Body Slam (The Touchstone Agency Mysteries)

by Rex Burns

  Raiford shrugged. “Here I am. How old are you?”

  “My official biography says I’m thirty-five.” A dark eye winked. “But I look ten years younger than I really am, which is why I’m willing to consider you, my man.”

  The Doctor could have been five or ten years older—maybe even more. It was hard to tell. His dark skin was taut with muscle and healthy with sweat, and there was no gray on his head or in the sparse curly hair of his chest. Raiford looked around at the tiers of weights and benches that had the familiar utilitarian look of so many places he’d sweated in. “I’m surprised a club like this has a real weight room. I thought it’d be all chrome and pulse monitors.”

  “I advised them to put it in. Told them no pro would work out here unless they put it in.”

  “They pay you to use the place?”

  “Some. My job is to bring people—like you—to the gym. They sign up so they can look like me. It’s not much money, but, hey, the Good Book says that in every labor there is profit. And I say every little bit of profit eases every labor.” He scrubbed the curly nap of his chest with a towel. It was dwarfed to handkerchief size by his fist and forearm. “And speaking of profit, there’s no guarantee—and you’ve got to understand this—that you’re going to make money in this game.”

  “But money can be made, right?”

  “Aw, yeah! And more of it every year. But you will start at the bottom, and I mean the sub-sub-basement, my man. You able to invest a couple years in this endeavor? A year training and learning the moves and another one doing maybe six shows a week with a lot of traveling? Bad beds and worse food? All for a couple hundred a week if you’re lucky?”

  “I’m interested.”

  “And no guarantee that you’ll make the main event?”

  “Still interested.”

  The Doctor grunted. “ ‘A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ ” He gestured toward a thick mat in the center of the floor. “OK—get your suit on and come back. We’ll see how you handle some basic moves.” His smile had a wolfish look.

  Raiford stretched to warm up, then they circled each other, thin-soled shoes sliding over the canvas-covered mat.

  “None of that karate stuff, my man. Just straight wrestling. Remember, ‘to be capable of honesty is the beginning of education.’ ”

  Raiford nodded, eyeing the man who was larger than he was and wondering what it would take to bring down someone whose legs were that heavy with muscle. He had faced bigger men on the football field, and there the trick had been to get lower, to use speed and leverage, to make the heavier man’s weight work against him. And even if football had different rules, the principle should be the same.

  He feinted up and dropped to a knee, grappling an arm for the Doctor’s lower leg, intending to drive his shoulder against the man’s knee and tumble him. But the Doctor was quick to spin and his muscles bulged to pry open Raiford’s grip. An instant later, the man plummeted across his shoulder, full weight thudding Raiford into the mat and driving the air from his lungs. He felt large hands wrap around his wrists in an armlock and, fighting for breath, he instinctively kicked out, twisting and pulling to try and free himself from the grip. But the hands clamped tighter, shoving against his straining muscles and he heard the Doctor grunt with effort. Raiford slapped a hand across the man’s broad back searching for a grip, trying to work his hand under the Doctor’s arm to pull the man around to his front. The Doctor shrugged loose and shoved harder at Raiford’s half-folded arm to increase the leverage on his shoulder. Raiford, face scraping across the rough canvas, fought to reach an ankle, a calf, anything to counter the weight that drove his arm up and twisted his spine.

  “You call it, my man, ere ‘painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain.’ ” The Doctor’s voice pinched with his own effort. “When it hurts enough, you call it.”

  After a while he had to. It hurt too much. The Doctor heaved a relieved sigh and rolled off while Raiford doubled with the pain of stretched and twisted sinew that seemed to hurt even more after the sudden relaxation of effort.

  “ ‘Only the strong shall thrive, and only the fit survive.’ You’re strong, all right. Not many people hold out that long in my hammerlock. Got pretty good speed, too.”

  Raiford tried to answer, but all he could do was grunt as another wave of pain flooded his shoulder when he tried to move it. He blinked to clear the blur of strain and sweat from his vision and saw the Doctor’s wrestling shoes on the grimy expanse of mat in front of his face. One of the shoes disappeared, and an instant later Raiford felt a red flash of pain in his groin that convulsed him in a clench of shooting, throbbing agony. “God—” That was all he could get out before a heavy fist thudded against the back of his neck and stung his entire torso with a million fiery needles as the nerve ends flashed.

  Fighting through the warring mix of numbness and pain, his anger, will, and reflexes pulled the scattered parts of his body together and, shakily, as quickly as he could, he rolled away from the high-top shoes that circled at the edge of vision. He clamped his mouth against the urge to howl as he pried himself to his knees. A swirl of hot red blanked his vision and behind it something moved, something that he wanted to get his hands on, something that he wanted to kill. Lunging, Raiford staggered up and waded through nausea and pain to establish a stance, even though his bowed legs gave him no tension. The thing moved again and he kicked at it, driving his leg through the sickening ache that spread from his groin to his stomach. Another kick, snapped quicker this time, more authority, feeling the slap of large hands trying to clasp his ankle. A whipping sweep with the blade of his hand followed by the grip of a thick arm that wrapped itself to bend his elbow backward while another rope of flesh tied itself around his neck in a tight band that threatened to pinch the flow of blood to his brain.

  “Hold it now, my man. Hold on—I said none of that karate stuff.”

  “You god—”

  “I just wanted to know if you could take the pain. A lot of people think there’s no pain in this.”

  “I’ll …”

  “It’s over now—I’m going to let you go now. Stay cool, now. I’m going to let you go …”

  The arms slowly eased and Raiford felt the throbbing pulse of his rage begin to ebb. “All right—I’m all right.” A large hand patted his shoulder and dropped away. Raiford wheeled, arms ready.

  “That’s it, my man. I have seen the glories I needed to see. You can take the pain. That’s more important than how old you are. Your ‘courage mounteth with the occasion.’ ” The Doctor added, “Most of the gentlemen in the game, they’re all right. But there are some rogue players who like to hurt people, especially new wrestlers. You’ve got to understand”—a pointing finger emphasized his words—“there will be people coming after you, and you won’t know them until after they get their hit in. You lay yourself open thinking he’s going to pull his punch and he don’t. You understand? You’ve got to be able to take it in order to get even, because if you don’t get even, my man, you’ll be dog meat. Unless they know you can take it and give them worse, they’ll do what they can to you because it makes them look good to the crowd. And looking good to the crowd is the name of this game, my man.”

  Raiford let himself down gingerly onto the mat, bending to ease the sick, throbbing cramps in his stomach and testicles. He sensed, but didn’t really feel, the pain in his shoulder and neck. Their turn would come later. “Like Billy?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Well, no. There’s worse than him. He’s just hopped on steroids from trying to bulk up too fast. You got to watch for people like that, too—sometimes they just go off. ‘R and R’ we call it: ‘ ’Roid Rage.’ ” He shrugged “But that’s nothing personal. Comes with the territory. The people you got to look out for are the really mean dudes who just like to hurt you and laugh while they do it.”

  Slowly flattening himsel
f on the mat, Raiford began working and loosening the bruised and damaged flesh. After a while he was able to ask, “So now what?”

  “ ‘The ever-haunting importunities of business.’ I talk to my agent and see if he wants to handle a trainee. Which, if I say you will do, he will do.” He paused to shake his head. “People in this game have short lives—suicide, heart failure, system collapse from steroids and painkillers of one kind or another. They’re younger than you or me when they die.” A shrug. “ ‘Early though the laurel grows, it withers quicker than the rose.’ What happens next is I talk to you and explain what percentage of your take we get for sponsoring you, and for how long. And you talk to the front desk and enroll in our magnificent health club at the special professional rate.”

  He said it would take a few days to get an answer from his agent, a man named Salazar. If things went OK—and the Doctor didn’t see any real problems there—they’d meet with Salazar to sign a contract. What Raiford also learned was that the wrestlers seldom saw Chertok; he was a booking agent, not a producer, and he worked with the FWO managers and agents like Salazar rather than the individual wrestlers. He also learned that the Doctor had never heard of Lidke or his organization, and, like Chertok, he didn’t care whether or not Lidke developed a local promotion. “Something like that might even help build audiences or give somebody another venue to jump to if they don’t make it in the FWO.”

  As Raiford dragged himself to his car and felt the stiffness of usually neglected muscles complain about turning the steering wheel and working the pedals, he wondered at the rising cost of information.

  14

  Julie heard her father before she saw him. A muted grunt of some kind sounded on the other side of the office door, then Raiford came in slightly bent and walking awkwardly.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I am.” He sank gingerly into her office’s soft visitor’s chair. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Julie studied the pale tautness of his face. “You look like you hurt somewhere.”

  He shrugged and tried to hide the wince. “A little muscle pull. I worked out with Doctor Witch—showed him a few moves.”

  “Well,” she took a deep breath. “I hope you enjoyed it.”

  “Yeah—great fun.”

  “Good. Because that was your pay.”

  “Say what?”

  “Lidke dropped the case.”

  Raiford stared at her.

  “It was the right thing for him to do, Dad. Nothing we have puts us any closer to Chertok, and Lidke doesn’t have the money to go beyond his retainer.”

  He nodded wearily. “Figures.” Then, “Anything from Technitron­?”

  “Nothing.”

  Nothing. Raiford carefully rotated one shoulder, then the other before speaking again. “Let’s consider this, Julie. One of Lidke’s partners committed suicide, another was shot, and Lidke’s car was torched. And despite what he says, Chertok is edgy as hell when we come around. Something stinks.”

  “You don’t want to drop it yet?”

  “Do you?”

  Julie thought of Mrs. Palombino. “No.” After a moment she added, “We have nothing else going.”

  “Let’s find out if Lidke wants us to work on contingency. We do what we can and he doesn’t have to pay unless he gets results.”

  “We have that money-up-front rule.”

  “Right. But I’m just plain nosy. Something is going on—you know it, I know it. Wouldn’t you like to find out what it is?”

  “Yeah!”

  “That’s my girl.”

  She sighed. “That’s why we work for ourselves, I guess. Did you find out anything from Doctor Whom?”

  “Witch—Doctor Whom’s a pansy. I did learn a few things.” He told her some of the least painful. “It sounded to me like none of the wrestlers had any cause to hinder Lidke. In fact, Bausley thought a local promotion would be a good thing. Said he’d like to see it.”

  “Doesn’t that imply that a local promotion might make it harder for Chertok to negotiate contracts with his wrestlers?”

  “Only if Lidke could pay them enough to compete with Chertok, which isn’t likely. My guess is that the real competition’s among the major promotions: WWE, WCW, Vince McMahon’s people, whatever. And wrestlers can always make good money in Japan. A lot of mid-level guys go there, Bausley tells me. The pay’s a lot better than any tank-town circuit in the States, and that would include Lidke’s promotion.”

  “So what’s next?”

  It was Raiford’s turn to sigh. “I’ll be working with Bausley.”

  “Undercover? You made the connection?”

  “I don’t know if undercover’s the term, but, yeah, he believes I want to be a pro wrestler. He wants to get together with his agent and develop a personality for me.”

  “A what?”

  Her father looked slightly embarrassed. “That’s what they call it when you figure out your, ah, costume and all. It’s for marketing. You know: ring name, visuals, all that.”

  Julie grinned.

  “Hey, now. This is part of my cover. And if you think wrestling’s all fake, you get in the ring with Doctor Witch. He’d turn you into a pretzel!”

  Spreading her hands, Julie looked innocent. “I think this is a grand and wonderful thing you’re doing, Dad. And when you make your debut, I’ll be in the front row cheering!”

  “Keep laughing. It’s not going that far. This was your idea to start with, young lady. But if you have any better plan for getting closer to Chertok, let’s hear it.”

  “I won’t say a word. Discreet Silence is me. And if there’s anything at all I can do to help out, just let me know.” She looked serious. “You know, giving clients your autographed wrestling picture, answering fan letters, sewing your costume …”

  Her father kept his lips squeezed tight as he heaved jerkily to his feet. “If you will excuse me, I have a couple of things to do.” He exited with dignity in his limp.

  Julie had a couple of things to do, too. One should have been to have Bernie dig deeper into Chertok’s possible crime connections—court records, police files, a name collation. But that would take money, and right now Touchstone had more time than cash. So instead of Bernie’s number, she pulled up her favorite online site for a people search. Their report would be poorly edited and incomplete, and there was always the risk that people being checked on had paid the fee to be notified when anyone asked about their public records. But at fifty dollars, it fit the budget and was the best she could do for now.

  The resultant page on Chertok showed a lot of “not available” entries in the financial section. The criminal report listed a speeding ticket, the bankruptcy and liens section was clean, small claims and judgments listed only one entry. It was over ten years old and noted that the lien, filed by Douglas Construction, had been satisfied and removed six months from date of filing. His house value was listed—tens of thousands less than Julie had estimated, which indicated how old the records were. Neighbors were listed by name and address with a red connection that, for another fifty dollars, would search for that name’s appearances in public records. In all, Chertok seemed to live a very private life despite the nature of his business, and he had done a surprisingly good job in staying out of public records. She printed what was worth keeping and tried not to feel overcharged for the meager result.

  Then, with Nancy Palombino in mind, she searched the online Yellow Pages for a CPA named Felsen and called him. He was unwilling to discuss a client’s business with anyone who wasn’t a party to that business, was unwilling to talk to strangers about his own business, and was especially loath to impart information over the telephone. Julie could fix that.

  The muffled and sterile entry of the low-rise office building gave air-conditioned relief from the early afternoon sun. On the third floor, the elevator doors op
ened to a hallway whose decor matched the entry. Near the end of the strip of carpet that silenced Julie’s heels a carved plastic sign said john g. felsen, certified public accountant. A much smaller sign on the door said please come in. Julie did.

  The single, windowless room might at one time have been used for janitorial storage. A small worktable with fax, photocopier, printing calculator, and stacked CD file boxes filled half the cubicle. A large desk and tall filing cabinets took up the rest. A bony man with thinning hair and wearing a white shirt and dark vest punctuated by a pocket filled with pens of various colors looked up from the desk. Two computer screens anchored each of its sides. A series of electronic accessories were carefully arranged along the remainder of the oversized surface. He did not smile, and his voice was a funereal murmur scarcely louder than the breezy hum of his machines. “May I help you?”

  “Mr. Felsen?”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “Please sit down—I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  Julie sat on the straight-backed chair that provided a rigid perch in the narrow space fronting the wide desk. In the silence, computer keys rattled and the printer hummed and clicked. One wall held a blurry picture of a rainy street vaguely Paris-like. But the dim scene and soft colors only added more gloom. The facing wall held a large calendar with each daily square crossed precisely off. The printer gave a tiny chime and Mr. Felsen rattled a handful of papers into a tight stack and fed it into the automatic stapler before wrapping it in a green file. Then he turned to Julie, the tips of his fingers pressed together in front of his vest.