‘I don’t understand.’
‘The Princess was Tony Reilly’s girl, before she met the Boss. Mr Reilly didn’t like it when she left him. The Boss doesn’t like Mr Reilly, ’cause he said a few things about her afterwards. I better say no more than that.’
I chanced my arm. ‘Do I get the impression that you don’t agree with the company line?’
‘Mr Ring Announcer,’ Sonny Leonard drawled, with a smile, ‘I always agree with the company line.’
I didn’t push it any further. Instead I let our discussion drift on to the logistics of the GWA operation, and on the quality of the Spanish workers who were waiting for us at our venue, up on the Olympic hill of Montjuic. They had been recruited by our hosts, who had promised that they would have all the skills the job required. Finally, after our lunch trays had been cleared away we lapsed into silence, and in Leonard’s case, to sleep.
Although I had spent some time in Catalunya, and still owned fifty per cent of a property there having agreed with Prim, my ex-partner, that I would cash in my half only when she chose to sell, I had never been to Barcelona Airport until I touched down with the GWA party. The greater part of it was built for the 1992 Olympics, and was designed to foster the illusion that air travel is a pleasant experience. It works; the place looks more like a shopping mall than an air terminal. Its only downside is a crazy system in the baggage hall which requires a 100 peseta coin before a trolley could be freed from the rack. I wonder if the bright spark who introduced it asked himself how many people disembark from an international flight with the local coinage in their pockets.
We made it through passport control and customs somehow, to the bus which was waiting for us outside. As I was boarding Everett tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the two seats immediately behind the driver. We sat together, silently as Sonny Leonard climbed on board and made his way to the back of the vehicle.
‘Did you get anything out of him during the flight?’ the big man asked as we pulled away from the kerb. So the seating arrangement had been no accident.
‘Maybe,’ I said. As I thought about his question I realised something about myself: I suppose it’s the reason why I’m a very good Private Enquiry Agent but a bloody awful Private Detective. When I’m interviewing someone who knows what the purpose of our conversation is I am completely relaxed, but when I have to resort to any sort of deceit, I am stricken with guilt. ‘I got the impression that Leonard’s a mercenary. He doesn’t care about the rights and wrongs of a situation, he cares about who’s going to give him the best deal. You offered him the chance to be head honcho, as he put it, and I think he was grateful. But I don’t reckon you have his undying loyalty.’
‘So you reckon he could be bought?’
‘I think that as an operative, he’d go to the highest bidder. But whether he’d get involved in sabotage, I could not possibly say. I do know that he doesn’t see Tony Reilly as a monster, though. He was very respectful, in fact. It was Mr Reilly this, Mr Reilly that.’
Everett growled. ‘If he is selling GWA out, he’s gonna learn some respect for me — the hard way.’
Barcelona Airport isn’t very far from the city centre. The bus pulled up outside our hotel in no more than fifteen minutes. The driver waited as we checked in, then drove the team to the BattleGround venue, a big, elegant upturned bowl. If there is a European city with better sports stadia than Barcelona, I’ve still to find it.
The GWA trucks were parked at the side, backed into loading bays. As we approached we saw several young men in overalls, some heading into the tall vehicles, others heading into the stadium, carrying items of equipment and scenery. ‘What the. .’ Sonny Leonard exploded, a few rows behind me. ‘I told these guys not to begin unloading until I got here.’
As the bus drew to a halt he jumped from his seat and tore down the aisle, leaping out onto the tarmac even before the doors were fully open. I heard him swear in heavily Americanised Spanish as he strode towards the labourers.
‘Sure and don’t be bursting a blood vessel, Sonny.’ The familiar, laughing shout came from inside the nearest truck as the rest of us followed on his heels; and a second later, Liam Matthews stepped out, onto the unloading ramp.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Everett boomed. ‘You’re supposed to be convalescing. I told the back office to book you and your mom a holiday, starting next week.’
‘Sure, so you did,’ the Irishman agreed. ‘In the meantime, all my stitches are out, I’m healing fast and my old lady’s giving me no leeway at all, so I decided to come down here with the trucks and give Sonny the benefit of my experience.’ He beamed at the red-faced foreman. ‘Don’t you worry either, fella. We haven’t broken any of your gear. It’s all inside, ready for you to start setting up.’
I looked at Everett, then at Diane. He was frowning, like a huge black cloud. She was grinning, from ear to ear.
Chapter 25
I had never watched the roadies set up from scratch before. Under Sonny Leonard’s shouted directions — clearly, his Spanish was up to the job — they began in the centre, by raising the ring.
I stood with Jerry Gradi and watched them work. ‘Why does your ring only have three ropes?’ I asked him.
‘Because it always had three ropes,’ he replied. ‘So did boxing rings, until about forty years ago, when a fighter died after being hit back of the head by a whipping bottom rope. After that, their authorities switched to four.
‘The ropes in a boxing ring are tighter than ours too, so that fighters can’t use them to lever more power into their punches. We like ’em loose, to help us build momentum. The other difference is in the turn-buckle padding.’ He pointed to Leonard, up in the ring. ‘In boxing, the steel rings in the corners that turn the ropes are covered by a single pad, from top to bottom.
‘We got separate pads on each turn-buckle, on account of one of our standard moves is to grab the other guy and slam him into the corner, hard. The top pad is the thickest, ’cos that’s where the biggest impact is. It’s the foreman’s job to fix ’em on, to make sure they’re secure.’
As we watched, Sonny Leonard was working on the corner nearest us, fastening on the pads, which were covered in red leather, and looked a lot like boxing gloves. Jerry pointed at him. ‘You make sure those is tight,’ he called out, meaningfully. ‘Daze is going to be tossing me into that corner tomorrow night, and I don’t want to wind up hittin’ no steel.’
‘Check ’em yourself, then,’ Leonard snarled back at him.
‘Okay, okay, okay,’ The Behemoth replied, holding up his hands in a mollifying gesture. ‘Don’t get so touchy. It ain’t your ass gonna get stomped in there — unless you screw up those turn-buckle pads, that is!’
‘I didn’t know you and Daze were on tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I thought you were keeping that for the next pay-per-view event.’
‘We are, really. Tomorrow’s just a warm-up. Rockette and I are taking on Daze in a handicap match.’ He grinned. ‘Tommy’s gonna get stomped again. Ev hasn’t quite forgiven him yet for that guitar stunt.’
I looked at him. ‘You’re looking happy this week. Are things going all right with Sally?’
‘Yeah, great, thanks. Don’t need you to speak for me no more. I’ll need to watch out for looking happy, though. That ain’t The Behemoth’s angle. Gotta do some work on bein’ ferocious again.’
Chapter 26
I missed Jan like crazy, all that night. She’d have loved being with the crew in Barcelona, especially to see me being interviewed by a reporter from the Catalan television station. They were looking for Spanish speakers, so Daze took me along to the studio with him. His grip of Castillian was much better than mine, but I think I scored more points with the presenter by managing a few words in Catalan.