Wearing Purple ob-3 Read online

  Wearing Purple

  ( Oz Blackstone - 3 )

  Quintin Jardine

  Quintin Jardine

  Wearing Purple

  Prologue

  It took us by surprise, when we sat down and talked about it. Sure, we loved each other dearly, sure we had enjoyed a few delicious, exhilarating, dangerous months together. On top of that, we really liked each other. But when I climbed back up from my nocturnal walk along the beach, when she and I sat on the starlit terrace, we both knew that the time had come to face the truth.

  She didn’t want to grow old with me, nor I with her.

  How we did it, I’ll never know for sure, although maybe sincerity and honesty helped. There was no blame, there were no recriminations; I won’t pretend that there weren’t any tears, but they were the friendly sort, rather than bitter. The finest achievement of our relationship, I remember telling myself as I drove across the border, may have been the fact that we were able to end it with smiles on our faces.

  So I headed north in the Ozmobile, going back to the girl I should never have left, going back to fall at her feet, to make her mine, to become hers, to live happily ever after. . But then I always was a naive lad.

  Chapter 1

  He loomed in the doorway. The verb really doesn’t do justice to the experience, but it’s the best I have in my vocabulary. Maybe if I add another couple of ‘o’s, you might get the picture.

  Apart from a patch of carpet, all I could see as I opened the door was him. He filled the entire frame, a great dark shape in what had to be a tailor-made suit, with crinkly, close-cropped hair and designer glasses.

  ‘Mr Blackstone?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s me. But call me Oz. You’ll be Mr Davis.’

  He extended an enormous hand, on the end of an arm like a medium-sized tree-trunk. ‘Yeah, I’m Everett Davis. I wasn’t sure I got the right apartment. The floors are confusing in this building.’ His voice rumbled up as if from the foot of a very deep well. It was as dark as he was, but soft too, like treacle.

  ‘Come in,’ I said, standing aside as I opened the door wider. I had been transcribing a statement for a client, but it was nothing that couldn’t wait. Anyway, he had called to ask if he could come to see me. ‘It’s the glass door to the left, at the end of the hall.’ He had to duck under the lintel, and step in sideways. Inside the flat he looked even bigger. I guessed that he was at least seven feet tall: and as for his weight. . I felt a cold shiver run down my back as I thought of our new furniture.

  Fortunately we had gone for heavy, wooden-framed leather sofas rather than armchairs. Still, I watched nervously as my visitor lowered himself onto the two seater. . at least that’s what it is for most people. . but its joints were up to the challenge.

  ‘Can I get you a coffee?’ I asked, wondering if we had a mug big enough for him to hold comfortably.

  ‘No thanks, man. I don’t touch that stuff. Mineral water would be okay though.’

  All we had in the fridge was an unopened 1.5 litre bottle of AquaPura. I rattled some ice into a tall glass, filled it to the top and took it through to him, together with what was left. ‘Just help yourself as you like.’ He smiled and nodded his thanks.

  ‘So, Mr Davis, what can I do for you?’

  The black giant looked at me. ‘You really don’t know who I am, do you?’ I imagined that I detected an edge of hurt in his voice. I hoped that the water tasted fresh.

  ‘I’ve been abroad for a while,’ I offered, lamely. ‘My wife and I have only just settled down in Glasgow.’

  ‘Don’t apologise, man,’ he said, easily. ‘I kinda like it when someone treats me like an ordinary Joe. Most times, people make me feel like a freak.

  ‘I’m involved in the sports entertainment industry. I have a professional identity, a kinda alter ego. They call me Daze.’

  I gulped in air and looked at him. A wrestler, for God’s sake, the guy was a bloody wrestler! And then I looked at him again.

  It must have been the suit that had thrown me: that and the gold-framed glasses. The last time I had seen Mr Everett Davis he had been wearing a flaming red cat-suit and had been dropping an almost equally enormous white man on his head. It was on Boxing Day, in Anstruther, part of some live grapplefest that Jonathan and Colin, my nephews, had been watching on satellite television. My dad and I would have ignored it ourselves, you understand, but it was on, so we sat down with them.

  There had been all shapes and sizes in action that day, fat men and musclemen, bruisers and athletes, heroes and villains, predictable winners and professional losers. My dad and I, being men of the world, knew of course that it was all rehearsed, but that didn’t keep us off the edge of our seats from time to time.

  As I gazed at the giant on my sofa, I remembered the boys’ excitement as his entry music had begun to play, and as the huge figure had sauntered down the ramp towards the ring, a flamboyant red cape over his ring costume. He had been wearing a big gold championship belt around his waist, and he had been accompanied by his ‘manager’, a scrawny white guy wearing glasses and the loudest jacket I’d ever seen on anyone, other than a professional footballer. What a show he and his opponent, the Mastodon, or some such name, had put on; they had seemed to knock seven different colours of shit out of each other for almost half an hour. Finally the giant had decked the other fellow with a flying drop-kick from the top rope, had picked him off the floor bodily and had despatched him with the aforementioned dropping-on-head move before pinning his shoulders for the three-count.

  And then my sister Ellie had come in. ‘What have I told you boys about watching that rubbish! And you two,’ she had yelled at us, ‘encouraging them. You should be ashamed of yourselves.’

  Reproved, my dad and I had slunk off to the pub. I hadn’t thought of Daze again until the moment he made my sofa look inadequate.

  ‘So how can I help you, Mr Davis?’ I asked him lamely. ‘You weren’t really specific when you phoned. Other than saying that you had a problem.’

  ‘Call me Everett, please,’ he replied. ‘A guy I know said I should talk to you. His name’s Greg McPhillips: he’s my lawyer.’

  I nodded. I’d known the boy Greg for quite a few years, and done a lot of work for his firm. Now I was back in business, a lot more was rolling in from that direction; but normally I went to see his clients, to take formal statements from them. It was unusual for him to send them to see me, and I wasn’t sure that I appreciated it.

  ‘What’s the problem? Matrimonial?’

  He laughed, but in an odd way that I couldn’t fathom. ‘Hell no!’ Then the smile disappeared: he looked at me with a curious helplessness written on his huge face.

  ‘My problem, Oz, is that someone’s out to get me. And I’m scared.’

  All I could think of, as I stared back at him, was what Jonathan and Colin would have thought if they had heard him. I could see their childish illusions shattered by those few simple words. For a few seconds I was sorry for him, until common sense took over; that and a feeling I knew from the past, the kind that comes over you when you know that you’re in danger of stepping in way over your head.

  ‘Everett,’ I said, very sincerely, ‘anyone who scares you is going to bloody well terrify me. What do you expect me to do?’

  ‘I’d like you to find out who it is.’

  I smiled at the mountain on our sofa. . apologetically, I hoped. ‘Look,’ I tried to explain, ‘I don’t really do that sort of work. I’m a Private Enquiry Agent, not a Private Eye. I work mostly for lawyers, taking statements from people, and stuff like that. I’m a bore, really.’

  ‘That’s not what Greg told me,’ the wrestler rumbled. ‘He said he’d recommended you once to a stockbroker buddy of his a
nd that you’d handled a pretty delicate job for him. Yeah, and he said too that you were into that line of work over in Spain. He said that once you fasten your teeth into something you never let it go ’til it’s all chewed up.’

  I’ll fasten my pearly white teeth into Greg, I thought. But he had probably reckoned that he was doing me a favour; also this colossus was a client of his, after all. I decided to talk Daze out of my life, politely, of course.

  ‘Well,’ I bullshat, ‘the Spanish operation was more business-focused, I’ll grant you, but that really had more to do with my former partner. One of the reasons I came back to Scotland was to get back to basics; to get away from all the excitement and do the things I do best.

  ‘Quite frankly, I can think of a few thousand people who are better equipped than me to handle your problem.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Like who?’

  ‘Like the police for a start.’

  Everett Davis sat forward on the sofa, which for the first time creaked quietly in protest. He jabbed our inlaid coffee table with a thick, baton-like finger; I’ll swear it bent a little. ‘Absolutely not,’ he rumbled. ‘This is not for the cops.’

  ‘Okay, then there are real detective agencies.’

  ‘All of which are staffed by ex-cops. I need discretion, Oz, and that’s why Greg sent me to you. He said you might not be no secret agent, but you’re very private.’

  Now I didn’t know whether or not to feel slighted by my friend, as well as mad at him for putting me on the spot with this humongous geezer. Then I thought about all the day-today business he had given me over the years, and about the rest that would come in the future.

  I decided to bend a little. ‘Fair enough, Everett,’ I said. ‘Tell me about it. . after you’ve promised me that you don’t expect me to do or cover up anything illegal.’

  The big man smiled. ‘You got my word on that, man.’ He poured himself some more mineral water, then leaned back again on the sofa: more gently this time.

  ‘Let me give you some background on our industry, just for openers. Pro wrestling has been around in the US for decades-’

  ‘Here too,’ I interrupted. ‘When I was a very small kid, I remember this huge guy on television called Big Daddy…’

  Everett nodded. ‘Yeah, his real name was Shirley Crabtree. He was wrestling in the UK. When he started to get old, your television stations just lost interest in the whole business. The sport was never such a one-man band in the States though. Back in the fifties and sixties, we had guys like Lou Thesz, Gorgeous George Zaharias, Fred Blassie, Antonino Rocca, Killer Kowalski, Gorilla Monsoon. .’ A look of reverence came into his eyes. For a second I thought the designer specs were going to mist over.

  ‘They were big stars, heroes, all of them. They could sell out Madison Square Garden, and they had a television following too. But they’re all legends now, and when they started to fade, so for a while did people’s interest. The game kept going though, and gradually new guys appeared, like Dory Funk Junior, Pat Patterson, Roddy Piper, Ric Flair, Bret Hart, Hogan. .’ He paused, as the awe returned. ‘. . and of course, Andre the Giant.’

  I nodded. Even I’d heard of Andre the Giant.

  ‘The way it worked out, these guys carried things through its tough period, right up to the time when television began to expand, and cable took over in the States. Pro wrestling went with it, only it sort of repackaged itself, and called itself “sports entertainment”. Some of the promoters were afraid of that, since it was a tacit admission that not everything is spontaneous. But it works.

  ‘Now we build in story-lines, we have feuds between performers, factions even, we hype the whole thing up for the audiences and they love it. We ain’t just wrestlers any more; they call us. . hell, we call ourselves. . superstars. ’

  The big man had my full attention now. ‘How did you get into the business?’ I asked him.

  ‘I wrestled at college; on the mat, for real. I was National Inter-Collegiate Champion two years running. At the start I boxed too. Might have made the Olympic team in Korea, but they found a weakness in my left eye. It meant I’d never have got a pro licence, anywhere, so I quit, and concentrated on the mat instead.’ He grinned. ‘Pity. I’d have made it as a fighter, and the money’s bigger.’

  He poured himself some more water, emptying the bottle in the process. ‘Not that the dough’s bad in rasslin’, though. I went pro with what was then the second of the big organisations in the States, Wrestling World Wide. I was Triple W’s big new star, the start of their attack on the top dog in the business, Championship Wrestling Incorporated. I signed a three year contract for one and a half million dollars. Man, was I an innocent!’

  ‘Why?’ I asked him. ‘Could you have got more?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not then. College wrestlers weren’t the only guys they were signing. Some ex-footballers used, and still use, sports entertainment as a way of extending their careers. No, that’s not what I meant. I was naive because I had no idea how the industry worked. I didn’t wrestle for four months after they signed me. They began by christening me Diamond. Then they had me play the part of a bodyguard to one of the established guys, watching his back when he was in the ring, beating up his opponents while he distracted the referee.

  ‘All that time I was in the gym, building my muscles and learning pro moves, the kind that just don’t feature in college wrestling.’ He made a huge, lightning fast sweeping move with his right arm. It made me wince. ‘The Lariat, like that. Then there was the fisherman’s suplex, DDT, bodyslam, piledriver; all that stuff. I was also learning how to control my hits and how to absorb: those are the core skills of sports entertainment.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  He looked at me as if he thought I was daft. I suppose I was. ‘Oz, I weigh three sixty-five pounds. I hit you properly, you dead. Jerry Gradi, the Behemoth, he weighs three eighty; he hits me and I don’t handle him properly, I’m out of it. Sports entertainment is all about knock down, drag out brawls. If we didn’t master those core skills, our matches would be over in a couple of minutes, and a lot of people would be crippled; some killed, maybe.’ He finished the water and glanced at me hopefully.

  ‘Milk?’ I ventured. He grinned. I went off to the kitchen and came back with a pint glass and a full two-litre container.

  ‘Anyhow,’ he continued eventually, an empty glass in his hand and a very thin milky moustache on his top lip, ‘eventually I got to take off the bodyguard suit and wrestle. That was when my boss told me that Diamond was a heel.’

  ‘A what?’

  Everett laughed. ‘A heel; a bad guy. Trade terminology. There’s two sorts of pro wrestler; the heels are the villains, and the faces are the good guys. It’s so the marks. . they’re the fans. . know who to cheer for, and who to boo.’

  ‘And the good guys always win?’

  ‘Hell no! More often than not they get the shit kicked out of them. When Diamond came into the ring, he. . I. . carved my way through all the good guys. For a while, I was undefeated, and after six months they put me in a title match with the top man in the organisation, at one of the big feature events.’ He caught yet another puzzled look and explained.

  ‘That’s the way the industry works. They build up the feuds between performers, tag-teams and factions, then every so often, half a dozen times each year there’s a feature event where they all come to a head. In the States, they’re mostly pay-per-view, on cable, at thirty-five bucks per head. . that’s where the real dough is made these days.’ He switched back to his story.

  ‘So there I am, Diamond, this big menacing guy who’s cleaned up everything in his path, ready to take the title. Man, I really took it personally when they told me I’d have to job.’

  ‘Job?’ The guy’s terminology was as clear to me as Gaelic.

  ‘Lose, man,’ he said patiently. ‘There are the rasslers like I am today, who hardly ever get beat, other than by disqualification, then there are the rest, the majority, the journeymen, who do. In
the business, they’re called jobbers. In practice a lot of them have all the skills, but they don’t have the personality, the looks or the articulacy you need to really hype up a feud.

  ‘As a newcomer, in my first really big match, I had to job. It was in my contract. I beat up the champ, he beat me up, I beat him up again, until finally he got me in his figure-four leg lock, and I tapped out.’ He beat me to the question. ‘Submitted man; I quit.’

  Everett whistled, a soft sound for him. ‘I’ll never forget that moment, when they rang the bell. I’d never lost in my life before, anywhere, yet here I was tapping out to a forty-one-year-old guy I could have thrown from mid-ring into the third row. That’s when I learned what makes pro wrestling great.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ I asked him, fascinated.

  ‘Tradition, Oz. Our game is a form of performance art, a form of dance, if you like. That old champ and I rehearsed our match until we were move-perfect, and together we put on a great show. I lay there on that mat, my leg not so much as aching from the finishing hold, and I realised that although they didn’t know it, the marks were cheering for us both. It might not look it, but pro wrestlers are team players. We rely on each other for our physical safety and for our creative performance, and our overriding tradition is that no one is as big as the organisation of which he’s a part. . or should attempt to be, ever. When it’s your turn to lose, you do it with class, and skill.

  ‘Six months later, the old champ and I had a rematch, and I won the belt. A year later, he took it back, when he hit me with a chair while his manager argued with the referee. Finally, in the last year of my contract, I beat him twice in succession.’

  The one-time Diamond chuckled. ‘I was still a heel, though. Until contract renewal came up, that is. By the time it did, Championship Wrestling Incorporated had made me an offer. They were showing me big dough. No way I’d ever have gone there, for reasons of my own, but it did waken me up to how much I was worth.