Wearing Purple (Oz Blackstone Mystery) Read online

  ‘Why?’ I asked him. ‘You’re one of the very top guys.’

  ‘Don’t like heights,’ he mumbled, sheepishly.

  ‘Oz,’ interrupted Everett, smiling at his friend’s confession, ‘I’ve told Jerry about the barriers. And about you. I know we agreed that it would be our secret, but I couldn’t have stood The Behemoth here finding out and thinking I didn’t trust him.’

  Of course, by that time I was convinced of his innocence too. ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘What do you think of the situation, Jerry?’

  ‘I agree with Ev. It has to be that SoB Reilly. He’s gotta have someone on the inside.’ He looked at me, and I saw for the first time the sharp intelligence in his eyes. ‘You see, Oz, the only people who care about our business enough to try to do us harm, or do us good, are other people in our industry.

  ‘We’re unique. There’s no other branch of sports or entertainment like us.We’ve grown up over the years because we’ve traded on a basic human instinct, lust for violence. A hundred and fifty years ago, folks used to watch executions. Today they come and watch us pretend to kill each other.’ He jerked a thumb towards Daze.

  ‘We’re like elephants, him and me, and I don’t mean in size. We don’t prey on anyone and we don’t have no one prey on us. The GWA is a new young bull elephant among the herd, and CWI is the old bull. Reilly’s out to do us in before we get too strong for him.’

  I tried to push it away, but I couldn’t. A vision of Jerry Gradi servicing a cow elephant came into my mind. I smiled, but managed to stop short of laughing. ‘I see,’ I managed to say, then felt that a slight change of tack was called for.

  ‘What are you going to do about Liam’s championship belt?’ I asked.

  ‘Good question,’ said Everett. ‘We’re having an eliminator tomorrow. Salvatore Scarletto, Johnny King, that is, fights Chris Manson; winner gets a match with Darius for the belt at the pay-per-view.’

  ‘Has Johnny got enough flair for that?’

  Everett nodded approval. ‘Another good question. Yeah, he has. The babes like him well enough, and he has good skills. He’s a coming boy. Not yet, though. He’ll give the Angel a battle, then he’ll go down. Darius is ready to move up; Jerry and I need someone else on the top shelf.’

  He turned to his colleague. ‘So let’s get to it. And Oz, while you’re not announcing you be looking out for trouble. I’m cutting down on the high impact stuff this week and on the props, but I want you to try to spot anything else, anything at all, that might go wrong.’

  ‘What about Rockette’s guitar?’ I asked him, at once. ‘That’s a prop.’

  ‘You’re right, it is: so this is how we handle it. Tommy brings it to the ring as usual, he hands it to you, and when he’s ready, you hand it back to him. That should be okay . . .’ He shot me a grim smile. ‘Unless someone puts a bomb in it, that is.’

  Chapter 16

  I was beginning to feel like a seasoned pro as we did the Friday run-through. None of the wrestlers showed all of their routines, but even the limited moves which they practised were slick, powerful and impressive.

  Whatever my nephew, wee Colin, might have felt about his idol, the Bee-moff, I had my own favourite, and she was Sally Crockett. It struck me, as I watched her rehearse her match with Linda Lashe, a French girl with significant attributes, that pound-for-pound the GWA’s top woman superstar was as fine an athlete as I had ever seen.

  She had speed, she had daring and she had considerable physical strength; on top of all that, it seemed to me with my limited knowledge that she was a pretty good wrestler too. I said as much to Jerry as we stood at ringside, watching her work.

  ‘Yeah, ain’t she just,’ my giant pal murmured. His voice had an odd, dreamy sound, which made me look up at him. He was gazing at the ring with a look of pure adoration, as the GWA World Ladies’ Champion leapt from the top rope, caught her opponent’s head between her feet and flipped her across the ring.

  ‘Here,’ I said. ‘You fancy her, don’t you?’

  He didn’t react at first, then he looked sideways at me. ‘She’s one of the most talented wrestlers I’ve ever seen,’ he answered, well on the defensive.

  ‘Of course she is, but you fancy her as well. Don’t tell me otherwise.’

  The monster’s shoulders seemed to slump. ‘Okay, so I do. A gal like Sally isn’t going to look twice at an ugly lump like me. All I can do is pretend to beat people up. I ain’t no smoothie like that Liam guy.’

  I looked at him incredulously. ‘Matthews! A smoothie? Liam’s as smooth as a porcupine. He thinks he’s God’s gift, but his chat up lines are marginally less sophisticated than “Me Tarzan, you Jane.” Smoothie! Christ, that’s rich.’

  Then the truth hit me, and was out in the same instant. ‘You’re afraid of women, Jerry, aren’t you?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I’m afraid of the power they have.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked him.

  ‘The power to turn you down. The power to reject you.’

  I was amazed by the hidden complexity of my new friend. ‘How many times have you been rejected by women?’ I asked him.

  He shook his head again. ‘Not the point. Anyway, plenty of women come looking for me. You might be surprised but some chicks get the hots for The Behemoth.’

  ‘Yet when The Behemoth sees someone he really likes he’s afraid to do anything about it, in case she turns him down?’

  ‘That’s about it. It happened to me all through High School, and all through College. It’s an old American truth, Oz: the quarter-back gets his choice of the cheerleaders, the defensive line get the broads from the bleachers.’

  ‘Sod that for a game.’ I looked up at the ring, where the Ladies’ Champ had just rolled up Linda Lashe in a difficult move called a small package, for a very neat pin. ‘Hey Sally,’ I called to her, as she stepped through the rope and jumped down to the floor. She waved and headed towards us. As she approached, the big man laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed but, potential broken collar-bone or not, my mind was made up.

  ‘Hi Oz,’ said the Mancunian lass, cheerily. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘My big pal here, Mr Gradi, once he’s finished grinding my shoulder to dust, has something that he wants to say to you. It involves going for dinner to One Devonshire Place tomorrow night, after the show.’

  She looked at me, and gasped, slightly. ‘What was your last stage role, Oz?’ she said in her soft English accent. ‘Cyrano de bloody Bergerac? Let the bloke speak for himself.’ Her gaze swept upwards. ‘You want to take me out, Jerry?’

  Blushing bright red, the man mountain shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘That would be nice,’ he mumbled.

  Sally nodded and smiled. ‘Yes, it would. A table at nine-thirty should give us plenty of time to get there.’ Turning to head for the dressing room, she stopped after a couple of paces, and looked over her shoulder. ‘I thought you were never going to ask,’ she said.

  I watched her as she trotted away from us across the arena, until Jerry’s great paw settled on my shoulder once again, more gently this time. ‘Just as well for you she said yeah,’ he growled. ‘Every so often I get to beat up a ring announcer.’

  He paused, frowning. ‘Where’s One Devonsheer thing?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just off Great Western Road,’ I told him. ‘It has a claim to be the best restaurant in Glasgow. It has a quiet atmosphere: very discreet. Just right for the occasion.’

  The great face fell. ‘If it’s that good, how will I get a table for tomorrow night at this notice?’

  ‘You’ve got one. I had one booked for Jan and me. Use my name and take it over.’

  ‘But won’t Jan kill yah?’

  I thought about that one. ‘No,’ I told him, hoping I was speaking the truth. ‘Jan’s a sport. She’ll be okay when she realises it’s a sacrifice made in a noble cause. Besides, we’ll have plenty more Saturdays in One Devonshire. I’ll take her to the Ubiquitous Chip instead.
She’ll like that just as much.’

  I turned back to look at the ring. Suddenly it seemed smaller, a lot smaller than the twenty feet square which I knew that it was. I had never seen Daze in there before, ready for action in his wrestling gear. He seemed to fill it with his great black towering presence. I glanced across at Tommy Rutherford, aka Rockette, as he stood in the far corner, beyond the referee. I suppose I expected him to look scared, but he didn’t. Like a good pro, there was an expression of confident aggression on his face. He began the sparring by circling Daze, very fast for a man of his size, kicking out at his ankles, calves and the back of his knees.

  ‘You fight a guy much bigger than you,’ Jerry muttered, ‘you gotta try to take him down to the floor, to give yourself a chance.’ As he spoke, Rockette changed those tactics. He was a stocky guy, but he sprang from a standing position to deliver a two-footed drop kick to the centre of Daze’s chest. But as it landed, the big man simply puffed out his torso, and his opponent seemed to be propelled away from him, landing heavily on his back.

  ‘I gotta get into position now,’ said The Behemoth, moving round to the far side of the ring, and leaving me completely focused on Daze as he swung into action. I had never seen anything like it. I had been impressed by Sally Crockett, but the huge Everett was in a class by himself, even though he was simply sketching out his moves rather than slamming through them with full force. He was lightning fast, smooth, supple, and tremendously strong, building the pressure on Rockette so that even in the play-fight the Londoner, a big man in his own right, soon wore a look of genuine desperation.

  And then The Princess made her entrance. ‘Why y’all, Daze,’ she called out as she sidled towards ringside, positioning herself in front of Jerry. ‘Is that the best you can do against a fat little man like him?’ He had been holding his opponent shoulder-high ready for a finishing move, but at her taunt, he simply let him fall to the ring floor.

  In line with the script, he moved slowly across to the ropes as if he was hypnotised; and in his turn, Rockette mimed a scramble across the ring floor, the grabbing of an imaginary guitar, and its swing, to crash against the huge back. Everett shook his head and turned, almost in slow motion. A great arm shot out and seized the other man, then with no apparent effort he picked up the bulky wrestler, turned and threw him casually over the top rope.

  It looked for all the world as if he had simply chucked two hundred and fifty pounds of Tommy Rutherford at his wife. And as Jerry stepped in front of Diane and caught him in mid-air, across his great chest, it looked for all the world as if he was handling nothing heavier than a basketball. He held him there for several seconds, although I noticed that Rockette’s arms were clamped on to his shoulder and back, to spread the weight, then slammed him down into the ringside mat.

  ‘That’s great,’ Everett called down from the ring. ‘Let’s do it again.’ I looked at the Rockette man as he said it, and had to smile. It was clear from his expression that he could live without another flight into the unknown.

  Rehearse they did, though, three more times. Finally, the ringmaster was satisfied that the performance was foolproof, and that Jerry’s dodgy muscle would stand up to the flying wrestler’s bulk. ‘Okay,’ said Daze, as he stepped over the rope and jumped to the floor. ‘That’ll do it for tonight. Dress rehearsal tomorrow midday as usual. Let’s hope this one’s trouble-free.’

  I moved round the ring to join them as they headed for the exit. ‘How’s Liam?’ I asked Diane.

  ‘Chastened,’ she said, with a smile. ‘He may think that he’s a chick magnet, but his mom thinks he’s a little boy. And for the next week at least, she’s in charge.’

  I sneaked a glance at Everett, and saw a very faint smile flicker around the corners of his mouth. Just for a moment, I felt a strange cold tremor, as an obvious possibility finally forced itself into my impressionable brain.

  Chapter 17

  ‘You don’t seriously think that, do you?’ She was standing by our living room window, looking out across the nighttime cityscape.

  I knew from that response that Jan was taking it seriously too. If she’d thought that my proposition was completely daft, she’d have blown me right out of the water, as she had done often enough in the past.

  ‘Why not? For a start, Everett doesn’t like Matthews; he’d fire him if he wasn’t such a bloody good wrestler. You saw yourself how he reacted when Liam and I had our disagreement. On top of that, he’s convinced himself that Diane and the boy are having it off.

  ‘The thing that amazes me is why I didn’t suspect him of rigging the barriers in the first place.’

  She smiled. ‘But you wouldn’t, would you. To use their language, Daze is a face. He’s a hero, and heroes don’t do that sort of thing. You’re part of their world now, you think like them. You even wanted to believe that it could be Jerry Gradi, because he’s a heel.

  ‘Ask yourself this though. Would Everett have been so devious that he staged the two earlier incidents just to cover his plan to get Liam?’

  ‘Maybe those two other episodes were genuine accidents. Maybe he took advantage of them.’

  ‘Why involve you?’

  ‘So that I could volunteer that story to the police investigating Liam’s death . . . if he’d been killed that is.’

  ‘But he wasn’t, and the police aren’t investigating. So why are you still involved?’

  ‘Who decided against calling the police in Newcastle? Everett did. As for me, he could hardly change his new ring announcer after only one week, could he? Anyway, I’m a bloody good ring announcer, I’ll have you know.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, honey, I don’t buy it. Everett just wouldn’t do something like that. He’s too nice a guy.’

  ‘You’d have said that about Prim’s sister’s pal,’ I countered, ‘but he had a damn good go at killing us.’ And then I stopped in my tracks. Neither Prim nor I had ever told anyone the story of what had happened in Geneva.

  ‘What!’ she said, astonished. ‘Miles Grayson? How?’

  I did some fast thinking, and a wave of relief at being off the hook washed over me. ‘Bloody awful driver. Absolutely lethal on those roads up in Argyllshire.’

  ‘Achhh, stop avoiding the argument, Blackstone. What would it have cost Everett in penalties if he had lost last Saturday’s show because of Liam’s accident?’

  ‘A million dollars.’

  ‘Do you think he hates him that much?’

  I must admit she had me there. I argued on for a few minutes more, but eventually I had to agree that I was being paranoid. Everett Davis had too much wrapped up in GWA to risk it all by killing one of his top performers. And yet . . .

  ‘Can I tell you my news now?’ Jan asked.

  ‘Of course, love, sorry.’

  ‘I registered with a doctor today. She checked my blood pressure, heart, blood sugar and everything else she could find. I’m in prime condition, I’m glad to say. She ran a pregnancy test too, just for confirmation, and she gave me a delivery date.’

  ‘You make it sound like he’s coming by DHL.’

  ‘I wish she was! September 20, Oz. Try to keep your diary clear, will you.’

  I took her in my arms. ‘Be sure of it. When do you get issued with your bump?’

  ‘In about three months, I guess. That’s the bit I’m not looking forward to; going through the summer looking like the side of a house, all hot and sticky, and running to the toilet all the time.’

  ‘What, you mean you’ll be peeing for two?’

  ‘Daft bugger! No, when you get really big the baby presses on your bladder. Makes you a bit subject to wind too, so the doctor said.’

  ‘What did she mean by that?’

  ‘Farting, Oz. She said I might, on occasion.’

  I beamed at her. ‘What’s new about that? You’ve been farting in your sleep for years.’

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘No. It’s true; but gently, lady-like.’

  ‘You never said b
efore.’

  ‘I was afraid you’d stop sleeping with me.’ I held her to me, but carefully. ‘Oh God, Janet Blackstone, née More, how I love you.’

  ‘Just as well,’ she whispered, giving me her most delicious grin. ‘Seein’ as how you’ve got me in the club.’

  ‘Come into the kitchen, and I’ll begin to spoil you. I’ll cook dinner. Speaking of which, I’ve booked a table at the Chip for tomorrow.’

  ‘I thought you mentioned One Devonshire,’ said Jan. I nodded, then explained about my match-making enterprise earlier in the day.

  ‘And you gave them our table!’

  ‘Yes, but the Chip’s great too, and it’s lively, and I thought they’d be better somewhere quieter, and so . . .’ I looked at her, uncertainly.

  My wife laughed. ‘I never imagined that when we decided to settle in Glasgow it would be to start a dating agency for bashful wrestlers. What do you think wee Colin would say if he knew that his favourite monster was too shy to do his own chatting up?’

  She followed me into the kitchen, where two steaks lay ready to go on to the griddle which I had heating on the hob, and watched as I dropped them on to its hot non-stick surface, searing them quickly on either side.

  ‘On the subject of dinners,’ she said, ‘I’ve invited Susie and Mike here next Tuesday. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Sure. How did you get on at Gantry’s today?’

  She frowned as I glanced across at her. ‘I’ve finished my analysis of all the pubs,’ she said. ‘It’s almost too good to be true. Some do better than others, but there isn’t one of them that doesn’t give a decent return on investment. I’ve had a few licensed trade clients in my four years as an independent, and the Gantry pubs do better than any of them.’

  ‘So is Susie wrong? Is the business doing as well as it could?’

  ‘No, it’s not. The way that old fool Donn handled the finances of the company was a real buggers’ muddle. He could only have got away with it in a private company. Everything just went into one big pot. There was no divisional structure, no separate VAT accounting, nothing, just localised books kept in each division. They’re what I’m having to take apart.