by Rex Burns
“Good—I’m relieved that the incidents haven’t disrupted their lives too much.” Julie smiled again. “Your husband’s a very ambitious man, isn’t he?” She gestured at the photographs in the neighboring room.
“I … I suppose so.”
“And he believed very strongly in Rocky Ringside Wrestling.”
“Yes.”
“And you did, too, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I suppose.”
“Mrs. Lidke, can you tell me where your husband was on the night of August 13?”
“When?”
Julie nodded. “I know it’s hard to remember that far back. It was the night Rudy Towers committed suicide up in Central City. Was your husband at home all that evening?”
The loose skin under her chin quivered. In the street outside, a car drove past slowly. Its motor made a dull throb and its tires over the fallen leaves crackled like a small, hot fire. “He … I … Yes. Yes, he was home. All night.”
Julie nodded again and smiled as if she believed the woman. “I’m glad to hear that. Have you two been married a long time?”
“Eighteen years. Going on nineteen.”
“And you help Otto with his business?”
“I used to. Not much now. Just sometimes.”
“You do the bookkeeping? Tax returns? Perhaps make an occasional phone call, that sort of thing?”
“He don’t have time to do everything. It takes—it took—a lot of time to run the gym.”
“I imagine so! Where were you two married?”
“Where?” The shift in questions surprised her. “L.A. We met out there. I was in high school and he was in the service.”
“Oh? What branch?”
“Navy. He was stationed at Long Beach. We met at a rock concert. I went with some girlfriends and I met him.”
“Sat next to you? Came up and introduced himself?”
She shook her head, relieved to move from questions about her husband’s business, relieved to move into a past that was safe—a time when things were fixed and unthreatening. “He was in the Shore Patrol on duty. A lot of sailors went to the concerts there and the navy sent people to help keep things quiet.”
“This is before he tried out for professional football?”
“Before he went to college, even. We got married and then he got discharged. He used his G.I. bill and he had a scholarship, too. For football and wrestling. San Diego State.” Her eyes touched on the football photograph and Julie recognized the Aztec logo on the player’s helmet. Another photograph showed a pyramid of wrestlers kneeling on one another’s backs. Over them, a banner proclaimed “San Diego State University.” Lidke grinned from the bottom tier with the other heavyweights. “He tried pro ball for a while after he graduated, but he wasn’t big enough.” She added, “They want real tall people, you know.”
“Yes. You went to college with him?”
“I was a business major, but I didn’t graduate. Patty came along. And then John.” A shake of her head. “There wasn’t time for schoolwork and family.”
Julie nodded understandingly. “Did you advise your husband to sell out to American West?”
The caution and fear rushed back to make her face a stiff mask. “You got to talk to him about all that.”
“Can you tell me where Otto was last Thursday night?”
“Thursday?”
“That was when the lawyer for American West was killed. Ellis Huggins.”
She blinked, face pale. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you better go now.” Standing quickly, she jerked a commanding hand at Julie. “You better go!” She strode stiffly to the door and yanked it open. “Please!”
Julie smiled. “Have a nice evening, Mrs. Lidke.”
Halfway down the block, Julie pulled to the curb to telephone Bernie’s office. Her assistant answered and Julie told him to check the California Bureau of Vital Statistics for a marriage license on Otto Lidke. “It’ll be eighteen or nineteen years ago. Los Angeles County, probably—Long Beach residences, most likely. Age of parties at the time probably late teens for the woman, mid-twenties for the man. I want to know the woman’s maiden name. As soon as possible.”
“We’ll have it for you shortly.”
Raiford ignored the sour odor of stale sweat rising from his unwashed wrestling tights. He hovered at the rear of the group of hefty men gathering around the practice ring and moved to stay out of Otto Lidke’s sight. In the glare of the ring light, he could see changes in the man that had been invisible when they met each other in the darkness of the parking lot where Palombino was found. Lines were etched deeply around Otto’s eyes and at the corners of his mouth, and he prowled uneasily as Salazar climbed through the ropes and began to talk. But with his large head and a short torso that bulged under his tights, he was, Raiford had to admit, still like his name: round at both ends.
Salazar opened the session with a long speech about how glad he was to have the opportunity to meet with the wrestlers who had been members of Rocky Ringside and were now with American West, and how glad he was that the talented and respected Otto Lidke had joined the American West promotion as a trainer, and how glad he was that everybody was now, through his—Raoul Salazar’s—contacts associated with one of America’s major wrestling promotions, the FWO. He pointed out how modern the Universal Fitness Center was and that promotion members would get reduced rates. Its quality was guaranteed, he said, because it was another Salazar endeavor, and Salazar could do a lot of good for the local wrestling community provided the local wrestlers paid attention to what he, Salazar, told them. Then he introduced two world-famous wrestlers from the FWO who needed no introduction and who would now put on a short demonstration of holds and falls by way of warm-up for tonight’s practice: the Terrible Titan and the Beast Slayer.
The audience watched closely as the two, without their stage makeup and costumes, went through a series of throws. The men stopped often to explain the hand signals, the points, the choreography of certain throws that would ensure proper leverage. “One-two, three-four—like that, see?” The Beast Slayer glared at the intent faces outside the ropes. “You got that? Short-long, short-long, and you hit down here. You don’t do the right steps on an aerial, you’re going to hit up here. You hit up here, somebody’s going to get hurt.”
At the end of the demonstration and following a round of applause, Salazar announced American West’s plans for regional wrestling and the intense schooling that was coming as preparation for careers in the FWO. “Now you people don’t worry—unless you’re no good, then you better worry. We’re gonna have cards to fill a dozen regional venues. If you’re good enough, you’ll be slotted in. But we got to know if you’re good enough to wrestle for us locally and maybe make it to the FWO. We got to know that our valuable time won’t be wasted on pansies who can’t take the program or don’t want to make it to the big show. We want this promotion to start hot and get hotter, you know what I mean? So we got room for new wrestlers, all right, but we’re only going to take the best.” Then he announced that four talented wrestlers already chosen for the first tag teams would put on a demonstration at the end of the evening: Chief Cocacoatle and Handsome Johnny Sands, and Colonel Crush and Major Mayhem. “Right now,” Salazar said, “I have a very important planning meeting to attend that will affect all our futures, so I’m turning the session over to my close friend Otto Lidke who will take each one of you into the ring and show you what kind of wrestlers American West is looking for. Let’s see if you trainees got the guts to make it.”
Another round of applause and the human cannonball climbed through the ropes and gestured the first trainee into the ring. “What’s your name?”
The redheaded mound of beef answered, “Ray.”
Lidke, almost half the younger man’s size and twice his age, said, “OK, Ray, look out for yourself.” He moved
with blurry speed to grapple the unsuspecting man’s arm and lever him into a body slam that made the watching wrestlers gasp.
“First thing you got to learn is to land right. Ray don’t know that yet. Some of you others been with me, you know what it’s all about. Herm”—Lidke called up another young man while Ray, his breath making little whining sounds, brokenly pulled himself out of the ring—“come up and show us how it’s done.”
Otto circled Herm who crouched warily and pivoted to keep facing the man.
“What we want to do is make sure you people know what the hell you’re doing when you get in the ring. Understand?” Round head on round torso, Lidke talked as he moved sideways, his hands circling each other. “You get in the ring and don’t know what you and your opponent’s doing, somebody’s career might be over. Hell, somebody’s life might be over.” The watching faces nodded and Lidke dropped into a quick scissors, the mat jangling with the crash of his body. Herm howled as the thick legs trapped him and he flung himself backward with a louder crash. Then they both stood.
“How’d he know what move I was going to do?” Lidke asked the surrounding faces.
A tentative voice said, “Hand signals?”
“What hand signal? What’d you see?”
No reply.
“Herm—what hand signal’d I give you?”
“Scissor kick—two hand rolls and a flat palm.” He demonstrated.
“All right. You get hurt?”
Herm grinned and shook his head.
“Me neither. But it sounded good and it looked better. That’s the way it should work.” He gestured to another man. “OK—you: come up. Let’s go through the same fall. Watch my hands for the signal, and sell the fall when you make it.”
Raiford edged around the outside of the crowd and past the redhead who was still grunting and pulling his torso from one side to another to stretch out the pain. A worried friend asked, “You all right, Ray?”
“He slammed the shit out of me, man.” He twisted again and winced. “Son of a bitch is short but, damn, he’s fast and strong.”
Raiford stood behind them to tap Herm on the arm. “You were working out at Rocky Ringside the night Joe Palombino was killed, right?”
Surprise lifted the man’s eyebrows as he looked around. “How’d you know?”
“I saw your name in the newspaper as a witness.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. But I left before the shooting.”
“Was that before or after Otto went to get the pizza?”
“I don’t know. Before, I guess. He was still there when I left. Why?”
“I know Joe’s wife. She’s a sweet kid. Really torn up over it. Loved the big lug, you know?”
“Oh. Yeah.” He added politely, “He was a nice guy, Joe was.”
Raiford nodded. Up in the ring, another pair of thick bowed legs flew in an arc against the glare of the ring light and smashed heavily. Behind the clashing sound of the canvas deck, the bell of the wall telephone jangled loudly and one of the trainees answered it. He held it high toward the ring. “It’s for you, Otto. Says it’s real important.”
“Crap. OK, you two—go through the routine. Hand signal, timing, takedown. I’ll be right back.”
The short man, agile despite his appearance, hopped down from the ring apron and tucked his head into the phone’s hood. Raiford asked Herm, “Did Joe or Otto act in any way strange that night?”
“Strange?” The square jaw moved a bit in thought. “I don’t know about strange. Otto had a lot on his mind, I guess. He can get pretty intense, you know? Yells a lot and makes us go through the holds and escapes until we get it right. And if we don’t get it right, he’ll bust our balls until we do. Sometimes he gets a bit crazy about it but that’s good, you know? That’s what you want from a good trainer.” Another thought. “But he did seem kind of anxious to get finished. Like he was in a hurry.”
“How about Joe?”
“Same old Joe, as far as I could see. You know, walking around saying, ‘That’s good—a little more noise. Make the pain work for you.’ ” Herm added, “Otto’s the one who really wants us to learn to wrestle. Joe was OK, and he knew some good stuff. But he didn’t push like Otto.” Another thought. “Joe was more interested in the … the presentation side of it. You know, the showbiz.”
“Otto was in a hurry to finish up that night?”
The question surprised Herm. “Yeah! Didn’t even have us finish the cleanup. Just told us to go on home and he’d take care of the rest.”
From the corner of his eye, Raiford saw Otto slowly hang up the receiver and stare for a long moment at the blank wall. Then the squat, heavy man turned slowly, like—Raiford thought—the gun turret of a tank. He searched the group watching the two wrestlers grunting against each other. Then he saw Raiford.
“Well, by God!”
He walked slowly toward Raiford, torso swaying with each muscular stride, to stare up into the taller man’s face.
“By God, it is you!” A wide grin clenched his cheeks and made him look like a Halloween pumpkin. “You know, I thought I knew you. But you were over there where the light’s dim and I wasn’t sure. ‘Naw,’ I said to myself. ‘What would old Jim Raiford be doing here with a bunch of meatheads. A smart guy like old Jim Raiford.’ ” He held out a hand to grip Raiford’s fingers and hold them tightly. “That daughter of yours, she told me you guys dropped the case. I’m not paying anymore, you know. So what are you doing here? And wrestling as Major Mayhem!”
“We’re still on the case, Otto. Pro bono.”
“Yeah? Pro bono? And now you’re a pro wrestler? That makes you pro-pro bono, right?” Lidke tightened his grip on Raiford’s hand. “Maybe you’re better as a pro wrestler than you were as a pro shyster, right?” His voice rose to turn the audience’s faces from the ring toward the back of the room. “Hey, gentlemen. Here’s half the Death Squad tag team, Major Mayhem.” The man’s weight pulled Raiford’s arm. “He’s going to demonstrate some special moves—show us amateurs what real professional wrestling’s all about! Let’s have a hand for my old buddy Major Mayhem!”
“Thanks, Otto, but I’ll be working with Captain Crush later.” Raiford tried to slip his fingers out of the man’s grip, but the thick fist held even tighter. “Let’s get together after the demonstration.”
Otto yanked again. “Sure. But first these guys got to see a real pro like you in action.” His eyes squeezed almost closed in the clenched flesh of his grinning cheeks. “Let’s do it, Jim. Let’s give a real professional demonstration.”
“No, Otto.”
“What do you guys think? The Major don’t want to go a few falls with his buddy Otto. Too good to wrestle with old Otto—afraid he might hurt me.”
Good-natured jeers and catcalls.
“OK, people, look up. This is something real professional wrestlers like Major Mayhem here got to watch out for!” He spun low, full weight behind his shoulder and, yanking Raiford’s arm toward him, drove his elbow like a spear into the man’s unguarded ribs.
An explosion of pain and air driven from his lungs, Raiford doubled over. Before he could cover up, something solid and numbing and red smashed into his face. He tried to punch at the arm still holding his hand as his legs stumbled backward into some chairs. But all he could hear and even taste was the metallic twang of another hard hit ringing in his skull. Something metal—a folding chair?—slammed across his back and skull and half bounded him forward; he tried to shake his eyes and mind clear, but another solid force thudded him again. Somehow he was no longer able to feel the floor beneath his feet, and in his head the roaring of his own blood mixed with another loud, hoarse sound, an insane voice screaming in his ear, a raging scream and arms that tightened around his chest like a vise so he couldn’t breathe and just as he recognized Otto’s voice, he felt himself in the air and tilting over to plummet headfir
st toward the floor. He tried to tuck, tried to roll, the reflex of his training, but he landed on the point of his shoulder and a fiery, tearing wrench cut through the numb chaos to tell him that something had gone badly wrong with part of his body. He tried to pull away from the ripping fire in his shoulder, rolling to find some angle that would lessen the pain. Against the hazy glare of light, a wide black shadow lurched over him and he had a flash of a red face twisted with screaming hatred and then the shadow plummeted toward him and, in a convulsion of impact and shock, of thudding pain and a spray of orange and red flares, Raiford’s mind turned off.
23
Julie felt tired but comfortably loose. The hard workout followed by a long soak in the gym’s whirlpool relaxed her flesh and soothed her spirit. It wasn’t quite as good as sex, but had a lot fewer complications. Reaching her apartment and pouring herself a glass of wine from the bottle chilled in the refrigerator, she checked her telephone for messages—none—and dialed the office answering service. The electronic voice began with the date and time of the first incoming call. It was a man’s voice. “Miss Campbell, this is Sid Chertok. I’ve had a reporter all over my ass about InterMountain EnterPrizes, and he tells me you’re the one who sicced him on to me. Now here’s a news tip for you: there’s only one place you could find out what you found out, and I want you to know I just fired her saucy butt. That make you happy?” The line went dead.
Julie sighed deeply and saved that message. She no longer felt so relaxed. The next item was a woman’s voice, “Continental Electronics would like to invite the principals of the Touchstone Agency to a demonstration of their latest surveillance equipment on October 21 at the Merchandise Mart in Denver. If you plan to attend, please RSVP—” Julie pressed the erase button and went to the next message: B. R. Research Associates had information for Miss Campbell. Please call at earliest convenience. Julie saved that and moved to the next. “Julie, it’s Gabe Wager. Both bullets came from the same .38. Call me as soon as you get this.” The machine’s voice chirped, “End of messages.”