Wearing Purple

Chapter 19

It took longer than five minutes for him to get round to me, but when he did, he was not pleased.

‘Look man, I’ve never held one of those spoof guitars,’ I protested, as he glowered at me in the small office. ‘I’ve never held any sort of a bloody guitar. I’d barely know a Gibson from a glockenspiel.’

‘Christ, Oz,’ he bellowed, ‘the prop is made from balsa!’

‘Yes, but it’s varnished so that it looks pretty much like the real thing, so if you don’t know what it should weigh. . Everett, I took the guitar that Tommy handed me, as instructed, and I never let go of it, as instructed, until I handed it back to him. I’m sorry you’ve got a lump on your head, but like they said at Nuremberg, “I was only obeying orders”.’

My protest of innocence seemed to be working, for his expression softened a little. ‘I take it that Rockette knew it was a real guitar,’ I said.

‘Oh yeah,’ Everett muttered. ‘He knew all right.’

‘So he’s the saboteur? Did Reilly promise him a deal, or what?’

He shook his head, frowning. ‘It’s not that easy. The bum has nothing to do with Reilly, and he had nothing to do with the earlier stuff. Once he came round, Jerry had a talk with him, in private. The Behemoth can be very persuasive, and he was in a hurry for some reason he wouldn’t tell me, so he didn’t mess around.

‘Tommy realised very quickly that he either ’fessed up there, or wound up in a hospital ward. He told Jerry that this stunt of his was strictly personal. Essentially, the Rockette character is a jobber at the top level, but Mr Rutherford has a big ego. He thinks he should be a mainliner, one of the guys who gets to wear the gold.

‘He told Jerry straight out that he should have been going in with the Angel for the Transcontinental belt. And he said that when I gave the shot to Scarletto instead, he didn’t like it at all. He tried to make out that the thing was almost an accident, though. Said to Jerry that he picked up the wrong guitar in the dressing room, and that he was on his way to the ring when he realised it. Said that he almost went back to change it, but he was so pissed at me that he decided to give me a whack with the real thing.

‘Of course, I don’t believe that for a minute. He decided right back in the dressing room.’ Everett rubbed the back of his head. ‘Son of a bitch knew exactly which guitar he was picking up.’

‘Why did he have a real one anyway?’

For the first time since, still in his ring gear, he had marched me into the small room and in the process had given me claustrophobia, Everett smiled. ‘The guy can play it for real, and he thinks he can sing. So every so often, like tonight, we let him go outside and warm up the crowds while they’re waiting for the doors to open.’

‘That was some shot he caught you with the thing. Are you okay?’

Daze grinned again. ‘Thing you gotta learn about me, little buddy. I really am as tough as I look.’

‘So is that the end of Rockette?’ I asked him. ‘Have you fired him?’

The big man stretched himself, his head almost touching the ceiling. ‘I can’t afford to, Oz. With Liam out of action, and Dave Manson, the roster’s depleted enough. I need the bum.’ He held up his huge right hand. ‘So I put the fear of God in him with this — and with the threat of another chat with Jerry.’ As he spoke he extended his left hand, palm up. ‘At the same time with this, I gave him an incentive. I told him I’d put him in a tag team with Chris Manson and give them a shot at that title, against the Choirboys.

‘But no more guitars. Phoney or real, they’re out from now on.’