by Paul O'Brien
Proctor took one last look up the bank before gravitating towards Danno’s ear. “I want to get you the belt.”
Danno leaned back to recapture his personal space. “You were there today, Proctor. You saw the room go with Merv.”
“Fuck Merv and those monkeys who follow him. I can get you the belt by the end of the month. That’ll give you time to put a program in place for that giant golden goose you found – you lucky bastard.”
Curt and Shane sat in a booth in the bar. Shane was wearing just his jacket, underwear, black knee socks and shiny dress shoes. This arrangement seemed to have calmed him.
“Merv got me,” Shane said as his suckled on a beer bottle. “He said I was the greatest of all time. The best wrestler to never have the heavyweight title. I agree with him there.”
Curt also nodded in agreement. Everyone knew the same.
Montrose continued, “Merv said he was putting together the biggest match of them all. He got me to leave Tanner and come with him to San Francisco. I moved the family. Laid down some money on a nice house, put my kid in a new school. It was finally going to happen for me. He promised me the belt. Now he’s fucking avoiding me. He won’t even book me on his cards.”
It took Curt all of two seconds to figure out why Merv would keep one of the best of all time on the shelf. What Shane was saying clicked with what Curt heard at the NWC meeting earlier.
Merv had tried to sign Babu the giant from under Danno’s nose. He was wanting to put together the most popular wrestler never to be champion, Shane Montrose, versus the new Giant. Montrose trained the giant, broke him into the wrestling business. Teacher versus student. Experience versus youth. The rightful champion versus the new unstoppable giant. It was perfect. It was also a gold mine.
“Does he have a contract with you?” Curt asked.
“You know how these things work, Curt. I’m fucked.”
“Jesus.”
“Things are not good. This piece of shit has me signed for three years.”
Curt saw the opening he was looking for.
“Merv is a greedy pig. He wants to collect all the talent and put them on the shelf so no one else can have them.”
“Yeah, well, the way you guys have this game stacked – we only get paid when we work. And I can’t live on fresh air and hollow promises.”
“What are you planning on doing with Merv?” Danno asked, not sure if he really wanted to hear the answer.
Proctor dodged the question. “Listen, I want that belt – we all do, but everyone knows you’ve got the guy for now. The other owners had already signed off on it, except fucking Merv clicked his fingers and frightened them back into line. When he’s removed from the situation, you get the belt. And my reward for doing it is that you drop the belt to me next.”
Proctor tried to read Danno’s face. “I pay you two hundred thousand dollars upfront and another two when your giant does the job to my son in a few years time.”
“A few years?”
“Yeah.”
“Why a few years?”
Proctor offered his potential partner a cigarette. Danno declined with a shake of his head.
Proctor answered, “I’m going to be honest with you. If I had all my pieces in place now I would just do this and get the belt for myself, but … my son just went inside,” Proctor said with some noticeable pride.
Curt and Shane sat side by side, both feeling cheated, both making little money and both thinking what a greedy little prick Merv was.
Curt made absolutely sure that no one from inside the wrestling business was around before he stooped into Shane’s ear. “Why don’t you come work for me?”
Shane looked at Curt skeptically. He’d heard that one before.
“Fuck Merv,” Curt whispered.
Owners didn’t talk like that about other owners. Particularly in front of wrestlers. Shane was drunk, but not drunk enough to not be worried that someone might hear.
“He’s got my contract,” Shane said.
“What if I could do something that made us rich?”
Curt knew that Merv was trying to have all the cake. Merv wanted to own Shane Montrose and the giant. Curt didn’t consider himself that greedy. If Danno Garland had the giant then Curt could snap up the challenger now and cut him off at the pass. Half the box-office of the biggest match of all time was better than none of the box-office of the biggest match of all time.
Curt wasn’t comfortable in the open. He signaled for The Sugarstick to follow him into the small hallway off the restrooms.
“I’ll sign you. We’ll make the match. You versus the giant. We get half and Danno gets half. We do the match all over the country. There’s more money there than any other match.”
“What about Merv?” Montrose asked.
Curt took a swig of his drink. His hands were shaking. They did that a lot when he got excited or angry. “I’ll sort Merv. I’d be doing everyone a favor.”
Proctor flicked his exhausted cigarette butt into the river. “We got a deal?”
Danno felt he needed a lot more time. It seemed to make total sense as Proctor laid it out so smoothly, but he knew this was as close as his mortal self was ever going to get to shaking hands with the devil.
“Danno?” Proctor’s pitch raised, surprised that he had to chase an answer.
Danno opened his mouth to not only agree, but to get himself in even further with Proctor. Money and fancy under-britches were powerful motivation.
“On one condition,” Danno said, the water now running over his feet.
“What’s that?”
“I call the angle when the time comes.”
Proctor smiled and offered out a handshake. He knew that Danno was a simple storyteller. In the end, the giant would lay down for his boy. Proctor and Danno shook hands.
“Deal?” Curt asked.
Shane warily thought about what they were getting into. Merv left him no choice.
“On one condition.”
“What’s that?” Curt asked.
“I work with you. Not for you. Partners.”
Curt saw five more years of work left in Shane’s faltering body. If he could pull off a deal with Danno they would be the five most lucrative years of all their lives. If he couldn’t… Curt didn’t even want to entertain that thought. There’s only one match out there that made any sense. And Curt Magee was about to outthink them all for once, and own half of it.
“Deal,” Curt said.
Shane put out his hand, “Don’t you ever try and fuck me over, lie to me or cheat me out of a payoff.”
“I won’t.”
“Cause I’ll fucking kill you if you do.”
Curt finished his drink. “Anything I should know before we do this?”
“Like what?”
“Just anything you think I should know.”
Shane shook his head.
“Okay. Deal,” Curt said.
Curt and The Sugarstick Shane Montrose shook hands. Professional wrestling was littered with bad handshakes but this particular one ranked at the very top.
Four days after the murder.
New York.
Shane slowly walked the backroom towards Danno with his head respectfully bowed. He didn’t know who knew what – if anything at all. He’d hoped that the fact he was still walking around meant Danno didn’t know.
He was petrified, but not coming would only make things worse. So there he was, like a shameful dog, walking across the floor at Annie Garland’s wake.
“Sit down,” Danno said without raising his head from thought.
Shane did just that, “I’m sorry about … ”
“Do you know where Curt Magee is?” Danno asked directly.
“No, I swear to God. I swear on my kid’s life.”
Danno opened his hand and showed him a tangled ball of rosary beads. “This is what they gave me. They took her and put her in the ground and this is the receipt.”
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, trying
to hold back his tears. “I’m sorry.”
Danno broke his stare from the floor and lifted his head. All the other mourners were sliding past the ‘respect’ phase of the wake and moving into the louder, more drunken part.
“They get you when you’re a kid,” Danno started. “And they put all this stuff in your head about devils and fire and clouds and light. And I can’t fucking shake it. I can’t carve the bullshit that they put in there out of my head.”
“Danno … ”
Danno slammed his fist off the table. The whole room stopped dead.
“What are you looking at?” Danno asked the quiet onlookers.
The room continued with its conversations and dirty jokes. Danno leaned into Shane Montrose. “I knew and I … accepted.”
“Accepted what?” Shane asked.
“None of your fucking lies,” Danno said as he dropped the rosary beads. “Not today.”
Shane drew a large breath and clasped his hands on the table. He leaned in closer. “I loved her.”
Those words, this day, no sleep, no joy. Danno did nothing.
Shane continued. “I loved her and I respected her. And my heart is broke over what happened. I want to help you find Curt.”
Danno watched Shane’s eyes fill up with tears. He then slipped his gaze around the filthy, smoky room. Danno Garland and Shane Montrose were the only two in the room who really felt something for Annie.
“I’m ashamed of what I did. I’m ashamed and it makes me sick to my stomach. It wasn’t meant to be… it just got out of hand. I’m sorry Danno.” Shane grabbed Danno’s hand and dropped from his seat to his knee. “I’m sorry.”
The room tried to pretend it wasn’t looking at the scene unfolding in front of the boss.
Danno wanted to kill him – he wanted to stand up and thrust his fingers into his eyes and overturn the heavy table on the side of his head. He wanted to stomp him and stab at him and choke him and bite his face. “Get up.”
Shane looked up from his bended knee. “I’m sorry.”
“Get up I said.”
Shane warily rose to his feet.
Danno stood and addressed the room. “Curt didn’t fucking do this on his own,” Danno shouted as he turned one by one around his fellow bosses. “I want you all to hear me when I say this.”
The room was deathly quiet. Danno couldn’t have picked a more awkward and uncomfortable day or place to unload.
“My only business left is to make sure who did this to … ” He couldn’t bring himself to say his wife’s name. “To make sure everyone. Every-fucking-person who was involved in this dies. Then I will gladly lay down and you vultures can pick away.”
Danno looked at all the dropped heads in front of him. “For years you all wanted me to get my hands dirty. Well, fuck you – they’re dirty now.”
Danno swallowed his shot, threw his glass against the wall, and walked to the door. “I’ll give a hundred thousand dollars to anyone who leads me to Curt Magee,” he said before he left.
Joe Lapine shook his head in disbelief. There was only so big of a crack he could smooth over as Chair of the NWC. An outburst like this, in public, and in front of the wrestlers was sure to incense the other bosses.
“Did he just place a bounty? In here?”, Tanner Blackwell, the Carolina boss, mouthed to Joe in anger.
Shane Montrose, feeling responsible for the breakdown, reached into his pocket. He took out a ball of hundreds and walked to the bar. “This is on me. All of it.”
He wanted to see if it was possible to spend his guilt away. He had a lot of money and a lot of guilt.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ginny stood somewhere. He was dressed in a suit. He tried to wait. Waiting always helped the fog to clear from his head. He was confused totally, but at least had the advantage of understanding that’s what was happening to him.
He found it hard to verbalize. A proud, old-school man like Ginny didn’t feel like talking about himself at the best of times.
This was not the best of times.
He waited for some familiarity to come back to him. Something to latch onto and make his anxiety pass and leave him.
“Sir?” boomed a voice from the other side of the door.
That voice wouldn’t go away. It was in fact getting more impatient.
“NYPD. Open the door,” demanded the voice outside before knocking on the door aggressively again.
For six hours Ginny lay on the floor. He remembered and forgot just why he was there. For a man as tough and as strong as he used to be, Ginny never felt quite as scared in his whole life. He was lying on the floor of someone’s house for no reason, with no memory of how he got there. He was lying on the floor of his house for no reason, and with no memory of how he got there. The overbearing feeling of horror and not knowing what he was afraid of. The anger at finding himself afraid of nothing. The shame of not being able to do anything about it.
He lay there just wishing for Ricky to come. He lay there not knowing if anyone loved him. He lay there like a child lies quiet in their bed.
All he knew to do was just lie there. A scared stranger – in his own apartment.
Ricky Plick walked on West 42nd and stopped at a mid-sized, familiar building. The sun was high in the sky over the Island and Ricky had a long day ahead of him. He knew Danno’s eye was off the ball so it was up to him to erase all the incriminating breadcrumbs leading back their way. Especially after Danno’s announcement at Annie’s wake.
If the bosses weren’t out to get him before, they sure as fuck were now. No single owner can put out a bounty on the whereabouts of another without it raising eyebrows. Regardless of what happened.
He crossed the doorway of the building and pulled his collar nice and high on his face. He took the elevator to the third floor and walked the corridor littered with offices. He stopped at a door he rarely entered.
New York Booking Agency.
Danno’s office.
Ricky moved the key he took from Danno’s very slowly and quietly around in the lock and checked his back before entering.
After what Danno had done to Proctor, and how recklessly he had done it, Ricky needed to make sure that he disappeared anything that could catch them out. Anything that could lead anyone back to Danno.
That was his job. That was who he was as a person. Ricky was loyal and was looking after his boss’s best interests even when his boss wasn’t.
He opened the office door and navigated the room. He would have preferred to do this type of thing under the cover of darkness, but he didn’t have that luxury.
Even though Ricky visited this office before, he never did so with an empty bag on his back and a stolen key in his pocket. He was certainly Danno’s number two – but he stayed far away from ‘the paperwork’.
This office was the place that made Danno officially who he was. To exist in New York, and stay under the radar, Danno had to run a real company. He had to have the papers to say that he owned what he owned. He had contracts with TV companies, wrestlers and the venues. He had to prove he paid taxes. That he had employees. His company was listed to this address, under his name.
That was the official bit. The front.
Then, behind that, was the actual business. The cash money, under-the-table business that he ran with the other bosses. The actual business fixed matches and bribed anyone who could make that pursuit easier. Wrestlers got cash under the table as well as fellow bosses, local TV owners, the guys that ran the buildings, some newspaper guys, a fire chief or two and a couple of cops from Danno’s father’s day.
That was a lot of money moving backwards and forwards. Everyone in the wrestling business was connected through a web of paper, IOU’s, contracts and deals.
The phone rang and an answering machine kicked straight in. “Hello, you have reached the New York Booking Agency, the home of the world’s greatest wrestling attractions. We are unable to come to the phone right now so please leave a message and we will get back to you as
soon as possible. Thank you.”
Beep.
The caller hung up.
Another thing Ricky learned down through the years was how to pay close attention from the side of his eye.
Danno’s office was at the end of the room. Ricky pushed the door open, entered and quickly knelt down at the side of the huge desk. He took a paranoid little look before pulling back a thin rug. He then popped his finger down the inconspicuous hole in the floorboard and gently pulled. A perfect square lifted with him and exposed a built-in safe.
Ricky turned the numbered dial in a few different directions and opened the thick metal door. Danno trusted Ricky and never tried to hide the code from him.
Ricky’s bag was already open and waiting. He removed five thousand dollars and placed it in the bag. Even with the money removed, Ricky saw that there was plenty more waiting in there. He figured maybe seventy or eighty thousand.
He quietly returned everything back to where it was and fixed the thin rug back in place. Ricky then stood and walked lightly out of Danno’s dark office with a short stack of Danno’s money for insurance.
If Ricky couldn’t talk Danno off the road he was on, he was at least going to try and cover the tracks he was leaving behind.
Nevada.
Lenny guided his children, Luke and James Henry, across the parking lot of their motel. Luke had the ability to wander but James Henry still needed carrying over distances. Lenny also had a third item that needed careful attention – his wrestling magazine.
A couple of days previously, Bree was coming to California to live with her folks. She and Lenny were done. She had enough of his job. Lenny was a father to two young boys who barely knew him. The wrestling business kept him on the road for weeks at a time – while his wife waited for him to come home. Sometimes she wouldn’t even know where he was, if he was dead or alive. At the beginning that used to tear her up – at the end she didn’t care one way or another. Nothing creates apathy like distance and rejection.