There were various lines outside the convention center snaking through metal barriers. I only had the one paper ticket; the other two were just so much digital information on my phone.
But I did have that backstage pass, and the first worker I showed it to ushered us straight past the line and into the building. Posters were up on wooden stands inside the lobby advertising various wrestlers with the promotion.
There was a Derrick Rigg—a mustachioed guy wearing a sharp gray suit that looked twenty years out of style, a loud black and gold striped tie, carrying a briefcase cuffed to his arm, and silver-mirrored-aviators. There was a man wearing a martial-arts gi that obscured his features, billed only as The Ninja. The third major billing went to a woman wearing what looked like mechanic’s coveralls, with a wrench on her shoulder: Spitfire. I saw U.S. Grant in a list of names underneath her poster, but no headlines for him. I saw something about a ladder match and a weapons match and I hadn’t the faintest idea what either of those could mean.
I was definitely on uncertain ground. On the other hand, Gen and her dad seemed right at home. “Heard about this girl,” he was saying, pointing at the Spitfire poster.“Real high-flyin’ stuff.”
I looked at Gen. “Means she does aerial stuff, off the top ropes, or higher than that. Acrobatics.”
“Huh. Well, the name would make sense, then.”
Soon enough I found someone readily identifiable as security staff. He was as big as I was, with huge arms stuffed into a black polo shirt that was at least two sizes too small, and he had a headset on and a clipboard in his hands.
I walked over to him and pulled out the pass.
“My name’s Jack Dixon. I was invited here by, uh…U.S. Grant? I’ve got my ID if you need it.”
He held up one finger and went to his clipboard, spoke a few words I didn’t catch into his headset, then looked up at me. “You can come back,” he said. Then he pointed at Gen and her dad. “They can’t.”
I looked at Gen, and then at the security man. “We sure about that?”
“You’re the only one gate listed,” he said. “And I don’t have time to vet anyone else, not when we’re forty minutes from showtime.”
Gen sidled up next to me and squeezed my arm.
“Go,” she said. “It’s work. We’ll be fine.”
“Have fun,” I said.
“We will,” she said, then kissed me on the cheek. I watched until she disappeared into the crowd with her dad.
I followed the security guy back past the front-facing, customer-oriented parts of the convention center. Every event space of any size has a network of tunnels and warrens a Tolkien Dwarf would feel right at home in, I’ve found. No sun, no signs indicating where to go. You either need to know the ground or have the unerring instinct of a born stage manager, security guard, or grifter. The latter helped because usually, somewhere in this kind of space, there are rooms full of food, booze, and possibly drugs. I’ve known people who could find all three from the center of a labyrinth with a blindfold on.
The security guard did not take long to dump me off on someone else, similarly holding a clipboard and wearing a headset, but much more in the ‘backstage manager’ than security vein. He also wore a black polo with the company label, and it was similarly two sizes too small, but it wasn’t deliberately tight over the arms and chest so much as around the middle.
“Glenn,” he said by way of introduction. His hand was sweaty, but I wouldn’t have expected otherwise, since he was sweating from his ponytail to the back of his shirt. “Follow me.”
Glen made pretty fast time. I had to stride quickly to keep up. He led me to a door, knocking and opening it one swift, practiced motion.
Looked like a green room, I supposed, not that I knew from green rooms. There was a table set with snacks, another long table with drinks from bottled water and energy drinks to beer, and a huge plastic bowl full of ice.
There were one or two other folks milling around in it. None of them were Grant. None of them looked like wrestlers.
“Uh, I’m here to see Grant Aronson,” I said.
“Yep. He’ll be along,” Glen said, trying to head for the door.
“Uh, maybe you could take me to him?”
Glen shook his head. “Nope. He’s in the clubhouse. Nobody in there but talent. Nobody.”
“Fine,” I said. I found a bottle of water and started exploring the snacks. A bowl of waxy looking fruit; bowls of pretzels and chips that offered a seductive salt-and-carb high. The very thought of entering them into my calorie counting app was enough to move on.
Trays of limp, somewhat shiny lunchmeat, and a tray full of those slightly greasy, springy cubes of cheese.
It was the kind of catering one paid for by the foot. I studiously avoided it, thinking longingly of the carefully curated selection of nut butters in my galley on the Belle.
I didn’t try and make any small talk with the other folks in the room, who looked like family or special guests. It wasn’t hard; people tended not to approach me on their own.
The door swung open and in came Grant Aaronson, wearing his ring gear—the black cavalry hat, the vest, the star-spangled trunks. Spurs jingled on the edge of his boots.
“Jack!” He threw his arms wide to hug me. I was less than enthusiastic about this because his mostly bare chest seemed to glisten with some kind of oil. And it wasn’t as if we’d been all that close.
I was able to intercept his hand and turn it into one of those half-handshake half-hug things. I definitely felt a slick of moisture against my shirt and jacket, though.
“Long time no see, man,” he boomed.
“Yeah. It’s been, what…eight years? Thereabouts.”
“Yeah, ever since the meet with…”
I waved him off. “Why’d you call me here, Grant?” I tried searching his face for any giveaway details, but he was wearing stage makeup and his eyes seemed a bit distant. I didn’t really suspect drugs for that; before any kind of high-stress appearance before a crowd, it wasn’t all that unusual for someone to seem distant. They might’ve been focusing, or psyching themselves up, or just glazing over at the thought of all the pressure. I’d never known Grant to be the worrying kind, though.
“Well, we can talk about that after the show, okay? I go on early, doing a quick undercard with Blake,” he said, as if I knew who that was or what that meant.
“Can you at least thumbnail it for me?”
Grant cast his eyes around the room, clamped one hand around my wrist like a vise, and dragged me to a corner, distant from both the catering fand the occupants of the erstwhile VIP Lounge.
“There’s threats against me, okay? Because of my character. Company doesn’t want to go to the cops, so…I suggested you. Tell you more later!” He slapped me on the shoulder and vanished out the door.
In the small crowd in the green room I heard someone say, “Man, I hate that guy.”
I looked. It was a kid, maybe fourteen, wearing a shirt with the Confederate flag that said “If this offends you, you need a history lesson.”
I figured I could probably scrub that kid from the suspect list, but I gave him a hard stare until he paled and turned back to his mom.