Wearing Purple

Chapter 22

‘I try to run this company on a tight budget,’ said Everett, almost mournfully, as we sat in his office looking at a pile of mobile phone bills. We were virtually alone in the headquarters unit. Monday was a day of rest for most of the crew.

‘If there was an alternative to these goddamned expensive things, I would take it. They just eat up money, especially when the guys use them around Europe.’

‘Do they all have company phones?’ I asked him.

‘Diane and I share a hand phone, and I have one wired into my car,’ he replied. ‘Jerry has one that fits into an adaptor in the BattleBus. Barbara has one because she travels a lot, I gave one to Darius, because his father is sick in Germany and likes to be able to talk to him, and to Liam, because he found out that Darius had one. Then there’s Sonny’s.

‘Those are just the company phones of course. Quite a few of the roster have their own. I’ve seen Sally Crockett using one, for example.’ He paused. ‘Say, what’s with her? She’s a happy kid normally, but yesterday I thought she was going to burst into song.’

‘Sounds to me like there’s a man involved,’ I said. What I didn’t say was that when the cast had gathered at the SECC twenty-four hours earlier to shoot the action for the Monday night programme, I had seen Sally and Jerry arriving together in the BattleBus. They looked as if they had enjoyed their first date.

Everett frowned. ‘As long as he doesn’t take her mind off the job. I’ve never seen a woman worker who gets as big a pop from the crowd as she does.’

‘I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of that happening. I’ve been talking to Sally; she’s one hundred per cent committed to the GWA.’

I pointed to the pile of papers on the desk. ‘What have we got here?’

‘These are the itemised mobile accounts for the last six months. I pulled everyone’s account; Sonny Leonard’s bills are in here somewhere. His number’s 0735 951775.’

I picked up the invoices and began to go through them; they were all in the name of the company and differentiated only by the line number. I sorted through them and separated them out into seven lots, six bills to each, and handed one to Everett. ‘These are Sonny Leonard’s.’

We each pulled up chairs and sat on the visitor side of the CEO’s glass-topped table. I felt as if I was Gulliver, in that place he went to after Lilliput. Everett gave me back three of the invoices. ‘You go through these; I’ll look at the rest. Let’s see what we get.’

I took out a pen and looked at the first invoice. In the course of the month Leonard had made around fifty calls. Most were to the GWA number, from different locations around Europe according to the dial codes shown.

‘Where’s CWI based?’ I asked.

‘Philadelphia, PA, City of Brotherly Love. The city code is 215.’

There was one call to the US shown on the first bill, to number 00 1 314 732 6578. ‘Everett,’ I said. ‘Can you remember where Leonard comes from?’

‘Yeah. He’s from St Louis, Missouri. I believe his mom still lives there.’ I reached across, picked up the telephone directory which was lying on the glass table, and flicked my way to the international codes section. The city code for St Louis Missouri, showed as 314.

I looked at the second bill, which was five months old. Again, most of the calls were to the GWA headquarters, and to other Glasgow numbers. Again, there was one call to the St Louis number. ‘It looks like he calls his folks, once a month, on the company phone.’

‘Can’t object to that,’ the big man drawled. ‘I call mine once a week.’

I looked at the third invoice, a month more recent. The St Louis number was there again. I had almost finished my check when I looked back at one of the numbers. The national exit code, which I had passed by at first, came back to me. ‘Why would Sonny be in Spain four months ago?’

‘He did an advance trip to check out the Barcelona venue. Why?’

‘Because he made a call from Spain to a US number. 00 1 215 671 4307. What’s the CWI number?’

‘Dunno,’ said Daze, in a voice like ice. ‘But three months ago he made three calls to that number. Two months ago, he made five. Last month he made seven.’

He stood, towering above me and walked round to the speaker phone on the desk. I watched him, as he punched in thirteen numbers; 0-0-1-2-1-5-6-7-1-4-3-0-7. As he hit each button a tone sounded from the speaker, each one singing into the silent room. After a few seconds the phone began to ring; one, two, three, four times.

After the fourth ring, there was a click, and a sunny, ‘Have a nice day’, female voice came on the line. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘You’re connected to the offices of Championship Wrestling Incorporated, the world’s premier Sports Entertainment company.We open for business at eight am, Eastern Standard Time, but you can leave a message now, if you wish. Please speak after the tone. . and have a nice day.’

Before the message tape could start to run, Everett punched the cut-off button with a huge finger. ‘Son of a bitch!’ he hissed.

‘Aye, and a stupid son of a bitch too, not to know that all calls from a mobile are itemised on the bill.’

‘Let’s see if someone else is a stupid SoB.’ He leaned across the table, scanned the piles of invoices, then picked up another. I didn’t need to ask; I knew that they were for Liam’s phone.

‘For fuck’s sake, Everett! You don’t need to do that.’

He ignored me and went straight to the third invoice from the top. ‘There! Look at that!’ he called out, pointing. ‘November 14, I was in Frankfurt, he called our number from his mobile, seven thirty. I called later from my hotel, Diane wasn’t home; I got that smug woman’s voice on the answer service. I called Liam after that; made up a story about something I had to say to him. He picked up the phone all right. I’ll bet she was with him.’

I tried to keep an even tone, and not to laugh at him. That wouldn’t have been wise. ‘And I’ll bet that Liam got the answering service too, when he called. Did you ask Diane where she was?’

‘Yeah, she said she went to a movie.’

‘So believe her. She’s your wife; you owe her that.’

‘She’s my wife, but she don’t want my kids.’

‘Yet, Everett. From what you’ve told me, she doesn’t want them yet.’

‘Why’d the son of a bitch phone her?’

‘For some innocent reason, for sure. He wasn’t at home when he called her, or he wouldn’t have used his hand-phone. Maybe he thought she’d like company for dinner. Listen — your conspiracy theory’s gone by the board. Diane can’t be sabotaging the company so that she can deliver Liam and herself to Tony Reilly. Liam’s accident knocked that daft idea on the head.’

‘Don’t mean they ain’t having an affair though.’

Finally I lost patience with the poor, insecure, big sod. ‘No,’ I barked at him, ‘but it doesn’t mean that they are! You’ve got nothing more than unfounded suspicion; no evidence at all. Concentrate on the proof you do have, that Sonny Leonard is in regular contact with CWI head office. What are you going to do about that?’

Everett slumped into his chair, his chin resting on his chest, and sat silent for a full minute. ‘I’m going to watch the bastard in Barcelona next weekend, like a hawk; and so are you. If he steps one foot out of line, I’m going to break his back and send him home to Tony Reilly in a wheelchair.’

I looked at him and I was scared. Sure I’d heard him make a physical threat before, after my altercation with Matthews in Newcastle. But that had been said to frighten Liam, and to embarrass him before the team. This time there was a cold anger about him which made me worry that he might do exactly what he said.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said quietly. ‘You hurt this guy, and they’ve won, because you’ll be in the wrong. You’ll wind up in the courts, and that will be the end of your career and of the GWA. If we establish for sure that Leonard is Reilly’s plant, that’s the point at which we talk to Mike Dylan.’

He glared at me. ‘I told you. I can’t have cops in this. The publicity could ruin me.’

‘No, Everett. This is British law we’re talking about. As soon as someone is charged, whether it’s in Scotland or England, their case is sub judice. There can be no publicity until it comes to court. When it does — and if it’s in England, that could be a year away — chances are Leonard will plead guilty: even if they don’t extradite Reilly, and he isn’t in the dock himself, no way will he allow the story to be dragged out in open court.

‘Go with me on this. When we have hard evidence, we take it to Dylan.’

His sigh could have blown out all the candles on a centenarian’s birthday cake. And then he smiled. ‘You’re a persuasive SoB yourself, Blackstone. I’ll think about it. But that’s as much as I’ll promise for now.

‘See you on the flight to Barcelona.’