“Nope. No way. Not happening.”
We were backstage in a Kent County theater and I could hear the crowd outside chanting “DEL-MAR-VA. DEL-MAR-VA.”
Daphne smiled. “You’re a part of the show whether you want to be or not, Dixon. If you go out there in with the crowd, they’re already between you and Grant and anybody with a smart phone knows who you are.”
As much as I hated to admit it, she was making sense.
Which is why I was stuffed into a dark gray suit a crew member had purchased at a thrift store. I was wearing the Kevlar under the jacket but over the cheap white dress shirt that went with it. I had the gun under my arm, the Taser visible on my belt, and the baton up my sleeve.
I didn’t like any of this. I was in over my head already, and we weren’t even in the area the threats were located in.
But I didn’t see any options. “Fine. But I need to be in the clubhouse with Grant.”
Her grin went full Cheshire Cat. “Good. How do you want to be billed?”
“Billed?”
“You know, announced.”
“I don’t.”
She leaned back, looked me up down. “Mystery bodyguard. I can sell that.” She tugged at my lapels. “They could’ve gotten you a suit that fits, at least.”
“Haven’t met the off-the-rack suit that does,” I said.
“Well, I did some work in costuming. Tailored my own tux. I can do some work with it later. For now?” She checked a watch tucked subtly under the cuff of her dinner jacket. “Showtime. Welcome to the world of managing.”
She marched out into the cheering.
I marched a few steps down the corridor and thumped a knuckle on the door with the sign that said ‘Clubhouse’ on it.
It opened a crack and a face appeared: Blake’s.
“Talent only, man,” he said, the first time I’d heard something approaching antagonism in his voice. He started to close the door but I wedged a foot inside it.
“Not anymore. If I’m managing, or whatever the fuck, I need to stay next to Grant’s side all the time. I’m not going out in the crowd and then running towards him. That’d be ridiculous and cause a panic.”
Blake tried to stare me down. He was at a disadvantage, namely that I knew just how much of a toll his passion had taken on him. I didn’t really doubt that I could shove him out of the way.
“Go on, let him in.” That was Grant’s voice, slightly muffled. Blake swept the door out of the way.
I wasn’t entirely sure what they’d been protecting. Nobody actually dressed in the place; nobody was preserving their modesty. It was the largest backstage room. Against one wall a small buffet was set up; mostly fruit, sports drinks, various kinds of water making health claims it couldn’t back up, and some bowls of nuts.
In the middle of the room there were folding tables with some card games going. On the wall was a monitor with a closed circuit of what was going on in the ring, with the sound on high enough that anyone who wanted to pay attention to it could, though it played out of a couple of tinny speakers set high on the wall.
A card game was in progress on one of the card tables, with Derrick Rigg, Spitfire, Caliban, and Grant playing something that looked like Whist. I wasn’t too interested in the rules.
Caliban glared at me over his hand, the cards looking like matchbooks in his gigantic hands, but Grant grabbed his attention. I gathered from the flurry of activity at the table that they were partners in this particular game. There was money on the table. Not huge money, but certainly more than anybody’s per diem.
There was a knock at the door; someone quickly silenced the TV with a remote, and all other conversation stalled. Cards were held in midair.
A black polo-shirted crewmember with a headset and a clipboard stuck his head in the room.
“Grant, you’re not leading off tonight. Caliban and the Twin Terrors, you’re up.”
The enormous man set his cards down and stood, still glaring at me.
I smiled at him. He was probably pushing seven feet, sure. He likely had eighty to a hundred pounds on me. And no matter what his body fat percentage might be, once he had all of that moving in any given direction, it’d be awfully hard to do anything to discourage him.
But it wouldn’t do to let the rest of the talent see me sweat.
And if he really was interested in making a ruckus, I was the one carrying weapons.
He brushed past me on his way to the door, followed by his tag-team competition, a pair of guys who were definitely not brothers, but wore matching masks anyway.
That seemed to suspend whatever game was going on. Cards were set down, money was left in place, and everyone walked away from the table.
I could read a little of the dynamic in the room. Grant had some kind of swagger, which seemed unusual. Blake had appointed himself the doorman, leaning against it with his eyes trained on the TV.
But Derrick Rig was the center of power in the room; he was holding the remote.
You couldn’t slip an important fact like that past me.
He also had a cell phone he kept looking at. I would’ve liked to know what had captured his attention but I didn’t want to appear too nosy. I thought about walking over to the buffet—I’d have to pass by him—but that presented problems.
First was that it would stretch the etiquette of my being in here in the first place.
Second was that I really didn’t want anything on that buffet table.
Third was that Derrick was at least a couple inches taller than me, and peering over his shoulder was going to be an impossibility.
Besides, it seemed remarkably unlikely that he had anything to do with whatever was happening with Grant. He was the star of the show; he was relaxed, calm, in command of himself and everything around him. And if that blogger who’d clocked me had it right, he was soon to be leaving for greener pastures anyway.
I saw no motive for him being involved in any threats against Grant. I’m not sure I saw motive for anyone in the company to be making threats. I certainly couldn’t eliminate any of them.
Hell, the only people I could eliminate were me and my boss. A suspect pool of every single person in the states of Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Pennsylvania will run a lonesome detective ragged.
I decided not to worry too much about Derrick and focus on reading the room. Blake was doing his sentinel-of-all-that-is-right thing. Spitfire and Night Witch—I didn’t know their real names, as they tended to keep to themselves—were looking at their phones in a corner, occasionally leaning close and sharing a laugh at something on one of the screens.
There was no singular mood in the room. Everyone was getting ready to work, and that was a different headspace for everyone.
But no one—not even Grant—was worried.
Here we were with death threats against a member of their company, and clearly nobody cared.
I wandered over to Blake. He looked at me, eyebrow raised, clearly curious.
“Anybody here worried about any of these threats?”
He shrugged. “You’re gonna be a professional, you learn to put shit aside.”
“Well, sure. Everybody has bad days and still has to go to work, but…” I trailed off, looked around to see if anyone was listening in or paying attention. Everyone was in their own world.
“Well, most people’s job isn’t as dangerous as ours,” Blake said. Then, with a chuckle, he gestured at the vest I was obviously wearing underneath my ill-fitting suit. “Present company excluded, I guess. But if you are not totally focused on what you’re doing in the ring, you can get hurt. Worse, you can hurt the person you’re working with.” As he said this, unconsciously, his eyes flitted toward Grant.
I nodded and went back to watching the monitor, the action of which was too small for me to follow.
Some time passed. I sweated in my suit and my vest, and finally, someone knocked on the door and called for Grant and Blake.
Out in the corridor that led to the stage area and the ring, the cheering of the crowd became a dull roar.
Grant put on his hat, adjusted the hang of the vest he wore, and was handed a Confederate flag from a stage hand. Grant held it out to the guy, who delicately snipped the top and bottom of it with scissors he pulled from a toolbelt. Grant looked at me and shrugged.
“Makes sure I can rip it in half in one go, right?”
Then we heard Daphne, from the ring, boom out the words “U.S. GRANT.”
He turned to me and winked. “Two steps behind me, bro,” he said, and set off.
I counted his footsteps and followed, trying to keep focused and not completely and utterly lose my shit.
Just before I went out a stage hand grabbed me and stuck a Bluetooth headset in my ear. “What the hell?” I glared at him.
He shrugged. “Daphne’s orders. Says it completes the look even if it’s not connected to anything. These, too.” He handed me a pair of dark plastic sunglasses.
Those, I could possibly use. I certainly wasn’t going to see much of the crowd past the stage lights without them. I put them on and hurried down the tunnel just in time to see Grant vault himself over the top rope with flair, climb the post, hold up the Confederate flag, and rip it in half.
The crowd erupted, a mixed chorus of booing and cheering.
It was going to be a long night.