Two days later Behr received a call to come get his check, and Behr showed up at Connaughton’s apartment. When Connaughton opened the door, Behr saw the place was a dump, not the dwelling of a well-to-do kid from Carmel, even if his parents were keeping him humble. He also saw that the kid had been roughed up. Connaughton had a big, nasty shiner with greenish yellow edges that had purpled into the hollow of his nose bone.
“Molk?” Behr asked.
Connaughton nodded and handed him his check. The way the kid paid him anyway was what really got Behr. If it was calculation on Connaughton’s part, it was the perfect one.
“Crap, I’m sorry, Tom,” Behr said, realizing that the dimness he’d seen in Molk’s eyes was what had allowed the ballplayer to do this, despite the consequences that had been promised. Behr vowed to himself never to underestimate the combination of stupidity and malevolence again.
“You hold this,” Behr said of the check. “I’ll be back.”
Behr went directly over to campus and found the Tau house. He parked out front and slipped on a pair of zap gloves-tight-fitting leather gloves with eight ounces of powdered lead sewn across the knuckles that caused punches to land as heavy as falling cinder blocks. Behr went right through the front door, which was open, as fraternity house doors always are.
A half-dozen frat brothers and ballplayers sat around a big television that played The Jerry Springer Show.
“Molk?” Behr demanded when their heads had all turned toward him.
“Who the fuck are you?” a tall black kid who looked like a free safety asked, standing.
Just then Molk came out of the kitchen holding a bottle of beer. His eyes flashed scared when he saw Behr, but he tried to hide it.
“You want something?” he said to Behr, attempting to act casual. He took a sip of his beer and Behr didn’t hesitate. He struck with his palm, jamming the bottle back into Molk’s mouth. Molk went down, his face a mess of broken teeth, glass, and blood.
The free safety stepped around the couch toward Behr, ready to front. Behr crushed him with a body shot. The zap gloves did their work, folding the big kid over, and dropping him next to the couch.
Behr stood over Molk, who tried to writhe away, expecting a kick. “Don’t make me come back,” Behr said. The nose tackle nodded. Behr saw a new level of understanding in Molk’s eyes and knew it was over.
When he returned to Connaughton’s place it wasn’t long before the kid admitted he wasn’t from a rich family and he’d used his computer skills to order some stuff-a big-screen television- that he’d sold to raise the five hundred dollars. They argued for a moment over who should keep the check until Behr shoved it into Connaughton’s pocket. A year and a half later Behr needed some tax information for a background search that wasn’t coming up on the regular databases. Connaughton was happy to help him out, and that was the way it started.
“So I almost had a big job for you,” Behr said into his cell phone, shutting off his car. “Laptop from Brazil.”
“Fun,” Connaughton said.
“But, instead I have something less far afield,” he went on. “I’ve got an account number and a few checks I need you to run. They’re made out to cash, but I figure you can trace who cashed ’em.”
“Hmm,” Connaughton breathed. “The laptop might’ve been easier…”
“Ahh-,” Behr began.
“I don’t work at the bank, man. You know? I’m not a teller. I’m gonna have to hack it. It’s gonna take some time.”
“How long?” Behr wondered.
“Three, four days. And I’m gonna have to charge you, you know? Real money. I’ll give you the friendly rate, but still-”
“Do it.”
“Do it? That’s it? You don’t even ask me the price?” Connaughton said.
“You’ll be fair, and I’ll pay. If I don’t, you’ll probably hack my bank account. And if you aren’t fair, I’ll hack your front door,” Behr said.
“Right…,” Connaughton said, sounding a little uncomfortable.
Behr read him the account and check numbers. “Call me when you have something. Soon as you can, Tommy.” He hung up.
Behr was parked outside the house of someone who should have been at the memorial but wasn’t. He got out of his car and went toward the house, which was dark, with the blinds down despite it being afternoon. Behr knocked anyway. “Pounded” was a better word for what he did to the door. After a moment it swung open revealing Steven Dannels, a man of about Behr’s age, half a foot shorter, but thick through the chest and arms, and with longish brown hair.
“’Lo, Steven,” Behr said.
“Frank,” Dannels said, his Australian accent present even in the single word. He shook hands with the light grip of a fighter whose knuckles were perennially sore. “C’mon in.”
Behr followed as Dannels crossed his dim, cavelike living room. He walked with a ginger, swinging gait close to a limp that revealed long-term injuries from ankle to knee to hip and shoulder. It was no surprise; the guy practically lived on the mat. In fact, Behr heard he rubbed Preparation H into his sore spots before workouts on the theory it would shrink swollen tissue. Behr had asked him if it worked. “Fucked if I know, mate,” Dannels said, “but my joints sure don’t have hemorrhoids.”
“Have a seat, man,” Dannels said, and Behr found a spot on the couch. The room was filled with books and the air was rank with sweaty workout clothes and the menthol of Thai liniment. Dannels was the senior instructor at Aurelio’s school, an equal, nearly, to his former mentor in both knowledge and application of jiu-jitsu, despite his not having had a storied career in the ring. Dannels’s day job was as an engineer at Navi-Gen, a company that built next-generation heavy and medium trucks and buses, and he held a PhD in physics. Because of that, or his technical approach on the ground, or both, most people referred to him as “the Professor,” though Behr didn’t.
“Missed you down at the memorial,” Behr said, as Dannels sat across from him in an armchair. Dannels had started with Aurelio soon after the school had opened. He had arrived from California, where he’d worked for Lockheed, with two black belts already-one in tae kwon do, the other in Japanese jiu-jitsu.
“I spoke to the family, but I just couldn’t face it. Know what I mean, mate?” Dannels said.
“I do,” Behr said, and it was the truth. He didn’t suspect the man of anything but grief. Dannels had summarily claimed his black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu a short time after undertaking his training with Aurelio. That was close to five years ago, and Behr could only imagine the extent of the man’s knowledge now. Soft-spoken, with an educated, unassuming manner and an easy smile, he was what Behr classified as a basic bar nightmare. If Dannels got a drink spilled on him, he’d probably be the one to apologize, but if the spiller decided to push it, he’d find himself in a disastrous situation-broken or unconscious or some combination thereof.
“You have keys to the school and the lease won’t be flipped for a while I imagine. You shouldn’t take too long before you get back on the mat,” Behr advised.
“You neither,” Dannels said. “Your game was coming along.”
Behr nodded. He’d had the opportunity to roll with Dannels a few times and equated it with grappling a boa constrictor. Attacks didn’t seem to work against the man, and submission, usually by choke, was a steady process executed smoothly and inexorably. When discussing the fine points of a technique, Dannels would often begin with “Of the hundreds of men I’ve choked out…,” and there was absolutely no bravado attached. It was more the tone of a mechanic referring to the brake jobs he’d done.
“Maybe you should pick up teaching some classes if you can,” Behr suggested.
“Some crap state of affairs, eh?” Dannels said, as if talking to the walls, which it seemed he’d been doing for the past few days.
“Yeah…,” Behr said, and then launched in, hoping Dannels’s subtle mind possessed a detail that would help him. “You knew Aurelio as well as anyone, inside and outside the ring. You hear anything about a girl he’d been seeing?” Behr asked.
“Man, since Maria,” Dannels said, “he’d seen a couple of chicks, but he was taking it slow and they weren’t lasting. Maybe he’d met someone lately-matter of fact I’d seen him on his celly having some quiet convos the last few weeks-but we’d both been busy, just passing in the locker room and talking shop on the mat, so I don’t know fuck-all about it. Sorry, mate.”
