steroids.'
'It ain't my problem. Just trying to make a living.' Banks shrugged.
Rory watched his retreat from cold, lidded eyes. Had Banks known him well enough to realize what that look meant, he would have turned pale and fled.
Rory remained staring at the pattern in the floor tiles for some time. Then he walked back to the locker room on legs that felt numb.
He passed the heavily bleeding Chuck on his way out, and the next thing he saw was the ring. Rory knew he had somehow gotten from the locker room to the mat.
It hardly registered. His mind was somewhere else. He thought of blood, of sins, of Sam, and of how Sam always commented on Rory's faraway gaze. '
He went through his match, an efficient machine that knew the task at hand. He barely felt Badass's hands as they moved from hold to hold, barely heard the bell at match's end. Barely noticed when he vaulted out of the ring and landed wrong. His knee blew.
Damn you, Sam! he thought. How could you let this happen? Limping back to the lockers, his faraway gaze swept the crowd, blank with growing rage. Then he stopped in midsweep.
Long spill of cold hair. Riveting eyes. That blonde, at ringside again.
She looked at him for a second or two. Then she rose and made for the exit, as she always did.
Rory hit the showers, chewing at the inside of his lip. The blond groupie might have been with that damned fool Sam. She might have something to tell him. Maybe she talked him into snorting the white stuff for the first time. Maybe he pulled a Len Bias.
In the meantime he needed to let the steaming water run over him until he felt like moving. And he didn't care how long that took.
He finally toweled off, dressed, and went looking for Chuck. Yes. That was a good idea. Start with Chuck, who might know where to find the girl.
A quick check of the halls showed no one. Oh, hell; by now Chuck might be back at his hotel. His knee hot and swelling, Rory realized dimly he should ice it. He shuffled back into the locker room to grab his bag.
Heard running water and went to the showers to look.
The blonde. There she was, in the shower with Chuck. They both appeared to be enjoying the experience, she with her long wet hair and Chuck with an idiot's grin on his bearded, bloody face as he groped her.
Rory shut his eyes.
Blood. Sins. Washing them clean.
He opened his eyes. Rory forced himself to watch them in silence for a minute, then slipped away without being seen.
He sat in his car but didn't start it. Aside from Blubber Boy McKay's bare butt, this was the most vividly repulsive thing Rory had ever seen. He closed his eyes and their embrace remained etched against his lids.
He coughed violently, as if clearing his lungs of poison.
Rory twisted the key in the ignition and gunned for home. The long Texas span of road sang blackly at him.
The ice pack didn't work. He didn't care. Rory's limp worsened. Banks booked them into one high school after another. Sam haunted his dreams almost every night. Banks still bugged him for juice, almost every night.
He never got around to meeting with the blonde.
Maybe tonight, in the fourth or fifth nameless high school with the same clamorous audience.
Rory waded through the groupies already piled at the exit. His colleagues were already there, joking about the lineup.
'A battle royale,' cracked Red Man. 'That's what we got.'
'Yeah,' said Badass, pumping his hips in a juvenile obscene gesture. 'And I got your blonde right here.'
Rory said nothing, taping his knee to ready it for the match. He'd stopped making jokes. He'd begun thinking about blood and sacrifice.
As he headed for the ring, the blonde's green-eyed gaze followed him. What did she offer that was different from the hordes of other women at the door? Intensity?
Whatever it was, he would have to talk with her. She might have something to tell him about Sam. Yes, he promised himself, soon.
He went to work. Halfway through the match with Badass, Rory's brow opened up: hardway blood, which wasn't exactly pleasant but not unexpected when a mistimed knuckle hits just the right spot over a prominent brow bone.
Hardly a gusher. A mere trickle. One towel held in place by pressure, five minutes, a tiny Band-Aid, and he'd be good as new.
When the match ended Rory limped deep into the locker room in search of a clean towel. He hadn't been paying much attention to what went in his gym bag the past couple of days.
Pretty deserted back in the supply room, he thought, reaching down for a towel. The shadowy atmosphere enveloped him; for some odd reason his scalp prickled. Without knowing why, his hearing was instantly acute. He was alert for footsteps he could have sworn were there.
His breathing quickened, echoing in the small room. Then stopped.
Nothing. His laugh was a short bark, the product of air held inside too long.
He straightened, folded the towel and pressed it to his eyebrow, turning back for the showers.
It was then that the blonde stepped from the shadows, blocking his way.
He noticed for the first time that only her face was the same — that riveting face. The body was swollen.
Rory backed up. There was a glow to her skin, the way skin gets when you clamp your hand over a flashlight and can see the blood lit from within. She had that quality all over, like a fat red light bulb.
He took another faltering backwards step; she followed, glaring at his face.
With effort, he drew a breath. 'Were you with Sam when he died?' His own voice sounded hoarse and weak.
She didn't speak. She grabbed his shoulders to pull him even closer, shocking him with her strength.
He tried to shove her. She didn't shove. Her grip on his shoulders was talonlike.
Suddenly she whirled, letting go.
He heard the sound of approaching people, of booming male voices and scuffling feet. She sprang away from him and was gone.
Rory sagged against the wall, looked at the towel in his hand, and dropped it.
He slid down the wall until he touched the cold tiled floor. Silent, weak, he watched Chuck and the others pass by. And he began to make some fairly athletic leaps in the chain of logic.
Big Chuck. Big bulky 280-pound Chuck.
Lithe, 185-pound Sam.
Blood.
Always the blood. On this circuit, blood made up for the heat that other, more creative bookers could get through dramatic angles.
Rory went back to the hotel and looked down at his hands. They trembled slightly.
Quit, then. Tomorrow — that one last paycheck would come in useful. Head back East.
He sat still, wondering if the things Sister Loyola had said long ago were true. Was there a heaven? And could Sam look down and see him? '
He reached out to zip his case shut.
Underneath an old photo — their first publicity shot together — he saw it, and he held it up by its thick gold
