New Title 1 (9 page)

“Oh, I get it. And you want to know how I can maintain the premise of being a ringrat without really having sex with wrestlers.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not a problem, Captain. I’ve been able to successfully infiltrate the local ringrat community because I
do
have sex with wrestlers.”

Straker’s neck nearly snapped when he jerked his gaze to her. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No. And what’s so odd about that? We’re pros, Captain. We do what we need to do to get the job done, period. Even if it means we have to do things that would otherwise be considered a breech of professional conduct.”

Straker was suddenly riled. “You mean you actually, you-you-you…
get it on
with those guys?”

“Of course. I have to. Otherwise I’d have no undercover credibility at all. My job is to get the real story on Goon. I can’t do that unless I can get close to him, and I can’t get close to him unless I’m believable as a ringrat. Goon has a vulnerability; I’ll find that vulnerability by getting to his manager, and I know I’ll eventually get to his manager by—pardon the word—fucking the right grappler.”

This was incredulous. Was she serious? Straker could tell, by her poise, her gestures, and the tone of her voice that she meant every word of it.

Then she continued, “And don’t tell me you’ve never done anything technically unethical in order to do your job more effectively.”

Straker bumbled, was about to object, but then fell silent.
She’s right,
he realized. Just this morning he’d had sex—twice—in order to obtain Susan Bilks’ diary. So he could hardly criticize Melinda Pierce for having sex with wrestlers in order to do her job.

“It’s just…kind of shocking is all,” he eventually remarked.

Then she looked him dead in the eye. “Goon has raped, mutilated, and murdered at least nineteen people that we know of, Captain. I will do anything to stop him. Anything.”

Straker stared at the poison in her eyes.
You know something?
he thought.
She means it.

««—»»

The bell clanged. Sallee County Civic Center, little more than a high school gymnasium, had packed in over a thousand people. Straker was taken aback by the sight of the crowd: mostly rednecks, mostly adults. Cheering, waving signs, wearing shirts and caps emblazoned with the likenesses of their favorite “grapplers.” Straker and Melinda never went to their seats; instead they stood by the railed ring entrance along with about a hundred other people, mostly women dressed similarly to Melinda.

Ringrats.

“How come we’re not going to our seats?” he asked over the din. Right now, in the ring, Terri Strong and the Fabulous Ghoula were trading combinations on the mat.

“The rats generally hang by the locker room access for the whole show,” she said, her eyes glued to the ring. “The idea is to catch the eye of a grappler as he’s coming out, then try to snag him later.”

It made sense and, frankly, Straker wasn’t too keen to sit anywhere near the ring. Everytime a wrestler was slapped, drop-kicked, or body-slammed, a rain of sweat sprayed the crowd.

But this current match fascinated him. Two women. “Wow. Lady wrestlers.” Ghoula, obviously the heel, was being tossed around the ring like a sack of packing curls, not an easy feat, he didn’t imagine, because the woman probably weighted 300 pounds. Strong, on the other hand, in spite of a gymnast’s arms, was ravishingly attractive.

“They pepper the cards with some of the bigger name females,” Melinda said. “The fans love to see women fight.”

Strong rode Ghoula across the ring in a headlock, but suddenly the obese woman fell to the mat, sending Strong’s head into the ringpost. And when Strong groggily rose, her face shone with blood.

“Gross,” Straker observed.

“Kill her!” Melinda shouted, her breasts bobbling as she rose to her tip toes. Now Ghoula was biting Terri Strong’s face as she squirmed on the canvas, her muscular legs kicking amid a sound like thunder. Ghoula cracked out an evil chuckle, her blubber jiggling in black tights, her grin pocked by missing teeth.
She is the most digusting human being I’ve ever seen,
Straker affirmed to himself, but Melinda, as though reading his thoughts, smiled uncharacteristically and said, “How’d you like a roll in the hay with her?”

“No thanks,” Straker said, queasy at the image.
I’d sooner put a gun to my head.

Ghoula’s fat visibly tremored as she dragged Strong to her feet, then grasped her head between her palms, pressing, pressing. The effect made it appear as though she was squeezing blood out of Strong’s face. “This is a lot more violent than I thought,” Straker observed, his stomach knotting. “But I guess it’s nothing more than the power of suggestion, you know, the fake blood and all.”

“It’s not fake,” she told him.

“Come on.”

“Strong bladed herself when she had the headlock on Ghoula. Remember, the more blood the bigger the draw.”

Strong had just taken a drop-kick at Ghoula’s head, the larger woman ducked under the kick and using her shoulder heaved her opponent over the top rope to the floor. The crowd was really into it, with a chant of “You fucked up! You fucked up!” being shouted at the prone girl who was being further humiliated by a rain of popcorn, candy wrappers, and other soft-drink cups as she groggily got to her feet.

“This is a real hard-core crowd here, she missed her move, she was supposed to catch the top rope and pull herself back into the ring while Ghoula had her back turned. These fans are pretty unforgiving when someone screws up.”

“So the blood was a ‘work’ but falling on the floor was an accident?”

“You’re catching on, Captain.”

Straker didn’t know if he believed it, but one thing he did believe was there were some great-looking women around the entrance aisle. All around them, and on the other side of the railed aisle, ringrats congregated as a shrieking mass: tackily dressed, painted up with more makeup than a French whore, but beautiful nonetheless. “This is incredible,” Straker went on. “These women aren’t dogs—they’re gorgeous. What the hell do they see in a bunch of goddamn wrestlers?”

“It’s a sexual psychology, Captain. Why is it okay for men to lust, but not women? It’s the Blonde Bimbo Syndrome in reverse. Ringrats are simply playing a fantasy role. You don’t see any kids here; rats aren’t like teeny-bopper rock star groupies. They’re adult women who’ve grown disgusted with the sexual exploitation of our society. So they dress up and come to the ring so they can be sluts for a night. They regard wrestlers as nothing more than pieces of sexual meat to be used in order to fulfill their own fantasies. Male-dominated society has been sexually exploiting women for the last fifty centuries. Well, women become ringrats so they can do a little exploitation of their own. Here, the
wrestlers
are the bimbos.”

An interesting extrapolation, but Straker still didn’t quite get it. These guys were dopes.

“Don’t be such a hopeless romantic, Captain. Women are sick of double-standards. If men can be promiscuous, so can we.”

“You almost sound like you’re one of them,” Straker pointed out. “A real ringrat.”

She casually hitched up her halter. “Perhaps, in part, I am.”

Jesus.
She certainly was interesting, but Straker, oblivious to his own double-standards, couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Every so often she’d lean forward against the rail, giving him a glimpse of devil-red panties. The firm, heavy breasts swayed in the top as she cheered, and two or three times her rump accidentally brushed his groin. Straker winced in anguish, his penis hard again.

“Watch the finish,” she said. “Strong will duck and throw Ghoula into the ringpost. Then Ghoula’ll turn and throw a ball of fire right into Strong’s face.”

Straker tried to concentrate over the cacophony, then winced as if slapped when The Fabulous Ghoula whipped around and did exactly what Melinda had predicted. There was a loud
pop!
Then a radiating, smoky sphere of flame seemed to leap from her hand into Strong’s face. Strong went down, flailing in phony agony. Bells clattered, and then the ref waved his arms and disqualified Ghoula. The crowd exploded.

“Wow,” Straker said dumbly. “How’d she do that?”

“A flashpot, that’s all. The heat dissipates almost immediately.”

Some patrons were actually in tears as Strong was carried off on a stretcher, her hands clenched to her face. Then Ghoula jumped down onto the ring skirt and kicked the stretcher over. A few kicks to Strong’s head, then Ghoula strutted off, cackling like a witch as fans booed, threw cups at her, hurled invectives.

When she strode down the railed aisle toward the locker room, however, she took one look at Straker and stopped. “Looks like this is your lucky day,” Melinda whispered.
Oh, no,
Straker fretted. He could smell the obese woman as she approached, a fetor like dirty musk. Then she stepped right up to him, cut a sly, gap-toothed grin, and winked.

“Hey, sweetcakes,” she said.

“You talkin’ to me?” Straker blundered.

Unabashed she pressed her sweaty, mat-stinky hand against his crotch, gave a squeeze.

“This package for me, sweetcakes?”

Straker stared, appalled. Her malodor reamed his sinuses. She gave his crotch another shameless squeeze. “Yeah, sweetcakes. I like this package. Meet me at the bar later and I’ll unwrap it for ya.”

Then she threw her head back, guffawed, and strode away, her sheath of fat trembling like jello.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Straker moaned.

But Melinda excitedly grabbed his arm. “This is perfect! What a lucky break!”

“What are you talking about?”

Melinda’s breath warmed his ear as she whispered. “Are you blind? She’s got the hots for you! She thinks you’re a male ringrat.”

“Yeah, well, she can think again.”

“Captain, this is an ideal opportunity for you to go undercover just like me. You can get together with her later—”

Straker’s jaw dropped. “Not in this lifetime,” he assured her. “You’ve got to be out of your mind if you think I’d—”

Her glare of disapproval severed the words. “What’s the matter, Captain? Not willing to go the course for the sake of the case?”

“No,” Straker said.

“Don’t have what it takes to do the job right?”

“No,” Straker said. “I’m not going to ‘get together’ with that obese, unwashed female blimp. And, anyway, she’s got nothing to do with Goon. There’s no information I could worm out of her that would be relevant to this investigation.”

“That’s where you’re dead wrong, Captain.” She pulled him closer, whispered more fervently. “Goon’s manager used to be her manager. If you slept with her, you could pump her for all kinds of information.”

Straker couldn’t believe what she was proposing. “Well you can forget that ‘cos it ain’t gonna happen.”

Her pursed lips told all. “I guess I was right about you. Won’t go the extra mile to get the job done.”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” he repeated, determined.

“We’ll talk about this later.”

“No. We won’t. ‘Cos it ain’t gonna happen.” Her silence unsettled him but he didn’t care. What she wanted him to do was clearly absurd, not to mention wholly unethical. But before he could mull it over any further, a great gong sounded, and suddenly some dork in a tux was standing in the middle of the ring with a microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our main event. This is a title match for the DSWC heavyweight championship belt!”

The crowd stirred in frenzy; the arena was actually shaking. Tux went on after another gong. “Entering the ring from your left, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, six-foot-three and weighing in at 243 pounds…”

The gong sounded yet again.

“…12-time World Heavyweight Champion! The styler and profiler! The fourth horseman of the apocalypse! Ladies and gentlemen, the Deep South Wrestling Conference Heavyweight Champion! The Wonder Boy!
Sliiiiiiiiiiick
Dare!”

A spotlight snapped on, illuminating the ring entrance, and there he was. Straker frowned as the arena quaked. Dare stood pompously, fists on hip, draped in a glittering purple robe with a white fur collar. Cropped hair bleached close to snow white, and a California tan. In spite of the age lines in his face, and a web of forehead scars, and in spite of the falseness of all of this, the man seemed to project some kind of aura that affected Straker as genuine. But Straker couldn’t voice that, so instead he reverted to sarcasm. “Six three my ass. That guy’s five-eleven if he’s anything.”