Cheap Heat, page 16
What was worse was that there was going to be an autograph lineup after the show, in the lobby of the theater. I was going to have to stay “on” and focused on the crowd for an extra hour for people who’d bought an extra package with their ticket.
Grant once more got huge noise from the crowd. He got better every time they got louder, and this arena—at a small college outside of Richmond—was absolutely rocking.
It was a great show for them; even Blake looked happy about it. I found myself standing behind Grant as he signed autographs, let fans take selfies, and generally hobnobbed with the crowd.
He was good at this, too, at ease and calm and just basking in the adoration.
I was idly scanning the crowd, looking at faces, looking for groups, looking for anything out of place.
Then I saw it. A fleece jacket hung up on a tactical holster hanging on the side of someone’s belt, with a boxy-looking European style handgun in it.
He was in Grant’s line, and he was holding a stack of paper in his hand.
I didn’t hesitate.
“GUN,” I yelled, as I launched myself over the table, bulled past the people in line, and grabbed the guy. I didn’t want to tackle him, send the piece scattering. Who knew if it was on safe or what might happen if he dropped it. But I did get his gun-side arm and twist it up behind his back, walk him over to the nearest wall and strip the gun out of his holster before he could respond.
People screamed and scattered. The papers the man had been holding had fallen out.
The guy I’d pinned against the wall was half my size—in decent shape, but a skinny runner’s body. He had not been expecting me to vault over the table at him, and he was in no way prepared for what happened when someone my size and with my grappling training got that close that fast.
And he was blubbering. Adrenaline was pounding in my ears, so I didn’t really hear much of it, but a few words did sink in.
“…open carry state, man…”
* * *
Luckily, the fan, name of Neil, thought it was kind of awesome that he’d been rousted by his new favorite wrestler’s bodyguard, and agreed not to cause any trouble for me or the company in exchange for free signed photos of all the talent, t-shirts, and tickets to two future shows. All in all the company got off cheap.
I simultaneously felt like an idiot and sort of competent. I had spotted a guy with a gun and subdued him immediately.
This was not, however, something anybody in the company was prepared to let go of any time soon. When I walked past any of them they threw themselves up against the wall, assuming the position, or put their hands up to dramatically signify that they weren’t carrying.
Grant was able to relax and laugh through it all, flying on how well the show had gone for him.
“Man, you’re lucky that guy just wanted some tickets and swag,” he said, sliding onto his bed and picking up the remote.
“Everyone’s lucky I didn’t really hurt him. I’m not sure how I didn’t.”
“You were just doing your job, man.”
“Yeah, well, in open carry states the company needs to start a weapons policy or something,” I said. I sat down on my bed and placed my hands on my knees, firmly, trying to keep them from shaking. A deep well of black exhaustion was opening up underneath me.
“Dude, your arms are shaking.”
“Yeah.”
“You alright?”
“Yeah,” I repeated. “I’m fine. Just an adrenaline spike, you know? I was ready to really throw down with that guy once I saw the gun. And then all this adrenaline’s got nowhere to go.”
“Yeah,” Grant said, nodding as if he understood. “You, uh, is there anything I can.” He paused. “You wanna talk about it or…”
Christ, no. That was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. “I don’t much like hurting people,” I said. “Though the job means sometimes I do. I’m not used to it.”
“You used to hurt people plenty back in the gym, man,” Grant said. “Shit, people hated practicing with you.”
“There’s a reason I quit wrestling, Grant,” I said. The shaking in my arms had subsided and the tiredness was rising up to claim me. I shook my head to clear my vision. “A lot of reasons. You’re gonna stay put if I fall asleep, right?”
“Yeah. Shit, I don’t wanna get my arm dislocated when you throw me up against the wall.”
I looked up sharply. Grant had turned pale and held his hands up. “Sorry, man. Sorry. Just making a joke.”
I didn’t say anything. I kicked off my boots, set the gun in its holster on the nightstand, took off my shirt and jeans, and just went straight to sleep.
Chapter 39
The next day on the bus was all the same kind of jokes, at least for the first hour. It was a long ride, all the way up into Pennsylvania for some shows in and around Reading. Not exactly the Aesir’s home turf, but a hell of a lot closer than I liked. I had emailed Bob and asked if he could give me information on their known clubhouses and the like, hadn’t gotten anything back yet.
As I got on the bus, everyone put their hands up on top of the seats in front of them and stared at me, giggling.
I ignored them, took my seat next to Grant, and tried to get lost in reading. It worked, for a while. Every now and then someone would make some small gibe about checking a passing car for guns, that kind of nonsense.
I was able to tune it out until Daphne came by and nudged my seat with the toe of her boot. I elbowed Grant awake, since she had a business face on.
“Local TV station in PA wants to do a package on you,” she said, pointing at Grant. “Including stuff about the threats, your bodyguard, and so on. Probably worth doing.”
“Oh, hell yeah it is,” Grant said, at almost the same time I said, “Absolutely not.”
“This is going to be a company decision, not a security decision,” Daphne said.
“Well, I’m not going on camera. That’s not in the terms of any agreement you signed with my employer,” I said. I was desperately hoping that was actually true, as I had no idea.
Daphne tapped her finger against her chin. “That’s how we can spin it, then. You can’t appear on camera for security reasons. We’ll give ‘em some of our tape from the shows and cast you as a mystery man.”
“That’s not really going to have the operational security effect I was looking for.”
Daphne shrugged. “Too bad. We own that footage, and you’ve been appearing in front of our cameras for the last week and a half. Stuff’s been uploaded to our YouTube channel, our website. We might even start streaming shows if we can get a sponsor for ‘em.”
“I’m still not talking to local news,” I said. “I won’t be on camera for them. It’s a goddamn security risk for multiple reasons.”
“What,” Daphne said, smiling, “you got enemies, Jack?”
“I might.” My thoughts about wannabe Viking bikers had receded, but every so often I found myself staring hard at a group of bikers through the bus window, looking for the symbols on their cuts.
“Man of mystery spin it is, then,” Daphne said, “for anyone watching local news. But anybody who knows how to use the internet will see your face just fine.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” I said.
* * *
The news crew was waiting at the hotel when we got there, having set up in one of the dingy conference rooms available. I stood around in it while Grant got makeup applied. The producer asked me if I needed any and I had strongly indicated that I would not be appearing on camera so no, it wasn’t necessary.
“Not even in the background, looming a little?”
“No,” I said.
“It would make for a great…”
I didn’t like being rude, but I turned my back to her and walked away. My patience and capacity for being around this many people for this protracted a time period was drawing perilously thin. I was going to get in a real fight with someone, with real consequences, if I didn’t find a way to get my head screwed back on right.
I needed a proper gym, a proper cocktail, a proper bunk, and a date with Geneva Lawton. Not necessarily in that order.
I projected enough anger while Grant was doing his interview that nobody else from the local broadcast team tried to talk to me again. After it was over, Grant shocked me by expressing a desire to work out, so we were off to the hotel fitness center. He engaged in what looked like an exhausting routine with the heaviest dumbbells the room had, then bouts of pushups, and isometric exercises.
He worked up a good sweat, I’d give him that. I sat in a corner and sulked. I hated that I was doing it. I hated being here. I hated myself and this job and everything about it.
“You gonna sit in the corner and sulk, or are you gonna get some work in?”
The fact that even Grant noticed shocked me a little bit out of my stupor.
“I’m not sulking.”
“Yeah, you are,” Grant said, breathing a little hard while doing push-ups. Then he curled his left hand behind his back and kept doing them. “What’s the matter? Angry that I’m getting all the press?”
“I couldn’t care less about that.”
“All could’ve been yours. Shit, man. You could’ve gone to the Olympics. Could’ve been somebody. If you’d cared.” He paused for breath, and switched to one-handed push-ups with his left arm. “As much about wrestling as you did.” He fell to his knees, striving for breath. “About…whatever it is you’re doing right now.”
“You know what, Grant? If you want me to care about what you have to say, my rates are going up.”
He popped back to his feet, sweating and breathing hard. “You think you’re better than me, huh? Well at least I fuckin’ finished what I started. I graduated.”
“Yeah, with a degree in what? Some bullshit so fake they won’t even let you be a P.E. teacher in a middle school in Iowa, of all godsforsaken places.”
“Christ, you’re an asshole,” Grant said, and he strode determinedly out of the gym. I followed him quickly, not letting him outpace me despite the difference in our natural strides. He tried to slam the hotel room door in my face, but I caught it with my boot and kicked it back open.
“Sure, I’m an asshole,” I said as he turned to face me. “But I’m still getting paid to babysit you. So that’s what I’m goddamn well doing.”
Grant just shook his head. “Don’t even need this anymore,” he muttered, as he walked towards his bed. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the drive for confrontation seemed to have gone out of him, so I left it there. I got out my tablet and alternated between mindless surfing and trying to read a book.
His phone buzzed; he flipped on the TV and navigated to a local broadcast, where his segment on the news came up. He didn’t say anything, but he sat up, beaming. An anchor came onscreen, chattering about pro wrestling and death threats.
In the video package that accompanied it, I was clearly visible at ringside, in my suit and vest, looking around the crowd. If you knew what you were looking for, you could see the gun under my jacket.
Then Grant’s face was onscreen, huge and sweating, answering banal questions. Until they asked him point blank if his bodyguard was part of an “angle,” and the interviewer made the air quotes with his fingers.
“Absolutely not,” Grant said, grinning. “Jack Dixon is an old wrestling teammate of mine, a decorated veteran, and a crack private investigator and security guard…”
“Jesus, Grant,” I said, falling back on the pillows of my bed, “what the fuck is that about?”
“Gotta play it up while it’s working,” was all he said.
I tried to ignore the TV for the rest of the night.
Chapter 40
It was a tense day until show time. Grant was pissed at me, and I was pissed at me, and I was pissed at him. It was a real triumph of camaraderie and good feeling.
We made it till that night without talking to one another. Come showtime, we still weren’t talking, but there I was in the room anyway, waiting for him to go on. His match had been pushed back even further, going on just before Rigg and Spitfire. In fact, that morning he’d spent some time working with people other than Blake; it looked like the boy was moving up in the world, or at least the ranks of his regional promotion.
For a moment when I saw Blake watching their training earlier in the day I wondered about bitterness as a motive, but there would’ve been no reason for him to be bitter back at the start of this tour, when Grant was distracted and lazy in the ring.
Hell, if anything, the guy looked proud. He probably should be.
Later that night, in front of a thumping crowd, I watched Grant turn in the performance of the tour so far. He had them in his hands by the time his intro was over. His match with Blake was crisp, clean, and they both sold every bit of it. They both even went off the ropes at one point, something they’d practiced, but hadn’t done before.
Despite myself, and my determination to be angry and hate everything around me—something I was perversely good at—I was impressed. And I was determined to tell Grant and Blake that when we got back.
Grant went straight to his dressing room, and I started to follow him, when one of the stage hands grabbed me.
“Guy here to see you,” he said.
I assumed he meant Grant, and that I should vet him, so I followed him just a few steps away.
When the wheelchair rolled up, I reminded myself to not sound patronizing, and generally not to act like an asshole. That was proving to be difficult for me, lately.
The man in it put his hand out, and I shook it.
“If you wanna see Grant, we can probably do that,” I said, “but it might take a minute. And I’ll need to…search any bags or anything.”
The man in it—he looked about my age, clean shaven, with thick arms and shoulders full of muscle mass and definition, and atrophied legs—chuckled a little.
“Not here to see Grant. Here to see you, Jack.”
Then I looked again, closer, and he held up his all-access pass on its lanyard.
“David Rackham,” I said, as I read the words. “Holy shit.”
“Those aren’t exactly the words I would’ve thought you’d say, but you know…”
“Jesus, David. David Rackham?”
“Last time I checked.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here. Well, not far, anyway.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Well,” David said, staring at me from under his Phillies cap, “you might not be shocked that your name is a little memorable to me. That I notice it if I hear it.”
“Yeah. I guess…you would.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, his voice taking on a little edge. “It’s hard to forget the guy who broke your back.”
I winced. David smiled up at me, but it was, to put it mildly, a sarcastic smile.
“Look, David…can I call you David?”
“Why not.”
“I feel like you and I ought to sit down and…” I stopped, and put my hand over my eyes.
He actually laughed, but it wasn’t a particularly mirthful sound.
“I owe you. Something. A talk, an apology, a…”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “You do.”
“I guess that’s why Grant sent you the tickets. Smarter than I give him credit for,” I muttered.
“Grant?” He dug into a pocket of the fleece jacket that sat over his lap and pulled it out. “No. No Grant. The tickets and passes came from…Troy? With a note to make sure to say hello to you, and how glad he was to see you on TV. They even sent a note addressed to you. I didn’t open it,” he added, as he held out the small envelope.
My heart and stomach couldn’t decide whether to sink to the soles of my shoes or exit through my mouth. My hand was shaking as I reached out to take the card-sized envelope he was holding out to me.
“David, I’m sorry, but I gotta go.” I dug in my pocket and tossed a card at him, then turned and bolted down the corridor.
The door to Grant’s dressing room was hanging wide open and no one was in it. Two chairs were overturned, and a towel lay in the middle of the floor. I looked for the exit signs, followed them down the maze of corridors. I felt a draft.
A black-shirted staffer was slumped against a wall near the emergency exit, which was open—but no alarm was going off. I didn’t see any blood, and he had a regular pulse and shallow breath. Probably had taken a big blow to the head.
I raced outside. In the parking lot, I heard engines revving. I drew my gun as I ran, which did absolutely nothing to calm my nerves or steady my heart. I saw taillights moving under the lamp-posts, and I heard the rumble of bikes as they headed for an exit.
Three of them, around something larger. A van.
Goddamn it. Everything suddenly made sense.
Chapter 41
The first thing I did was call Gen.
“Hey Jack. I was just thinking…”
“Gen. I hate to be rude, but I have to ask you to do something.”
She hesitated. “What?”
“I want you to pack a small bag and go to Dani’s house.”
Her breath caught, but only for a moment. “Why?”
“I’ll explain later. Dani will understand. I promise this will all be okay in a little bit.”
“Jack, I’m not going anywhere till you tell me something.”
“It has to do with the Aesir. I don’t think they know who you are, but I don’t want to risk that.”
“Are they back? In touch with you?”
“Something like that.”
“Why Dani’s house? Why not my parents?”
“Your dad a combat veteran and a martial arts instructor? Because Dani is.”
