Cheap Heat, page 4
“Did they want you to?”
“Recruiters all wanted me to at least try it, ‘cause of the shape I was in, I guess. Division I college wrestler in the middle of his season. I was lucky none of them were college wrestling fans, they didn’t try to talk me out of it. Boot camp was not much of a challenge.”
“Why’d you pick the Navy?”
“I was already in the area I’d go for training. It was the one I could start the soonest, and it meant I didn’t have to come back home.”
She settled back down onto my shoulder but kept her hand on my chest. Her words were muffled, and the way her mouth moved against my chest tickled. I didn’t mind.
“You were good?”
“As a cook or a wrestler?”
“Wrestler.”
“Yep.”
“Not going to elaborate?”
“There’s not much to elaborate on. I was good, from high school on. I started hearing from recruiters and coaches after my sophomore year.”
“And you really walked away from paid-for college right in the middle of it?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
I shook my head, took a slightly deeper breath. “Just…walked away,” I said, a bit of a white lie, also a bit of the truth. “I didn’t want to do it anymore. Couldn’t do it anymore. I never really liked it anyway, and when I got to college they wanted me to wrestle at one-eighty-four.”
“Pounds?” She lifted her head up, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
“Yep.”
“That’s a little skinny for you, isn’t it?”
“Well, I certainly thought so, but that didn’t stop them from pushing me that way. I argued to move up but they always assumed they knew what was best.”
“Did you like the Navy better?”
“Not really, but I liked not having my room and board depending on starving myself and working out all the time. I liked having a job that I got paid for. I guess I liked the idea that I was learning a trade.”
She nodded along, stifled a yawn, and rubbed her head on my shoulder till she found a more comfortable spot. “Anywhere you have to be today?”
“Maybe?”
“Why maybe?”
I sighed. “Funny you should have asked about wrestling…one of my old teammates is in town. With a wrestling promotion, of all things. You know, the pro stuff…”
She leaned up. “What promotion?”
“Uh, Delmarva Wrestling Federation?”
“My dad loves pro wrestling. I used to watch it with him when I was a kid.”
“You want me to call and see if I could get extra tickets? He gave me one, plus a backstage pass. I could probably get a couple more.”
“Could you?”
“Sure. Let me just get my phone.”
Gen bounced out of bed and went to put coffee on. I looked on my phone for the email Grant had sent me. There was no phone number associated, but I mailed back a quick request: Could I bring two more people to the show?
To my surprise, by the time I was sitting in Gen’s kitchen with a cup of coffee, I’d already gotten a reply.
Absolutely. Tickets probably won’t be all seated together. And I really need you to come backstage. Might have work for you. - Grant.
It suddenly dawned on me that I was going to be seeing a teammate I hadn’t seen since I’d walked out on college, meeting Gen’s dad, and trying to work all at once. It was going to be a complicated Saturday night.
Chapter 7
The afternoon became a flurry of activity. I had to ride back to the Belle to change clothes, to the firm to get some intake paperwork in case Grant was serious about hiring me, and ride back up to Delaware. Thankfully the rain had abated but it was still a cold day spent riding, rather than shut away in Gen’s Wilmington apartment like I had hoped.
There were also text messages from my boss, telling me to take a weapon, that I ignored. For all I knew, Grant—or the company—wanted me to find a lost dog, check if a partner was cheating, or do a background check on someone.
It was also possible they wanted me to stand around looking severe and handsome, which I supposed I could also do. Finally, after the third text message imploring me to take some kind of weapon, a ship that had already sailed as the firm and its weapons lockers were far behind me, I listed these reasons to Jason, while pausing in my hasty lunch of an apple, a carrot, and three tablespoons of protein-enhanced almond butter.
Isn’t there an outlaw biker gang that has a mark out on you?
Well, that part was true. I suddenly felt the lack of a holster on my belt. But then, it had been two months, a few members were in custody, and others were dead in the woods somewhere, done in by the locals who resented their encroachment.
In the weeks since I’d witnessed some local boys carry out the rural Maryland version of a gangland execution, I’d started to relax a bit.
I stopped doing that all at once. My shoulders began to itch as I remembered crime scene photos of a man who was probably one of those local boys with ribs cut out and his lungs pulled out over his back.
The Blood Eagle of Viking sagas brought to the twenty-first century. Though not eager to be their next practice case, I couldn’t exactly tell my boss that. I needed to show him confidence, even if I had to do a better job of keeping my guard up.
Been two months. Haven’t heard a peep. They’ve either moved on or been put to bed.
I got no reply, which meant he’d let it go. Then I got back on the road. The entire way back up to Wilmington, I kept a sharp eye out for other bikes. I felt a little itch in the middle of my back every time I saw or heard one, though none of the riders I saw were wearing a cut, much less any Aesir symbols.
* * *
I was back up in the trendy part of Wilmington an hour before the tickets said the doors would open to touch base with Gen and meet her dad. I parked It a few blocks away from her place because I wasn’t sure that announcing my arrival with the rumble of a motorcycle’s engine was really a winning play. I slipped off my gloves and helmet and stopped to adjust my jacket and my shirt at least half a dozen times before I made it into her building and knocked at the door.
She opened it, having changed into a dark t-shirt and black jeans that were tight enough to show off some of the muscle-tone of her legs, tucked into calf boots. She’d put on subtle makeup and just swept her hair back and tucked a simple brown woven band atop her head to keep it in place. I had yet to see Geneva Lawton wear something that didn’t look great on her. I was interested to see how long that trend could continue. I was willing to bet it was an enduring character trait.
She took my hand, smiling, winked, but didn’t lean up to kiss me as she might usually have. She led me into her apartment as her dad was levering himself up from a recliner.
He was a big barrel chested guy—not as tall as me, but not short. Big thick arms and neck, the kind that didn’t have the tone of training, but had plenty of mass from a life of hard work. He had the kind of sun-browned skin that a person gets when their work and their leisure are all outside and probably near the water and they just don’t have the time for a whole lot of sunscreen. He wore a black t-shirt with a faded deco of a bunch of big-name wrestlers of the 1980s, gray cargo shorts, and boots. He was apparently the kind of man who wore shorts unless it was actually snowing.
He shook my hand, firmly, but not in a way that was asking any questions about dominance. His hand was calloused and hard and quite frankly I wasn’t sure who would’ve won a grip contest. I was just as happy not to find out.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Lawton,” I said. “I’m Jack.”
“Call me Bill,” he said, “Mr. Lawton was my grandad.” He had a graying handlebar mustache that had once been blond and a fringe of similarly colored hair around the sides of his head. “Thanks for bringing me along,” he said. “Appreciate it.”
“No problem,” I said, then I stood there awkwardly with helmet and gloves in hands for a moment. “Gen tells me you’re a big wrestling fan.”
“Always was,” he said. “Used to go down to Baltimore or up to Philly when the big shows came to town. Not so much these days since Genny don’t want to come with me anymore,” he said, teasing her, grinning.
She came up to his side and wrapped her arms around one of his. “Well, we can make up for it tonight,” she said.
“Right,” he said. Then he pointed at the helmet I was holding. “What do you ride?”
“Indian Scout,” I said. “Twenty-fifteen.”
He nodded lightly. “We’ll take my truck to the show,” he said. It was not phrased as a question. Gen smiled at me. While it was possible I might need to stay later than they wanted to if there was anything to Grant wanting to hire me, I didn’t think that would be a particularly good argument to pick.
“Of course,” I said with a grin. “No sense taking more than one car over.” I set the helmet and the gloves down on a table and out the door we went.
Chapter 8
Bill’s truck turned out to be one of those semi-extended cab types that pretended to have a backseat but didn’t, really. Gen insisted I take shotgun next to her dad. On the one hand, I wouldn’t have enjoyed cramming myself into the back for even a short trip. On the other hand, I was still meeting a girl’s dad for the first time in more years than I cared to think about, and sitting next to him for a drive was not doing my nerves any good. At least it ought to be a short ride. It was a slow walk out to the truck, though; Mr. Lawton moved with the kind of hunched, slow gait that indicated a life spent bent over, with a shovel or a tool in hand.
“So,” he began, once he’d levered himself into the truck and started it, “Genny tells me you’re a private detective.”
“Yes, sir,” I agreed.
“That like bein’ a cop for hire?”
“Uh, some people would think so, but I don’t.”
“Hrm. Is it like the movies?”
I had no idea what movies he meant. It could’ve been anything from The Big Sleep to The Big Lebowski. Regardless, there was a safe answer.
“Not really sir, no.”
Another considered hrm. “Why don’t be a cop, then?”
“I was,” I said. “Just for a couple of years.”
“Where at? Cecil County?”
“Well, technically all over Maryland. The waterways, anyway. I was Marine Police with the DNR.”
“Damn, boy, you had a job where you got to ride around in a fast little boat all summer and you didn’t keep it?”
Well, Mr. Lawton was certainly familiar with at least the more visible operations of DNR Police. In truth, that was probably the best and most sought-after part of the job. But it wasn’t one I often did. Every cop does paperwork. Every cop answers phones. I had done too much of that.
“That much structure and scheduling wasn’t really for me that soon after the Navy, sir.”
“Ahh, you’re a veteran, too. How many careers you had, Jack?”
“Three I guess, sir.”
“Well, are you stickin’ with this one?”
“Plan to, sir. It seems to be the right meeting of things I can do well and people who can stand me.”
He reached out and poked my arm with one thick finger. It was like being jabbed with a fireplace poker. “Road crews always need a big fella like you, you ever looking for extra work. Don’t have any full-time money just now but we’re always hirin’ part-timers. Good hourly money. Could be $20 an hour after a couplea months.”
“I, uh, have a pretty good hourly rate at Dent-Clark, sir.”
“How much?”
I told him. “Plus expenses.”
He whistled low. “Nevermind then. You keep doing this private stuff. So long as you ain’t getting shot at, anyway.”
“It’s really not like the movies that way, sir.”
“I told you to call me Bill.”
By then we were at the Riverfront, but a line of cars snaked from light to light.
“So, who’s this friend of yours got the tickets?”
“Grant Aronson. I wrestled with him in college.”
“You mean a different kind of wrestling, yeah?”
“Collegiate wrestling in the USA is mostly like freestyle wrestling,” I said. “Which is one of the Olympic kinds. Not like the professional stuff at all.”
“You go to the Olympics?”
“No.”
“Could’ve?”
There was a question I didn’t really want to answer. I resettled in my seat, and some look on my face must’ve spurred Gen into action. She leaned forward between the seats and put a hand on my arm, squeezing.
“That’s probably enough for now, Dad,” she said. “What’s your friend’s wrestling name?”
“Uh, U.S. Grant.”
Her dad laughed. “Oh, he’s an up-and-comer, alright. A heel.”
“A…what?”
“Heel,” Gen repeated for him. “A bad guy. A good guy is a babyface, or a face.”
“Why would U.S. Grant be a bad guy,” I wondered aloud, before I could stop myself.
“Think of the audiences,” Gen muttered, just loud enough for me to hear, before slipping back into her seat.
“Bein’ a heel don’t mean the audience don’t like him,” Bill explained. “When the heel is good at what he does, you just…kinda get caught up in it, ya know? Like you would any movie.”
I really didn’t. But I was schooling myself not to judge, not only because this could be a job opportunity, but because Gen seemed to enjoy it enough to be up on the terminology.
I glanced to the backseat and grinned at her. I couldn’t summon any of my working smiles around her. Not anymore. It was just a normal stupid, dumb-dog-looking grin. One I couldn’t really control or manipulate like I could if I were approaching someone while on the clock. It can’t have been handsome, or even charming.
She smiled back.
Goddamn.
Chapter 9
There were various lines outside the convention center snaking through metal barriers. I only had the one paper ticket; the other two were just so much digital information on my phone.
But I did have that backstage pass, and the first worker I showed it to ushered us straight past the line and into the building. Posters were up on wooden stands inside the lobby advertising various wrestlers with the promotion.
There was a Derrick Rigg—a mustachioed guy wearing a sharp gray suit that looked twenty years out of style, a loud black and gold striped tie, carrying a briefcase cuffed to his arm, and silver-mirrored-aviators. There was a man wearing a martial-arts gi that obscured his features, billed only as The Ninja. The third major billing went to a woman wearing what looked like mechanic’s coveralls, with a wrench on her shoulder: Spitfire. I saw U.S. Grant in a list of names underneath her poster, but no headlines for him. I saw something about a ladder match and a weapons match and I hadn’t the faintest idea what either of those could mean.
I was definitely on uncertain ground. On the other hand, Gen and her dad seemed right at home. “Heard about this girl,” he was saying, pointing at the Spitfire poster.“Real high-flyin’ stuff.”
I looked at Gen. “Means she does aerial stuff, off the top ropes, or higher than that. Acrobatics.”
“Huh. Well, the name would make sense, then.”
Soon enough I found someone readily identifiable as security staff. He was as big as I was, with huge arms stuffed into a black polo shirt that was at least two sizes too small, and he had a headset on and a clipboard in his hands.
I walked over to him and pulled out the pass.
“My name’s Jack Dixon. I was invited here by, uh…U.S. Grant? I’ve got my ID if you need it.”
He held up one finger and went to his clipboard, spoke a few words I didn’t catch into his headset, then looked up at me. “You can come back,” he said. Then he pointed at Gen and her dad. “They can’t.”
I looked at Gen, and then at the security man. “We sure about that?”
“You’re the only one gate listed,” he said. “And I don’t have time to vet anyone else, not when we’re forty minutes from showtime.”
Gen sidled up next to me and squeezed my arm.
“Go,” she said. “It’s work. We’ll be fine.”
“Have fun,” I said.
“We will,” she said, then kissed me on the cheek. I watched until she disappeared into the crowd with her dad.
I followed the security guy back past the front-facing, customer-oriented parts of the convention center. Every event space of any size has a network of tunnels and warrens a Tolkien Dwarf would feel right at home in, I’ve found. No sun, no signs indicating where to go. You either need to know the ground or have the unerring instinct of a born stage manager, security guard, or grifter. The latter helped because usually, somewhere in this kind of space, there are rooms full of food, booze, and possibly drugs. I’ve known people who could find all three from the center of a labyrinth with a blindfold on.
The security guard did not take long to dump me off on someone else, similarly holding a clipboard and wearing a headset, but much more in the ‘backstage manager’ than security vein. He also wore a black polo with the company label, and it was similarly two sizes too small, but it wasn’t deliberately tight over the arms and chest so much as around the middle.
“Glenn,” he said by way of introduction. His hand was sweaty, but I wouldn’t have expected otherwise, since he was sweating from his ponytail to the back of his shirt. “Follow me.”
Glen made pretty fast time. I had to stride quickly to keep up. He led me to a door, knocking and opening it one swift, practiced motion.
