Cheap Heat, page 10
“So as a PI you’re what, basically a private cop? Do all the same stuff but none of the red tape?”
“Not even close.” This was the last thing I wanted to talk about, but doing so might draw him out on the threats and who might be angry at him. “I don’t do nearly the same kind of stuff, and I have no arrest powers and no right to ruin anyone’s day.”
“That sounds like it kinda sucks, dude.”
“I spend a lot of time following assholes who are cheating on their wives.”
“Kind of a buzzkill. You do any cool stuff as a cop?”
I almost asked what he meant by cool stuff, but I assumed he meant high speed chases, shootouts, drug busts, undercover stings.
“Mostly I asked people for their fishing licenses and wrote tickets if they didn’t have one or it was expired.”
“Fishing licenses?”
“I was Department of Natural Resources Marine Police. Boat cop.”
“Didn’t even know they had those.”
“Maryland’s got a lot of waterway, lot of boaters. Gotta have cops.”
“Huh. Pretty sweet to be out on the water all day, right?”
“For every day on the water I spent at least a day in an office filling out paperwork. And in winter when the waterways become more or less impassable, I spent every day inside. Wasn’t for me.” I hoped my tone told him to stop asking about it.
“Gotcha, gotcha,” he said, his head nodding. Didn’t seem he had at all. I took the initiative when he lapsed into silence.
“So what can you tell me about these threats?”
“Well, Gog forwarded you the emails, right?” He pronounced it with a long o. I wondered how his employer felt about that.
“I got a couple emails, yeah. One had a scan of a letter. The other was just a bunch of links to some comments on message boards and blogs.”
“Those were threats too, man!”
“If everybody who made a threat on a message board was serious, every detective in the world would be working overtime to book them. If there was a pattern of someone on your social media sending you threats, making specific claims, showing knowledge of your work or your home…that’d worry me. That’d be actionable. But a bunch of internet handles on wrestling boards, just saying that they don’t like your character or your style? That’s not a lot to go on.”
“Well, there are the calls.”
“Alright. Tell me about the calls.” I reached into a pocket of my jacket and pulled out my little metal-cased notebook and pen, opened it, got ready.
“The calls come after shows. Always directly to my hotel room.”
“Okay.” I wrote as he spoke. “Go on.”
“They tell me to abandon the character. That it’s offensive to the honor of the south, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, weighting my words with as much scorn as they could hold. “But what do they say?”
“The last one said if I ever do the gimmick in Virginia again, that I should be prepared to pay with my soul. Whatever the hell that means.”
“How do they know to call your hotel room?”
“Look, man, the venues we play, the towns we’re in? It’s not like there’s that many options. Pretty easy to just look and figure out where the bus is parked.”
“Yeah, that narrows it down, but how many rooms does this company book every night? Forty, fifty?”
“Yeah, something like that. So you call the front desk and say you’re ‘Grant’s friend’ and the guy puts you through. It ain’t like A Squad is on duty at 2 a.m.”
“So the calls come at 2 a.m.?”
“I dunno, I just pick up the phone. I don’t put my contacts in to look at the clock.”
I made a note of the contacts. You never knew what might be important later.
“Well, I’m gonna be rooming with you. The phone rings and you are not absolutely expecting a call on the hotel line, I’m answering it. You got me?”
“Absolutely,” he said, “absolutely.”
“Good. Now…these calls, how many have there been?”
“I dunno. Five, six?”
“Always when you’re in Virginia?”
“Maybe in Maryland, too.”
“Okay. Is it always after a show in Virginia? Maybe you performed in Virginia and then drove to Maryland, or even Pennsylvania, overnight, and got the call then?”
“Uh, I dunno. Probably not.”
“So it feels pretty local. How many venues in Virginia have you played?”
“Couple in Richmond, down in Norfolk, Newport News, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg…”
“Okay, so a lot of towns,” I said. “We’ll worry about narrowing it if it happens again. How many dates are scheduled for this run?”
“We got three shows a week right up until Christmas. Couple days off for that back in Dover, then we go on the road again through January.”
“Well, let’s hope your stalker shows himself right away and we wrap this up right quick,” I said. I’d winterized the Belle just in case, and paid Marty through the end of the year for my rental space and the extra we arranged for my hookups, even though I wouldn’t be using them. But who wanted to live out of a gym bag for that long?
“So is there a show tonight?”
“Nah, but there will be a meet and greet at the hall. First night of a tour you don’t get out there and do the whole show. Everybody’s gotta settle in. Maybe we’ll cut some promos for the website, or for tomorrow night…”
“Cut a promo?”
“Talking shit into the camera about the other guy,” Grant interpreted. “Pretty basic stuff, man. Don’t you know anything about pro wrestling?”
“Look, the last time I really paid attention to wrestling, I was a kid and The Rock was just becoming famous for it. I didn’t think much about the terminology.”
“Man, that’s a while ago now. You never kept up with it?”
“I discovered that girls did not, in fact, have cooties. And that lots of research was required to prove it.”
Grant laughed, thankfully. I wasn’t entirely sure how the rest of the bus might have taken that. I’d have to tone that kind of stuff down.
“Bet you were a real slayer…”
“Not so much. Wrestling wasn’t exactly a glory sport in Baltimore prep school circles in my day. If you didn’t play football or lacrosse you might as well play nothing.”
“I hear that. Out in Iowa it’s football, football, football.”
“Let’s get back to the threats,” I said. “Can you remember exactly what’s said?”
“Man, I told you what I can remember.”
“Well, look. Think on it. Think back to the calls you’ve gotten. Think on exactly what is said. How it’s said. What the voice sounds like. Accents. Speech patterns. You never know what might be important.”
“Alright, man. I’ll think on it.”
“You think of any detail, any detail at all, you tell me.”
“Will do.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “Wonder when we’re gonna stop for lunch.”
That seemed to be as much as I could get out of him. Dutifully I opened up the firm’s app on my tablet and started entering the info I had, such as it was.
It turned out that we stopped for lunch pretty quickly, and not all that far from our destination. The bus and the vans pulled into the parking lot of a Denny’s. Fast food restaurant signs were visible down the street.
“I can definitely use a couplea burgers,” Grant said. “What about you?”
I thought about the six jars of almond and peanut butter in my gym bag. “How about Denny’s?” At least in there I could eat eggs and other proteins and live with myself if I didn’t get to a gym. “Their burgers are pretty good.” I couldn’t believe my own lies, but Grant bought it.
“I guess. Can always have ‘em put an egg on top of it.”
* * *
An hour later, full of bitter coffee, overcooked eggs, and greasy bacon, we went through the laborious process of checking into our hotel. When we did, Daphne pressed an envelope of cash into everyone’s hand. Mine held three wrinkled ten dollar bills: my per diem. Every dollar of which I was going to be handing over to the roadies, more than likely. Once I’d let Braddox get thirty bucks out of me and a promise of booze, it was all over. But in the end it’d be a small price to pay to keep It in good condition.
There looked likely to be a lot of standing around here. We stood around in the parking lot after eating. We stood around outside the hotel to get room assignments. We stood around inside to get per diem. I tried to make myself useful, staying glued to Grant’s hip and looking at everyone but him.
I doubted that these threats were coming from any of his fellow performers, or the rest of the folks in the company. But doubt was not investigative certainty, and I figured the first task I had to perform was to rule out everyone that was around Grant.
Hell, I thought. Imagine if this is just a prank by another wrestler that got way out of control.
That idea was appealing. Probably too appealing; it led to a quick resolution and minimized the possibility of any real threat. And thinking of it reminded me that I probably did need to try and interview the other wrestlers. The question there, as I saw it, was whether to go about that quietly or officially. Quietly would take longer but be more reliable. Officially, I could probably knock it out in a couple of days of sitting around a hotel conference room.
But that depended on everyone’s cooperation. And goodwill from management. Based on the looks I’d gotten since I’d arrived—and the fact that no one had sat down to eat with me and Grant—seemed unlikely.
Guess I was doing it the hard way.
Chapter 22
Once we were checked into a big chain motel, Grant didn’t show much motivation to do anything except sit on his double bed and flip channels.
I settled on the other one and tried not to look at the television. I’d lived so long without one that I found the experience of channel flipping dizzying, even nauseating.
“You got any meetings today? Walk-throughs? Story development?”
“Eh, maybe.” He flipped from one sports-related talking-head show to another. It didn’t look like an improvement.
“What do you mean, maybe? Do they give you schedules? Agendas?”
“Probably in my email.”
“Forward it to me, then, would you?”
Reluctantly, Grant tore his eyes from the screen and dug out his phone. After a few seconds of flipping, my own buzzed.
I got out my tablet and popped open his agenda. According to it, he had a call at the arena at 3 p.m., just about ninety minutes from now.
“How early do you need to be at the arena for a 3 p.m. call?”
“They’ll call me here and someone’ll drive me over.”
“Where’s everybody else?”
“Probably either in their rooms, in the hotel gym, or at the arena.”
I decided it probably wasn’t my place to offer any career advice but I imagined that being in the gym or at the arena was the way to get ahead.
“Well, we’re going over there early.”
“How?”
“Walking. How far can it be, a few blocks?”
“Is that safe?”
“You’re supposedly under threat in Virginia, not Maryland. And I want to get the lay of the land if we’re gonna be here for two nights. Come on; get dressed however you need for whatever you’ve got to do there.”
Grant shut off the TV, rolled off the bed, and began rooting around in his suitcase.
“You ever think about getting in the ring?”
“Absolutely the fuck not.”
“You were good, Jack.”
“Yeah, at…” I struggled for words that weren’t ‘real wrestling.’ “At the collegiate, freestyle stuff. Not what you’re doing.”
“It translates, though. Lot of the same movements, same muscle use.”
“I’m not in that kind of shape anymore.”
“Oh, please,” Grant said, as he took off his jeans and replaced them with sweats. “Couple of months in the gym, find the right supps, eat chicken and beans every meal, you’d be ready to go.”
I didn’t ask exactly what the right ‘supps’ were because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like the answer.
“C’mon,” I said, gesturing towards the door after he’d pulled a t-shirt on and grabbed his jacket. “Let’s go.”
Down in the lobby we ran into one of the staff security guys and Daphne. The latter waved Grant over to her, which I quickly realized was a tactic meant to give the security guy some time to talk to me. It was the same guy who’d let me back the night of the show.
He barred my way with a hand planted on my chest. I didn’t much like that, but I also didn’t see any reason to start much of a tussle over it.
“Don’t think I like some rent-a-cop walking around my sets with a gun,” he said.
“Good thing I’m a rent-a-detective, then.”
He sneered at me. “What’s the difference?”
“I’m more expensive.”
“Hah. Hah. You ain’t wearing a piece on my sets.”
I sighed. “What’s your name?”
“Shawn, but you can call me sir.”
“Shawn,” I said, “let me be real clear. I don’t like carrying a gun. But what I like even less is the idea of handing over a gun that’s known to the authorities to be in my possession over to someone I don’t know from Adam. And I’m not about to leave it sitting in a motel room. Safest place for it to be is on my belt, so that’s where it’s gonna stay.”
“We’ll see about that.” I saw that Grant had picked up on whatever kind of pecking order bullshit that was being thrown at me and he quickly stepped over and put a hand between me and Shawn.
“C’mon, boss, leave my man alone,” he said to the security chief. “He’s gotta stay with me.”
Shawn gave Grant a considering eye but then nodded. I brushed past him—gently. I wasn’t particularly interested in starting a fight with anyone, much less someone I would’ve preferred to work with.
On our way out the door, I shot a look at Daphne. “You ever try and separate me from Grant again—even for thirty seconds—and the first goddamn thing I’m doing is calling your boss and becoming the biggest pain in the ass he’s ever had. And believe me, I can be a world class pain in the ass.”
The smirk she’d been wearing turned into a kind of shock. I think that people in the orbit of the DWF did not usually speak harshly to Daphne Stein.
With that, I grabbed Grant and marched him out the front door.
Chapter 23
The walk to the arena was short, but the weather was brisk enough to cool me down. Grant didn’t seem to know what to make of what had gone on, so I took it upon myself to explain.
“Your company’s security guy doesn’t like that I’m here. He wanted to establish an order, see if he could push me around. Daphne maybe put him up to it. If they try it again, I’m gonna have to get loud about it.”
“I wouldn’t, man. Shawn is kind of a scary dude.”
“That so?”
“Yeah. Army Ranger, ex-cop. Says the money’s better in private security.”
“Well, here’s hoping we don’t have to find out what’s what.” I wasn’t too worried. My guess was that Shawn had fewer options and more scruples than I did if it came to some kind of fight. But I still wasn’t looking for one.
The arena turned out to be a pretty nondescript event space—the kind that would host most any kind of mid-sized performance. Anything from ballet to theater to political rallies to, apparently, wrestling. The theater’s sign indicated that DELMARVA WRESTLING FEDERATION was in town for ONE NIGHT ONLY, featuring Derrick Rigg and Spitfire.
From the little I’d seen, those two certainly deserved to be the headliners. Nothing was going on in it tonight. In the central amphitheater it looked like the ring was under construction, with roadies testing the ropes and smacking the canvas.
I followed Grant into the backstage area, where he began exchanging greetings with familiar figures. I saw Blake, wearing a plain gray sweat suit and smelling faintly of Icy Hot.
“You’re here early,” he said, with no small amount of surprise in his voice.
“Yeah, well.” Grant gestured at me.
Blake reached and shook my hand. “Are you here to instill a work ethic in our boy while keeping him safe?”
“Well, life-coaching usually costs extra. But with the right retainer, I can roll it into the standard Elite Protection package.”
Blake snorted. Grant didn’t seem to get the joke, or if he did, he didn’t much like it. His face clouded and he said, “Well, now that I’m here early, what am I gonna do?”
“Stretch,” Blake said, “then get in the ring and we’ll block some stuff out. Practice a little.”
“Fine, fine,” Grant said. “I gotta hit the bathroom.” He looked at me. “You don’t have to follow me there, do ya?”
I sighed. “I should probably stand outside.” I followed him down the hall and so did Blake. When Grant went in and shut the door, I turned to him.
Time to start unofficially questioning the company, I guess.
“Grant not usually one for early work?”
He shrugged. “It’s the boring stuff.”
“Being willing to do the boring stuff is usually what makes someone good at something.”
“No,” he corrected me, “it’s what separates good from great.”
“Fair. So…you heard anything about the threats?”
He shrugged. “I don’t pay attention to anything going on outside the ring. Just here to wrestle.”
“Well, how do folks feel about Grant?”
