by Paul O'Brien
Allentown wasn’t New York. And that wasn’t a bad thing. But the Hamburg Field House wasn’t Madison Square Garden and that wasn’t a good thing. But it was better than where they came from. Philadelphia was one dangerous town to visit. The wrestlers loved the move.
The venue was a large gym with seats placed on the wooden floor. It was small and dingy but it would be full. Unlike The Garden.
It still had the painted white brick dressing room. The wooden benches. The chewing tobacco. The cards. The beers. The smoke. The ball breaking.
Like nearly every venue.
Backstage, two wrestlers were standing in their underwear, washing their ring trunks after fifteen days on the road. Everyone else ‘washed’ with a splash of Brut. A huge three hundred pound power-lifter was putting on his flowery shower cap to spare his newly dyed locks. More were shaving their body hair and putting on their face paint.
Huge scary men, getting ready for their audience.
Their bags were pungent. Their hangovers were worse. Some broke away from the card game to warm up in the corner. Another broke away to puke up the previous night’s adventures.
These men were sore, beat up, tired, hung over, homesick – and ready to go again. Same as they were last week, last month and last year.
The show was never over for wrestlers. Any interviews or media appearances, or anytime they left their home – they were their wrestler’s name and persona. Some of The Boys even stayed that way at home. 24/7. Protect the business at all costs.
They all knew the money was in making people believe. And some of The Boys didn’t trust their wives and their big mouths to keep the con quiet.
Outside, Ricky hurried through the door. He needed to tape enough matches for a couple of weeks of TV. He then needed to get the wrestlers to cut interviews for different markets.
He also wanted to talk to Danno’s giant star too. He had an idea that could see Babu, the seven foot, four hundred pound giant get his heat back – to make him the most despised wrestler in the country again.
All Ricky could think about was how to make the NWC come together again. He needed to get his work done and get back to the city to meet the other bosses. He knew this bad feeling couldn’t go another day.
New York.
Danno stood outside a building with his finger pressed on the buzzer with no number.
“Fucking … stupid … fuck,” Danno mumbled to himself as he stood back and looked up at the window.
“Troy?” Danno shouted.
Troy Bartlett was Danno’s trusted lawyer. He moved paper around, sprung wrestlers from jail and kept anything illegal out of sight. He was on call all day, everyday. Danno never had to wait more than a half hour for him to return a call or make it to his house to discuss business.
It had been days since he’d last heard from him. He took out the note that was left under his door just in case he had missed something.
It read:
There’s a heatwave coming up from Florida. You better cover up.
It was definitely Troy’s stamped crest in the top right hand corner of the page.
Danno stood outside his shitty little uptown office and left his finger on the buzzer. He thought he was in the right place. All their previous business was conducted at Danno’s place or on the road.
There was nothing. No answer, and it was getting late.
What the fuck is going on?
“Mr. Garland?” a coy young woman asked from behind.
Danno turned to see a slight, nervous-looking young woman getting out from a parked car.
“Who are you?” Danno asked.
The young woman took a cautious look around and walked closer to Danno. “Did you get my note?”
Danno watched her very carefully. “What note?”
The young woman was unsure of how much she could say on the street. “I left a note for you.” She waited for Danno to give her a sign that he knew what she was talking about. He didn’t.
“I asked you who you were,” Danno said.
“I’m sorry. I’m Katy. I work here. We’ve never …”
Katy could see that Danno was clamming up. He didn’t look too impressed with her explanation so far.
“I can let you in to see for yourself,” she said as she fished out a bunch of keys from her purse and opened the office door.
“That’s fine,” Danno said, softening a little.
“He left two days ago and I haven’t seen him since.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He said he had to get away for a while,” she said nervously.
“Get away from what?” Danno asked.
“You, sir. He said he had to get away from you.”
Danno, and Katy Spence sat opposite each other in the diner across from the office. It was busy and loud. Waitresses glided around with plates and coffee pots as patrons struggled to catch their eye.
Usually Danno would eat half the menu and sample the other half. Today, he wasn’t in the mood. And the parked car outside the diner was putting him off too.
Katy wiped the spilt coffee from her chin and Danno handed her a napkin.
“You seem very nervous,” Danno said.
“I’m not cut out for this,” she replied with the weight of honesty. Her brief seconds of truth were quickly covered over again with waves of anxiousness. “He frightened me with the way he was talking. He was paranoid and jumpy. Pacing around and biting his nails. Even at home I’m pulling the drapes closed in the day and I don’t know why.”
Danno wanted to see just who this woman was. “Why don’t you write out that note for me now?”
“It just said … ”
Danno stopped her. “I’d prefer if you’d write it down.”
Katy nervously reached into her bag and took out a notepad and pen. He just wanted to make sure the writing matched the note that was left under his door.
Katy wrote and Danno could see in the first couple of words that it was indeed her handwriting on the note he had. He stopped her writing.
“Could he not just have called me?” Danno asked about Troy.
Katy was clearly uncomfortable with Danno’s aggression. Danno caught himself and toned it down.
She continued. “Pardon my … I don’t know what to call it. My … forwardness. And I love Mr. Bartlett … but he wasn’t thinking much about anything or anyone only himself. He just said that they were coming for you. That’s all.”
“Who’s coming for me?”
Katy leaned in a little. “The police.”
She opened her purse and rummaged around the end for some money. Danno could see that she hadn’t got much. She was like his wrestlers. No work. No pay.
“He said that I should tell you to wrap all the loose ends up. Cover your tracks. Smooth over whatever it is you need to before the cops … you know…. arrive.”
Danno put on his tweed cap. “If he contacts you for anything, you make sure and get him to call me. You hear me?”
Katy nodded and pushed her coffee cup into the middle of the table with a slightly trembling hand. Her red hair reminded Danno of something. Something nice. Something good.
Danno tried hard to see who was sitting in the car across the street.
“Did he leave you anything?” he asked.
Katy shook her head.
Danno opened up a folded stack of notes that were held in place by an engraved money clip and ripped out a tidy bundle.
“No, I can’t,” Katy said, embarrassed.
“We don’t know how long he’ll be gone for, Miss. Take this to tide you over,” Danno said as he put the money on the table. He was insistent but kind.
“Thank you,” she said unable to look Danno in the eye.
“You should have all of this,” he said as he reconsidered and left her the full clip of money.
Katy instinctively rose out of her seat. “No, no. I can’t. Thank you though.”
Danno left without hearing her argument. He w
anted to pay the driver across the street a visit.
Pennsylvania.
Ricky sat on his own, going over the card for the next night. He knew the payoffs for The Boys were going to be rough in New York. They were all promised more after Danno got control of San Francisco and Florida.
It was to be the start of the super payoffs. Feuds and matches that could crisscross the country.
Ricky kept looping the ‘careful what you wish for’ sentence over and over in his head like some kind of karmic anesthetic.
Danno wanted New York, Florida, Texas and San Francisco. And he got most of them, but now they were Ricky’s problem. He couldn’t let such huge territories die on the vine and he didn’t have the authority to execute any major plan on his own.
He was trapped in some kind of limbo. He could neither retreat or advance. Nor could he trouble his boss for a game plan.
The hall outside was packed with wrestlers who were full of questions and problems. Ricky just didn’t want to talk to any of them. He only had one meeting on his mind. Not the type of meeting that he wanted to have – but one that he had tohave.
“We need to talk,” Oscar Dewsbury said as he pushed himself into Ricky’s locker-room uninvited. “What is this shit man?” Oscar asked angrily.
Ricky waited silently for him to get to the point.
“They’re telling me that I’m suspended. That fucking asshole from the Athletic Commission is saying that I no-showed a match in Fresno two nights ago.”
Not so long before, Oscar Dewsbury left Danno Garland high and dry when he jumped from New York to the rival Florida territory. Unfortunately for him, Danno eventually got control of Florida – and Oscar Dewsbury.
“I have to pay a five hundred dollar fine too. How the fuck am I supposed to eat?” Oscar asked.
Ricky snapped from his deeper thoughts and drew a breath. “If you no-show, they do what they do. Take it up with them.”
“I was in Tampa that night. Working. You fucking booked me to go there. Danno knows that. That’s why he booked me in two towns and didn’t tell me. Isn’t it? He knew what he was doing. That fucking… ”
Ricky quickly grabbed his massive visitor by the neck and slammed him against the cold wall. “You think with everything he has going on in his life right now that he took the time to fuck with you? You’re lucky he’s as lenient as he is. The way you screwed him over. Who leaves a man when he’s down? Hah? You took the money and ran when things were tight up here. I would shut my mouth if I were you. Do you hear me?”
Oscar could feel Ricky’s grip bending his windpipe and closing off his carotid artery. “Yes,” he pushed out from the back of his constricted neck.
Ricky released him but struggled in not following up with a head-butt to punctuate his point.
“You fucking respect that man and everything that’s going on for him right now,” Ricky said of his boss.
Oscar rubbed his throat and tried swallowing normally.
“Now get the fuck out of here.”
Oscar stumbled out the door and Ricky stood in the middle of the room. He had to roll the dice. He had to come up with something outside of the everyday. Ricky knew that if he didn’t propose something to keep the other bosses happy then Danno was a sitting duck.
New York.
“Who the fuck are you?” Danno asked as he approached the open car window from the diner. The daylight was gone and the figure looked a little more mysterious sitting there half-light.
Behind Danno, Katy ran from the diner with her purse full of his money.
“I’m a cop,” the man in the driver’s seat replied. “My name is Nestor,” he said as he leaned into Danno’s line of sight. “Why don’t you hop in here?”
Nestor Chapman was the kind of man who worked extra shifts, washed in a sink and had a natural tan that was carved nicely around his jet black mustache.
“I’m on a break,” Nestor said as he showed Danno his Thermos and homemade sandwiches.
He was young, maybe early forties but wasn’t wearing a uniform.
“Fuck you,” Danno answered and walked the other way.
“You don’t look so good, Mr. Garland. Are you looking after yourself since … you know, Mrs. Garland?”
Nestor opened his car door and stood, leaning on his car roof.
“What’s your deal?” Danno asked as he turned back around.
“I’m a friend of a friend of yours.”
Danno was just trying to figure out if his new admirer was being helpful to be helpful or being helpful to get information.
“And who would that be?” Danno asked.
“Why don’t you get in so I don’t have to do this on the street?” Nestor said.
“Are you arresting me?”
“I’m offering you a sandwich.”
Nestor could see Danno thinking about it.
“I can’t promise the sandwich won’t hurt, but I can say the conversation won’t.”
He could see the doubt in Danno’s face. Nestor suddenly realized how stupid it was to ask Danno to get in a car with a stranger, so he showed him his badge and his most trustworthy face.
“You’re going to have to trust me here for a couple of minutes Danno,” Nestor said as he drove and ate.
“You won’t be offended if I don’t,” Danno answered.
Nestor enjoyed Danno’s response. “No, I don’t suppose I will.”
“Why are you doing this?” Danno asked as they cruised down Empire Boulevard.
“I don’t give a fuck if you make your money from throwing matches. It’s not on my list of the shittiest crimes in this city.”
“One of my guys would murder your whole boxing club,” Danno replied with great offence.
“Alright old man. Whatever you say. I’m just saying. I don’t want nothing from you. I’m not looking for you to tell me anything. Tip me off or anything else.”
“Who’s your friend that’s my friend?” Danno asked after a slight pause.
“Let’s just say that your legal counsel asked me to touch base with you.”
“Troy?”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Nestor replied with a smile. He lit up a cigarette and rolled down the window. “You need to start worrying about your own ass.”
“And why’s that?” Danno asked.
Nestor shook his head. “A US senator gets stabbed on a New York street and a whole lot of lazy, fat captains and police chiefs suddenly get motivated. You were sloppy, Danno.”
“I had nothing to do with it,” he truthfully replied.
Nestor turned his gaze straight ahead and packaged his next sentence as soft as he could. “They have one of your guys who says he’ll talk.”
Danno’s stomach sank even further.
“He’s coming in soon. Sounds like tomorrow night,” Nestor continued.
Danno didn’t react in the slightest.
“I don’t know who it is yet. Only the higher-ups have a name so far.”
Nestor stopped at some traffic lights.
“Let whoever it is come in and waste your time. I have nothing worth talking about,” Danno said as he opened his car door. “And if any of you fucking people want to come arrest me, then you come see me. Until then … ”
Danno left the car and slammed the door and began to walk. Nestor pulled up tight to Danno on the sidewalk and softly said, “When this guy comes and opens his mouth your room to maneuver is gone. If you have anything that you need to clean up or hide away, now is the time.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two years before the murder.
Texas.
“What fucking else even makes sense?” Shane asked the stoic body sitting silently opposite him in the otherwise empty locker room.
Shane, completely naked, ran a long white line into his nostril and side fisted the wall with sheer adrenaline. “The fucking giant across the ring and the arena is full. I bump all over him, making him look like a fucking brick wall. He gets heat on me
. Boom. Boom. … I fucking slide to the corner with my hand up to heaven. He’s fucking got me by my tights and just lifts me off the mat and whack, fucking head-butts me in the back of my head. I fall down like a puppet without strings. The place goes crazy and starts chanting my name.”
Shane breaks from his story only to snort another line. He notices the expressionless face across from him but continues regardless.
“And then he makes a mistake. And I slowly fire everything I have at him. Wham. I hit him in the throat with a closed fist. I hide it from the ref but the people don’t care because I’m the babyface and they’ll let me cheat a little. I fucking chop-block his tree trunk leg and he starts to wobble. And Chrissy, that big giant fuck, is good at selling those too. He’ll make it look like it’s the first time in the world that he’s ever been hit that hard before. And man, I start to feel it. I start to feel the people running through my veins. I hit the ropes and fucking whack that African nog across the throat with a clothesline. I mean stick it to him. And he starts to wave his arms like he’s trying everything he can just to stay standing and I run and hit those motherfucking ropes again and fucking ba-bam him across the throat again. The people can see he’s going and they will me to hit him one last time. Take this big fucker off his feet for the first time in his life. The giant is in shock that he’s even wobbling. Never happened before. And I hit the ropes as hard and as fast as I can and … spadoink… he catches me in the fucking chin with a big boot and I go down like someone in the nosebleed seats just fucking shot me. And I’m lying on my chest hiding my face and I’m thinking. I fucking got you man. I got you fucking marks to cheer and believe that I could win this time and you fucking backed me and I got a fucking boot in the fucking face so fuck you. Miracles don’t happen and giants don’t fucking get taken off their feet. Until the next time I make a comeback and make you think the same thing again. That’s my job, you see? I get them to pay money to see me win. And then fuck them. Hah? And I go to the next town and do it all again.”
The man stood up and slid a small brown bag along the dressing room bench.