CHAPTER 29
Steve finished watching the tape of GWA Burn at 11:30. He had fast-forwarded through much of the show, violating a personal rule and marking the first time he would sit down to write a Tuesday Hangover without having watched both shows in their entirety.
Burn was too awful to sit through. He’d mention that in the column.
He had another reason to fast forward. His mind wasn’t altogether on his column. At six, two hours before Riot started, Steve got another email from Anonymous, the first in over a week.
To: Steve Garcia
From:
[email protected] Dear Steve,
You asked for more information. Here’s a clue for you. Calgary Financial Telegram, Volume 8. Issue 3.
Anonymous
This was the most mind-numbing email yet from Mr. Anonymous. The Calgary Financial Telegram?
Unfortunately, the Internet was no help in deciphering the email. The Calgary Financial Telegram was not online, and the few references to it on the Internet (Steve had checked them all) led nowhere.
And he would have to wait until the next morning to go to the university business library which was now closed. Hopefully, they would have this issue of what he assumed was a newspaper or newsletter. Until then, he would have to sit on what might be a good scoop.
“A damned good scoop,” Steve mumbled to himself with indignation. His feelings towards Mr. Anonymous tonight were mixed. While he had been trying to track down the mysterious Calgary Financial Telegram, he had ignored an important email from Nick Taylor, one of his most reliable sources.
To: Steve Garcia
From:
[email protected] Steve,
Major scoop for you. I just got off the phone with my friend Monty Warren, whose friend’s brother is at the GWA show tonight in Sacramento. He was sitting out back, spying on the wrestlers as they came in, and he said that he saw Zeke Thunder enter the arena! GWA must have signed him!
As far as I know, nobody has this up yet. Give me a shout-out when you post this, k?
Happy reporting!
Nick
The email had arrived at six thirty. Steve remembered the email icon popping up around then. He had ignored it, drowning in his fruitless search for this Financial Telegram.
At eight, when Burn started, Steve was as surprised as anyone to see Zeke Thunder, the ever-elusive free agent holdout, show up on Burn. He got on the web and saw that Wrestlingdailytribune.com had reported it at seven forty. An hour later, during a commercial break on Riot, Steve checked his email, and saw the letter from Nick. Had he read it when it came in, he would have been the first to report the story. Instead, he missed a major scoop. He probably also lost a major source. These guys who sent the goods didn’t do it for free. They wanted their names posted with credit for their finds. Had Nick sent his letter to Wrestlingtribune, he would have received his coveted “Shout-Out.” Since he sent it to Steve, of late the sloppiest wrestling journalist on the Net, it went nowhere, and Nick was certain to be pissed.
Steve opened a new email and began typing:
To:
[email protected] From: Steve Garcia
Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for the tip about the Calgary Financial Telegram. I am yet to find anything on it yet. Do you have more information?
I appreciate your assistance, but, honestly, if you’re only going to give me cryptic one-liners, spaced weeks apart, I will have to assume that you are not serious. If you are a prankster who is messing with me, you’ve done a good job. I had the scoop on Zeke Thunder’s return tonight, but lost it because I wasted the evening looking for this Calgary Financial Telegram thing (again, I found NOTHING).
Please send me something concrete, or explain to me why you have to write in riddles, or else I will abandon this project and attempt to regain the credibility I’ve lost while on this wild goose chase.
Steve Garcia
Steve clicked send, then fired up his word processor and began typing up the Tuesday Hangover. He had nothing original to say. Like everyone, he was displeased with Burn tonight, which brought in a new face but still couldn’t put together a good show. GWA was hurting, and neither Zeke Thunder nor Jumbo nor Jumbo’s wife nor Deep Six were the answer. He’d mention all that.
And hopefully soon he would have some original, ground-breaking things about the FTG to mention as well.