Wearing Purple

Chapter 44

Everett was waiting at the International Arrivals gateway at Manchester Airport when the flight came in, just before eleven pm, BST. I was still preoccupied with my dream on the aircraft, but he took it for jet lag.

His Range Rover was in the short-term car park, which was almost part of the terminal. He handed me a copy of the Saturday BattleGround running order. I glanced down it and noticed that Darius was in action in the opening match against Le Baron, a French jobber, then was surprised to see Daze in the middle of the order, against Cyclops; Al Hendrix, the import from Japan.

‘He’s going straight in against you?’ I said.

‘Yeah. We’ve been running promos on him all through this week’s programming. He’s costing enough so I’m gonna get full value out of him. We’ll run a little play where I’m supposed to be fighting Axel Rodd. . that’s Max Schwartz, remember. . till Al takes him out and goes at it with me. We’ll play it even, until we’re interrupted by Liam.’

‘Is Matthews going to be fit for the pay-per-view?’ I asked him.

‘Yeah, he’s okay. The doctor signed him off on Wednesday, and he’s back doing full gym work, with high impact manoeuvres. He and I have even done a run-through of our match for next Wednesday. It’s going to be good; the guy’s fast, very fast. I could be wrong but his attitude seems a bit different since his accident; a little less arrogant, maybe.’

I smiled at him. ‘Does that mean you’re beginning to give up your theory about him and Diane?’

Everett grunted. ‘Yeah, I guess you were right about that. He couldn’t be that stupid. Anyway, if Diane was going to play around, I don’t reckon he’d be her type.’

‘What’s her type, then?’

He grinned at me, sheepishly as he fitted himself into the Range Rover. ‘I guess I am.’

‘So,’ I asked him, as he drove out of the park, ‘am I back on watcher duty for this weekend?’

‘Yeah, you sure are, now that Leonard’s in the clear.’ His grin returned. ‘Hell, I must have scared him, looking at him out of that ring, mustn’t I. Scared him outta town and outta the goddamn country! I suppose I better send him a severance payment after all.’

‘Funny, he never mentioned that. He’s got himself a job anyway, as road crew foreman with a touring rock band. Sandy’s on the team too, in charge of catering.’

The big fellow laughed. ‘From what I remember of the kid, I hope the guys like steak. Enthusiastic but limited just about sums her up.’

I unzipped my flight bag and took out the CWI brochure which Sandy had given me. ‘You never told me Reilly was black, Everett,’ I said.

He looked at me, taken aback. ‘Fucking honky,’ he said eventually, with an attempt at a grin. ‘Why shouldn’t he be?’

‘No reason at all,’ I conceded. ‘But you never told me about the history between you two either. You told me no way you’d ever let him control you, but you never really told me why. The first time I saw this photograph, something clicked in my head. It came to me on the flight back home.’ I gazed at him hunched behind the wheel of the big vehicle.

‘That photograph in your office, Everett, of your mother. Tell me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Reilly bear a striking resemblance to her?’

All of a sudden, he looked at me, in a way that made me hold my breath and keep on holding it. His eyes were unblinking as they held me. ‘You clever bastard,’ he whispered at last. I was pleased just to be able to breathe again. ‘Not even Jerry knows that; only Diane.’

He frowned. ‘You got it right. Tony Reilly and me, we’re half-brothers. Tony’s dad was a Philadelphia hoodlum. My dad was a lawyer; he handled their divorce and afterwards he married my Mamma.

‘Tony’s dad never forgave him. He poisoned him against my dad, and against me from the day I was born. One day, when I was nine, my dad was crossing the street in Austin, where we lived by then, when he was knocked down and killed by a car. It was a hit and run. They never did find the driver, but my Mamma and I always knew the truth.’

‘So that’s why you’re out to break CWI? To get even for your father?’

Everett shook his head. ‘No. I don’t hold nothing against Tony. But that don’t work the other way. When CWI made me that offer, I knew if I signed, I’d be the highest paid jobber in the business. Tony would have made me look like a chump.

‘When I met Diane, I didn’t make a play for her because she was my brother’s girl, it just happened that I fell for her, and she for me. When we set up the GWA, Tony thought we were clearing out, to get away from the heat. But as soon as he figured out this business was for real, it was inevitable that he’d come after us.

‘I knew that. I always knew that the GWA would have to take out CWI, to ensure its own survival.

‘I’ll be honest; I was pleased when we came up with Leonard as the fall guy. Now it turns out not to be him, I’m more scared than ever.’

I frowned. ‘I have to tell you, Everett. Sandy doesn’t think that Reilly is behind this thing. She said he still laughs at the GWA around the office; that he doesn’t see it as a threat.’

‘Maybe he does. But he’s my brother and his father’s son. I got to assume that he’s out to get me, just like his daddy got mine. So to hell with Sandy. I’m still looking for a mole.’

‘In that case, it could be a blessing, Sonny being in the clear, you know,’ I said.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Sort of cuts down the list of suspects. If you’re right about your brother being behind this — and I agree, when you look at the whole picture it can’t be anyone else — you have to look at the sort of person he’d buy to help him.

‘Let’s say he went for an American, with an offer of money and a job with him afterwards. Jerry’s obviously in the clear, and I’ll say Diane is, even if you won’t.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I’ll say that now.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. So, with Sonny Leonard out of the frame as well, that cuts the field down. It leaves Max, Barbara, your two women specialists, and two guys who are basically jobbers.’

Everett scratched his chin. ‘Forget Max. He was back in the States on injury vacation when the Newcastle thing happened. Forget Barbara. She wasn’t with us the night Dave Manson got whacked, and she’d have had to be, to switch that chair. The same’s true of the two women. They’re a tag team and I don’t use them that much.

‘The other guys? Ronnie Snell and Dick Ostermeyer? I suppose they could be candidates, except. . no, Ronnie wasn’t there either when Dave got it. That leaves Ostermeyer.’

‘Which one’s he?’

‘He wrestles as Dragon Davies, from Tiger Bay, Cardiff.’

‘Oh yes,’ I recalled. ‘I’ve announced him; in Newcastle and in Barcelona. He’s an American?’

‘Yup. He’s a damn fine wrestler, the best jobber we have. You see him go down, you think he’ll never come up in this life. He has a speech impediment, though, so he can’t go on the mike to develop his persona like the rest of us do. I recruited him from Japan, where that wasn’t a problem.’

He frowned. ‘I can’t see Dick being bad, but I suppose we have to look at the possibility. He ain’t on the programme this weekend, though, as you’ll see.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Mid thirties.’

‘What did he do before he became a wrestler?’

‘He was in the US Marines. Why do you ask?’

‘Because whoever rigged that miniature pistol in the turn-buckle pad must have had pretty good knowledge of handling firearms.’

‘Shit yes, that’s true.’

I looked at him as we passed under a sign for central Manchester. ‘Can you remember anything about Darius Hencke’s background?’ I asked, quietly.

‘He’s an ex-soldier too; he was in the German special forces for a couple of years. Did a tour on a UN peacekeeping force in Africa. Why d’you ask about him?’

‘Because it doesn’t have to be an American. Apart from you and Jerry — and Liam, because he got squashed — who’d be the biggest prize for Tony Reilly?’