag. So the WBBF was at it again. Someone had decided to give another Quixotic try at getting bodybuilding into the Olympics. They had tried that one before and had failed.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she spoke behind a microphone, and a single spotlight was fixed on her. “My name is Laura Preston, and I would like to welcome you to this year’s ‘Sun State Classic’ bodybuilding tournament sanctioned by the World BodyBuilding Federation.”
A wave of applause swept the auditorium.
“Continuing the WBBF’s ongoing mission of promoting a lifestyle of health and fitness, tonight’s event is set to showcase some of our federation’s top male and female bodybuilders. As our founder, Robert Holbrook, envisioned this sport years ago, let us make this event a representation of the spirit of positive sportsmanship across all boundaries of nationality, race, creed, and religion. May we be united in the s
pirit of positive competition.”
More applause showed the crowd’s support of the federation’s ideals.
“And before we begin the round of preliminary competition, let me announce some good news,” Laura continued. “First of all, let me welcome one of our guests of honor, a woman who needs no introduction here. The one, the only, five-time Ms. Empire professional bodybuilding champion, Jeanie O’Shaughnessy!”
As the glare of a second spotlight nailed Jeanie sitting in the front row, a raucous uproar of cheers shook the auditorium. The TV star appreciated the attention by standing and waving to the crowd.
“And of course, our guest of honor and three-time Mr. Empire, Arnold Tempelton.”
After the gathering had calmed down, Laura Preston said, “I also wanted to let you know that after a slight mishap backstage, Brad Holt has recovered and will be competing.”
Applause followed.
“So, without further delay,” Laura said, “let the competition begin.”
Then, she too took a seat in the front row.
Gunnar leaned closer to Kelly and whispered, “So hold on tight.”
“Hah!”
CHAPTER 6
The action began with the men’s preliminary round. It would be followed by the women’s version, and the two would be the longest part of the show. It involved all of the contestants lining up on stage at once for the mandatory poses, and it was the initial criteria used to examine each of the contestants and compare them to one another. Here everyone did the same eight basic poses, and only the ten best contestants would pass muster to go into the free-posing finalist round.
The first two positions the athletes were to assume was the quintessential show of power a person would instinctively hit when asked to “show me your muscles.” The front and back double-biceps pose had the athletes raise their arms just above shoulder level and contract their upper-arm muscles. The competitors who were to seriously vie for a spot in the finalist lineup were the ones who had been able to build enough muscle to survive the diet phase of preparations, with what appeared to be dense slab upon slab of meat piled toward a bulging apex.
While the scrutinizing of biceps and arms usually energized the crowd, Gunnar noted a dour-looking Laura Preston suddenly leaving her seat and hurrying up the center aisle and toward the auditorium’s main doors.
To demonstrate overall sheer size, few moves compared with the front and back “lat spreads.” With hands placed at the hips, the latissimus dorsi could be made to bulge with an impressive outward flare.
The chest and the triceps were areas displayed best from the side. The first was performed by clamping one hand around the opposite wrist in front of the body and squeezing the muscles together. The second pose involved holding the wrist behind the back and forcing the triceps to contract outward.
The final mandatory poses, and ones that could be key in eliminating contestants or making champions of them, were the most muscular, as demonstrated with perfect form by Arnold Tempelton on his lobby display, with the hands behind the head, body forced into a slight concave, abdominal pose.
As expected, at the time of the final cut for the finalists, Christy Gilmore, the woman with the specialized tanning system and a hot-pink bikini, was announced. An appreciative round of cheers from the crowd seconded the judges.
While the women’s division was rewarded on mass, the men had to prove their ability to live through severe food deprivation. Brad Holt was selected as a finalist, and he shuffled backstage with a zombie-like stare fixed in his eyes that seemed to be looking for some mysterious point only he was able to see over the heads of the crowd as he waved to the fans. The languid wave he gestured was about as unconvincing as the ubiquitous grin on every starved contestant’s face. Coming behind Holt were more men shredded down to visible striations, even though some of them were not the largest in the pack. When Frank Jankowsky was selected as a finalist, the gallery went wild with cheers and applause first, then enraged jeering after that. Frank marched off, blowing kisses their way.
The audience’s reaction meant they approved of Frank making the final cut, but they didn’t like the judges’ preference for striations over size. As Frank was one of the largest of the competitors, the fans expected him to place higher.
But the placings during preliminaries meant little in light of what was to come. The finals would have the athletes perform individually. There they would move through choreographed poses accompanied by the music of their choice. That part of the contest came in an hour, giving time for the contestants to motivate further before the most crucial sequence of the game and for the fans to stretch their legs and debate the previous decisions in the lobby.
CHAPTER 7
Laura’s gaze darted back and forth between the glowing red readouts on the radio alarm clock on the bedside table and her cell phone. Then she looked from the clock’s indication of the time and her phone’s. The radio’s clock was ahead four minutes.
Everything was timed down to the minute, and so far, Laura hadn’t missed a beat. But, then again, the point of no return was not upon her just yet. There was still time to back out.
Adrenaline seared through her entire body. Her heart pounded. She thought the swelling of the veins and arteries in her neck with each slamming of her heartbeats would choke her.
It was time to place another call to Holt’s cell. She knew it was the intermission between the compulsory and individual rounds, but she had to place her call at the exact moment when Holt would be by his gym bag and the cell phone.
As she speed-dialed Holt, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was more terrified of; that Holt wouldn’t answer or that he would. Holt had to answer. For Laura’s plan to come together, she needed to talk to him during intermission. She needed to get him up to his hotel room because, in less than fifteen minutes, the room service order she had placed for him in the morning was due.
Holt’s phone rang for what seemed an eternity.
What if he still didn’t answer? She had already tried calling him three times. Should she leave him a message? Could she count on him hearing the chime that signaled a voice message and access that message before the contest resumed?
The phone on the other end rang yet again. How many rings now? Laura wondered. When would the voice mail system kick in?
And then Holt answered.
CHAPTER 8
During intermission, the crowd’s atmosphere was edgy, hovering somewhere between ecstasy and rage as some of the contestants now mingled with the spectators in the main hotel lobby. With a lot of those not selected as finalists present, approval of the judging was mixed with acrimonious denunciations of “the direction the WBBF is heading in.”
Kelly, however, seemed to have been pondering something else in the crowd all around, Gunnar noticed.
“So almost everyone here looks like they live to lift,” she said, watching a scrawny little guy wander past. “And others look like they’ve never even seen a weight in their lives. Who are these skinny little people?”
Schmoes, Gunnar thought but said, “I’ll tell you later.”
“Did ya get a load of that booing, man?” Frank appeared in the lobby again to greet Gunnar and Kelly. To ease some of the tension and allay raw nerves, several of the finalists came and mingled with their friends. This regrouping, both Gunnar and Kelly assumed, was for friends to boost the confidence of the athletes before they went head-to-head on stage. “They were pissed off, man. Those fans could have killed…I love it!”
“It’s yours, pal,” Gunnar said.
“Well, you’re one of the biggest of the finalists,” Kelly seconded.
“Like hell he is!” a loud voice cut into their conversation, and they noticed Brad Holt making his way through the crowd, still a tad unsteady on his feet. “Hey, Marino! You managed to stay alive without someone watching your back all these years?” He
laughed, his thin face creasing into something like the incredulous grimace of a liberated prisoner of war.
“Captain!” Gunnar said with mock military stiffness and saluted.
“Glad you could make it, buddy,” Brad said as they shook hands.
“Yeah. Long time, man,” Gunnar said. “I didn’t think a high-speed WBBF pro like you still remembered the old days and all the little people you used to know. I was surprised when Franky told me about your invitation.”
“I never forget people whose asses I save,” Holt said, then punctuated it with a sort of insincere “just kidding” laugh. “Actually, I was quite impressed by that magazine piece I read about you two months ago. The thing on how you were this hotshot ex-bodybuilder private eye.”
The article in L.A. Life magazine had, in fact, garnered some profitable attention for Gunnar Marino Investigations. After he managed to track down an Oregon runaway and retrieve her from a Hollywood pimp’s stable—amidst a fistfight and sudden exchange of bullets at a rave—the ex-competitive, albeit amateur, bodybuilder seemed to capture the imagination of an L.A. Life editor. The article said Gunnar was the kind of private investigator who begged to have his own TV show. Although he never heard from anyone remotely connected to TV, Gunnar did get some well-paying runaway trackdown gigs following the article.
But before Gunnar could comment, the warbling chime of Holt’s cell phone went off in his duffel bag.
“Damn it,” Holt mumbled and took out his phone.
Gunnar, however, noticed how Holt’s attention fixated on Kelly. The big guy seemed unable not to stare at her even as he took out the phone.
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